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Ask Ed Felten About Watermarking Analysis And More
Dr. Edward Felten is in a funny position -- or perhaps not so funny. He's the Princeton researcher who took up the challenge posed by the music industry to find flaws in the SMDI watermarking scheme, but didn't enter into the 'no-telling' bargain (here's the click-through agreement [pdf]) which would have made him eligible for a reward, so wasn't bound by non-disclosure terms. When a scheduled academic presentation on the weaknesses [pdf] that he and his colleages found in SDMI became the object of lawsuit threats from the RIAA, and caused him to cancel the planned presentation, Felten decided to turn the tables, and in cooperation with the EFF, sue them instead, for interfering with his scholarly research. Though he did eventually get to present his research, the legal action is still going. Dr. Felten is at a hearing today in Trenton, NJ, but he's agreed to answer questions from Slashdot readers. Please confine your questions carefully (one per post), and we'll pass the highest-moderated ones on for his answers.
Research has started as a public research for the good of everybody, everything public researcher discovered was made public. Now, we can see a trend that some public founded researchs get screwed because of some ridiculous patents or laws. Did you try to make some clear ruling about that with your case against the SDMI? What are your hopes about the results?
Personally I feel very strongly that legislation banning or regulating reverse engineering is wrong in the moral sense. Scientists, mathemeticians and students of literature reverse engineer nature and the human mind. Reverse engineering a few man-made items seems to me to be part of the same pursuit of curiosity. Would you care to comment?
It is not inconceivable that in the future, the academia may come under the control of rich corporations manipulating research for their own selfish ends.
It already has! In fact, I graduated from Pepsi University several years ago. Sure, it wasn't actually called "Pepsi University" but I challenge anyone to find a Coke vending machine anywhere on campus.
Why do professors use different books for each semester of classes? Does the field of calculus really go through revolutionary changes every six months, enough to warrant selecting a whole new book to teach from? Of course not, but if you used the same book year after year, the publishers (who apparently own the professors) wouldn't be able to continuously rake students over the coals for new $100 textbooks.