Main document labels Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group have been hit with infringement lawsuits over 4 patents associated to ‘encoding and distributing digital content material’.
As reported by Bloomberg Regulation, the lawsuits had been filed by Texas-based Blue Spike LLC in opposition to WMG in a New York courtroom and in opposition to UMG in a California courtroom.
The plaintiff holds “over 100 patents starting from forensic watermarking, sign abstracts, information safety, software program watermarks, product license keys, ASLR, deep packet inspection, license code for licensed software program to bandwidth securitization,” in response to its website.
The instances in opposition to the 2 music giants is in relation to their partnership with MQA Ltd., which owns the MQA expertise, an audio compression format utilized in transferring high-quality audio to units in a small file.
Blue Spike claimed that the businesses violated its mental property “when performing the MQA encoding course of”.
WMG entered right into a long-term licensing take care of MQA in Could 2016. That deal was aimed toward growing followers’ entry to hi-resolution music globally.
“MQA makes hi-resolution music simple to stream or obtain to any machine. Music followers will adore it after they hear it,” Craig Kallman, chairman and CEO of WMG’s Atlantic Records division, mentioned on the time.
UMG signed an analogous settlement with MQA in February 2017, with UMG’s Government Vice President of Digital Technique Michael Nash stating that MQA’s expertise “is among the many finest options for streaming hi-res audio, and one which doesn’t ask music followers to compromise on sound high quality for comfort.”
Aside from the 2 main document labels, MQA additionally inked partnerships with subscription-based music, podcast and video streaming service Tidal, Alibaba-owned Xiami Music, and impartial label physique Merlin.
The partnership allowed these firms to supply their audio in MQA format, a lossy hi-res compression format that helps growth as much as 24 bit/192kHz, whereas others use FLAC, an open-source lossless format, or ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec).
Different types of lossy compression codecs embrace mp3 or m4A and AAC, the usual obtain format for Apple units.
Blue Spike alleges that WMG and UMG violated its IP when performing “a technique for shielding a digital sign by making a predetermined key and manipulating the digital sign utilizing the predetermined key” after they teamed up with MQA.
The plaintiff mentioned the patents in query “resulted from the pioneering efforts” of Scott Moskowitz, Blue Spike’s founder, who describes himself as a “passionate American inventor and entrepreneur” on LinkedIn. He launched the agency in 1997 after working as an undergraduate intern for Sony Corp. in Japan.
“The inciting incident that launched the corporate was the theft and reclamation of the founder’s private property,” in response to Blue Spike’s About web page.
Quick ahead to 2022, and Blue Spike is searching for an award of damages from the alleged infringement of its patents “to compensate Blue Spike for [UMG/WMG’s] previous infringement of the patents in go well with, and any persevering with or future infringement.”Music Enterprise Worldwide
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