Microsoft Patents Process To "Unpirate" Music

Unequivocal writes "A new Wired magazine blog entry shows that Microsoft has patented a technique for preventing and reversing music piracy at the hardware level. 'Microsoft and Apple are thinking along the same lines when it comes to enabling users to copy music between their wireless devices. Certain cellphones already allow you to [transfer music] via Bluetooth file transfer, but Microsoft's patented idea would take the concept further, by allowing users to trade MP3s that may have come from file sharing networks to one another, expiring the song on the recipient's device after three plays, unless the user pays Microsoft a fee in order to continue to listen to the track, with a percentage going to the person who provided the song. As the abstract puts it, "even [the] resale of pirated media content [can] benefit... the copyright holder."'"

Comments

A giant leap

[cthulu_mt]

The next big step in DRM is a giant boot in the ass. Thanks bill.

Only device-to-device?

[KingSkippus]

From what I'm reading, it looks like this only applies to device-to-device transfer, a la the Zune's "squirt" feature.

Seriously, in the grand scheme of things, with people downloading tracks from p2p networks and ripping their own CDs, is this going to make an impact whatsoever?

I think not. It sounds like yet another goofy scheme to "enable" (the RIAA's word that roughly translates to "disable" in English) what consumers can do with their players.

Never Willingly.

[Ayanami Rei]

I would never willingly purchase a device with such a misfeature. I'm sure I'm not the only one. Way to shoot yourselves in the foot, Microsoft and Apple.

Re:Never Willingly.

[RingDev]

I don't know... I don't think it's that bad of an idea.

I mean, last week I went to a party. A friend of a friend put a comp CD in and it was some good tunes. Standing in the shade of gray area, I could claim fair use and ask him for a copy of his CD. Or, I could go out and buy 9 CDs to get all of the singles/albums, or I could go to iTunes and buy the 9 songs.

None of these options have an immediate option for me to acquire a copy of the must. With the first option, I have to count on a guy who has likely drank too much to remember to burn a CD for me, who he will likely never see again in his life, so he will have to give the CD to a friend of his who might know that he is suposed to give it to me.

The second and third options both require me to either memorize or write down all of the content of the CD... not to likely while drinking...

The second option also requires me to track down all of the CDs either online or at local stores.

The third option requires me to dedicate my bandwidth to downloading lossy copies from iTunes.

In short, those options all suck. He has the music there, if we have similar playing devices, when not let me cherry pick a few songs off his immediately, then 3 days later when I'm syncing ask if I want to buy them? I get the music legally, after a few days free use, the IP holder gets their due, and even my buddy gets a nickle for pimping a few songs out. Everything sounds reasonable to me. Only thing I don't like about the situation is that some RIAA affiliate is likely getting a bigger percent than the original author. So long as it doesn't block the transfer of non-licensed songs, I've got no objection to adding functionality.

-Rick

Re:Never Willingly.

[ratboy666]

But, such a scheme CANNOT determine if the amount has ALREADY been paid.

If a levy is imposed on flash players (and it is, here), *and* the flash player FURTHER imposes payment... that would be paying twice for material.

Another example. If someone downloads from "iTunes" here, and burns onto CD, they effectively pay for the music TWICE (or possibly THREE times):

1 - the levy paid on flash (possibly Apple players are exempt?)

2 - payment to iTunes

3 - levy paid on CD

Re:Never Willingly.

[Original Replica]

I don't think it's that bad of an idea.

This idea by itself isn't a bad idea. However, when you combine it with the Music Industry wanting Internet Radio to play per listener, it suddenly points towards a very possible and unfriendly future. Pay per Play, on your personal collection. Sure the CDs you already own can't do this, but it's a very small step between: free for the first 3 plays then pay (BG's idea) and pay a small fee every 3 plays in perpetuity. I'm not trying to be all doom and gloom, but with CD sales seriously down, the music giants are getting desperate.

Re:Never Willingly.

[Ucklak]

Just like magazines in the doctors office.

They pay for a subscription, I pay to read it. Next patient/customer pays to read the same copy.

Books shared amongst neighbors or friends also do not continue to pay the revenue stream for the publishers.

I wonder if the publishing crowd would raise their minions of lawyers if PDFs of books were shared among readers just as easily as MP3s.

This DRM is never going to work. It's like the war on drugs and the problem isn't the so called `piracy`, it's the convenience of the format.
If there were an open source DRM format that registers the owner's data within the file, then maybe, but all the players want a cut and they want it to be their format and no one is going to use something that leaves breadcrumbs.

The RIAA realizes that the reaper is sharpening his blade for them. They are not the distribution powerhouse anymore and they have wronged too many artists that do fine without them (e.g., Prince).
The RIAA is of the mindset that if a performer is playing his guitar at a crowded corner in a busy street, everyone who hears his music should drop a coin in his hat.
If I'm entertained, I'd 'buy that for a dollar.' If I'm not, I'd pass on and forget the background noise.

Re:Never Willingly.

[superbus1929]

And let's not forget what happened when Prince said he'd give away his new CD in The Mail on Sunday on July 24!

"It would be an insult to all those record stores who have supported Prince throughout his career. It would be yet another example of the damaging covermount culture which is destroying any perception of value around recorded music. The Artist Formerly Known as Prince should know that with behaviour like this he will soon be the Artist Formerly Available in Record Stores. And I say that to all the other artists who may be tempted to dally with the Mail on Sunday."

They're not even subtle about this anymore. They're openly shaking down their own artists.

Re:Never Willingly.

[gnasher719]

'' They're not even subtle about this anymore. They're openly shaking down their own artists.''

I'd say that the iTunes Music Store is very close to being big enough to support an artist. Remember that Apple could easily afford to pay 70 cents to an artist for every song sold, or seven dollars for every album sold. So if iTMS sales = 10 percent of total sales, it's getting worthwhile for the artist. And since the Apple Inc. vs. Apple Corps court case is settled, there are no legal obstacles for Apple to get into the music business in a big way.

Re:Never Willingly.

[jt2377]

wait a minute.

1. you pay for mp3 player say ipod or zune. it doesn't come with any song. you can put your owned song on those devices but player doesn't come with song. why are you counting the hardware as levy?

2. you buy some tune from iTune. you pay Once!

3. you share your purchased song with someone. you pay nothing and probably get a kickback when the person whom you share your tune with pay for those song.

you only pay ONCE. Where the hell do you pay twice? how does this "1 - the levy paid on flash (possibly Apple players are exempt?)" come into play? ipod or zune cost money and it come with no music. do you expect free ipod or zune when you buy music from iTune?

Re:Zune

[catbutt]

Didn't Microsoft implement this almost a year ago with the Zune? No.

(did you even read the article title?)

The Microsoft Tax

[MenTaLguY]

So, if I've got some Public Domain or CC-licensed songs, they're probably going to fall into the "may have come from file sharing sites" bin.

"Those are some nice Creative Commons media files you've got there. It'd be a shame if something happened to them..."

Re:The Microsoft Tax

[khephera]

Files from legal, DRM-free download sites like http://www.emusic.com/ will probably fall into this trap as well.

Re:Zune

[caffeinemessiah]

Here you go, a pointer to the summary for one who "read the whole article":

unless the user pays Microsoft a fee in order to continue to listen to the track, with a percentage going to the person who provided the song. As the abstract puts it, "even [the] resale of pirated media content [can] benefit... the copyright holder."'"

The key point is that you have a chance to convert "pirated" media to "unpirated" by paying for it. The difference seems to be that the MP3 in question could have been illegally obtained from a file sharing network rather than as the product of another Zune user's legal squirt onto you.

Re:How will they tell the difference?

[Duhavid]

They have an incentive not to care.

What about live free legal music.

[CoJeff]

I see alot about sharing music and if the person who go the shared file will be able to buy it. However I'm a huge live music fan and download stuff all the time. I'd say over 85% of what I have can't be bought in a a store or online store. So why should it be limited to 3 plays/3 days???

Re:Zune

[mrchaotica]

Well, even unencumbered music that you "squirt" gets DRM applied to it (note: possibly in violation of the music's license, if it is released e.g. under certain Creative Commons licenses), so the Zune implements at least half the idea.

Re:Sounds good....

[CoJeff]

There are plenty of FREE & LEGAL sites out there. A lot of bands support trading of live music. So yes I do support the artists. I go to as many shows when they come to town that I can afford. When was the last time you saw a concert??? When you buy a CD it goes to RIAA not the artist. If you want to support the artist go to a concert and buy some merch.

M$-Ballmer Language

[twitter]

did you even read the article title?

There's hardly anything new about protection money. The dialog to unPirate goes like this:

"Hey, that's a nice looking music collection you got there. It'd be a shame if anything bad happened to it. Pay me and you are legit."

It will be a miracle if the RIAA sees a penny of it, and the artist slice will be even smaller, of course, so this hardly unpirates anything.

To use Ballmer language, they got a patent on "squirting" into "the social". It's just as dishonest as it sounds.

So many things wrong with this.

[gillbates]

unless the user pays Microsoft a fee in order to continue to listen to the track, with a percentage going to the person who provided the song.

So, if I read this right, Microsoft has patented making money from copyright infringement of someone else's work.

• If I was the artist, I wouldn't be happy to settle for a percentage of the sale. As the owner of a copyrighted work, I'm entitled to the full sale price regardless of what Microsoft and others may believe.
• As a user, I'd be really angry if this "technology" decided that songs for which I had paid, or worse, recorded myself (as in, me being the artist) were invalid after 3 plays.
• I'm pretty sure that any implementation of the patented invention would give rise to contributory infringement claims against the maker. The whole idea behind this is to encourage others to commit copyright infringement in order to benefit the patent holder, not the artist.

The perfect excuse

[DrYak]

We've been exchanging tunes, photos video clips and whatever over bluetooth between phones and PDAs in Europe, *for AGES*.

Microsoft's patent is now the perfect excuse :
- No sorry, there can't be any piracy prevention over bluetooth for devices from manufacturer X, because manufacturer X sells also their products in the USA, and Microsoft has a monopoly on such anti-piracy implements. Making an anticopy measures on top of bluetooth would cut them from that (lucrative) market because of patent infringement.

Or whenever a vendor tries anyway to "Zune"-ize our bluetooth device in Europe, just reflash it with the American MS-patent-complying firmware.

Limited Impact. Predictable.

[twitter]

Seriously, in the grand scheme of things, with people downloading tracks from p2p networks and ripping their own CDs, is this going to make an impact whatsoever?

The impact of this scheme is limited by poor sales of the Zune. While Apple was able to sell half a million iPhones on it's first weekend, Zune missed it's million player target last month. People don't want a music player that "squirts" expiring music. Part of the reason is because they don't really care to share their music like the MAFIAA thinks they do. The other part of poor Zune sales is that people want to own, not rent, the music they have. They continue to purchase and rip CDs and that is still the major source of people's music collections despite abundant, legal and free music on line. Because of this, they can put up with iPod's lame sharing capability but think very dimly of Zune's ability to disappear music.

M$ can keep their crappy patent - no one is going to buy a device that implements it.