Music piece distributing apparatus, music piece receiving apparatus, music piece distributing method, music piece receiving method, and music piece distributing system

A music piece receiving apparatus for requesting music piece data of a music piece selected by the user to a remote music piece distributing apparatus and receiving and outputting the music piece data distributed from the music piece distributing apparatus, characterized by comprising:

• forming means for forming a request signal including at least music piece identification information to identify said selected music piece and compressing system identification information to identify a compressing system when the music piece is distributed;
• transmitting means for transmitting said formed request signal to said music piece distributing apparatus;
• receiving means for receiving the music piece data distributed from said music piece distributing apparatus;
• and
• decoding means for decoding the received music piece data by a compression decoding system corresponding to the compressing system designated by said compressing system identification information.

A music piece receiving method of requesting music piece data of a music piece selected by the user to a remote music piece distributing apparatus and receiving and outputting the music piece data distributed from the music piece distributing apparatus, comprising the steps of:

• forming a request signal including at least music piece identification information to identify said selected music piece and compressing system identification information to identify a compressing system when the music piece is distributed;
• transmitting said formed request signal to said music piece distributing apparatus;
• receiving the music piece data distributed from said music piece distributing apparatus;
• and
• decoding the received music piece data by a compression decoding system corresponding to the compressing system designated by said compressing system identification information.

A music piece distributing system in which a music piece distributing apparatus distributes music piece data on the basis of a request from a remote receiver, wherein

• in said receiver,
• a request signal including at least music piece identification information to identify said selected music piece and compressing system identification information to identify a compressing system when the music piece is distributed is formed and
• said formed request signal is transmitted to said music piece distributing apparatus, and
• in said music piece distributing apparatus,
• the transmitted request signal is received from said receiver, and
• the music piece data in which the music piece corresponding to the music piece identification information included in said received request signal has been compressed by the compressing system corresponding to the compressing system identification information included in the request signal is transmitted.