Record Labels Release Software To Combat Piracy

mrsalty writes "CNET reports that IFPI representatives are pushing a new piece of software to delete filesharing programs. It will also 'search computers for music and movies and remove any illegal copies'." From the article: "Digital File Check is easy to use and can help people prevent their employees, children and others from illegally downloading and swapping movies ... It could be especially useful for parents who want to encourage their children to enjoy music responsibly on the Internet ... It is free, voluntary and for private use only and does not tip off any antipiracy organizations."

Comments

Voluntary for how long?

[CyricZ]

Indeed, considering the political clout of these media groups, it would not be unreasonable to believe that running such software on a very regular basis will become mandatory in the near future. Of course, what that means for non-Windows users is uncertain.

It must use magic!

[Inkieminstrel]

How, pray tell, does it tell the difference between bits that come from my CDs that I own versus those which come from CDs that others own? I believe one of those copies is perfectly legal.

Re:It must use magic!

[LiquidCoooled]

It apparantly can't tell a .txt file from a movie.

On the "Media in other folders" page they list "log.txt" as a legitimate file to delete.
There are others (zip files inside java folders etc)

It also lists something called "music.wma" from the all users/my music folder.

If I remember rightly, thats default and installed legally on windows xp.

Re:It must use magic!

[techstar25]

It doesn't try to determine which is legal and which isn't. It only compiles a list of ALL the media files on your computer, and then compiles a list of all the media file in your "shared" folder. Any deleting has to be done by the user.

Re:It must use magic!

[interiot]

The EULA is short and scary. In summary, his tool is designed to rid yourself of illegal files, but please back the illegal files up first (oh, and we blame the "unpredictable file sharing programs" for any damage).

1. IFPI's suppliers have developed the Software solely to perform the limited functions described in this license under these terms of use. IFPI, its national groups and its suppliers do not make any other warranties or guaranties about the Software, its operation or results, and the Software is thus provided 'AS IS' and 'WITH ALL FAULTS'.

2. ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OR OTHER TERMS (INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR PARTICULAR PURPOSE) ARE EXCLUDED.

3. Given that the Software is provided at no charge, the downloading, installation and use of the Software is done at your own discretion and risk. Given the unpredictable behavior of some file-sharing programs, you should always retain a back up of important programs and files on your computer when installing or using software like this.

4. In no event shall IFPI, its national groups, its Software or other suppliers, or endorsing parties be liable to you or any third party for any damages, whether direct, indirect, incidental, special, punitive, consequential or other damages of any kind. Consumers' statutory rights are unaffected.

5. It is your responsibility to comply with the law and the terms of this license. The user will indemnify and hold IFPI, its national groups, suppliers and endorsing parties harmless from any claim or demand, and damages and costs arising thereof, made by any third party due to or arising out of the user's violation of the law or this license.

Remove illegal copies???

[jarich]

And how do they know what an illegal copy looks like? Are they deleting every song on my computer that doesn't have DRM on it?

So the kid with 20 gigs of music he copied off of his CD collection is going to be ~really~ upset when he finds out his Mom ran this program on his computer and wiped out his ~legal~ music collection.

Ok, RIAA, riddle me this

[FatRatBastard]

I have over 1,000 CD's that I have legally ripped (since I have purchased the buggers over my lifetime). How does your software determine that they are "legal," as opposed to an mp3 that I could have illegally downloaded off of the net?

Yeah right...

[Spy der Mann]

"It is free, voluntary and for private use only and does not tip off any antipiracy organizations."

When you release the source code, I might believe you.

huh?

[dsbeav]

So how is this software going to differienate between the legitmate stuff I ripped from my cd collection in regular mp3 format, and the stuff I might have downloaded from something like bit tor?

Everybody download this.

[LiquidCoooled]

Then sue the hell out of them when it deletes something it shouldn't.

Old

[someguy456]

This has been "out there" for a few days now. The important thing to remember if you didn't even read the blurb is that it is %100 voluntary! You have to go and download this program intentionally in order for it to delete your files

We know what's best for you!

[Blindman]

If I understand this correctly, they are freely providing software that will go through your system and make modification that the software's author thinks are best for the author. Isn't that called a trojan horse program?

Last time I checked

[WillAffleckUW]

it was highly illegal to destroy or alter a consumer's legally purchased or used software without a warrant. And Open Source software is legally purchased pursuant to it's license requirements.

Not only that, but the new anti-spyware law says software which harms or damages a computer is illegal as well ...

Or did I miss something and we live in Red Russia now under Comrade Bush?

Does it send any data back to them?

[CyricZ]

Has anyone checked to see if this program sends and data back to remote servers possibly operated by the media cartel? Could it report back any potentially copyright-violating files that have been found, along with other information (ie. perhaps copies of documents, images, spreadsheets, etc.) that may contain identifying information? A trojan of sorts, one might say.

Re:OH MY GOSH!

[chrismcdirty]

I'd like to know how it differentiates between a legal file and an illegal file. Would it delete my podcasts of a local radio show that are perfectly legal, but distributed in mp3 format? Would it delete a ripped copy of a DVD that I created from a DVD recorder. Would it delete any movie files (mpeg, wmv, avi, mov) I have stored, regardless of their content? Or will it actually perform hashes on every single file stored on the computer that has an extension that could deem it illegal?

Re:Waiting for the crack in ... 10, 9, 8,

[hesiod]

> RTFA - it is voluntary at this point.

I think he means so people can get around it at work, where they don't have any say in what gets installed on "their" PCs.

I just wonder... what if someone renamed all their .MP3 files to .FKU and associated .FKU with WinAmp... Unless the thing tried to read ID3 tags from every file on the disk, I wouldn't think it would know for sure.

P2P programs that remove this software.

[CyricZ]

Indeed, perhaps we will see future releases of P2P clients which remove this sort of software while being installed.

No automatic deletion, apparently

[pjcreath]

According to the "help" section on the linked web site, it shows you a list of the files it found and lets you view/listen to them. Here's what it says about compiling the list:

NOTE: Digital File Check will initially direct you to files in your 'shared folders'. The music, video and image files in these folders are likely to be illegal. When the programme scans for music, video, image and other files in other parts of your computer however, it does not distinguish between legal and illegal copies. It is up to the user to determine whether the files found by the programme were acquired legally, or if the material should be deleted.

So Mom could still delete Junior's legal music if she's not careful. It depends on the default action.

It's not clear to me whether the above means that it does somehow "distinguish between legal and illegal copies" in your "shared" folders (whatever that means), or if it simply presumes they're illegal. It's also unclear to me whether it presumes the other files are legal.

Re:Waiting for the crack in ... 10, 9, 8,

[EvanED]

Wait... wait...

Why iexplore.exe?

Why not add an ID3 tag to itself?

What will happen then?

Why is everyone so stupid?

[Anonymous Coward]

I simply don't get the angry, distrustful reactions here. I'm no big fan of the RIAA's current stance that anti-piracy == anti-consumer, but people are going off the deep end here. This is not an evil scheme. This is not a trojan horse. This is not someone else imposing their will on you. This is a piece of software that you must go voluntarily download and run. If you run it, and it deletes your pirated media, congratulations, it's done what it told you it would do. If this isn't what you want, don't run the fracking software! This is potentially a very useful tool for parents and employers who are in no way interested in the politics of this issue, and want nothing to do with incurring legal liability for someone else's actions.

It's been tried in the Netherlands

[suss]

The idiots at Brein released a similar "tool".

Basically, all it did was indiscriminately delete all your *.mp3, *.avi, *.zip (!) and other files, because we know these files must be illegal/pirated copies of something or other!

Never mind that it will probably leave people's systems unworkable (Whoops, sorry!)...

Joe's Garage

[chochos]

So Frank Zappa was right all along... his words now sound prophetic, don't they?

This is the CENTRAL SCRUTINIZER...it is my responsibility to enforce all the laws that haven't been passed yet. It is also my responsibility to alert each and every one of you to the potential consequences of various ordinary everyday activities you might be performing which could eventually lead to The Death Penalty (or affect your parents' credit rating). Our criminal institutions are full of little creeps like you who do wrong things...and many of them were driven to these crimes by a horrible force called MUSIC!

Our studies have shown that this horrible force is so dangerous to society at large that laws are being drawn up at this very moment to stop it forever! Cruel and inhuman punishments are being carefully described in tiny paragraphs so they won't conflict with the Constitution (which, itself, is being modified in order to accommodate THE FUTURE).

Hah

[GarfBond]

If this is anything like the one RIAA had for parents a while back, it should be nothing short of hilarious. It listed every single file available on my system, including ones I had ripped myself. What really surprised me though, was that it listed the .VOB files off of the DVD that was in my DVD drive. THE FILES ON A READ ONLY MEDIA INSIDE A DISK DRIVE. Are they telling me my purchased DVD is all of a sudden illegal?

Transfer of Liability

[vmcto]

So let me get this straight. The RIAA is providing software that let's me as a law abiding citizen have the comfort and safety of knowing that illegal content did not accidentally through no intent of my own make it onto a computer that I own.

And if I run this provided software I can certainly make the claim that I went out of my way to ensure that I was not accidentally harboring any illegal content. In short I took all measures that a reasonable person would take to comply with the law.

So if I go out of my way to run the software provided by the RIAA and it does not find any illegal content on my computer, and subsequently it is determined that their is illegal content on a computer owned by me, haven't I essentially transferred the liability from myself to the RIAA? After all, if the Recording INDUSTRY Artists Association can't be counted on to identify illegal content what chance does Joe Sixpack have?

I installed and ran the software

[Anonymous Coward]

I _really_ hope no one deletes the files it finds! Note: WIN98 CD is in D: and setup.msi is the installation file for the damn thing!

Munged to avoid stupid /. filters!!!!

Music Files: 88, Video Files: 0

C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\MSHTML.DLL C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\GM.DLS \WINDOWS\JAVA\Packages\RB7HJRRZ.ZIP C:\WINDOWS\JAVA\Packages\XNN9BRHB.ZIP C:\WINDOWS\VPTNFILE.659 C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM.DATC:\WINDOWS\TEMP\DFC_Setup.exe C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\Identities\{45559555-A55D-1559-855C-B2344675E 675}\Microsoft\Outlook Express\Inbox.dbx C:\WINDOWS\Desktop\wz100beta.exe :\WINDOWS\Desktop\mplayerc.exe
C:\WINDOWS\Desktop\bestof.pdf
C:\WINDOWS\Desktop\dwl122_driver_101.zip
C:\WINDOWS\Desktop\logmein.zip
C:\WINDOWS\Desktop\vadermask.wmv C:\WINDOWS\Desktop\JournalWinter05Web.pdf
C:\WINDOWS\Installer\347333b.msi C:\WINDOWS\TMADCE.ptn
C:\WINDOWS\AU_Backup\3\16777216\backup.000 C:\WINDOWS\lpt$vpn.659
C:\My Documents\nuvatime.exe
C:\My Documents\ow32enen850.exe
C:\My Documents\zlsSetup_60_667_000.exe
C:\My Documents\PRO98ME.exe C:\My Documents\logmein.msi
C:\My Documents\mame096b.zip C:\My Documents\fp-win_316b_m.exe
C:\My Documents\setup.msi C:\My Documents\MicrosoftAntiSpywareInstall.exe
C:\My Documents\MagExp3.exe C:\My Documents\winzip90.exe
C:\My Documents\forensic acquisition utilities-bin-1.0.0.1034 (beta1).zip
C:\My Documents\katrina_sample.mpeg C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\VGX\vgx.dll C:\Program Files\FSI\F-Prot\sign2.def
C:\Program Files\Uninstall Information\ieupdate\ieupdate.DAT
C:\Program Files\Uninstall Information\oeupdate\oeupdate.DAT
C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\ie6bak.DAT
C:\Program Files\Outlook Express\msoeres.dll
C:\Program Files\WinZip\WINZIP32.EXE
C:\Program Files\InstallShield Installation Information\...}\data2.cab
C:\Program Files\InstallShield Installation Information\{...}\sign2.def
C:\Program Files\Opera\Opera.dll
C:\RECYCLED\DC2\Windows\PROSet2\IA32\PROSet.msi
C:\Tools\ra\template.rab D:\add-ons\pws\msmqocm.cab
D:\add-ons\pws\mts1.cab D:\cdsample\demos\agex\msaoex.exe
D:\cdsample\demos\golf\msgolf99.exe D:\cdsample\demos\mcm\msmcm.exe
D:\cdsample\demos\money\moneyweb.exe D:\cdsample\demos\mtm2\msmtm2.exe
D:\cdsample\demos\pinball\mspinbal.exe D:\cdsample\sampler.exe
D:\cdsample\videos\barneysw.avi D:\cdsample\videos\combat.mpg
D:\cdsample\videos\encrs.mpg D:\cdsample\videos\golf99.mpg
D:\cdsample\videos\hompub99.mpg D:\cdsample\videos\keyboard.mpg
D:\cdsample\videos\mcmi5.avi D:\cdsample\videos\mon99.mpg
D:\cdsample\videos\mouseall.mpg D:\cdsample\videos\mpt2.mpg
D:\cdsample\videos\mtm2.mpg D:\cdsample\videos\open.avi
D:\cdsample\videos\phone.mpg D:\cdsample\videos\photo.mpg
D:\cdsample\videos\pinball.mpg D:\cdsample\videos\rome.mpg
D:\cdsample\videos\swfree.mpg D:\cdsample\videos\swwheel.mpg
D:\cdsample\videos\varcade.mpg D:\cdsample\videos\works.mpg
D:\drivers\audio\aureal\aurealgm D:\drivers\audio\ess\legacy\plat2meg.img
D:\drivers\display\3dfx\banshee\3dfxspl3.dll
D:\drivers\webtv\intercst\iit22020.exe
D:\tools\reskit\help\rk98book.chm
D:\win98\ols\aol\aol40au.exe
D:\win98\ols\aol\aol40ca.exe
D:\win98\ols\aol\aol40uk.exe
D:\win98\ols\aol\aol40us.exe
D:\win98\ols\at&t\attkit.exe
D:\win98\ols\csi\ukkit.exe
D:\win98\ols\csi\uskit.exe
D:\win98\tour\overview\~intro\opening.wav

P2P Applications:

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