New AudioTrack Adaptive Watermark Achieves Unprecedented Robustness

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 19, 2000--AudioTrack Watermark Solutions Corp.(TM), developer of advanced watermarking tools and services for owners of music, movies and other audio-inclusive content, today announces a major breakthrough in audio watermarking technology.

Called the AudioTrack Adaptive Watermark(TM), the Company's next generation technology achieves robustness that is dramatically superior to any previous watermark subjected to industry-standard measures, including the SDMI Robustness Test.

According to the Company, this new watermarking technology now exceeds the performance levels needed to directly answer the online piracy concerns of music and movie publishers, while supporting profitable new applications for marketing, measurement and content management.

The new watermark technology will be available in Q2 2000 as the technological cornerstone of the AudioTrack Watermark Production Studio(TM), the Company's comprehensive watermarking toolkit for content owners and their supply chains. The Company is offering early previews of the technology and its capabilities to content owners seeking a watermark solution to integrate with their existing or planned digital distribution systems.

"It's called the Adaptive Watermark," says Stuart Rosove, CEO of AudioTrack," because it's designed to adapt perfectly to the unique characteristics of each audio product it's applied to, as well as to characteristics of the playback application and environment. The result is a watermark with unprecedented robustness combined with total inaudibility."

Previous watermark technologies have been limited by issues of survivability and audibility. As a result, they have not been widely adopted, even for obvious applications such as copyright protection. The AudioTrack Adaptive Watermark survives transformation from high quality formats such as Red Book CD and DVD-A through to lesser quality, but more efficient formats such as highly compressed MP3 and streaming media, while remaining inaudible. This makes the new watermark perfect for applications ranging from forensic and control-based copyright protection applications through to marketing information and trigger-based applications.

The Company also claims the new watermark provides a level of unparalleled security. "We are introducing a multi-dimensional watermark system that has been designed explicitly around most commonly known and even some of the more obscure and exotic hacks," says Barry Roitblat, AudioTrack VP of R&D.

As a next generation technology, the AudioTrack Adaptive Watermark is based both on the Company's experience with real world watermark applications in the Broadcast Industry as well as advances made in its recently extended research and development program. In December 1999 AudioTrack announced a partnership with Arthur D. Little/Cambridge Consultants, one of the world's leading technology innovation companies. The agreement included an equity investment in AudioTrack by Arthur D. Little.

About AudioTrack

Founded in 1996, AudioTrack Watermark Solutions is a Seattle-based developer of advanced watermarking tools and services for audio content. The company was founded with the goal of developing, marketing and selling watermark-based technologies and services targeted to the Broadcast and Entertainment industries. AudioTrack is the first company to successfully launch a commercial deployment of their watermarking technology with its Identicast broadcast service -- AudioTrack's broadcast audit service.

AudioTrack is privately held with strong board representation from the music, television, technology and venture industries. AudioTrack can be found on the Internet at www.audiotrack.com.