It would seem as though the MP3 revolution is over. As Sanyo marketing manager Alex Lungley points out, the shelf space for these products is ever dwindling, and other manufacturers have complained of the difficulties in selling any product that sports 64MB or less of memory.

In addition to this, there are constantly stories of various websites being closed down, perpetuating the notion that MP3 format is petering out. In June, the recording industry let slip plans to sue individuals who trade copyrighted songs on file-swapping services.

This has been the latest attempt by the music industry to choke off the system that spawned the MP3 hardware, and that they fear will cause them to lose control of their music.

In addition, the labels have started using technical measures to flood swapping sites with bogus files. Such tactics could be further expanded if legislation is approved that would explicitly allow them to harass file-swappers without fear of legislation.

While manufacturers insist that the purpose of a solid-state audio player is more centred around ripping tracks from your own CD collection, the fact of the matter is that consumers are down-loading copyrighted material from the Net. All this seems to be de-mystifying the `free music' notoriety MP3 enjoyed when it first rocketed into the spotlight a few years ago.

However, it would appear at the moment that things could go either way, and as the format starts to find its niche, it seems as though it could be saved from being the eight-track tape of the internet generation.

Previously, the biggest problem solid-state audio players faced was the inconvenience of the manner in which they operated. Users would have to download a new playlist from the computer every time they wanted to change the contents of the player--something, it transpired, they were not prepared to do. However, with this being the major setback, the products have largely evolved beyond the tiny units capable of holding around 30 or 60 minutes of music. Instead, the more successful products are now measuring their storage capacity in giga-bytes instead of megabytes, capable of holding entire CD collections rather than simply a cherry picked selection of tracks.