Music sharing service Napster announced today that it has licensed TRM, an acoustic fingerprinting technology, from Relatable. It’s the latest effort made by the music sharing service to make sure that commercial music is properly identified and filtered.
TRM identifies audio recordings based on an analysis of the recording itself — the software identifies unique patterns based on the recording’s waveform, regardless of audio format, bit rate, or signal distortion.
Napster interim CEO Hank Barry said that his company is presently integrating TRM into their file filtering system. Napster has recently been under fire by the recording industry. Spokespeople for record companies and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) claim that Napster has failed to comply with a court order requiring it to implement filtering solutions that would restrict users from exchanging commercial music. Napster’s current file filtering system is based on file and artist names, which the recording industry says is insufficient to block users from trading copyrighted material.
“Digital fingerprinting technologies are developing rapidly, and Relatable’s new acoustic fingerprinting technology shows great promise,” said Barry.