LOS GATOS, California — September 9, 2003 — Audible Magic Corporation, a leading provider of content management and identification services, announced today it has partnered with Palisade Systems, a developer of network management and security solutions. The two companies will cross-license their technologies and work jointly to develop the first network appliances that identify copyrighted works “on the fly” combined with the ability to block individual trades. Both companies will develop products, with the first to come from Audible Magic in the fourth quarter of this year.

The new systems eliminate privacy issues associated with other solutions by identifying and stopping illegal file trades in real-time, without any requirement for individual users to be identified. In addition, files authorized for sharing by the content owner can be freely transferred via the P2P networks. The two companies anticipate particularly strong appeal within the university market, where specific illegal file trades can be blocked, while the legitimate use of, and research into, other P2P applications can continue.

The new appliances will also provide network administrators with the ability to quantify and document infringement problems on their networks rather than relying upon violation notifications from the recording industry. This addresses concerns of institutions seeking an independent source to verify potential copyright violations.

“We are extremely pleased to be working with Palisade,” said Vance Ikezoye, founder and CEO of Audible Magic. “The combination of our technologies and systems provides the first capability for protecting the rights of content owners, and respecting the rights of individual content consumers.”

The partnership combines two industry-hardened solutions. Palisade Systems’ award-winning Packet Hound appliance is used for network application monitoring and management by hundreds of organizations worldwide. Audible Magic’s patented ID solutions, which combine audio fingerprinting and a reference database of nearly four million songs, are integrated in the company’s RepliCheck product, the de facto standard anti-piracy solution in the CD duplication industry.

The appliances will provide a number of technical advantages for IT administrators struggling with the bandwidth consumption and legal concerns associated with P2P applications:

  • They integrate seamlessly in any network running TCP/IP, regardless of operating systems, machines, or appliances, to make that network “content intelligent” with various types of content. Audible Magic’s database of copyrighted works has already moved beyond songs to include over 10,000 software titles.
  • It’s a “pass-by” solution that inspects network traffic as it flows by, contributing no overhead to the network. This compares to pass-through solutions that route traffic through the appliance and can degrade system performance.
  • The appliance is transparent, very secure, and virtually impossible to identify, locate, circumvent, or attack.

“The technology of Audible Magic brings a powerful extension to PacketHound’s ability to manage P2P at the application and packet level,” said Eric Schnack, COO of Palisade Systems. “The appliances will provide responsible and practical options without crossing philosophical and moral boundaries. The solution will be able to help not only universities, but also any business concerned about the ramifications of illegal file sharing.”

Palisade Systems, Inc. helps organizations manage and protect critical network assets against a variety of threats from benign utilization issues to malicious attacks. The company’s appliances offer easy-to-implement, proactive approaches to filter Internet and application access, control network level access to critical systems, and provide “decoy” style intrusion detection. First introduced in 2000, PacketHound has since been recognized with the R&D 100 award and the eSchool News Readers Choice Award. Since its founding in 1996, the company’s products have been installed in hundreds of businesses, schools, and universities in North America, Europe, and Australia.

Please contact Palisade at 2625 N. Loop Dr. Ste. 2120 Ames, IA, 50010, USA, Phone 515-296-6500, Fax 515-296-5335, www.palisadesys.com or [email protected].

Audible Magic Corporation is the leading provider of content management and anti-piracy services. Its patented content identification technologies and extensive reference database of audio and video content enable the company to monitor, track, manage, filter and monetize multi-media digital content. The company’s core copyright-sensing technology, CopySense®, accurately identifies digital or broadcast media content based on the perceptual characteristics of the content itself. Built on a patented electronic fingerprinting process, the technology is robust, efficient, and massively scalable. Recognized throughout the music and video industry as the de factor leader in identification services, Audible Magic is headquartered in Los Gatos, California. Its customers include Web 2.0 websites, CD/DVD replicators, peer-to-peer networking companies, internet service providers and universities, which span the media and entertainment industries, major business, governmental and educational institutions markets.

For more information, visit Audible Magic’s website at www.audiblemagic.com or contact:

Audible Magic Media & Analyst Inquiries

Jay Friedman
Vice President of Marketing and Product Management
408-399-6405 x238
[email protected]