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Berman Bill Dead in the Water? 210

Posted by timothy from the hope-it's-deep-water dept.
Masem writes "Last summer, Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) introduced a bill that would legitimize computer attacks by copyright owners on those users that they believed were illegally trading copyright material; the bill recieved a fair amount of criticism for the potental viligante tactics it suggested. That session of Congress ended without resolution of the bill, though Rep. Berman promised to reintroduce it this session. However, the LA Times reports that support for the bill is nowhere as strong as before, and many believe that laws already exist that allow copyright owners to punish illegal traders; as a result, Berman appears to be unwilling to support the bill further. For example, while the MPAA supported the bill, some of the liabilities introduced into it to punish those copyright holders that went too far in their attacks were too much for the Hollywood group." Unfortunately, the LA Times site requires registration.
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Berman Bill Dead in the Water? More

Berman Bill Dead in the Water?

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  • Eh ... (Score:4, Funny)

    by snack-a-lot ( 443111 ) on Monday February 24, 2003 @05:19PM (#5373272)
    Who is Berman Bill? And why should I care if he drowned?
    • He's a bad man and he should be stopped before he starts attacking computers and potentially computer users who pira... *looks away from computer* Hey, who are you? GAAAAHHHHHH! *Blam. Blam.*

      Here's your reciept for the potential cyber P2P terrorist... We found a copy of 'William Shatner sings Mr. Tambourine man' under the title of 'awesome lord of the rings matrix spoof'

    • Who is Berman Bill? And why should I care if he drowned?

      He's the scriptwriter on Star Trek, and if drowns the next movie won't suck quite so bad...

  • LA Times password (Score:5, Informative)

    by polyiguana ( 76056 ) on Monday February 24, 2003 @05:20PM (#5373284)
    Username/password laexaminer/laexaminer.

    Or I could just post the whole thing.

    Rep. Berman May Not Revive Internet Piracy Bill
    By Jon Healey, Times Staff Writer

    Rep. Howard L. Berman said he may abandon his controversial proposal to help Hollywood battle Internet piracy, in part because of complaints from an unexpected source: Hollywood.

    Berman (D-Van Nuys) introduced a bill in July to give movie studios, record companies and other copyright holders limited immunity from lawsuits if they used technology to block piracy on file-sharing networks such as Kazaa or Gnutella. The immunity would not have applied to tactics that damaged users' computers or legitimate file-sharing activities.

    The measure, which died when Congress adjourned last year, drew heavy flak from consumer advocates who said it would encourage copyright owners to become network-snarling vigilantes. Nevertheless, Berman was widely expected to try again this year with a revised version of the bill.

    This week, however, Berman said he may not revive the measure. For one thing, copyright holders may not need extra protection to combat file-sharing piracy, he said. And though Berman wasn't deterred by complaints from consumer advocates, the concerns voiced by Hollywood studios -- among the biggest beneficiaries of the bill, given their active anti-piracy efforts online -- suggested that Berman was climbing out on a limb by himself.

    In particular, Hollywood's enthusiasm for the bill was dimmed by Berman's insistence on imposing new liabilities on copyright holders that go too far in attacking pirates. "And if they're not for it," Berman asked, "where am I going?"

    His comments came in an interview at a conference on copyrights and consumer rights at Intel Corp. in Santa Clara, Calif. "It still may be worth doing," Berman said of the proposal, "but realistically, a bill like this isn't going to zip through Congress."

    Rich Taylor, a spokesman for the Motion Picture Assn. of America, said "the essence of the legislation makes all the sense in the world." However, some MPAA members were concerned about the new liabilities, and some doubted the need for the bill, he said.

    "There were no self-help actions being taken in violation of state or federal laws," Taylor said.
    • Is it just me, or does this strike anyone else as ominous:
      copyright holders may not need extra protection to combat file-sharing piracy

      Is this a refernece to things such as Palladium, "Trusted Computing", and DRM?

    • Requisite Google link... (Score:4, Informative)

      by sleepingsquirrel ( 587025 ) <Greg@Buchholz.sleepingsquirrel@org> on Monday February 24, 2003 @05:32PM (#5373423) Homepage Journal
      Or the ever popular google cache here [216.239.53.100]
      • So, how does Google get it in their cache if the site requires registration? I think it may be time for my browser to start identifying itself as "Googlebot"...
        • OK, probaby not the whole answer, but this article [editorandpublisher.com] points out that...
          Google News already has made arrangements with some leading news sites that use registration schemes -- such as The New York Times. Google News users who click on links to NYTimes.com articles at Google News go directly to the article -- there's no intervening registration screen -- even if they're not already registered at NYTimes.com. This works, explains product manager Mayer, because the site allows Google's spiders to crawl its content and include links in the Google service. When a non-registered user hits a NYTimes.com page, the site will recognize that it's a referral from Google News and serve up the content
          So it looks like should be possible to roll your own brower that makes all of your connections to nytimes.com to appear to be coming from google. Wait a minute, it looks like someone [mozdev.org] is already doing just that.

    • LA Times password - 2nd tier Karma Whoring (Score:5, Informative)

      by dubiousmike ( 558126 ) on Monday February 24, 2003 @05:36PM (#5373459) Homepage Journal
      I usually find that

      username: nopass

      password: nopass

      works on most newspaper sites....
      pretty easy to remember...
      :P

      • I don't mind the NYTimes reg'n -- it's quick, easy (all of 3 fields required, no silent signups, NO spam), and not at all intrusive, and if something goes wrong, a *live human* answers your inquiry. OTOH the LATimes reg'n is a downright obnoxious process. Last time I looked, it wanted a crapload of personal info and took a lot of care to be sure what the hell you were signing up for -- bad enough that I complained to the webmaster (without result).

    • ... that it is only the originator of the bill (or, optionally, some other mega-corporation) that can actually *stop* the bill.

      And though Berman wasn't deterred by complaints from consumer advocates, the concerns voiced by Hollywood studios -- among the biggest beneficiaries of the bill,

      Why is that the only concern is whether some of the big sponsors are against a bill? (I know it's a rethorical question... but still). Who the hell elected this guy, may I ask?

      I think representatives chose to ignore the voters, because they lack competition... I/my family strongly dislike our state Senator. We voted for her opponent, but she was not even close to winning.

  • hrm (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pummer ( 637413 ) <spam AT pumm DOT org> on Monday February 24, 2003 @05:21PM (#5373298) Homepage Journal
    so, what we're saying is, if a hacker makes up a song and slaps a copyright on it, that gives him legitamate reason to hack because "he believed the people were illegally using his copyrighted song???"

    hrrm

    • Re:hrm (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Dr.Enormous ( 651727 ) on Monday February 24, 2003 @05:34PM (#5373442)
      Now now, I'm sure there's a clause buried in there somewhere to prevent the people of the US from enjoying the same right that corporations would have...

      • Re:hrm (Score:3, Insightful)

        by zcat_NZ ( 267672 )
        If I lived in the USA I would definately register myself as a corporation. Then I could pay ZERO taxes (microsoft.com) and KILL people (union carbide / dow.com) and flood p2p networks with crap (riaa.com) and all kinds of other shit that would have a regular person in the slammer faster than you can blink...

        • Re:hrm (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Arandir ( 19206 )
          As a corporation, you get those "privileges". But you as a person do not.

          Taxes: You have to keep your personal funds separate from your corporate funds. In most cases this is done simply by paying yourself a salary. That salary is taxed. If you don't pay yourself a salary, the IRS and SEC are going to start wondering how you're buying your groceries.

          Murder: The perpetrator of the crime will go to jail, and hopefully do the "electric dance". The corporation won't. The person will. You are that person. You commit a crime as a person and you will be tried for that crime as a person.

    • Re:hrm (Score:4, Informative)

      by aborchers ( 471342 ) on Monday February 24, 2003 @06:04PM (#5373725) Homepage Journal
      Assuming you define "hack" very narrowly as disruption of illegal traffic on P2P networks, that is pretty much exactly what the bill says, although there are numerous safeguards against abuse written into it. Specifically, the copyright holder is not authorized to do any damage to a network or computer, only to disrupt their ability to share the copyrighted material. It also explicitly disallows affecting any user that is not participating in the filesharing, which makes the entire act paradoxical because there is no kind of disruption that can be applied without, at minimum, reducing quality-of-service on the Internet as a whole by virtue of the extra packets required to launch the attack.

      I just wish they'd pass a law that says I can divide by zero. That would save me a lot of compiler errors...

  • Berman dead in the water... I wish. (Score:5, Funny)

    by acarey ( 34175 ) on Monday February 24, 2003 @05:23PM (#5373324)
    Damn it. When I first saw this article, I interpreted it as "Rick Berman is now sleeping with the fishes, see?" I couldn't wait to find out the gory details.

    What a let-down.

  • And what if... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Aliencow ( 653119 ) on Monday February 24, 2003 @05:25PM (#5373341) Homepage Journal
    What if I run an Operating system and a firewall secure enough to keep them out. Will then I be guilty not only of pirating, but also of "protecting myself against legal privacy theft" ?

  • Goes without saying.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Monday February 24, 2003 @05:26PM (#5373355) Homepage Journal

    Netcraft confirms it: the Berman Bill is dying

    Another crippling bombshell hit the beleaguered RIAA committee when Slashdot confirmed that support for the Berman Bill was at an all-time low. The Berman Bill is collapsing into complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Slashdot Popular Bill Poll.

    You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict the Berman Bill's future. The handwriting is on the wall: the Berman Bill faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all because the Berman Bill is dying. Things are looking very bad for the Berman Bill. As many of us are already aware, the Berman Bill continues to lose support. Funding has dried up and red in flows like a river of blood.

    All major surveys show that the Berman Bill has steadily declined in voter support. The Berman Bill is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If the Berman Bill is to survice at all it will be among RIAA executives and dabblers. The Berman Bill continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, the Berman Bill is dead

  • Spell check (Score:2, Funny)

    by 47001foo ( 464040 )
    the bill recieved a fair amount of criticism for the potental viligante tactics it suggested.

    viligante or vigilante

  • Why was this even considered? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by KiahZero ( 610862 ) on Monday February 24, 2003 @05:26PM (#5373370)
    In all I've read about the Berman bill, I've never completely understood why vigilantism was considered OK in this instance. For instance, I would not be allowed to shoot a man should he rape my girlfriend; nor would I be able to steal back my property from a robber. Why are copyright holders special? Why is copyright infringement so heinous?
    • I hate to muddy the waters, because I agree with your point. Having said that, I'll do it anyway.

      In the States, at least, you probably could "be allowed" to shoot a man who raped your girlfriend, IF you caught him in the act, had a competent lawyer, and pleaded temporary insanity. ("I wasn't thinking clearly, Your Honor. I just knew I had to stop him from hurting my girlfriend.")

      This would be a very humorous analogy for the RIAA to make when they got sued. (Though in a civil suit it would almost certainly fail.) "But Your Honor, we just didn't know what else to do when we saw 1337h@x0r violating our poor little Britney's copyright. We reacted emotionally to stop him by any means necessary before that poor girl got hurt any more."
    • I do not agree with their reasoning (I've elaborated at least one reason why elsewhere on this thread) but there is a sort of logic to it. It is an attempt to address the problem of millions of technology-facilitated acts of copyright infringement with a technological solution that can only be enacted if normal laws about interfering with computers are suspended.

    • Actually, if you shot someone while he was raping your girlfriend, it'd definitely be considered okay. Self-defense and all that.
      • Actually, if you shot someone while he was raping your girlfriend, it'd definitely be considered okay. Self-defense and all that.

        Err, self-defence?
        I'm sorry, but your right hand does not count as a "girlfriend". :)

        -
        • Self-defense is usually considered to extend to defense of your loved ones, as well.
          • GPL: Free as in Herpes

            That's got to be about the worst analogy I've ever seen.

            GPL source code is required to be labeled as such. You can use GPL software all you like and the GPL doesn't "infect" anything. You can even modify it use it yourself and there's no "infection". Your code never gets "infected" unless you actively decide you WANT to GPL it. Even if you do GPL some of your code it's still not "infected" because you are perfectly free to reuse/re-release your code non-GPL. And of course any further code you write can be non-GPL.

            If you want to mix your code and someone else's code and distribute it then you need that other person's permission. If the other person's code is not GPL then your only choice is to track them down and offer them money. If the other code *is* GPL you have the same option to track the author down and offer them money, plus you have a second option to release your code under the GPL. You have an extra option you didn't have before.

            -

  • what i want to know is.. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by frodo from middle ea ( 602941 ) on Monday February 24, 2003 @05:27PM (#5373372) Homepage
    Had the bill gone thru , would it be then illegal to protect my PC from possible hollywood hacking?
    Can i go to jail for installing a firewall and blocking all ports ?
  • fewr of Our Base will Belong To THEM!! :)

  • His top contributors: (Score:5, Informative)

    by I am Jack's username ( 528712 ) on Monday February 24, 2003 @05:41PM (#5373486)
    Walt Disney, AOL Time Warner, Vivendi Universal, Viacom Inc, News Corp, DreamWorks SKG. - opensecrets.org [opensecrets.org]

    Congratulations, you're voting for politicians who openly take bribes. Back in my days, they at least did it in secret.

    • Congratulations, you're voting for politicians who openly take bribes. Back in my days, they at least did it in secret.

      OR

      It's not that they are bribes it's that the money SELECTS THE CANDIDATES ON THE BALLOT. You assume that these candidates are evil and will vote for anything for money. I assume these candidates got this money BECAUSE they supported these companies' views.

      In other words, what Candidate have YOU supported lately.
    • Disney (Burbank) and Vivendi Universal (Universal Studios Hollywood -- Universal City), Time Warner (WB Studios) are all in his district.
    • Here's a quick and dirty solution:

      Require 'em to print the list (with dollar amounts) of campaign contributors in the voter info booklet. That way those who care enough to vote will have the bribe list where they can't miss seeing it.

  • I believe the LA Times MAY have some of my own personal copyrighted information on it... If only this bill had passed I could break in and find out...

  • Gee, why doesn't this surprise me....? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ShatteredDream ( 636520 ) on Monday February 24, 2003 @05:46PM (#5373533) Homepage
    The US government more than ever is taking a stance against anything resembling terrorism. If it looks like it, smells like it, quacks like it, then by God it wouldn't look too good for ol' fedgov to be supporting it now would it? Lawlessness like this is a form of terrorism and I wouldn't be surprised if Berman's GOP competitor accuses him of various things not the least of which is trying to legalize terrorism by the wealthy against the rest of us.

    On a different note, let the MPAA continue such proposals! The more people see the kind of system they want the more they'll see them as nogoodniks. You win over people on this issue in my experience by showing them over and over again that these aren't cool people, that they're really self-righteous tyrants. I have no sympathy for all of the leftists in Hollywood who have no problem lobbying for Socialism, but who complain when we "redistribute their wealth." You can't impose a welfare state on me and expect me to even give consideration to the idea that I might be doing something unethical by copying copyrighted works for myself or my friends.

  • My Rights Enforced Maybe ??? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by anubi ( 640541 ) on Monday February 24, 2003 @05:46PM (#5373539) Journal
    I consider MY name, address, personal info, medical history, credit records, purchasing data, etc, MY own property. I created it. I own it. I *am* the author of my life. And I claim the copyright.

    This said, does the Berman Bill give me the right to haxor into any site that I believe may be harboring this data?

  • Negotiating tactic (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sphealey ( 2855 ) on Monday February 24, 2003 @05:49PM (#5373571)
    A lot of bills that appear on the surface to be unsupportable and "dead in the water" suddenly appear at the end of a session and get rammed through with no discussion. I would watch this one very closely for those symptoms.

    sPh



  • viligante methods


    Is this like the quote, "We had to destroy the village in order to save it"?


    MjM


    I only mod up...


  • You think that's spit you're drooling?

  • This post is © me and not intended for public display.

    Copyright violation! Pay up Taco or I'll set your servers on fire, run over your dog and then sacrifice CowboyNeal to Lucifer!

  • My Communications w/ My Congressman Over Berman (Score:5, Insightful)

    by aborchers ( 471342 ) on Monday February 24, 2003 @05:55PM (#5373640) Homepage Journal
    I have exchanged numerous emails with my congressman (Rep Robert Wexler, 19th district FL) on this topic, as he is a cosigner of the bill. As recently as this weekend, I received another message from him indicating his ongoing support for the legislation. Perhaps if Berman drops it, this will be the end of the discussion. Nonetheless, /.ers may find this humorous:

    I have repeatedly criticised the bill to him on the grounds that it is prima facie impossible for a P2P vigilante to launch an attack against a file trader without collateral damage to innocents on the same network who necessarily suffer loss of quality of service simply by virtue of having to share bandwidth with one more person (the vigilante). In spite of several attempts to put this idea into much simpler terms than presented here, the message never seemed to get through to him. He remains confident that by writing the law to explicitly forbid damages to nonparticipating networks or computers, that this will somehow make it so. It sort of reminds me of the legends of a proposal in the Indiana legislature (though this is probably just a Kentuckian joke) that pi should be exactly 22/7. It may be physically impossible, but goldurnit, we're gonna write the law anyway!

    So, basically what they would do is pass a law that made it legal for copyright owners to disrupt P2P networks, but write it in such a way that it would be impossible for the vigilantes to exercise that right because they couldn't do so without engaging in prohibited activity: namely reduction in QoS for users who were not participating in the exchange. It's either a fantastic example of pure congressional ignorance of technological (heck, basic physical) reality, or evidence of a level of cynicism previously unimagined; that they would spend all this time tossing a bone to the *AAs with a rubber band attached.


    • In spite of several attempts to put this idea into much simpler terms than presented here, the message never seemed to get through to him.


      Perhaps you could try describing it this way:


      "Police could be authorized to use a shotgun on a gun-wielding murder suspect in a subway car, but even if they were able to kill only the perp, there would still be people injured by stray pellets, suffering loss of hearing from the noise of the blast, subjected to pathogens in the bodily fluids of the gunman, etc ad nauseum."


      MjM


      I only mod up...

      • If the bill permitted bringing down a router or releasing virii, the analogy would hold. However, it only really allows for DoS-like attacks, so anything with that much blood and guts just looks like hyperbole. One of RW's major defenses, and he is correct on this, is that the bill is broadly misunderstood and misportrayed in the media. The problem is that the people who do understand it and see its flaws are drowned out by the hype. That's why I've struggled to form an analogy that explains the collateral damage which necessarily occur with that sort of attack. If the bill does actually come back to life, I may try to work out something involving filling a water main with mud to prevent one customer from tapping the pipe. Otherwise, I'm going to focus my rants elsewhere, particularly on trying to get his support for the Digital Media Consumers Bill of Rights, but of course, that has to first be reintroduced also!

    • Indiana and pi (Score:3, Informative)

      by siskbc ( 598067 )
      It sort of reminds me of the legends of a proposal in the Indiana legislature (though this is probably just a Kentuckian joke) that pi should be exactly 22/7

      Actually, it damn near happened, as it was brought up for debate and passed in the house. The only thing that killed it was the lucky presence of a (real) mathematician who was there for other reasons, who had the time to "educate" the senators.

      Some things never change.

      Also, the math the sponsor introduces is convoluted and wrong, and he came up with 3.2.

      Links: Here [acc.umu.se] and Here [umich.edu]

  • If the MPAA sold artwork and had its way. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by anthonyh ( 35406 ) on Monday February 24, 2003 @05:59PM (#5373670)

    Suppose a piece of artwork in a gallery is copyrighted. You take a picture knowing that doing so is illegal. Perhaps you even do this covertly. You go home and you reproduce the photograph life-size and hang it on your livingroom wall or something. You may show it to a few friends, but you're the only one who has it.

    One evening, armed burgulars hired by the gallery break into your house, and steal the photo from you. Well, maybe under the words of the bill, they might just take photos of the the photo hanging on your wall, but they still broke into your house. Imagine if that were legal. Quite scary.

    Oh yeah, I forgot the part where you go to jail and reimburse the gallery for breaking into your house and pay them whatever damages they incurred from the photo that was hanging on your wall.

    • Terrible analogy. This bill applied to people who were distributing copies of the copyrighted item, not people who had it.

      But yeah, it was a stupid bill. Almost as stupid as Canada's media tax. I blame Canada.

    • You are a bit off. It would be more like if they suspected you had a copy of their artwork, they could break into your residence.

      Say you made an original painting titled "Moaning Lisa" and the MPAA claimed they owned the copyright to a different work called "Mona Lisa" (The famous Mona Lisa with a mustache painted on). The name is similar, so you are immediately suspect. They call their goon squad, who then break into your apartment and smash everything up.

      The next day, a lawyer visits your landlord and demands you be evicted, otherwise your landlord won't have the safeguards of the "safe harbour" provisions of the DMCA and can be sued under copyright laws. You get kicked out and your stuff is thrown into the street. Your only means of appeal is to find your landlord and sign a statement saying you didn't violate copyright laws, to which he has 14 days to respond.

      Oh yeah, and you wouldn't be able to transport anything (not even bread you baked yourself) unless it has a special "MPAA approved" tag on it. Licenses for creating those tags start at one million dollars.

      Don't worry, things are much worse than you think. ;-)

  • Rich Taylor, a spokesman for the Motion Picture Assn. of America, said "the essence of the legislation makes all the sense in the world." However, some MPAA members were concerned about the new liabilities, and some doubted the need for the bill, he said.

    To summarize:

    "We want to be able to attack random networks who we THINK are using copyrighted works - but if we are wrong we shouldn't have to face the consequences."

  • Believe?? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Steve B ( 42864 ) on Monday February 24, 2003 @06:02PM (#5373703)
    many believe that laws already exist that allow copyright owners to punish illegal traders

    Er, it's a plain fact that there are already laws for the punishment of copyright infringement. This makes it sound as if it's an unsolved mystery like sightings of UFOs or Bigfoot.

  • Woulda been the best law ever (Score:4, Informative)

    by briancnorton ( 586947 ) on Monday February 24, 2003 @06:14PM (#5373852) Homepage
    Just imagine, you could justify a DDOS attack on the RIAA because they *might* have a copy of your copyrighted armpit fart.
  • by sending me Speed Doubler 8.1.2 for the mac? Then you can all attack my Powerbook!

    Am I kidding?

  • Perhaps the death of this bill is better for the record industry. Think about it: if the RIAA can hack, then hackers' attention will be focused even more on the RIAA. Instead of DOSing their site, some script kiddie will find a way to *really* do some damage. Hell: it'd be funny to see their latest payola list on tsg [thesmokinggun.com]. I can see it now:
    KRAP: $5000 for playing Avril Lavigne 300 times a day
    WJNK: $10000 for playing anything by Britney

    and so-on.

    Oh, wait, they don't need to pay all those radio stations individually...one check made out to ClearChannel will do nicely these days...

  • I was looking forward to hacking a lot of the RIAA and MPAA computers looking for works Copyrighted by me. Hey, I have plenty of probable cause, they've already posted numerous articles how they use the file trading software to browse for their Copyrighted material, how do I know they didn't download mine off it while they were at it? :)
  • This bill is a good thing. The reason is that in 20 years it will give the courts the ammo they need to say "We don't think congress fully understood the issues or intent of copyright". That assumes that in 20 years the courts will be more enlightended than they are now-- at least I can hope...

    Another issues is it makes hacking legal in some cases and with teh DMCA removing most of thouse rights, any place were tehy are permitted in law at least will allow 1st admendment free speach rights. Soon, publishing info about hacking might be like writing about parts of nukes in the 1950's. It would be entertaining to see 2600 go from "The Hacker Quarterly" to "The MPAA Advice Column"

    I'm not worried about RIAA hacking my system. Its secure and they will just try script kidie stuff anyway. The system might even be a target since I do transfer a few mp3 [ozmp3.com] (but they are local bands who don't like the MPAA and their friends)

  • Here's a good one check out this about CORDS [loc.gov]

    " The U.S. Copyright Office Electronic Registration Recordation and Deposit System is the Copyright Office's system for registering claims over the Internet. Through the Internet, copyrighted works become available throughout the world instantaneously. As copying these digital works becomes easier, copyright protection is imperative."

    Actually this could be cool, however following it to a illogical conclusion there are loopholes for massive abuse. A media file would have a locatable Digital signature that a filtering router could read. Check against a database for known bootlegs and you got your filter. (hmmm, run it on a linux box and finally get some RIAA/Evil use out of those longhaired geeks)

    If no Digital sig is found then implant one and forward the file and new sig so the RIAA can add it to the registry for later review. Cause it could be a new burn of the latest N'Sync song or that one about Fred Durst telling Britney Spears to drop dead. you could plot the movement of files from user/site to user/site and show who gave what to who and when. You end up with a nifty tracking scheme.

    This is a classic 'Man in the Middle' attack, one of those things the RIAA/MPAA wanted to do not so long ago.

    Opps, You would have a way to hit them back. Say your ISP, the UofWhereEver goes and alters a music file with a fingerprint then they are subverting your property. If the file is legally obtained say self-produced then the original artist (you) will have a very clear case for copyright infringement. They will have created and distributed a reproduction of your recording for 'Commercial Gain' (acting as an agent for a speculative RIAA lawsuit), which is 99.94%, exactly the same as your copyrighted material.

    So they have just violated Federal Copyright law by clandestinely adding a digital fingerprint. You can extract this new tag by doing a diff of the file against the orginal. Even a certain lackwitted judge in say Pennsylvania would be able to understand it then.

    yes, this is three - The test continues and I get to offhandedly insult a boneheaded judge, daring contempt of court once more.

  • I don't live in the US. If someone breaks into my computer, they're breaking the law and they'll pay for it. Of course, nobody's going to break into my computer ;-)
  • cypherpunk/cypherpunk

    You'd think these kids'd have learned how to spell "cipher" by now...

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