p2pnet"I came up with the idea of downloading music (and data and video) down telephone lines in 1979 when I was 23, and patented it," Kane Kramer told the Guardian Unlimited's Juliet Rix.
He went on, "With James Campbell, who was 21, I developed a working prototype. We had orders worth £60m from the recording industry for our solid-state digital recorder when we lost control of the patent. There was a coup attempt within the company and we couldn't raise enough money to pay the patent fees in time. So the patent was voided."
"Do you have an MP3 player?" - asked Rix.
"No," said Kramer. "I like the iPod, but it feels a bit unfair to have to buy one. I could show you my drawings from 1979-82 and there is an iPod - same size, shape. It feels like mine."
The interview was back in 2004 and now, "I suppose, in a way, I am the world's biggest failure," the Mail on Sunday has Kramer saying.
But he hasn't abandoned all hope. "Kramer is consulting lawyers to see whether he has any claim to the design and technology behind the iPod," says the story, quoted in MacNewsWorld.
"In 1988, on the brink of commercial success, the company was split by a boardroom coup," says the story, adding, "Distracted and unable to raise money in time to renew patents across 120 countries, Kramer watched as the technology became public property."
The recording industry began using digital technology in the early Nineties, and the first MP3 player was launched in 1999, says the Mail on Sunday.
"Two years later, the iPod became a design icon of the 21st Century."
In the Guardian's 2004 story, "In the past 10 days, I have come up with the antidote to everybody pinching copyrighted material off the internet," says Kramer.
"I can stop it. Only one person knows the technical details. This is not one for me to develop - it's one for a big firm."
Talk time:Kane Kramer, September 30, 2004, 2006
MP3 Inventor Could've Been a Contender, April 19, 2006