Apple, Shazam sued by Tune Hunter
Apple, among others, has been sued for patent infringement by Tune Hunter, in connection with an iPhone app from Shazam that Tune Hunter claims uses its patented technology.
Tune Hunter is apparently part of a number of music companies based in New York City, according to Internet registry information. There is just a blank Web site associated with the name. They are apparently the holder of a patent, however, which reads (in part) as follows:
… a music identification/purchasing system, specifically to a method for marking the time and the name of the radio station in portable device such as a key holder, watch, cellular phone, beeper or the like which will allow the user to learn via Internet or regular telephone the name of the song, artist and/or music company by matching the stored data with broadcast archive.
The complaint would seem to be primarily against Shazam, a music identification service located in London. Shazam users hold up their phones to capture any music playing in the background while the Shazam app is active. The service analyzes the captured sound and seeks a match based on an acoustic fingerprint. In some cases, the result is sent back to the phone via SMS. In others, such as the iPhone and Android, it is shown on the screen complete with details on Artist, Album, Title, Genre, Music label, a thumbnail image of the song/album artwork, links to download the song on iTunes or the Amazon MP3 store and, where relevant, show the song’s video on YouTube. The app is sometimes free, as it is on the iPhone, or sometimes is made available as a subscription for a nominal monthly fee.
Along with Shazam, Apple, Samsung, Amazon.com, Napster, Motorola, Gracenote, Verizon Wireless, LG Electronics, AT&T Mobility, and Pantech Wireless are also named in the suit based on U.S. Patent No. 6,941,275, which was issued to Remi Swierczek/Tune Hunter in September 2005, according to a CNET article. The suit accuses Shazam’s music discovery and identification service of violating the Tune Hunter patent and includes the other companies as having benefited directly from Shazam’s alleged infringement.
It seems more and more that the music business, in all its facets means very different things to different groups of people. In the main, the musicians just want to make the music. Then there are the middlemen, records companies and the like, who just want to take all the money produced by that music. Then, finally, come the listeners for whom the music is intended, who just want all the legal wrangling to go away.
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May 20th, 2009
How does a product whose sole function is to garner song data by audio content, infringe upon a product whose sole function is to record the time, date, and radio frequency of a song. One was not built on the technology of the other. Independent solutions are just that.
If we follow Tune Hunter’s thinking, broom manufactures should file an injunction against vacuum makers, and horse breeders should file an injunction against car manufacturers.
The march of technological progress should not entitle outmoded technology to benefit by loose association with unrelated future technology.