US patent awarded on built-in authentication for vinyl

With sales of vinyl records rocketing in recent years, it was inevitable that counterfeiters would enter the market to try to make a fast buck – and a recently published US patent describes one way to fight back.

A patent awarded to an organisation known as Citizen Digital in Asheville, North Carolina, covers the use of an embedded electronic authentication tag bearing a code generated from a unique visual pattern created on the centre of the disc during the pressing process.

That unique code is linked to a non-fungible token (NFT) – a digital certificate that verifies ownership of a digital or physical asset – on the Ethereum blockchain, creating a physical record connected to the NFT world that gives proof of ownership and authenticity. The link to the digital world comes from a near-field communication (NFC) tag pressed into the vinyl of the disc.

Citizen Digitial is affiliated to the Citizen Vinyl record pressing plant, recording studio, and record shop located in Asheville set up by Sean Moore – one of the authors of the patent – and Gar Ragland. The company is developing the smartphone-scannable NFT chips on vinyl pressings – billed as "next-level collectible vinyl" – under the VinylKey brand.

The abstract of the patent appears below:

Vinyl record with integrated authenticity

A record (100) may include a disk (102), an embedded electronic authentication tag (104), a cover (106) between the disk and the electronic authentication tag, and one or more record labels (108A, 108B). The disk, electronic authentication tag, and cover have a spindle hole (114) and a common centreline (116). The electronic authentication tag contains a unique identification code pointing to information regarding the record stored as a non-fungible token. This information may be used to verify the authenticity and ownership of the record. A puck used to create the disk may include segments of different colours so that, when the record is pressed the different segments produce a visual pattern unique to that record. A picture may be taken after pressing, recorded, recorded as part of the information in the non-fungible token, and later used to verify the authenticity of the record.

US Patent No. 12,223,981

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