Liquifier 2.0 to foil pirates plundering music on Web

MacWeek, Feb 2, 1998 by John Poultney, Joanna Pearlstein

Seeking to make the Internet a safer place for music distribution, Liquid Audio Inc. will add extensive encryption and security features when it updates its Liquifier for Pro Tools application in March.

Like its predecessor, Version 2.0 of Liquifier will convert audio files to the proprietary format used by Liquid Audio's Liquid MusicPlayer for streaming audio, optimizing the files for playback at various download speeds (see 05.19.97, Page 23). However, a forthcoming standard that Liquid Audio and other streaming-media companies plan to support may make the proprietary file format a thing of the past.

With the new release of Liquifier, the company will add features intended to mitigate some concerns that have emerged as a potential barrier to Internet commerce. Specifically, the new package will provide security capabilities that Liquid Audio said will prevent piracy of digital audio files.

Among the recording artists using Liquid Audio technology are Joan Jett, Carlos Santana, Sarah McLachlan, Sammy Hagar and Hammer; the software is also used by Billboard Online, Capitol Records and BMG Entertainment.

Aimed at a retail model in which consumers pay for and download songs from a Web site, the upcoming Liquifier will provide on-the-fly encryption once a sound file is transferred - both for the file itself and for a "Passport," which serves as a unique user ID. Files encoded to work with a specific Passport will play only on the machine associated with that Passport, Liquid Audio said.

Authors will also be able to encrypt files to work for only a specified period so that they may be used for time-limited promotions, Liquid Audio said. As they could do with previous versions, authors will be able to add biographical material, pictures and text to the audio files.

Ruth Colombo, Liquid Audio director of product marketing, said the company is trying to create an environment in which consumers, distributors and artists alike will have a reason to use the new medium. "We're in a sort of chicken-and-egg situation: Until there's music up on the Net, there's no reason for consumers to look for it there," Colombo said.

Likewise, she said, artists and distributors must feel safe from piracy issues to participate in commercial music over the Web. Hence, Liquifier also includes methods for reporting purchases to associated rights-reporting agencies. Servers using Liquifier can generate statistics reports that are sent to these agencies as well as to Liquid Audio's operations center. That way, Colombo said, records are kept to ensure that the correct royalties are paid.

Liquifier 2.0 for Pro Tools will cost $295, and registered owners of previous versions will be able to upgrade at no charge.

The program will operate as a plug-in for Version 4.0 or higher of Pro Tools, the digital-audio recording system from Digidesign, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based division of Avid Technology Inc. It will work with versions using Digidesign hardware or with Pro Tools PowerMix, which uses the Mac's built-in sound hardware.

Liquid Audio Inc. of Redwood City, Calif., can be reached at (650) 562-0880; fax (650) 562-0899; info@liquidaudio.com; http://www.liquidaudio.com.

Joanna Pearlstein contributed to this report.