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.

[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.

[Heir Of The Mess]

This explains that: http://www.motleycrow.com/ImageHost/crunchy17.jpg

Re:Zune

[catbutt]

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

(did you even read the article title?)

Re:Zune

[ilovegeorgebush]

You are correct, they implemented it with the Zune, but this article refers to Microsoft's success at patenting the technology behind it.

Did you read the article?...

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.

Ob Bash Quote

[HungWeiLo]

NES lol
NES I download something from Napster
NES And the same guy I downloaded it from starts downloading it from me when I'm done
NES I message him and say "What are you doing? I just got that from you"
NES "getting my song back fucker"

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.

Re:How will they tell the difference?

[Duhavid]

They have an incentive not to care.

No big deal

[qweqwe321]

They already tried a more primitive version of this with the Zune, and we all know how well THAT one worked out.

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:Sounds good....

[glwtta]

Yes! As a big fan of Microsoft's music, I can't wait to pay them for it.

Re:Sounds good....

[A beautiful mind]

So let me get this straight, you're suggesting that since a lot of us does not want to pay the mafiaa and likes, then we should pay the mafiaa and the likes belatedly? The problem is with the distribution cartel, not at the payment level!

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???

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:Soon we will be paying to hear our own recordin

[sveard]

Or maybe your voice resembles that of Michael Jackson?!

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.

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:Soon we will be paying to hear our own recordin

[Stormx2]

Misidentification isn't the only issue. As discussed before, stuff like this breaks a bunch of licenses (e.g. from bands who license stuff under creative commons sa)

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.

Re:Zune

[mrsteveman1]

"another Zune user's legal squirt onto you"

no comment necessary :D

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.

Should this patent application be approved?

[GeekTwoDotOh]

This one is actually a patent application, not a patent. Also this is part of the Peer to patent pilot, so there is a chance to give feedback on it before it is approved.
The p2p discussion is online right here

So anyone can respond to this...there is still time!

Re:Sounds good....

[moxley]

It's kind of off-topic, semantic, nitpicky, etc -

And I agreed with your point -

- but when pointing out what an idiot someone is, it really hurts your case to not be able to spell "you're."

I cracked it already...

[paynesmanor]

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

Question is, why is this patentable?

[Joce640k]

Why is this patentable?

Re:Question is, why is this patentable?

[totally bogus dude]

Because it happens on a computer, duh!

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.