Forum Archive Index - September 2000

["Jeremy" <jeremy@electrosilk.net>]

A couple of weeks ago there was some NZ fellow touting his wares on this
list that would be 'significant' in producing copy-protected on-line music.

The following URL http://www.hacksdmi.org/ is run by a conglomeration of
200+ organisations with a significant interest in on-line music protection.
Basically they want people to try and hack their various offerings to
determine which product has the greatest chance of success.

The significance for the sharechat list is whether the fellow who was
soliciting interest, and perhaps investment, in his proposed products is a
member of the SDMI and his products are actually being tested.  In the
meantime there are 200+ groups doing precisely the same thing and actually
being up-front about what they are doing.

I suggest that unless a music protection product is rigorously tested in the
public domain and comes through with flying colours then it is not worth
investing in.

If that fellow comes back and comes up with a succesful test program for his
product rather than "we have secret technology that we can't tell you about"
then perhaps you should take an interest.  Otherwise piggy banks look
attractive...

As an aside.  The proposed schemes by the SDMI basically rely on
watermarking.  That is putting a slight change in the digital representation
of a music item to show who produced it in an inaudible way.  This is of
course a WOFTAM.  All watermarking can do is show that you have a specific
copy of the orginal piece.  This makes it marginally easier to prosecute
someone for copying that piece of music.  It doesn't stop me from copying
the piece 10 times and giving copies to my mates.  It doesn't stop someone
downloading a copy using a fraudulent card and publishing it on 1000 sites
that have no idea that a pirated copy has been placed there.  Basically it
doesn't stop 99.9% of all music piracy.

J.



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