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MUSIC COPYRIGHT HOLDERS OFFERED SONGBIRD, THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL,
PUBLICLY-AVAILABLE NAPSTER SEARCH TOOL
London, May 9, 2001 - Music copyright holders across
the world were today offered the first ever publicly-available
internet search tool that can track uses of their work on
internet peer-to-peer operations such as Napster.
The software, named Songbird, helps artists, musicians, publishers
and record companies pinpoint thousands of their songs on
Napster in a matter of minutes, and - if they want to - to
take steps to get them removed.
In its present form the software only searches files on Napster,
but with further development it could be extended to work
with other peer-to-peer services.
Songbird is the brainchild of 20-year-old musician and internet
entrepreneur Travis Hill, whose Utah-based technology company
Media Enforcer LLC developed the software together with other
internet tracking technologies. Travis turned his attention
to on-line music technologies after ten years training as
a classical pianist. He now also works part-time on music
projects, writing and producing pop music.
The tool will be especially useful for artists and independent
record companies who are not part of the Napster litigation
in the United States, enabling them to identify the existence
of unauthorised files on a larger scale then they can now.
The tool, which is being made available on a public website
today (www.iapu.org),
is endorsed by the international recording industry's trade
organisation IFPI and has attracted support from several organisations
representing artists and musicians at international level
and in the UK.
They include: AURA, BIEM, CISAC, FIM, ICMP-CIEM, MMF, MU,
PAMRA and PPL (full titles of organisations are listed below).
Supporting quotes from many of these groups are posted on
the Songbird website.
The software, once downloaded from its website, can be installed
quickly and easily. The user can then type in the name of
a song and/or artist to search on and see, in a matter of
minutes, details of up to thousands of music files available
on the Napster.com network. Songbird searches all of the available
Napster servers and, unlike Napster's own software, it is
not limited in the number of tracks it can find. Songbird
can also find spelling variations (eg Pig Latin) of artists.
Travis Hill, President of Media Enforcer LLC, said: "Everyone
from the hobbyist to the professional has the right to choose
how their music is distributed. That right is vital to ensuring
the creation of new music for all of us to enjoy. Unfortunately,
there are some systems that do not ask the owner's permission
before allowing their material to be distributed. We wrote
this software to protect our own work, and to help others
do the same."
Jay Berman, Chairman and CEO of IFPI said: "Songbird
gives music copyright holders a completely new insight into
how Napster is using their music - and, if they want, to take
steps to get it removed. The tool is state-of-the art, totally
free of charge and gives thousands of artists and producers,
especially those outside the US legal process, the chance
to exercise that fundamental right - the right of the copyright
holders to choose how their music is distributed.
"Songbird complements the efforts by US right owners
to enforce their rights, and it fits with IFPI's global anti-piracy
strategy. It is just one of the anti-piracy technologies we
are now looking at that will help develop the right conditions
for a legitimate on-line music business".
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