Music Piracy/Copy Protection

akamil writes, "Cirrus Logic and Intertrust Technologies Corp. are developing a hardware solution to stop music piracy. Here's the San Jose Mercury News story on it. "

Comments

File Community Software

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is anyone going to care when you can download everything with your specialized file community client? These guys are beta testing an XML-over-IRC client that does a ridiculously great job of distributing MP3s, even better than napster. Check out Liberty: http://www.dvd-copy.com/file_community_software.ht ml

Re:File Community Software

[yurik]

There is a similar discussion i started here, proposing an alternative to Napster's centralized database. IRC's idea is very good, but it still relies on centralized servers, that potentally could altered to refuse any standartized trafic from MP3 search clients.

Re:File Community Software

[Weezul]

Why is anyone going to care when you can download everything with your specialized file community client? These guys are beta testing an XML-over-IRC client that does a ridiculously great job of distributing MP3s, even better than napster. Check out Liberty: http://www.dvd-copy.com/file_community_software.ht ml

This is really interesting! I would like to see a non-napster based protocoll, but I would also like to hear what the existing IRC network people have to say about it. Do you think automated interfaces to IRC run the risk to damaging the IRC community, i.e. do you think the IRC community is strong enough to prevent collages frm banning IRC access to student because of mp3s?

I think that the fact that news programs hold interviews on IRC shows that the community has enough clout to wistand these attacks of ignorance and fear that this project may induce, but I would be curious to hear if anyone had a diffrent oppinion.

Destined for Failure

[Detritus]

Why do companies bother investing money in complex copy protection schemes that can be so easily subverted?

Just connect the analog output from the sound card to an ADC and compress it with the algorithm of your choice.

Re:Destined for Failure

[Captn Pepe]

Why do companies bother investing money in complex copy protection schemes that can be so easily subverted?

Just connect the analog output from the sound card to an ADC and compress it with the algorithm of your choice.

Unfortunately, a copy made from an analog stream isn't the same as a digital original ... after all, chances are you don't have a sound card capable of doing 200+Kbps sampling. And even if you do, a good deal of information from the original is lost in the playback process.

However, the more serious danger is that the recording industry will turn out to have serious enough clout that the manufacturers who turn out playback devices will standardize on some SDMI-ish technology out of fear of RIAA lawsuits. Sure, you'll be able to play all the mp3s you want on your computer, but they'll all be low-to-medium grade, analog recaptures, that won't work on any consumer player (think walkmans, car stereos, etc ... digital music's going to be everywhere in 10 years) because they all comply with SDMI. Remember, the SDMI specifies that the recording industry can, at some point of their choosing, disable mp3 playback when they feel that it's time to "phase out the format."

Finally, consider the possibility that the next generation of sound systems will use USB/USB2/1394 digital output straight to the speaker. Technology has already been demonstrated that would let them leave the audio stream encrypted until it arrives at a custom processor in the speaker hardware itself. Heck, Intel's showing off a flatscreen monitor that'll do this with video playback.

Just wait...

[karb]

They have this grand system for music security, then get to software, and say "Gee, we don't need a linux port."

Let's see if they can learn from the DVD people's mistakes.

Re:Putting an end to this shit.

[Captn Pepe]

Well, the problem is that most people are already conditioned to accept the planned obsolecence of their music collections. People bought all their music again when they went from 45s to LPs, then later to CDs. (I don't think too many people ran out and replaced their LPs with cassete tape, but that's because the quality clearly sucked.) When the change comes, it'll be hyped as the way to get all your old music, with new bells and whistles, sounding better than ever. Plus, the recording industry will then begin slowly phasing out the releases on CD, or releasing them later, or something.

That part is inevitable, though. CDs aren't the end-all ultimate form of music distribution, after all. The danger is that, by the time music is being distributed under the new formats en masse, the RIAA will have already won over all the manufacturers of playback equipment, by threat of lawsuits if necessary. Maybe you'll be able to play all the mp3s you want on your computer, but they'll be cheap recaptures of an analog stream. Your walkman, your car stereo, maybe even your computer (via a next-gen soundcard that talks to firewire/USB2/whatever) will only play the encrypted files you bought, and probably each file will only work on that one device. Sure, Sony beat the MPAA over VCRs, and somebody (forget who) beat the RIAA over cassette recorders, but given how the courts have been behaving over IP these days, who knows who'll win the next round.

"Finally, defendants claim that they are engaged in a fair use under Section 107 of the Copyright Act. They are mistaken." -- Judge Kaplan, in issuing the DeCSS injunction against 2600.

Putting an end t this shit.

[Weezul]

We need a way to get the word aout about this shit and prevent customers from buying the players. One option is to go to stores and place stickers on the products which say "Warning this product is SDMI compliant and/or limits the consumers fair use rights" and explains to people why they want an mp3 player which dose not take away their rights.

This articles proposed solution culd be as vulnerable as DVDs, but I would not count on it. It sounded like the song is to be decrypted on one device only, meaning that you will lose your whole music collection when you replace your player. This will piss consumers off a lot more, but it is a stronger system then what DVDs used. Actually, this system would incurage the one-hit-wonders, i.e. why should I go out and find a good band to lissen to when I will loses the music eventually by upgrading players?

The good news is that that they will probable put this chip in the computer somelace where the datastream after the chip can be cought and they can not just stop selling CDs and tapes.