[IETF-IDRM] Fwd: [IDRM] Napster Licenses Acoustic Fingerprinting Technology

[Thomas Hardjono]

>Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2001 09:49:18 -0700
>From: Thomas Hardjono <thardjono@mediaone.net>
>Subject: [IDRM] Napster Licenses Acoustic Fingerprinting Technology
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>http://news.excite.com/news/r/010420/12/net-tech-napster-dc
>
>REDWOOD CITY, Calif. (Reuters) - Embattled song-swap company Napster on
>    Friday said it licensed privately held Relatable's acoustic 
> fingerprinting technology to
>    help filter songs in compliance with an injunction.
>
>    Alexandria, Va.-based Relatable's technology identifies music based on 
> the recordings themselves and analyzes the
>    acoustical properties of a recording's waveform to identify it 
> precisely, regardless of its audio format, bit rate or
>    minor signal distortion, the companies said.
>
>    Napster's service has attracted about 60 million users who swap songs 
> for free by trading MP3 files, a
>    compression format that turns music on compact discs into small 
> digital files.
>
>    The recording industry sued the company in December 1999 for copyright 
> infringement. Napster has recently
>    come under fire for its inability to block trading of copyrighted 
> songs completely following the issuance of a March
>    5 injunction.
>
>    Music industry officials contend that many of the thousands of titles 
> record labels have asked Napster to block
>    remain available on the system and have called for Napster to filter 
> its service by searching for songs with digital
>    fingerprint technology to analyze the content of the MP3 files.
>
>    "We are now working closely with Relatable's engineers to coordinate 
> their technology with our file filtering
>    systems; we hope they will be a substantial part of our overall 
> filtering solution," said Hank Barry, chief executive of
>    Napster, on Friday.
>
>    Napster said it also hopes to incorporate the technology into its 
> current file screening system and into a new
>    membership service it hopes to launch this summer.
>
>    The labels that sued Napster include Vivendi Universal's (EAUG.PA) 
> Universal Music, Sony Music (6758.T),
>    Warner Music (AOL), EMI Group Plc (EMI.L) and Bertelsmann AG's 
> (BTGGga.D) BMG.