Record labels and the RIAA were forcing Napster to make a move on their current stand over blocking copyright-infringed songs. The pressure worked because early today Napster Inc. announced it licensed privately held Relatable's acoustic fingerprinting technology to help filter songs in compliance with their injunction.

Relatable, an Alexandria, Virginia based company, is a leading provider of advanced content identification and personalization technologies for the digital delivery of audio and video content. Relatable technologies help create a new level of personalized commercial entertainment services.

"Digital fingerprinting technologies are developing rapidly, and Relatable's new acoustic fingerprinting technology shows great promise. We are now working closely with Relatable's engineers to coordinate their technology with our file filtering systems; we hope they will be a substantial part of our overall filtering solution," said Hank Barry, chief executive of Napster.

Napster officials also added that they hope to incorporate Relatable technology into Napster's current file screening system and into a new membership service which can hopefully launch this summer.