Destiny Media Technologies has announced a new version of its proprietary anti-piracy and digital distribution system, Promo Only MPE 1.1, designed to secure electronic music distribution within the music industry.
The new system serves up a host of enhanced features including a new user interface to improve accessibility and ease of use; the ability to download entire albums and samples; improvements to the email management; higher quality previews and multi-label support.
“With the new functionality and multi label support, we can open the system up to other labels,” said Steve Vestergaard, Destiny CEO, “The system is ready for adoption by the entire music industry.”
Promo Only MPE has been developed to help the music industry combat the ongoing issue of piracy and to gain the benefits of digital technology – quicker distribution and reduced costs.
A lot of piracy originates from within the industry and, not surprisingly, those ‘Promo only, not for resale’ stickers haven’t exactly put a stop to it. DJ shedding their promo tracks isn’t new. Anyone who’s pawed through the racks in second hand music stores can attest to that.
In an industry clearly riddled with mistrust, Promo Only MPE uses a sophisticated security system that ‘locks down’ the distributed content and allows labels to track who is accessing their property.
Each song is uniquely encrypted so that only those with the MPE program can access it. In addition, an ID code specific to each individual user is applied when a song is requested; meaning that only registered users can access the song and, once installed, the ID cannot be moved to unauthorised computers.
Promo Only seems well chuffed with that fact that the MPE system has surpassed 1,500 registered users signed-on to the service – industry leader Universal Music Group (UMG) has been using the service since its launch and has distributed over 200 tracks to radio so far and Clear Channel Communications have made the system available to all of its stations across the country.
“The new build was modified with the customers’ ease of use in mind,” gushed Dean Ernst, Director of the MPE project at Promo Only. “The response to version 1.1 has been unprecedented and reflective of the overwhelming number of users signed-on to date.”
Personally, we could think of a few DJs who won’t be too pleased to have to start messing about with DRM every time they’re sent a new release. They might just end up playing the tracks that are easy for them to access.