Spoonful – Howlin’ Wolf
Interesting. Neil Young apparently met Steve Jobs sometime last year to discuss the topic, remember?
They might sound like great song titles, but “21st Century Record Player,” “Earth Storage” and “Thanks for Listening” aren’t new Neil Young tunes. They’re trademarks that the rocker recently filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Rolling Stone has found, and they indicate that Young is developing a high-resolution audio alternative to the MP3 format.
According to the filed documents, Young applied for six trademarks last June: Ivanhoe, 21st Century Record Player, Earth Storage, Storage Shed, Thanks for Listening and SQS (Studio Quality Sound). Included in the filing is a description of the trademarks: “Online and retail store services featuring music and artistic performances; high resolution music downloadable from the internet; high resolutions discs featuring music and video; audio and video recording storage and playback.” The address on file corresponds to that of Vapor Records, Young’s label. (Young’s representatives declined Rolling Stone’s request for comment.)
Young faces about a year of paperwork before the government will register his trademarks. Last week, they were approved for publication in a public journal for 30 days, a step that allows competitors to challenge Young if they find his registration harmful. The journal is set to be published later this month; if the trademarks face no opposition or snags, Young must then file documents detailing how he intends to use the trademarks, which the government could register as early as the holidays, according to the filing schedule.
A press release issued last September by Penguin Group imprint Blue Rider Press, which is publishing Young’s upcoming memoir, may have revealed the working title of Young’s entire project. In addition to the memoir, says the release, “Young is also personally spearheading the development of Pono, a revolutionary new audio music system presenting the highest digital resolution possible, the studio quality sound that artists and producers heard when they created their original recordings. Young wants consumers to be able to take full advantage of Pono’s cloud-based libraries of recordings by their favorite artists and, with Pono, enjoy a convenient music listening experience that is superior in sound quality to anything ever presented.”
(click here to continue reading Neil Young Trademarks New Audio Format | Music News | Rolling Stone.)
Trademark is just one step on a long road to a technology being available by consumers, but it is a step.
Parenthetical note: I wonder how good one’s ears would be to be able to tell the difference. I had a modest stereo system back in the days of record players, and never had an audio-freak friend, so I’ve never heard really really good music reproduction. I rip CDs at 256 VBR, which sound decent enough, but I wonder.