Infamous Internet song-swapping service, Napster Friday announced it signed a deal with a Virginia company to help identify song files not by name, but by digital fingerprint.

Napster signed the licensing agreement with Alexandria, Virginia-based Relatable to add its TRM, digital fingerprinting technology.

"Digital fingerprinting technologies are developing rapidly, and Relatable's new acoustic fingerprinting technology shows great promise," says Napster Interim CEO Hank Barry. "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."

The technology, known as TRM, uniquely identifies audio recordings based on the recording itself. The software analyzes the acoustical properties of a recording's waveform to identify it precisely, regardless of its audio format, bit rate or minor signal distortion.

Once the fingerprint is created, it is sent to the TRM server, which matches the fingerprint to an existing song in a customer's music database. Relatable says the latest commercial version of the TRM lookup server can handle over 5000 fingerprint matches per second, or up to billions of queries per day.

"TRM will help ensure that the millions of music files transferred through the new Napster system will be accurately monitored and it will enable the appropriate allocation of royalties to artists, music publishers and record companies," says Relatable CEO Pat Breslin.

Napster is currently working with a court appointed mediator and representatives from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to comply with a court order to filter out some 135,000 songs so that artists' copyrights are not infringed upon.

LATEST NEWS

Microsoft's Dynamics ERP to Gain New Services
Barnes & Noble's e-Reader Nook Sold Out Already
Memory Market Due for Big Shift in 2010
Microsoft: No 'Back Door' in Windows 7
Tech's H-1B Hiring Faces 'Employ America Act'