DataPlay

DataPlay Inc.
Company typeIncorporation
Founded1998[1]
FounderSteve Volk
Headquarters Longmont, Colorado, USA
Key people
Bill Almon, Jr., CEO and President
Jeff Roberts, CFO
ProductsDataPlay Engine
DataPlay 500MB Optical Media
Number of employees
~30 (2006)
Websitewww.DataPlay.com (defunct)
Optical discs
General
Optical media types
Standards
See also

DataPlay is an optical disc system developed by DataPlay Inc. and released to the consumer market in 2002. Using tiny (32mm diameter) disks enclosed in a protective cartridge storing 250MB per side, DataPlay was intended primarily for portable music playback. However, it could also store other types of data using pre-recorded disks and user-recorded disks (and disks that combined pre-recorded information with a writable area).[2] It would also allow for multisession recording.[1] DataPlay Inc. was founded in 1998 by Steve Volk. The company's namesake optical disc won the CES Best of Show award 2001.[3]

DataPlay also included an elaborate digital rights management system designed to allow consumers to "unlock" extra pre-recorded content on the disk at any time, through the internet, following the initial purchase. It was based on the Secure Digital Music Initiative's DRM system.[2] DataPlay's DRM system was one of the reasons behind its attractiveness to the music industry.[4] It also included a proprietary file system, DataPlay File System (DFS) which natively supported DRM. By default, it would allow up to 3 copies to other DataPlay discs, without allowing any copies to CDs.[5]

  1. ^ a b "DataPlay Discs Put a New Spin on Digital Music - The Washington Post". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2020-04-16.
  2. ^ a b "PCWorld.com - DataPlay Shows Breakthrough in Storage Media". June 8, 2001. Archived from the original on June 8, 2001.
  3. ^ "Consumer Electronics Show 2001". HowStuffWorks. January 11, 2001. Archived from the original on October 28, 2016. Retrieved April 16, 2020.
  4. ^ "New disc format enters crowded market". Archived from the original on 2020-04-13. Retrieved 2020-04-16.
  5. ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2016-06-24. Retrieved 2020-04-16.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)