Broadcast 23rd May 2001

	Listen to the report by Kristan Deconinck

A computer programmer has given the music industry its latest weapon aimed at neutering Napster, the internet song-swapping site, and other similar services.

His Songbird programme will allow artists and songwriters to check if their music is on the site, using an electronic fingerprint.

They can then demand its removal, even if it is been hidden under a different name.

Whether you are after the latest dance track, something by a wrinkly rocker, or the world's great classical masterpieces - if you are on the internet, the chances are that you will be able to download it for free simply by logging on to Napster.


That is something the record companies have long found very irritating.

But 20-year-old Travis Hill from Utah may have the answer - from the music industry's point of view anyway.

His Songbird software program can search all personal computers logged onto the site for the electronic fingerprint of music which should not be there.

I put it to him that most of his contemporaries would be trying to find ways to beat the electronic music filters:

"I really enjoy writing music myself and when Napster first hit the scene it became a really big concern to me because I wasn’t sure if that right to be able to control and distribute what I wanted would be preserved if everyone just sat back and didn’t do anything about it.

"So I had a unique take on the whole thing because I was looking from a musician’s standpoint instead of a young person who just wanted a free lunch."

Travis Hill's software has already won the backing of ten organisations representing artists, songwriters and publishers, and the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IPPI).

While legal attempts to close Napster continue in the United States, IPPI President Jay Berman says Songbird offers Napster the chance to survive:

"We are not trying to have the medium extinguished. We are actually trying to create a legitimate business model in the medium. Songbird in theory would make that possible."

There is not a desire to stop Napster technology, but to legitimise it so that the people who have created the music actually get paid for it. Jay Berman

But as with all technology, won't someone else already be trying to find a way to circumvent the new system? Jay Berman again:-

"Songbird can be reconfigured. If technology makes something possible, then technology can be used as a protective measure as well.

"It would be a defeatist attitude for us to say technology makes it possible for people to steal our music. If that was the case, there would be no music industry."

The problem for Napster is that if it removes the music identified by the Songbird program, many users may feel there's no reason to log on.

Which is probably why more than a billion files were traded on the site last month alone, as surfers fear the days of the free lunch could be drawing to a close.

Without protection, people would not be creating music - companies would not be taking major risks in investing and signing bands and artists if there was no way of getting any return from it. Jay Berman