Music Identification Technology

In early August 1999, three classmates from the University of Virginia agreed to a one-year school moratorium to live in Alexandria and form a company to test and fully develop the unique software product conceived by one of the co-eds after he left National Public Radio. The product was thought to be timely because it addressed a pressing problem faced by the music industry. Another NPR co-worker joined the four students and was the only one with business experience. He was a little older than the others and had been involved in project management for KPMG’s Economic Consulting Services Group. After two months, three of the principals decided not to continue with the endeavor.

The SBDC Business Analyst, worked with the principals to develop a comprehensive business plan to gain investor funding; an "elevator speech"; a two-page summary and a PowerPoint presentation. Product development proceeded non-stop along with additional patent protection, and one owner’s technical expertise drove them to develop leading-edge solutions for the entertainment / media sector. Both owners demonstrated remarkable skill locating resources throughout the process and are a superb example of bright young entrepreneurs who aren’t averse to asking and taking advice from the SBDC as their business continues to mature and grow.

The company has become a leading provider of music identification software for copyright management and royalty allocation, and its proprietary TRM™ acoustic fingerprint technology offers unique identifiers for music recordings based purely on audio information - the same information that humans actually hear. TRM is accurate across the widest range of audio sources, from analog sources such as radio broadcast or over a microphone to digitally encoded music files. The firm just announced that it has chosen All Media Guide’s (AMG) extensive archive of music CDs to generate large scale databases of TRM™ acoustic fingerprints for use in business-to-business copyright monitoring applications. Under the agreement, the firm will create databases of its proprietary acoustic fingerprints for approximately 5 million CD track titles from AMG’s extensive archive of music CDs. The CEO commented, "We’re excited to be working with AMG to bring together extensive databases of acoustic fingerprints and music information and expand our offerings in our fast-growing business-to-business channels." The company was one of three finalists for a local Chamber of Commerce Technology Achievement Award.