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

How will they tell the difference?

[Anonymous Coward]

How do they expect to distinguish between music that I have legally ripped from purchased CDs and music that has been downloaded from a p2p filesharing network illegally? Also, who gets paid if I decide to trade my own material?

I for one have no interest in using proprietary Microsoft encoding formats to bugger up my ripped files, nor do I have any interest in using a portable device that will only play said formats.

Soon we will be paying to hear our own recording

[John Sokol]

I have seen these Automatic Identification of MP3 files mess up often.
Even in scenarios where I record some of my own voice,just me just speaking into a mic and recording it, these systems have misidentified it as some pop song and shows an album cover of this mistakenly identified song.

So it's just a matter of time before they will try to force me to pay to listen to these recording that I make myself when ever this wonderful scheme messes up.

Only a truly evil mind could invent such a scheme.

Re:Sounds good....

[w.p.richardson]

I've never made any bones about it, I won't pay for anything. So it's not like it matters to me one way or another. I have always had one logical consistent position on this - no money for anyone from me.

Re:Sounds good....

[JM78]

So M$ should somehow profit from this because...? Honestly, I didn't RTFA, but this sounds to me like they've patented profiting off illegal content someone else went to the effort to downloaded. And since when does paying the **AA amount to supporting the arts? I could be wrong here but it seems to me they're in the distribution business, not cultural charity.

I can see only one explanation here: You're a MAFIAA spy! Come on, admit it.

Re:Sounds good....

[SanityInAnarchy]

Come back when you actually understand what "whatever inane reason" actually is.

In my case, it arises from wanting to have my media (music, movies, TV shows, whatever) work on open source software, and without stupid restrictions. Note how people who actually buy DVDs are FORCED (yes, FORCED -- they tend to disable the fastforward/skip features) to watch anti-piracy bullshit, while the actual pirates that it's targeted at can either skip over or slice out the parts they don't like?

The other problem is one of paranoia. Simply put, it's partly the stupid restrictions that they've put there now, and partly the knowledge that they could put whatever the hell restrictions they want on it and you can't do anything about it -- unless you've already successfully pirated it, or ripped it using illegal tools (yes, it's ILLEGAL to rip a DVD), so you now actually have a copy that they can't do anything to, ever.

In any case, if I was going to buy music, I'd go buy it directly from the artist, or from a site which gives the artist a good chunk of the price -- more like 50%, instead of a couple pennies.

I cracked it already...

[paynesmanor]

I will just keep transfering the music between my 4 divices before the three uses is up.

Re:Limited Impact. Predictable.

[RobertM1968]

I'm curious... did anyone really stop to consider if this is to bolster Zune sales?

Because if so, then they all seem to have missed one major point/possibility that could be going on behind the scenes...

What if MS is negotiating something with the RIAA? What if the advent of a device like this - that only MS can provide - is the content lock that the RIAA accepts? What if RIAA member companies are thus pressured into not selling to iTunes? (and only to MS and their protected player). What if this is part of MS's attempt at monopoly via patent with the RIAA wholly endorsing them in a way that will cripple the rest of the online music industry?

Just a thought. It could happen... and what two companies are better suited for each other than Microsoft and the RIAA?

GPLv3?

[alexgieg]

Just out of curiosity: does someone know what are the legal ramifications of using a Zune to send a GPLv3 licensed MP3 to another Zune? Isn't the edited version a derivative work made by Microsoft? As a result, don't the anti-DRM and anti-patent clauses take effect, causing Microsoft to both auto-license their DRM technology as well as all the patents covering Zune? After all, I instructed the device to send a file, and it was Microsoft who, instead of doing as I instructed, choose to change it. Or at least, that's how it seems to me.