#dataplay

Avril Lavigne "Let Go" album on discontinued format DataPlay (2002)

"DataPlay was an optical disk format for audio and data storage, introduced by DataPlay Inc in 2002. It used a very small 32 mm diameter disc with a capacity of 500 MB enclosed in a protective cartridge (42.1 mm x 33.5 mm x 3.0 mm). DataPlay was used for portable music playback, and a small number of pre-recorded albums were released."

“The CD went on to revolutionise the way we buy and listen to music, and nothing has come close to taking over from it… until now.” Tomorrow’s World’s Roger Black and Kate Humble look at the latest challenger to the compact disc’s crown – dataplay. Dataplay is a fraction of the size of a traditional compact disc, but can hold ten times as much information. Is this the CD for the new…

Wow, it stores 500 megabytes! Be still my heart.

I didn't remember this particular piece of technology, even though it's not that old, so I assumed it was never a major success. I looked it up on Wikipedia and found this:

"DataPlay is an optical disc system developed by DataPlay Inc. and released to the consumer market in 2002. Using very small (32mm diameter) disks enclosed in a protective cartridge storing 250MB per side, DataPlay was intended primarily for portable music playback, including both pre-recorded disks and user-recorded disks (and disks that combined pre-recorded information with a writable area).

DataPlay included an elaborate digital rights management system designed to allow consumers to "unlock" extra pre-recorded content on the disk, after the initial purchase.