It’s possible that if enough companies come on board, there could be a challenge to the dominance of the MP3, giving users a more album-like experience but in digital form. It will give artists and content owners license to increase their prices per download.

The proposed format was launched by Bach Technology on Sunday at MIDEM a music-industry conference in Cannes, France. Unlike the current rivals to the MP3, Windows Media Audio (WMA) and Advanced Audio Coding (AAC), as two examples, MusicDNA is not actually a new music technology, and luckily doesn’t need new audio codecs, which is a big plus. Rather, as Stefan Kohlmeyer, CEO of Batch, the voice behind MusicDNA in an interview, MusicDNA is an add-on to existing audio formats.

So what is it that MusicDNA does? Well, it’s fascinating. It goes about analyzing the sound file itself for certain characteristics in 13 categories for example tempo and mood. This data is then encoded as XML and is stored with the file. Record labels can also include data, including lyrics and album art, to be included with the file.

What’s more, this data can also be updated when the user is connects to the internet–for example, concert listings could be updated as soon as they’re announced, complete with links to buy tickets. Bach is hoping to generate money by licensing the MusicDNA format out to software and hardware producers.

There is an advantage that Bach has, as MusicDNA is not a new audio technology, MusicDNA files should work with existing hardware and software. So MusicDNA potentially could work on MP3 / MP4 players if the manufactures picked it up. The player will be able to read the audio file, and disregard all the other stuff. Because of this, MusicDNA could escape a similar fate of other music file formats such as Sony’s ATRAC or even Windows Media Audio. We will wait and see.

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