Re: [dvd-discuss] Gedankenexperiment

[Stephen L Johnson <sjohnson(at)monsters.org>]

On Oct 26, "D. C. Sessions" wrote:

> Please shoot this down on either technical or legal grounds:
> 
> The MP3.com "my MP3.com" model, where MP3.com kept pre-ripped
> copies of music for customers who already had the CDs, *probably*
> could have been made resistant to legal objections if the copies were
> encrypted.  "Encrypted how?" you ask.  Suppose that they were
> symmetrically block-cipher encrypted using the RC5 checksum of the
> original track.

The original scheme should have been sufficient. User's could not access the 
MP3 files unless they has the proper key. The key was the original CD. The 
client software ask for the CD in order to check it against stored fingerprint 
information.  Once the CD was verified, that CD addded to the user's locker.

IIRC, the whole court case results from a very _literal_ reading of the 
Copyright statutes. MP3.com created copies of the original material intending 
to profit from their use. And they didn't give the Record Labels a cut of the 
action.

My own personal opinion is that MP3.com would have has a better chance, if 
they mad their users' upload their own MP3's. And using their application 
secure to ensure that user only has access to their MP3's.

In the end bits, are bits irregardless of how they were created. The same 
files would have would wound up on MP3's servers, if they (MP3.com) or the 
users put them there. This, to me, is just another example of how copyright 
laws need to reinterpreted, or updated, for today's realities.

> 
> Trivially easy to extract and keep on a keyring if you have the original
> CD, annoying enough to break if you don't.  Of course people could
> trade checksums, but then they can trade tracks too.
> 
> (Yes, somewhat OT but at least less so than the spam discussion!)
> 
> -- 
> | I'm old enough that I don't have to pretend to be grown up.|
> +----------- D. C. Sessions <dcs@lumbercartel.com> ----------+
> 

Stephen L Johnson <sjohnson@monsters.org>