Hi Eugene,
There are many parts of your recent comments which I disagree with, as
much as I understand them. Some of what you write isn't really clear
to me, and I don't feel like debating each point in detail.
However, here are a two points of clarification, regarding "Napster"
and my definition of "linear media".
Prosecuting consumers who are engaged in low-order piracy, for their
own benefit or perhaps to raise enough money for a six-pack of beer by
flogging a few copies of music to friends is not the same as
prosecuting a company, organisation or person who systematically makes
a product or service which is arguably intended primarily to
facilitate unlicensed replication of copyright material.
I don't support the knee-jerk reaction to the big record companies -
the furious copying of commercially available music as an alternative
to paying for it. From what little I know about this, if Napster are
primarily facilitating this, and especially if they are profiting from
it, then I hope the RIAA win the case.
In my paper at http://www.firstpr.com.au/musicmar/ I define five types
of copying:
1 - Purchaser copying
2 - Listener sharing
3 - Listener theft
4 - Listener piracy
5 - Commercial piracy
1 is necessary for the purchaser to derive full value from their
recorded music. 2 does not reduce sales, since the recipient was not
planning on purchasing the music. Very often it is the best form of
marketing - giving a free sample with a personal recommendation from a
friend from which the recipient can become enthused and so later
purchase from the artist.
3 is the listener avoiding their own purchases by copying. 4 is one
listener doing this on a small scale for others, perhaps for a small
profit.
Someone who directly or indirectly facilitated 3 or 4 as a primary
purpose of their actions (rather than it being just one thing a CD-R
burner can do) is arguably guilty of 5.
But this and quite a bit of this whole discussion is beyond the scope
of a crypto list.
By "linear media" I meant to include text, video, sound and
potentially some other things. For instance, while this may not exist
yet, it would be linear media by my definition: recorded, rather than
interactive, cyberdildonics (electronic control of vibrators and the
like).
The criteria for "linear media" is that the listener/user/consumer
experiences the "product" as a linear set of sensations, which can be
recorded. (Anything which can be recorded can be recorded digitally,
but this is not an essential part of my understanding of what "linear
media" means.)
In contrast, a video game is not "linear media". Although it involves
sound and vision, it also must involve feedback from the player.
Therefore the video game is not recordable, and can only be provided
by some mechanism, such as a computer running a program. That opens
up many more opportunities for copy (or rather *run*) protection.
1 - Program won't run unless it can talk to dongle.
2 - Program won't run unless it can talk to server via the Net.
In both cases, it would be possible, although not necessarily
cost-effective, to reverse-engineer the code and patch it so the real
dongle or Net connection was not required.
To overcome this difficulty, some essential functional element of the
program could be implemented by the dongle or remote server. For the
dongle, this could be quite costly to implement - but potentially very
hard to work around. For instance, a central algorithm of the game is
executed by a CPU running in a tamper-proof card or module (lets
assume this is possible, which it probably is to a high degree with
sufficient expense and careful design). Communications to and from
this buried CPU are encrypted and the card erases the necessary keys
for communicating with it if the device is tampered with, or if it
does not get regular signed messages that the user has paid their
subscription. (There would be many other ways of achieving the same
thing, such as the algorithm's code being in RAM and being erased if
the module is tampered with etc.)
Locating a functional part of the program on a remote server really
does make the player dependent on friendly relations with whoever runs
that server. Unless someone else can write a local CPU program to
replicate the functionality of the remote algorithm, then this
approach is bulletproof. (Or run a replica of the algorithm on
*their* server and charge people to access it!)
As far as I know, watermarking (AKA digital fingerprinting) does not
refer to serial numbers or doing anything to computer programs. It
concerns using steganographic techniques (or similar) to encode secret
data so it is hidden (from human senses and from simple
reverse-engineering efforts) in the noise component of "linear media"
such as analogue or digital recordings of sound or still or moving
images.
- Robin
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Robin Whittle [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.firstpr.com.au
Heidelberg Heights, Melbourne, Australia
First Principles Research and expression: Consulting and
technical writing. Music. Internet music
marketing. Telecommunications. Consumer
advocacy in telecommunications, especially
privacy. M-F relationships. Kinetic sculpture.
Real World Electronics and software for music including:
Interfaces Devil Fish mods for the TB-303, Akai sampler
memory and Csound synthesis software.
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