It looks like people are using more than office politics to move from A2b these days, as the core of AT&T’s digital music initiative is fleeing to Reciprocal, a privately held company backed by Microsoft, boo hiss.

Reciprocal said that a2b co-founders Larry Miller and Howie Singer will join the company, leading a new music division.

A2b is AT&T’s bid to build a secure method for transferring digital music, in answer to the popular MP3 format. Reciprocal has developed a digital rights management system for copyright protection on digital content &√Ǭ£45;- text, music, images, and software &√Ǭ£45;- in electronic media. The software lets a content creator establish access rules that are enforced wherever that file travels. In addition, Reciprocal’s clearinghouse in Buffalo, New York, keeps track of all the activity associated with a file and can report those numbers back to the author.

But that’s not all, AT&T’s losses extend beyond Miller and Singer as a dozen other members of the a2b team are also packing their bags for Reciprocal, according to The New York Times. That’s out of a total staff of 26.

http://www.reciprocal.com/