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99% Blockage Isn't Good Enough, Says Napster Judge

Posted by timothy on from the shut-down-kinkos-xerox-and-nikon-too dept.

Masem writes: "Articles at CNET and CNN say that Judge Patel has ordered Napster to remain offline until they can offer 100% blockage of copyrighted songs by the plaintiff record companies. Napster officials said that they can guarentee 99% complience, but Patel says this is not good enough. Napster is arguing that this order violated the appeals court's ruling, and are appealling it."

9 of 273 comments (clear)

  1. In a different judicial order... by Svartalf · · Score: 5

    The Supreme Court ordered that /. posters stop posting until they verify all their facts instead of checking the at the door.

    Patel is a SHE.

    --
    I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
  2. Insane... by MAXOMENOS · · Score: 5
    Apparently this judge doesn't understand the technology required to ensure compliance with the court order.

    Checking that a music file (X) matches another music file (known copyrighted material Y) is a matter of doing a checksum, or otherwise scanning features of X and checking them against features of Y. If the files are exactly the same then you can do a CRC on each file, and if the checksums match, you have a 1-in-four-billion chance that the two files are *not* the same.

    But the two files being exactly the same is one hell of an assumption. An intrepid music pirate could feed Y through some kind of distortion to produce Y', which would look different to a CRC. That means you have to look for features in the sound itself. Even with the algorithm produced by the genius 20-year-old, I am very doubtful that you'd have 0% false negative rate. There's always going to be something crawling through. That's the nature of pattern recognition.

    I think the judge has made this court order impossible to comply with, barring one option: Napster closes down. That strikes me as more than adequate grounds for appeal.

    --
    Finding God in a Dog
  3. Re:in that case.... by Coward,+Anonymous · · Score: 5

    in that case, i think a global condom and birth control pill recall is in order.

    Impossible. Recalled products have to be mailed back and no parcel delivery service can guarantee 100% delivery.

  4. No, he's not by Galvatron · · Score: 5
    The reason Napster's in trouble is that, as you say, they are aiding and abetting in copyright violation. Remember, NAPSTER isn't the one doing this, the users are. So, by implementing the measures that they have, they are no longer aiding this copyright violation, they are making it difficult.

    Analagously, you would probably prosecute a landlord who owned an apartment building in which pot was being grown on the roof, because that's something he should know about and stop. However, you would not prosecute a landlord because one of his tenants was growing pot in a closet, and never smoked it in the building, because he would have no reasonable way of knowing about, or stopping that. Likewise, as long as Napster makes a good effort to stop copyright violation, they should be guilt free. The RIAA should then have to sue the users if they are still unsatisfied.

    The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.

    --
    "The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
  5. Big News by Calle+Ballz · · Score: 5

    This means that DNA evidence can no longer be allowed to stand up in court. It's only 99.999998% effective, you know.

    1. Re:Big News by karmawarrior · · Score: 5
      This isn't as daft as it sounds. DNA evidence is commonly misrepresented, using extreme odds to suggest that something is highly unlikely, when the evidence proves the opposite. Likewise, many posters here are making the same mistake.

      In LA, Larry is charged with Curly's murder. No evidence exists except a suspicion on the part of the police and a hair on the knife used to kill Curly. A sample of Larry's hair is sent to a DNA lab. "Good news", says the lab technician to the police. "The DNA matches. Only 1:50,000 people have that strain."

      The prosecutor tells the jury. The jury convict. After all, the chances are 50,000:1 that Larry's innocent aren't they? That's what the prosecutor said, and he was just repeating what the lab said wasn't he? As the prison warden throws the switch and Larry burns to a crisp, something odd happens. A close circuit TV film is revealed which proves that someone completely different murdered Curly. What happened?

      Answer: People misread the statistics. There are well over 50,000 people in LA. If there are 5,000,000 people in LA (which I suspect is a low estimate) then there were approximate 100 suspects. In other words, the odds were not, in the absense of all other evidence, 1:50,000 against Larry murdering Curly, the odds were actually 100:1 that he didn't do it.

      How is this relevent here? Answer: People are interpretting Patel as meaning that she wants more than 99% of the activity on Napster to be legitimate. This is by her demand that Napster remove more than 99% of the copyrighted material.

      But one is not the other. To use statistics I've written elsewhere, if there are 100,000 transactions enabled by Napster, and 99,500 of them are illegitimate, then a 99% reduction would still leave 995 illegitimate transactions against 500 "Patel Approved" ones. The way most posters are reading it, Patel has instead demanded that more than 99% of transactions be legal. That's not what she's said.

      Clearly she believes, rightly or wrongly, that there is an excessive amount of violations of copyright law on Napster, to the point that the vast majority, well in excess of 99%, are illegal. Patel is demanding that there be a massive reduction.

      Whether her comment "100%" is supposed to be taken literally or not, I don't know. But simply reducing the number of copyright violations on Napster by 99% may actually not be enough, depending on the scale of the issue, to mean that legal uses of Napster would be in the majority.

      DNA evidence doesn't always mean what people think it means. 99% doesn't mean the same thing as 99% in another context either.
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      KMSMA (WWBD?)
  6. Re:The next phase of the war should start soon. by MSBob · · Score: 5
    Interesting point. I haven't bought a music cd in ages. Not because I'm a cheapskate or beacuse I'm particularly poor but like you I haven't found anything half decent lately. The only CD I pondered buying recently was some Karl Jenkins stuff. I wanted to buy it BECAUSE I found a couple of his pieces on Napster and thought it would be cool to have it in my car...

    Anyway I think the music industry's problems have nothing to do with piracy but everything to do with the utter crap that they keep producing and sponsoring. I can't name a SINGLE modern band that would make me download their music let alone buy a CD. RIAA napster isn't your problem. Shit music is.

    --
    Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
  7. Re:100%? by BIGJIMSLATE · · Score: 5

    Heh, exactly. I'd like to see ONE gov't regulation that requires 100% compliance.

    And 100% is pratctically impossible anyways, because if just ONE song out of...say...5 billion gets through, its not 100% anymore.

    Personally, she's asking WAAAAY too much from them, considering they're already dead.

    Oh look, a dead horse! Let's beat it!

  8. Why I like Napster by Derkec · · Score: 5

    Napster pretty much sits out there and gets beat up on. Then it gets back up and fights again. That takes some guts. More importantly, as long as Napster is fighting, the RIAA lawyers have work to do. When Napster finally concedes defeat, the lawsuits will start targetting distributers of Gnuetella and other sharing tools. That, or they'll start actively targetting individuals. Go Napster! Keep on getting beat on, the rest of us love ya for it.