Sony Music Entertainment Senior Vice President Al Smith this week announced that Philip R. Wiser has been named Chief Technology Officer. Wiser will be based in New York and will report directly to Smith.
In this newly-created position, Wiser will be responsible for overseeing technical operations of the company’s existing digital media initiatives, including electronic music distribution (EMD) systems, as well as for developing and implementing new digital media technologies. He will also oversee the company’s senior technology and engineering staff and act as SME’s liaison to other Sony operating companies on relevant technology issues.
“Phil Wiser has a well-deserved reputation as one of the most creative and insightful technology executives in the music business,” commented Al Smith. “Phil’s ground-breaking contributions in the areas of digital rights management and electronic distribution systems helped create one of the first environments for the secure distribution of music on the Internet, and his track record of success, together with his boundless creativity and energy, make him the perfect choice for this newly created role. I look forward to working closely with Phil as we continue to expand our existing Internet projects and develop new digital initiatives.”
Most recently, Philip Wiser served as director and CTO of Liquid Audio, a company he co-founded in 1996. During his tenure with Liquid Audio, Wiser developed one of the first commercially released digital rights management and music distribution systems. Prior to co-founding Liquid Audio, Wiser worked with a variety of Silicon Valley technology companies, including Chromatic Research, a multimedia semiconductor device company, and Studer Editech Corporation, a professional audio recording equipment company where he led their Digital Signal Processing research efforts. Previously, he developed audio software systems for Sonic Solutions and Euphonix, both developers of professional digital audio products. He has developed several patents covering digital rights management, music distribution systems, and signal processing. He has also published research in the area of auditory neural processing and other areas of neurophysiology. Wiser began his career as a touring rock musician and recording artist in the mid-1980’s.
