US Patent 7,099,848
Audio Delivery and Rendering Method and Apparatus
This security of this technology was a key part of the strategy for getting Rhapsody approved by the record labels. In early July 2002 the internet music industry was rocked by Rhapsody's becoming the first online music service to offer the complete digital libraries from all five major record labels (Sony, BMG, Universal, Warner, and EMI) for subscription access or purchase. This was more than 9 months earlier than Apple launched their iTunes music store on April 28, 2003.
At the time, the record labels were very reluctant to license their catalogs to online music services and no one had all the content, until Rhapsody. The "secret sauce" of Rhapsody was the RAD (Resdidual Audio Data)/EA (Essential Audio) technology that is referenced in this patent. This technology was the first to pass the very strict security requirements of all the major labels and one of the reasons for Rhapsody's success. Estimates are that Rhapsody now generates over $100 million per year in revenue for Real Networks.
The RAD/EA technology is very secure and I got a lot of compliments on it from the security experts at the record labels. The inspiration behind the invention was to come up with an algorithm that would be very secure like a one time pad, but to create a smaller and very efficient key by using some of the data from the clear text file itself. The result is an algorithm that is just as strong as an one time pad but has a key that although much, much bigger than commonly used encryption algorithgms such as DES (Data Encryption Standard), is only about 1% of the size of the clear text file, instead of 100% of the size of a clear text file as in the case of an one time pad. As you can imagine, a true one time pad would double the streaming costs of a media delivery service and would not be feasible for a commercial application.
Of course the other major benefit of RAD/EA is that because the RAD file does not contain enough data by itself to recreate the music, and requires the EA file to recreate or synthesize the music, then copying a RAD file by itself does not infringe copyrights. It is a totally different story when you are talking about a DES encrypted file, where the file does contain a complete copy of the music so that the file itself can be hacked and the music played. To me, this clearly is a copy and a mechanical copyright fee would need to be paid. In the case of a RAD file where the RAD does not contain enough data to play music, no mechanical copy fee is required.
RAD/EA was first used by TuneTo, the company that I started in 1999 and later sold to Listen.com. Since then hundreds of millions (maybe billions) of RAD files have been delivered. To my knowledge, no RAD file has ever been successfully hacked with a pure attack on the RAD file. I've always believed that RAD/EA technology could be successfully deployed in other applications where security is very important and the files are large. If you have such an application and would like to license the technology, contact me and I'll see if I can work a deal with Real on your behalf.
Assigned to Real Networks.
Published August 29, 2006
This security of this technology was a key part of the strategy for getting Rhapsody approved by the record labels. In early July 2002 the internet music industry was rocked by Rhapsody's becoming the first online music service to offer the complete digital libraries from all five major record labels (Sony, BMG, Universal, Warner, and EMI) for subscription access or purchase. This was more than 9 months earlier than Apple launched their iTunes music store on April 28, 2003.
At the time, the record labels were very reluctant to license their catalogs to online music services and no one had all the content, until Rhapsody. The "secret sauce" of Rhapsody was the RAD (Resdidual Audio Data)/EA (Essential Audio) technology that is referenced in this patent. This technology was the first to pass the very strict security requirements of all the major labels and one of the reasons for Rhapsody's success. Estimates are that Rhapsody now generates over $100 million per year in revenue for Real Networks.
The RAD/EA technology is very secure and I got a lot of compliments on it from the security experts at the record labels. The inspiration behind the invention was to come up with an algorithm that would be very secure like a one time pad, but to create a smaller and very efficient key by using some of the data from the clear text file itself. The result is an algorithm that is just as strong as an one time pad but has a key that although much, much bigger than commonly used encryption algorithgms such as DES (Data Encryption Standard), is only about 1% of the size of the clear text file, instead of 100% of the size of a clear text file as in the case of an one time pad. As you can imagine, a true one time pad would double the streaming costs of a media delivery service and would not be feasible for a commercial application.
Of course the other major benefit of RAD/EA is that because the RAD file does not contain enough data by itself to recreate the music, and requires the EA file to recreate or synthesize the music, then copying a RAD file by itself does not infringe copyrights. It is a totally different story when you are talking about a DES encrypted file, where the file does contain a complete copy of the music so that the file itself can be hacked and the music played. To me, this clearly is a copy and a mechanical copyright fee would need to be paid. In the case of a RAD file where the RAD does not contain enough data to play music, no mechanical copy fee is required.
RAD/EA was first used by TuneTo, the company that I started in 1999 and later sold to Listen.com. Since then hundreds of millions (maybe billions) of RAD files have been delivered. To my knowledge, no RAD file has ever been successfully hacked with a pure attack on the RAD file. I've always believed that RAD/EA technology could be successfully deployed in other applications where security is very important and the files are large. If you have such an application and would like to license the technology, contact me and I'll see if I can work a deal with Real on your behalf.
Assigned to Real Networks.
Published August 29, 2006
posted by Tim Bratton at 5:22 PM
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