No Rio MP3 Player No More
Provided By:
www.podaccessory.net
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No Rio no more as D&M Holdings, who owned the Rio MP3 player brand, sold the Rio technology and got out of the MP3 player business. It's really a shame since Rio was an MP3 player pioneer. It was in September 1998 that Diamond Multimedia launched the Rio MP3 player with 100 songs from mp3.com.
MP3 players and the MP3 industry have changed a lot since then. When the Rio MP3 player came along, MP3 was associated with free music. Then it was pirated music and now its music subscriptions and pay per song. The Rio PMP300 could store an hour of music and up to 12 hours of voice quality audio.
The following month, Diamond was sued by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) essentially for encouraging people to pirate music from the internet through their Rio MP3 player. The suit alleged there wouldn't be a market for the illegal music on mp3.com if it were not for the Rio MP3 player.
RIAA initially won the first round in mid-October 1998 and sales and distribution of the Rio MP3 player were temporarily halted. Diamond eventually won the suit and was able to continue selling the Rio MP3 player. Eventually, D&M Holdings acquired the Rio technology but they were not successful and after losing millions of dollars with the Rio MP3 player, they pulled out in 2005.
No Rio, No More!
Although D&M Holdings sold the Rio technology, they still carry a license to market it but so far haven't done anything else with any type of MP3 player.
I hate old web pages and they almost had me at rioaudio.com. After reading a runner's post somewhere in cyberspace about buying a used Rio MP3 player, I decided I better take a closer look. Sure enough, over at rioaudio.com they have their Rio MP3 player options all over the website. At the bottom of the website it even says "copyright 2006." The only clue was under the press releases when the announcement of the pullout came in August 2005.
If I had walked into an old brick and mortar store, it would be apparent immediately by several inches of dust that no one had been around since last year. But at the Rio MP3 player website, it was still bright and shiny. They actually looked like very attractive players. I guess the 128MB could have been a clue or maybe the four hours of music it played or even the year 2000 on one of the displays.
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