Supertracks: Breakthrough Sum of Common Parts

I had overslept, so I slinked quietly into the office and immediately sensed that something was wrong. People seemed confused and lost, as if their lives suddenly had no meaning. Internet connectivity was down. There would be no streaming at Streaming Media on this morning. Or would there be?

On my computer, a popup window told me that my new music was ready and offered to play it for me. I clicked "OK" and my speakers were filled with CD-quality audio delivered by my JamminFM Player, an implementation of SuperTracks' ( www.supertracks.com) BridgePort Music System by JamminFM, a Portland radio station (www.jamminfm.com). I was the only person in the office "streaming" brand-new content and I felt pretty doggone smug.

The BridgePort Music System is secure local cache streaming technology designed to be branded into custom players and channels by radio stations and other Internet audio broadcasters. "Local cache streaming" means that data files are downloaded to a user's computer first, and then played from hard disk. This bypasses buffering problems and allows for the playback of broadband content without a broadband connection.

BridgePort is not just a player, though — it's a content-owner-friendly, RIAA-friendly, DMCA-friendly, and ASCAP-friendly, Internet radio station technology. I took it for a test drive to see how well it would meet the needs of those parties, and of consumers.

Security Blanket

"Secure," as in secure local cache streaming, means three things here. First, music is encrypted and rights-managed with Microsoft's Windows Media Rights Manager (WMRM) before it is placed on Web servers. When a PC first attempts to play a downloaded song, Windows Media Player (WMP) will see that it's protected and will go out to a Windows Media license server to request a license. The license server will then return a free license allowing the PC to play the song for two weeks without payment or license renewal.

Second, the actual song files are not accessible from the PC because BridgePort keeps them all encrypted within the local cache. The WMRM encrypted songs and their licenses can be identified and extracted only by BridgePort; end-users can't even see what songs exist in cache, thanks to this cross-encryption.

The third security component is the lack of end-user control over playlists. Just as a terrestrial radio station determines its own playlists ahead of time, so must broadcasters using BridgePort. The experience is no different than listening to a radio station, with pre-programmed songs playing at pre-programmed frequencies.

Future versions of the BridgePort technology will allow end-users to provide song rating information that can be sent back to a server (no personal data sent) for analysis by the channel owner. But allowing users to manage their playlists — while technically feasible — would break the owners-rights compliance that's been so carefully constructed. By keeping all control in the hands of the channel owner (radio station), BridgePort satisfies even the most stringent interpretations of the law as it relates to digital music broadcast.

Robust Murphy-Proofing

My experience with the BridgePort-based JamminFM player was clean and trouble-free. Although it is essentially a wrapper around the flexible Windows Media Player, end-users have almost no control over the JamminFM player or it's WMP engine. After installation, I was asked whether I wanted FM quality or CD quality, and the rest was automatic. JamminFM started downloading files and giving me status messages. When enough data was downloaded, I was able to listen while the rest of the music downloaded. When I say "the rest" of the music, I'm referring to JamminFM's current playlist of songs, because that's what gets downloaded. Initial population of the playlist can take a while, especially for 56Kbps modem users, but that's rewarded by the zero bandwidth required to play the music repeatedly once it's down.

Other than changing the schedule (days and time of day) for the player to seek out music updates, there were literally no configuration options for me to change. That translates into fewer opportunities for people to mess things up and, consequently, greater reliability. And the player seems awfully reliable — it's been on my desktop for a few weeks and I've had no surprises or problems.

There are "buy" and "info" buttons on the player, but those are really nothing more than hyperlinks. For "buy" I was sent to Amazon with a standard Amazon affiliate URL and, for "info" I was sent to the appropriate page on www.allmusic.com. By keeping e-commerce and extra information outside of the player, Supertracks is using the Web well, giving radio stations full control over e-commerce, and also keeping the player simple.

Simple and Profitable

Supertracks has two guiding principles for it's streaming technologies. One: Keep it simple for consumers. And two: Make it potentially profitable for webcasters and content owners.

Advertisements can be presented both in the player and in the streams. BridgePort reports actual views and listens back to the central server. Since song plays are tracked, ASCAP and other royalties can be calculated and paid. Also, since bandwidth use is reduced, bandwidth costs are capped, and no CDNs are needed — Supertracks helps keep serving costs down.

If a user tries to defeat the WMRM licensing by not connecting his/her computer to the Internet when playing tracks, he/she will hit a renewal wall two weeks after license acquisition.

BridgePort is elegantly designed for growth should the system meet with market success. Audio can easily give way to video — it's just a file to WMP and WMRM, either way. In fact, video would be easy to do now, but Supertracks is taking one step at a time based on its market research. More interactivity can be added to the client for increased feedback, and possibly for personalization (if/when copyright law allows it).

There's not a single component of the BridgePort Music System that's new or experimental. But when I step back and look at the entire system, the digital rights management, the WMP integration, the obfuscated cache, the compliance reporting, the advertising, the player, the respect for owners' rights, and all the rest; I see something so original that it's totally justifiable to call it a breakthrough product.