Their goal: to usher in an age of secure digital songs wrapped in unbreakable code.

The Secure Digital Music Initiative was supposed to be just the medicine to marginalize the Napster phenomenon. Soon, there would be SDMI protected CDs and SDMI digital music downloads playing only on SDMI-compliant devices.

Failure would mean "the Internet will simply become a world where nothing happens -- where nothing has value," SDMI's director, Leonardo Chiariglione, said at the time. Chiariglione now works at Telecom Italia Labs.

Now SDMI is roadkill, outpaced by developments in digital technology and done in by the narrow interests of its own members -- record labels competing for dominance and music hardware companies impatient to get their products out to consumers.

In all, some 200 recording and technology companies that paid $20,000 in annual dues took part in SDMI's lengthy planning and specification design meetings. But many also ignored SDMI's long-term goals.

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