Brian D. Litman

Brian D. Litman
Born	9 May 1954 Kansas City, Missouri; United States
🏳️ Nationality	American
🎓 Alma mater	Missouri School of Journalism at University of Missouri
💼 Occupation	Entrepreneur, Executive, Inventor
Known for	MP3 Technology, Media Development in Russia, Founding Chairman of Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Cable Committee, Release of KGB Archives on Lee Harvey Oswald
Notable work	System and method for advertisement sponsored content distribution (United States US6988277 B2 Patent Issued February 6, 2001)

Brian D. Litman (born May 9, 1954) is an American media, entertainment and technology entrepreneur and inventor.

In the seventies, Litman worked as a journalist, radio producer/broadcaster and record company executive. By the eighties, Litman took an interest in the emergent cable and satellite television industries, working in both cable television (CATV) operations and satellite television network programming. At the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, he was the founding chairman of the cable and satellite committee and also served on the Emmy Awards Committee.

Early life

Litman was born in Kansas City, Missouri. His father, Marvin Litman, was a Kansas City advertising and public relations executive. His mother was Louise Litman who was engaged in animal welfare causes. Litman’s sole sibling, Steve Litman, is a concert impresario based in St. Louis, Missouri.

Education

Litman attended the University of Kansas, studying Radio, Television and Film from 1972 to 1974.

In September 1974, Litman transferred to the University of Missouri's Missouri School of Journalism where he studied Advertising and Public Relations. In 1974, Litman was elected President of the MU student chapter of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA).

He also nurtured his interests in radio broadcasting, announcing and audio production by hosting the nightly Jazz program at KU's NPR affiliate, KANU. He similarly hosted the evening Jazz show at MU's NPR affiliate KBIA.

Litman was awarded a Bachelor of Journalism degree in 1977.

Career

Journalism

Between 1971 and 1972 Litman worked for the Kansas City’s principal evening newspaper, the Kansas City Star as a concert reviewer for the Star’s ‘Arts & Entertainment’ section.

Radio Broadcasting

While attending High School, from 1971 to 1972, Litman worked evenings producing music programs for Bonneville International's overseas radio operations.

Concert Promotion

During the summer of 1971 Litman was an intern for Kansas City's principal concert promotion firm - Chris Fritz Productions. This experience assisted in his being elected to serve on the university's Concerts Committee while attending KU.

Recorded Music

In 1974, Litman, while still a student at MU, was recruited by CBS to represent their Columbia Records unit at the University. Upon graduation, Litman was hired full-time by Columbia, beginning in recorded music sales and later moving into promotion. Litman’s years in recorded music included the marketing of such artists as Pink Floyd, Bruce Springsteen, Miles Davis and Billy Joel.

Cable and Satellite Television

By 1981, Litman entered the emergent cable television industry and took a position at Time, Inc's. cable TV unit in Pittsburgh. Within a year Litman was recruited by the new Group Westinghouse / American Broadcasting Companies (ABC) joint-venture Group W Satellite Communications to oversee network distribution in the northeastern U.S. In 1982, Litman joined the new joint-venture of the Hearst Corporation, ABC, RCA and Rockefeller Center Television called Hearst/ABC Video Enterprises.

Operating first from New York City and later Los Angeles, his brief was network development for the entirety of the Western U.S. During this period Litman built a significant percentage of the subscriber base of what is today’s A&E Arts & Entertainment Network. Much of this gain due to his signing the largest U.S. CATV operator, John Malone's Tele-Communications Inc.

Concurrently, Litman became active with Hollywood's Emmy Awards and the Television Academy (ATAS) where he was the founding chairman of the cable and satellite committee and also served on the Awards Committee.

Litman also served on the Board of Directors of the California Cable Television Association from 1989 until 1990.

US WEST (ex-AT&T)

In 1994, the former AT&T Bell Operating Company US West recruited Litman to return to the U.S. in order to head distribution and entertainment business development for their newly formed IVE or Interactive Video Enterprises digital unit. Litman’s brief was network distribution as well as development of strategic relationships with the motion picture, recorded music and publishing industries.

Digital Music Distribution Futures

IVE was a pre-"Internet explosion" digital media experiment for the Western-US Baby Bell. However, its grand vision for a new era of content interactivity proved elusive when concerning rational business economics. The cost of the technologies and infrastructure proved to be cripplingly expensive. US WEST/IVE closed in 1995 and Litman exited – inspired by what he foresaw.

Audiosoft

During Litman's tenure at US West, he realized that the future of music distribution would be digital. It was an interest he pursued when, in 1997, he joined Geneva-based digital audio startup Audiosoft as VP for business development. Audiosoft had developed a prototype digital music distribution system four years before Apple, Inc. unveiled iTunes. However, owing to internal management conflicts and funding issues Litman departed in late 1997 – resolved to pursue his belief in the promise of digital audio.

"AMP" and the Dawn of MP3 Music

Earliest Commercial MP3 Playback Technology

In late 1997, Litman established the partnership Advanced Multimedia Products with Croatian computer scientist Tomislav Uzelac to license the first commercial MP3 decoder – the "Audio MPEG Player" or "AMP". Litman's role in the partnership was as managing director - encompassing all marketing, legal and business affairs.

AMP achieved early success as the licensor of the core MP3 technology employed in the massively-downloaded Windows music player WinAmp.

PlayMedia Systems

Controlled Music Distribution

In January 1998, Litman and Uzelac decided to expand the scope of their research and development into digital audio. Adding Croatian informatics academic Mario Kovač and computer scientist Davor Runje they reformed AMP as PlayMedia Systems with Litman as CEO.

Litman's technology strategy was decidedly oriented towards proper compensation of creators of intellectual property.

His goal for PlayMedia was to elaborate a comprehensive B2C music distribution infrastructure consistent with the legal and business specifications of the established recorded music industry.

Project Maestro

An initial strategic alliance with STMicro and France Telecom was formed and the two French tech leaders tested a PlayMedia/STMicro joint project called Project Maestro. Although tested in Paris, the project did not bear fruit. Instead, in December 2000 Litman engineered what became a significant relationship with the original Napster.

Napster v2.0~v3.0

In 2000 PlayMedia began to provide the hugely popular Napster peer-to-peer music application with core MP3 technologies. It later was tasked with developing the music industry-disrupting music service with a next-generation file format - ".nap".

By spring, 2002 Napster 3.0 was effectively controlled by global media giant Bertelsmann. PlayMedia was deeply engaged with Bertelsmann as the German multimedia firm viewed Napster as a future platform for distribution of many of its digital assets. PlayMedia technology was essential to the new Napster system and Litman expected Bertelsmann would ultimately acquire PlayMedia. But Napster's sale out of bankruptcy to Bertelsmann failed due to a legal technicality. Napster dissolved with enormous liabilities to its sub-contractors – including PlayMedia. Similar early digital music pioneers like Liquid Audio and AT&T's a2b actually collapsed.

DMX, Mood Media and "Elevator Music"

As Apple achieved dominance in digital music downloads, Litman pivoted the wounded PlayMedia into specialized playback systems. Background music systems deployed by such firms as Mood Media/DMX (music) at such retailers, hotels and restaurants as McDonald's, H&M Stores and Hyatt Hotels use PlayMedia's "PlayCore" multi-channel playback system.

PlayMedia today licenses these "on-premises technologies" as well as legacy ones such as AMP and AMPhibian. The MPFree music monetization system based on a Litman-conceived patent is in development.

Other career info

At the beginning of the nineties, Litman was living in Moscow, Russia serving as a business consultant to state-controlled media companies before and after the Collapse of the Soviet Union. His mandate was to help major television, newspaper and magazine operations transform themselves from state-subsidy towards commercial self-sufficiency.

As an American engaged with politically sensitive media organizations under the direct control of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Litman immediately appeared on the radar of Soviet intelligence - who considered him a potential intelligence operative working under non-official cover.

Aware he was under surveillance, Litman, during the chaos following the 1991 August Coup and subsequent Soviet collapse, transformed himself from espionage target to business associate of his surveillants.

In 1992, Litman negotiated a strategic relationship with the Soviet KGB and its successor - the Russian SVR. He became the executive producer in a broad joint-venture with the global intelligence organization for the development of historical content concerning espionage and the Cold War for books, film, television and the lecture circuit. In 1993, Litman shepherded the release of highly classified materials from KGB regarding the assassin of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald. The materials, revealed in a book Litman packaged, showed Oswald's disturbed and violent personality while living as a defector in the Soviet Union.

He was also engaged with former Soviet Premier Nikolai Ryzhkov. Litman wrote a plan for the Russian leader for a business consultancy called the Ryzhkov Group.

Litman is directly connected to two technological phenomena which have materially impacted the recorded music industry ... MP3 audio and Napster.

In the latter 1990's and into the early 2000s Litman was a pioneer in the development and proliferation of digital media technologies such as MP3 music playback codec AMP. He co-founded the firm Advanced Multimedia Products which created AMP – the first commercially viable MP3 player. AMP is licensed to and is the namesake of the popular MP3 player WinAMP (Windows + AMP).

Litman subsequently co-founded and is chief executive of PlayMedia Systems, into which Advanced Multimedia Products was merged. PlayMedia was notable for its deep involvement in the controversial Napster. PlayMedia provided both Napster's MP3 playback technology and was also principal developer of its ".nap" format. Other PlayMedia technologies are also deployed worldwide in numerous hotels, restaurants and retail shops for background music playback.

Concurrent to running PlayMedia, Litman is active in the development of new media and information services.

Television production

"The Secret KGB JFK Assassination Files"

In 1998, Litman was approached by David McKenzie, CEO of Associated Television International (ATI) to employ his relationships in Russia to produce the key Russian segment of a broadcast television documentary on the JFK Assassination.

For "The Secret KGB JFK Assassination Files", Litman secured and conducted interviews with ex-Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev, ex-KGB Chairman Vladimir Semichastny, former KGB Washington Rezident Alexander Feklisov and other top ex-KGB officers to illuminate a Soviet perspective on the event.

Qontinuum | General Alchemy | Writing

At present, Litman is believed to be developing new projects in the spheres of electronic publishing and smart contracts via Qontinuum Time+Space and General Alchemy. However, little is publicly known of these endeavors.

In 2013, during a presentation at a Dallas JFK Symposium, Litman stated that he was compiling a memoir on his relationship with KGB and several of its fabled veterans tentatively titled "The Spies Who Loved Me"

External links

• Playmedia Systems
• Qontinuum Time+Space
• General Alchemy
• AETV
• Calcable
• JFK Symposium Address

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