Bds, Aris Ink License Pact

NEW YORK-Broadcast Data Systems (BDS)-a subsidiary of VNU USA, which owns Billboard-and Cambridge, Mass.-based ARIS Technologies have signed a five-year licensing agreement allowing BDS to utilize ARIS' MusiCode audio watermarking technology for the decoding of music played on radio stations in the U.S., Puerto Rico, and Canada.
The alliance, which was reached for an undisclosed sum, will enable BDS to utilize the encoded watermarking technology to catalog songs for its radio airplay monitoring system, increasing speed and efficiency.
"BDS has always been forward-thinking, and they recognize that while their systems have been very good, there are ways to improve them for the future," says David E. Leibowitz, president of ARIS Technologies. "They're embracing new methodologies to better serve their own customers."
"The future of music monitoring for BDS is absolutely using watermarking as our basis for the coding of music," says Joe Wallace, VP/GM of BDS. "Ultimately, once critical mass is reached, it should provide us a more cost-efficient, more accurate way to do what we do."
The watermark technology allows a record company, publisher, or performing right agent to embed within a music track copyright management information that is inaudible, indelible, and impervious to changes in a broadcast signal, compression system, or even when a station chooses to speed up a song, which sometimes disrupts current monitoring techniques. It is also tamper-proof, according to Leibowitz.
At this point, BDS will utilize MusiCode only for the monitoring of radio for the Billboard and Airplay Monitor charts. In the future, it may further its agreement with ARIS to include exploration of new opportunities in non-feature music (such as voice-overs) and advertising.
MusiCode uses a 10-digit code, "which is basically the license number for that record, so that it identifies that unique sound recording. No other songs will have that number," Leibowitz says. "The recording is the vehicle, and MusiCode is the license plate for that song as it travels the information superhighway," including radio, TV, and the Internet.
ARIS' MusiCode was named last year by Discover magazine as its technology of the year in the sound category.
The company is now counting on record labels to embrace the watermarking system to encode their music, so that companies like BDS will be able to utilize the new brand of decoded information.
"It's incumbent on record companies to begin the encoding," Leibowitz says. "The notion of using watermarks is well-known; the issue now is a matter of timing. We've had positive reaction from record labels-and the process is ongoing-but now it's up to them to see how the technology fits into each company's plan in a number of areas, including secure music delivery."
Currently, radio giant Jacor Broadcasting is utilizing the MusiCode system for its Premiere Radio Networks music production company BRg, according to Leibowitz. "It's licensed for all of their production works," he says.
NBC is also utilizing MusiCode for its music beds used in traditional sports telecasts and for the Olympics.