November 29, 2011

BMI and Shazam Strengthen Partnership

Press Release

London, UK – 29th November, 2011 - Shazam®, the world’s leading mobile discovery company, today announced it is marking a new phase in its cooperative relationship with Broadcast Music Inc.® (BMI®) by reacquiring the Audio Recognition technology and related patents that identify music in the Shazam service.  Shazam originally sold BMI the Intellectual Property rights to its Audio Recognition technology in 2005 to help fund its development.  Since then, Shazam has become a leading direct-to-consumer brand while BMI has continued its 70-year-plus trajectory in the business-to-business rights management market.  By reacquiring the Intellectual Property, Shazam has the unrestricted ability to integrate the technology more fully into its services, expanding its product set as well as adding to its growing IP portfolio.

“Shazam has seen fantastic growth in the last year, adding more than 1.5 million new people every week, with the total number of Shazamers around the globe now exceeding 165 million,” said Shazam CEO, Andrew Fisher.  “This is the optimal time to repurchase the technology and patents so that we can continue to add to and protect our growing portfolio which will, in turn, allow Shazam to broaden our range of products, further developing Shazam for TV and other innovative offerings.”

Under the terms of the agreement, Shazam will assume ownership of the IP while BMI will retain its full capability in the business-to-business space to use the technology to detect and identify performances of music, and will become a shareholder in Shazam.  BMI will continue to include the technology as part of its BMI Recognition Services, layering the audio recognition service with other best-of-breed digital products to deliver a powerful, blended solution for comprehensive measurement of the use and identity of musical works across a broad spectrum of analog and digital platforms.  Shazam and BMI will work together on co-marketing programmes and new service offerings for the BMI community.

“We are thrilled to enter into a new chapter in our long-term relationship with Shazam,” said BMI President and CEO Del Bryant.  “This agreement will allow Shazam to build on its tremendous success in creating consumer-facing services while at the same time allowing BMI to continue to deliver commercial recognition services for our customers through a perpetual, worldwide license, and to benefit from an ongoing technology collaboration with Shazam.”

Since 2005, Shazam has continued to develop its IP portfolio through a combination of internal development and acquisition to expand its leadership position in mobile discovery.  The company is further accelerating its growth as it adds to its consumer proposition through initiatives like Shazam for TV and new products soon to hit the market.
Shazam is headquartered in London with offices in Palo Alto, New York, Los Angeles and Seoul.  The Shazam App is available on iOS, Android, Java, BlackBerry, Windows, Symbian and all other major platforms and in more than 30 languages and 200 countries around the world.

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About Shazam Entertainment
Shazam is the world’s leading mobile discovery company, enabling people to experience and share content across mobile devices and the Internet. With more than 150 million people using the service in 200 countries, Shazam has created a new way to learn about music, TV and brands and share finds with friends.

For people who don’t yet have the Shazam application on their smartphone, it can be found on iTunes App Store, Android Market, Amazon App Store, AT&T’s AppCenter, Verizon VCast app store, the Ovi Store by Nokia, Windows Phone Marketplace, BlackBerry App World, and GetJar.

For further information about Shazam Entertainment visit www.shazam.com and @ShazamNews or follow us on Facebook.

For daily music updates follow the Shazam Bloghttp://www.shazamers.com”> www.shazamers.com and @Shazam

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About BMI
Broadcast Music, Inc.® (BMI®), a global leader in rights management, is an American performing rights organization that represents more than 500,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers in all genres of music and more than 7.5 million musical works. BMI has represented the most popular and beloved music from around the world for more than 70 years. The company provides licenses for businesses that perform music, and distributes the fees it generates as royalties to the musical creators and copyright owners it represents. For more information: www.bmi.com; @bmi on Twitter; and Facebook.