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RIAA Tracking Songs by MD5 Hashes
aSiTiC writes "Apparently RIAA has obtained some technical experts in their prosecution of file swappers. Currently they are tracking traded mp3 files from the Napster network by matching MD5 hashes. This seems quite interesting but I was under the assumption that identical hashes could be created with identical rips and id3v2 tagging. Now may be the time to update your illegal mp3 file MD5 hash sums."
you just normalize or edit the begining or the end of the song? Does the MD5 Hashes still works?
Are we sure they're actually using MD5? The article doesn't even contain the string "md5" that I can see. It mentions hashes though, but there's something called Robust Hashing which can be used to identify, or at least, compare content in a "fuzzy" way.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
No, we need to create a honeypot farm. You remember that article way back when on Slashdot? It described how to implenent a whole farm. Then we strictly prohibit scanning of the networks for MD5 checksums. Since RIAA is using bots, they won't read the warning and fire off the subeona. When you get a subeona, then you slam them with a computer crime lawsuit. See, you can still get rich from RIAA. But how do you get illegal MD5 check sums with out possesing the files? If you wanna screw with RIAA you have to be damned sure that you right.
The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.
About this interpretation of Fair Use: I agree that downloading mp3's of CDs that you have purchased should be fair use. I am in a similar situation. A couple of years ago I lost 90% of my CD collection in an apartment fire. I had about 20 of these CDs ripped at the time and since then, I have downloaded many of the others to replace what I had paid for. In some cases, I re-purchased the CD because I wanted to have an original for some of my favorite artists but I didn't mind the mp3 mastered replacements for many of the CDs. Would this fall under Fair Use? I would think that it does since the RIAA seems to think that we are only purchasing a license to listen to the music. However, if I had to present the original CDs to a judge to prove that I do/did own the physical CD, I would be SOL.
The Tools Of Ignorance wanna be a tool?
Unless she had an OC-48 or two going into her home, she didn't make the files available for download by *millions* of strangers. When the resource is limited, the magnitude of the crime is likewise limited. If you offer a stolen watch on the streets of New York, you can't be charged with trying to sell it to MILLIONS of people, cause there's only one watch. Likewise, in this case there's only enough bandwidth for a certain number of potential downloads, and speaking of millions here is plain misleading.
If the people who downloaded files from her spread them further, that's THEIR crime and not hers, much as the guy who sold a stolen watch won't be found guilty for the watch buyer illegaly selling it to someone else.
And in this case, it's even less severe, as it's not a theft, but a copyright violation.
Regards,
--
*Art
Don't we already pay a small tax to the recording industry every time we buy blank audio CDs (but not data CDs)? I'd like to see some lawyer fight a case claiming that a P2P user has already paid the RIAA and is therefore exempt from their lawsuits when downloading the music and burning it to an audio CD. That would be an interesting lawsuit.
Different drives, with the same disc, and identical software, certainly do give different results. Just tested. Identical versions of cdparanoia live on both systems.
I also ran lame with default settings (makes a 128K CBR) on both WAVs and got different sums there as well.
No tags involved.