This one-hit-wonder artist from the 1970s is using new tech to fight digital music piracy

In 1970, Mungo Jerry had a massive global hit with “In the Summertime,” a single that sold over 30 million copies. It’s one of the biggest-selling singles in the history of music. It was Mungo Jerry’s only North American hit. (To be fair, singer Ray Dorset wrote hits for other people.)

With numbers like that and constant airplay on classic hits radio stations worldwide, you’d think that the duo would be set for life. Well, maybe. But they’ve also lost out on a TON of money thanks to piracy. Dorset thinks the band has lost over $40 million(!!!) due to piracy, bootlegging, and unlicensed use of the song.

Dorset is working with a company called TCAT, a company that calls itself “the ultimate music anti-piracy partner.” TCAT’s tech places a unique fingerprint on a song that will forever identify the original and where it goes. The song is tracked everywhere it goes, looking for copyright infringement, unauthorized duplications, nefarious manipulations, clones, and fakes.

Dorset: “It will instantly find out where that song has been obtained from. You will actually find out who the aggregator – the person who has used it – is. Then it gives the owner a lot more opportunity to engage a legal team. The TCAT software will definitely assist in this … [Piracy] is downright theft but it’s not something that the police would deal with.”

The Guardian also reports this from Robin Abeyesinhe, the head of TCAT: “Music is being uploaded without permission and without artists’ knowledge. Tracks are being streamed millions of times and royalties are simply flowing into the pirates’ bank accounts. Currently there’s not much labels can do about it and they don’t want to talk about it either – as frankly it’s highly embarrassing to admit to your artists that you can’t keep track of their songs.”

If you’re an artist, you can try TCAT for free.