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Neil Young's trademark applications point to forthcoming high-resolution music service

Neil Young's trademark applications point to forthcoming high-resolution music service

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Trademark applications filed by singer-songwriter Neil Young suggest that he is working on the high-resolution audio download service, hinted at in his interview at the 'D: Dive into Media' conference.

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Neil Young
Neil Young

US trademark filings suggest that Canadian singer-songwriter Neil Young is working on a high-fidelity digital download service. Back at the D: Dive into Media conference, Young bemoaned the quality of current digital music services, saying that MP3s contain only five percent of the audio original master recordings. At the time, he said that he hoped that "some rich guy" would solve the problem of distributing "100 percent" of the sound in music. It seems as if Young thinks he might just be that guy.

Young filed six applications for different names last June — Ivanhoe, 21st Century Record Player, Earth Storage, Storage Shed, Thanks for Listening, and SQS (which Rolling Stone suggests means Studio Quality Sound) . Each trademark carries the same description:

Audio and video recordings featuring music and artistic performances; high resolution music downloadable from the internet; high resolutions discs featuring music and video of music and artistic performances; pre-recorded digital media containing audio and video recordings featuring music and artistic performances for storage and playback.

Online and retail store services featuring music and artistic performances, high resolution music downloadable from the internet, high resolutions discs featuring music and video, and pre-recorded digital media featuring audio and video recordings for storage and playback

This indicates that each of the names are possible alternatives for the same product. However, with no technical details given, it's tough to imagine how Young hopes to get around the challenge that serving up these enormous files will present, or which codec he believes will offer the truly high-definition experience that he's missing.