RIAA Unveils Net Tracking Tag for Online Sales

openbear writes "A story over at MSNBC talks about the Global Release Indentifier (GRid). It is a code akin to the Universal Product Code (UPC) bar code found on a CD or cassette tape in stores. Each track will be distributed online with an individual GRid serial number and will be reported back to rights societies and collection agencies sold or transferred."

Comments

Could this technology

[Rudy Rodarte]

... be embedded in CD audio tracks and used to track piracy or... Used to show which versions of songs are crappy quality, RIAA Fakes, etc....

Tim Russert Is My Cousin

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

Did you read the article? This isn't an attempt to curb piracy. While the MSNBC article is a bit unclear as to why this needs to be done, here's what was said, "But music officials have complained that sales-tracking systems in place at the moment need to be standardised so that online sales, though small at the moment, can be better recorded." This isn't a way to put a tracker in an mp3 so the RIAA can track down the person who is distributing it but merely a way to keep track of sales.

It's totally different from a UPC

[morcheeba]

The article seems to get the basic premise of this wrong. A UPC code describes only the product; the buyer is still anonymous. The only reason a reseller would have to buy millions of GRid's would be if each track sold was unique (as opposed to each type of song sold). Either the RIAA's layers did a good job of fooling Reuters, or they just didn't understand the implications of this... and the implications are exactly what they deny-- that songs bought on the internet could be tracked to the buyer if they ever end up being shared.