Now that Jamroom 4 has been released, and many sites are beginning to upgrade to the new release, I thought I would take a moment to point out one of the really nifty new features of the Jamroom 4 Cluster and Conversion Server - the ability for the system to automatically "detect" copyrighted music as it is being uploaded, and flag the audio file as requiring admin approval.  If you run a busy Jamroom site, and are worried about users uploading copyrighted audio files, this will really go a long way to letting you sleep easier at night.

The core feature that enables this detection is called "MusicDNS", and it is a service that is provided by a 3rd party (the MusicIP Corporation), and is free to use for non-commercial sites (they do offer commercial contracts for those that need a high volume account).  The description of MusicDNS (in their own words):

MusicDNS provides a simple, easy to use method for acoustically identifying digital music and acquiring the correct metadata. Leveraging patented acoustic recognition technology, MusicDNS consistently identifies the same digital music recording, regardless language or audio file format.

This is a really cool service, since it gives the Jamroom Conversion Server the ability to "identify" a music file by uploading a snippet of it to the MusicDNS database for acoustic fingerprint identification.  In our tests during integration, the MusicDNS service was able to identify copyrighted audio files we uploaded (regardless of file format) 100% of the time.

If you are a licensed Cluster and Conversion Server user, and would like to enable the MusicDNS support in your Jamroom, simply follow these steps:

• Sign up for a MusicDNS account at the following URL:

https://secure.musicip.com/signin.jsp?status=dns&fast&home=https://secure.musicip.com/dns/license.jsp

This will get you a special MusicDNS "API" key that you will need to use to query the service.

• After you have received your API Key, log in to your Jamroom as the Master Admin and go to the "Admin Options" -> "Jamroom Config" -> "Media Settings" section.

• In the "MusicDNS Access Key" setting, enter your MusicDNS API Key, then save the settings.

• Next, go into the Jamroom Config -> Jamroom Quotas section.  Within here you're going to want to "modify" each Jamroom Quota that you want to enable the MusicDNS check for.  This allows you to set the check on a per Quota basis (since for example you may want to offer a Jamroom Quota that allows the users to upload copyrighted music - say a Music Label account, for example).   You'll find the "Enable MusicDNS Check" option is available in the "Media Support" section for your Artist Quotas.  Set the setting to "yes" and save.

• Make sure you have the Media Conversion settings set to active as well - Jamroom must be doing audio conversions on the uploaded files in order for the MusicDNS check to work.

You're all set!  Now, when a user uploads a song file, Jamroom will check the uploaded file against the MusicDNS database.  If it detects that the uploaded file is copyrighted, it will flag the new (or modified) song as requiring admin approval, and send you an email letting you know that a new song is awaiting approval.

It doesn't get an easier then that ;)  If you have any questions about the Jamroom Cluster and Conversion server, and the other features it offers, don't hesitate to join us in the Jamroom User Support forum and let us know what you're looking to do.

Thanks!

- Brian