RIAA Unveils Net Tracking Tag for Online Sales 301
openbear writes "A story over at MSNBC talks about the Global Release Indentifier (GRid). It is a code akin to the Universal Product Code (UPC) bar code found on a CD or cassette tape in stores. Each track will be distributed online with an individual GRid serial number and will be reported back to rights societies and collection agencies sold or transferred."
Could this technology (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Could this technology (Score:5, Informative)
Unintentional /. Troll Topic (Score:5, Informative)
For you geeks out there, it is a CLASS_ID, not an OBJECT_ID, meaning that the number will be the same across all instances of the class.
For example, when a consumer goes to hoohaa.com and purchases an audio track from the latest Hoodies album, hoohaa.com's product database will contain an SKU number to track the PURCHASE so that they can report to the vendor how many tracks of that song were sold so that the artists (the "manufacturer") can get their money. It MAY be included in the track itself, but it would make it easier to automate the process, since the product itself can be polled when they put the track up for sale online, and no one has to manually enter the number. The number should not vary from track to track of the SAME EXACT song. They may put in a serial number in the download, but that would be something completely different than what they are talking about here (and easily foiled for piracy tracking purposes).
All they are doing is Standardizing the domain of these ID numbers across the entire industry so that the money from the sale goes into the right pocket. This is ESPECIALLY important where there is no tangible object being sold, and thus, no purchasing audit trail from the reseller to the vendor.
Sounds like a smart system to me, and one that has nothing to do with our "online rights"; at least no moreso than the computer industry standardizing on Tech Data's SKU numbers for ordering computer parts. Hmm. Wouldn't that be cool?
You call yourself a geek?!! (Score:5, Insightful)
He just wants to find out what nifty stuff he can do with it.
sheeeesh!
Seeing how the media companies solutions are always half-baked, it'll be quite interesting to see how this bites them in the ass. And who they point the finger at while trying to deny their own crapulocity.
Play, recapture audio, (Score:2)
Tim Russert Is My Cousin (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Tim Russert Is My Cousin (Score:2)
Jane Fonda Is My Cousin (Score:3, Insightful)
They don't do this for CD's - why online? (Score:2)
Re:Tim Russert Is My Cousin (Score:3, Interesting)
You buy a song online, and the reseller tacks a Global Release Indentifier onto your MP3.
When the RIAA finds your file floating around the global P2P networks, they will read the ID, use it to identify you, and then release the DCMA on your ass.
If you think otherwise, you need to remove the tin-foil hat.
Re:Tim Russert Is My Cousin (Score:3, Insightful)
Bingo! (Score:2)
Somebody finally got it right.
Re:Tim Russert Is My Cousin (Score:3, Informative)
From the spec at:
http://www.cidf.org/japanese/english/docs/ge
"This Identifier can also be used for usage surveillance services called Net-Police, which uses web spider to search out sites that might potentially be infringing content."
The pdf at that URL is *much* better documentation than the news article.
Bobby Brown Is My Cousin (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Bobby Brown Is My Cousin (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes I did, and their explaination smells like week-old tuna. How is the GRid going to stop a retailer from selling more copies than they report back to the record companies? Why does the GRid have to be incorporated as part of the music file? Retailers will have to manage track ids externally to the music file to handle all the companies that don't use GRid. How does the GRid help track sales in any way?
Re:Play, recapture audio, (Score:2)
Re:Play, recapture audio, (Score:2)
and they intend to do this how? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:and they intend to do this how? (Score:2, Interesting)
cue the rimshot... (Score:2)
Which side is MSN on? (Score:5, Insightful)
A music industry trade body launched on Monday electronic identity tags to keep tabs on Internet music sales in a bid to compensate musicians and song writers as more of their works become available online.
If that isn't leading I don't know what is. They specifically do not mention the RIAA and are trying to portray it as compensating the poor artists as opposed to saving music industry executive's asses.
Re:Which side is MSN on? (Score:2, Insightful)
Ahhhaaa (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ahhhaaa (Score:2)
OK, offtopic I know so mod me down if you really feel you have to, but please explain this your signature to me...
(B) + (D) + (B) + (D) = (K) + (&)
??Re:Ahhhaaa (Score:2)
in other news (Score:5, Funny)
Why Thankyou RIAA (Score:4, Funny)
Yet another reason not to buy CD's anymore!
Not that there is much worth buying these days anyhow
Wonder whats next?
"Sir, we're happy to sell this new album to you - just piss in this specimin jar and supply a drop of blood on the application provided..."
Jeez!
So, You Think RIAA Music Is Crappy? (Score:2)
Have you heard me sing in the shower lately?
That would change your mind.
I just got a $200.00 surcharge on my rent because the landlord had to replace the full length bathroom mirror that broke while I was singing.
Such as life
This is news? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure how they plan on compensating artists with this plan, since there doesn't seem to be a *payment* mechanism. It strikes me as a first step towards 'Music Audits' in which a hard drive is scanned for the works of particular artists.
--v
Re:This is news? (Score:2, Funny)
Simple (Score:2)
Re:This is news? (Score:3, Funny)
Proper terminology (Score:2, Funny)
firewall. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:firewall. Works great (Score:3, Insightful)
Best to wait for the crack.
Re:firewall. Works great (Score:2)
WinXP?! Because...?
Best to load a different OS, no?
Light a candle rather than curse the darkness, and all that...
Steganography? (Score:2, Funny)
"This mp3 was stolen.
This mp3 was stolen.
This mp3 was stolen.
This mp3 was stolen... and she loves me!"
Bad Journalism 101 (Score:5, Insightful)
Industry "fact sheets" make reporting so much easier. Now I have time for another nap.
Re:Bad Journalism 101 (Score:4, Insightful)
It's totally different from a UPC (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It's totally different from a UPC (Score:5, Informative)
We tried to use actual UPCs, but they are only 12 digits. 6 Are the manufacturer ID, 1 is the classs of the item and 1 is a checksum. That only leaves 4 digits for the SKU - only about 10,000 items. We called UCC (the UPC equivilant of ICANN) and asked for 400,000 numbers, because we figured that would cover something like 90% of the music sold in the US. UCC said, "You realize, if you have a bin of screws, you don't put an individual UPC on every screw, you just assign a number to the bin, right?" We explained that we knew that, and that we really did expect to have 400,000 individual, unique items for sale. They said, "We don't think UPC is the solution for you." So we made up our own SKUs, and gave those to our licensees.
Remember that you need one for the album and one for each song - an an average of 13 per album. Every format you provide that in gives you another set of numbers. So, for example, if EMusic wanted to license its 150,000 song catalog in 128kbps MP3, 256kpbs MP3 and Windows Media, in songs and albums, it'd need nearly 500,000 numbers. And EMusic isn't very big, in music terms. If they need half a million, it's very easy to imagine someone really big might need millions. As all programmers know, you should figure out what the maximum amount you could every possibly need and then increase it by at least an order of magnitude.
Re:It's totally different from a UPC (Score:3)
The aim is to track each time a record label, online retailer or distributor such as Microsoft's (NASDAQ:MSFT) MSN or Italian Internet service provider Tiscali (MI:TIS) sells a song in the form of a Web stream or download. (emphasis mine)
It's still tracking each sale, and by extension, each buyer. Also, they are charged for their ID's annually... that's either the licensing model (fixed number of ID's, yearly cost), or they expect to sell millions of ID's per year (which I'm not sure the music industry puts out millions of songs/format combinations per year).
Re:It's totally different from a UPC (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, it's worth noting that I doubt they'll "sell millions of IDs per year." The design of IDs like this aren't that the merchant makes them - merchants will get the numbers from the record companies. The RIAA will tell a record company or destributor, "Your prefix is 12345" and this is a 16-digit number, you can make up everything after 12345." The record company or distributor will tell the merchant, "every time you sell this song, put a tick mark next to 1234567890123456 and tell us once a quarter how many you sold." This makes merchant's lives easier because they have unique identifiers for everything in thier system, and it makes it a lot easier to do stuff like figure out top-40 rankings across multiple distributors since everything has a unique string.
If this seems to contradict anything I said in my previous post, please remember that EMusic is unusual in this model - they are a retailer, but, under the covers, they're a music distributor. They license the music they have from artists, and have the ability to re-license it to others. So, in that sense, they're more like a distribution company, and need their own UPCs (or GRips or whatever). When people like Tower think about doing downloadable music, they'll still need a license (that's the law) but they're not thinking redistribution, so they'll be getting this magic number from the licensor.
Again, bottom line, I think that imbedding a unique tag in songs is something some people would like to do, and it's something to keep our eyes open for. But I don't believe this is to do anything except literally to be an online UPC - to give each unique type of item a globally unique identifier. Certainly anyone selling downloadable music could imbed a unique transaction cookie now. Numbers are cheap, you don't have to pay the RIAA to give them to you. Anyone wanting to track individual downloable sales now could put a unique 128-bit cookie into a song and sleep well knowing there'd never be a collision.
You're right....but could this be a compromise? (Score:2)
So, how about this - mp3's have tags in them, and if your stuff shows up repeatedly online, then you eventually get busted. In return, NO copy protection is used, and you can have copies anywhere you want, so long as you don't share them. No spyware either.
Honestly, I think that's the best deal we're likely to get.
Re:You're right....but could this be a compromise? (Score:2)
Fair Use vs. Piracy (Score:3, Interesting)
I think, as someone mentioned in reply, that the difference is one of scale - if they were to only go after the big fish, it would effectively weed out the pirates from the multiple site users. One brightline would be a P2P server - that can pretty much be assumed to be piracy in most instances (if the RIAA can SEE the server, it's public)
Naturally, what this comes down to is "will they EVER endorse fair use." My plan assumes they do, or would - after all, if they can nail pirates, what's the harm in fair use? It completely negates all their arguments except one...namely, that they want us to buy a separate copy for every place we want to listen to the song.
I didn't express it well in my original post, but if the community accepts the tags, it would serve as a perfect litmus test for where the RIAA stands on fair use when the spectre of piracy has been dealt with. In other words, I like the tags idea because it strips them of excuses. We know that "anti-fair-use" is already the position of the MPAA, as Jack was kind enough to provide great quotes like "What is fair use? There's no such thing..." and "If you lose your copy, you buy another..." Let's see where the RIAA stands on this when piracy goes out the window.
Re:You're right....but could this be a compromise? (Score:5, Insightful)
They lost their right to have me give them the benefit of the doubt years ago.
Re:It's totally different from a UPC (Score:2, Interesting)
This way RIAA/whomever can see who "owns" that track in both senses. Who gets paid for it, and who paid for it.
Re:It's totally different from a UPC (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't any of you fools read the article? (Score:3, Insightful)
All this is is a way to track online sales of individual tracks. Nothing to do with CDs, P2P, etc.
Yeah right! (Score:2)
in a bid to compensate musicians and song writers as more of their works become available online
Oh wow! They're expressing concern that the money goes to the artists... did I miss something here?
More like they want to be able to track exactly how much is due to them, while still screwing the artists concerned... funnily enough 'GRid' sounds like an Aussie way of telling the RIAA to go crawl back down into the hole they came from.
this really isn't a threat to p2p music sharing (Score:2, Insightful)
the same folks who still can't develop a business model that allows for quick and easy digital delivery of songs.
the mp3s i make from discs i buy, on the other hand, will have no Grid tags, so this really isn't a threat to p2p music sharing as we know it; it means that we (theoretically) won't be able to trade tracks we've downloaded from sony.com.
well, who needs them anyway?
besides, this stuff is pointless, they'll never be able to close the anolog hole.
I RTFA and see that... (Score:2, Interesting)
But honestly, once it hits P2P, that doesn't matter since it'll be all over the place in a matter of hours.
Online sales? What online sales? (Score:2)
Oh, that;s good then (Score:5, Funny)
Jessop cautioned that GRid is not designed, nor is it intended for, keeping track of songs that wind up on online file-sharing networks
So really, they have just figured out a way to do this:
resellers would be charged an annual fee of 150 pounds ($245.10)
Yeah, that sounds about right.
So... (Score:2, Insightful)
Jennifer Lopez Is My Cousin (Score:4, Informative)
Damn eyes.. what are they good for? (Score:5, Funny)
When I first read that, I thought it said British Pornographic Industry.. that sure changed the tone of the article...
Re:Damn eyes.. what are they good for? (Score:2)
this would be cool.. if it worked (Score:3, Funny)
Now, the flipside is that this is the RIAA. They probably have a devious use for the ID, probably just so they can prove they have a system in place. Whether or not they'll be manipulating the numbers in their favor and implementing a tracking system is another question, but knowing their past history, it wouldn't surprise me.
And finally, was I the only one, or does "International Federation of Phonographic Industry" look like "International Federation of Pornographic Industry" on first glance?
... if it didn't penalize small outfits (Score:2)
Who wants to bet that some big retailer is going to charge smaller outfits for the privilege of using the big retailer's tracking tags? If I were a small music publisher, I'd cook up my own open-source solution. Form a consortium, charge $50 for a block of 100 numbers & associated database space, create a new IDv3 tag for MP3s & put out code that would allow users to buy music by clicking on the tag. The only reason for the consortium to exist is to keep track of the numberspace (like with UPC and EAN), and help standardize the incorporation of the open-source numberspace into as many pieces of software as possible.
Why give the RIAA another $250 a year to persecute filetraders and destroy fair use rights, when for $50, you can help promote a workable system for buying music on the fly (even streaming music)?
Re:this would be cool.. if it worked (Score:2)
It's called "reading the article". You should try it sometime....
I don't think so... (Score:5, Insightful)
These people seriously underestimate the resolve of teens.
My kid is 17. Here is what he tells me. He won't buy CD's because if a CD has a song that he likes there will be 12-15 songs on there that he thinks SUCK. In other words he's paying ~$15 for ONE SONG. He would rip that one song to HDD and compile his own CD to use in his car with only the songs that he likes.
But, at ~$15 each and being limited by law to only working a max of 20 hours a week at minimum wage he can't afford too many CD's.
Thus enter Kazaa. He can leech all the songs he wants for free and burn his own mixes for his car that suits his taste.
And forget that stuff about buying music online, he can't do that as a kid and I don't have or use any form of banking system. I live strictly by GREEN CASH ALONE and have nothing at all to do with any financial institute in any form. Despite that fact, even if I did have credit cards or bank accounts I would never use them online for any reason, ever. Nor would I permit him to use my accounts.
Kids are smart, far smarter than the people that try to maintain their grip on the music industry.
NOTHING that they can devise will stop piracy, ever. If something must be paid for there will always be someone that will find a way to get it for free.
The digital age is Pandora's box. It's been opened and there is no closing it now.
I predict to see a tool to strip the tags on freshmeat the next day..
Re:I don't think so... (Score:5, Funny)
Cool. If this gets out, I bet he'll have LOTS of friends who want to come over and play -- say, dig in the yard, play hide and seek in Dad's bedroom...
Re:I don't think so... (Score:2)
But, at ~$15 each and being limited by law to only working a max of 20 hours a week at minimum wage he can't afford too many CD's.
Thus enter Kazaa. He can leech all the songs he wants for free and burn his own mixes for his car that suits his taste.
Please explain how a 17-year-old who is limited by labor law from earning enough $$$ to buy CDs happens to have his own car.
Re:I don't think so... (Score:4, Funny)
Gift?
I mean, just because you disdain financial institutions doesn't mean you can't give groovy gifts to your kid.
Slightly, OT:
I'm impressed you're managing to live without financial institutions. But are you pulling a Tony Soprano and stashing cash around the house? In the compost bin? Up in the attic?
I mean, at some point, the volume of green must get a little overwhelming. (Unless you give a lot of gifts and don't let the green accumulate.)
Re:I don't think so... (Score:2, Interesting)
In the past 20 years, music has changed quite a bit. There are many more genres of music nowadays, and many more bands, and many more one-hit-wonder type bands.
The recording industry obviously knows this - most of the big ones have different divisions for different genres, and there are hundreds of smaller companies now that deal with specific styles of music. Despite this, they still try to sell music in the exact same way - you buy an entire album, and get all the songs on it, regardless if you only actually like or want one or two songs. From a consumers point of view, you're now paying ~$15 to be able to listen to that one song.
From the article:
They need to take this as a sign: its time to wake up, start doing what consumers want, and sell individual songs. Obviously, tradional methods for this don't make sense - the overhead in producing a CD (printing, packaging, shipping, etc) with one or two songs doesn't make it worth it. But the internet provides a perfect medium for this by eliminating most of the overhead costs.
The industry is in turmoil right now anyways. The RIAA is bringing lawsuits to everyone they can. Then theres the media companies:
- Sony has their music division, which grosses something like $6 million/year. They also have Sony Electronics, which makes things like portable MP3 players, CD burners, etc. This division grosses $40 million/year.
- AOL Time Warner is another one. Time Warner has an entertainment divison, selling CDs, etc. AOL is an internet service provider, and obviously one of the reasons people use internet is for downloading music.
All of a sudden, it starts making sense why these companies remain tight-lipped about the RIAA's actions and things like the DCMA.(The sony example was originally from the radio show "The Ongoing History of New Music" by Alan Cross, which did a very interesting show a while back on how the music industry works. Sorry, I can't find a link)
Similar to a Custom Watermark (Score:5, Interesting)
How tamper-proof will this be? If all of the on-line sources that will be selling musing/videos/whatever are to be expected to issue these watermarks, the standards would have to be public, or at least very darn near public.
If the standards are even close to being public, perhaps someone could figure out how to remove and or alter these watermarks.
Hmm, very interesting. I buy a song from MSN. I read the file into a scrip that I hacked. I change the watermark in some way. I then turn around and sell it under the table. The buyer takes the song and then in turn sells it, or whatever.
Sometime later, someone gets raided by the SPA,
MPAA, or whatever. They audit the songs. They find a few with the watermark that I altered. Their trail will be lost or steered into some poor victim whose watermark I 'stole' to alter my songs.
A possible solution to this would be to have a secret algorithm to generate the watermarks. This would have to be implemented in tamper-proof chips or, perhaps, a tamper-proof device that goes between your computer and the network; ie; a special NIC card. The card would know who you are and what song you are about to release. It would then generate and record the water mark in it's secret way before the song is sent on its way.
The logistics of this solution would be challenging. The devices would have to be distributed, cataloged, and recorded. Who has which special NIC card would have to be recorded in RIAA'a TIA infrastructure. Of course, this same infrastruction would have to record each subsequent sale/disposal of the card. The security of the cards would have to be impeccible.
Good luck to you all!
Luv
Mark
Re:Similar to a Custom Watermark (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately the music industry is stupid and will insist on making this somehow do copy prevention. That has the totally counter-productive result of providing a pirate with a fast and easy and foolproof method of determining if they have removed the watermark (ie if it plays they have succeeded in removing it).
Who's Taking Bets? (Score:2, Insightful)
I say 6 days from first retail release!
You're pessimistic (Score:2)
Re:Who's Taking Bets? (Score:2)
conspiracy central... (Score:5, Interesting)
The RIAA wouldn't do something so obviously usable as a tracking method and then deny it. They didn't in the past. When they were violating your rights, they were up right and in your face about it. That's why so many people despise them. They don't try to hide what they do.
I think this may be a legit way for them to just track for internal records and all, and yes, I am pretty sure they as well as you have thought about the possibility of tracking individual downloaders with this. But like someone already said.
MP3 -> Wave -> MP3 , no more tracking code.
Or even better
Clean CD -> MP3 , No tracking code.
I think that logic would be clear to anyone. Including the RIAA.
The sky isn't falling, the RIAA is just playing some games.
Watermarking MP3's (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't think it is a bad idea. At least they are selling the files in MP3 format. The only people who would have anything against this would be those who download music they haven't paid for.
IMHO.
Re:Watermarking MP3's (Score:3, Interesting)
And that was what the SDMI was about - testing how crackable such a watermarking scheme is. This is the kind of thing Ed Felten cracked. If you're a small business, perhaps no one will have bothered to crack it (or didn't think it was right) - but if the RIAA tries it, see how long it takes for a de-watermarker to show up...
Re:Watermarking MP3's (Score:3, Insightful)
Their method is uncrackable to resampling (Score:5, Funny)
True enough, the RIAA spokesman reportedly said "This will have no effect on the quality of the recording".
Point of sale ID (Score:5, Interesting)
You can view this as the thin edge of the wedge in a scheme that will probably work to get a "Palladium" like system in place.
Bob buys track 9 from CD X from Amazon. Amazon records the GRid and forwards the appropriate share to RIAA member reponsible for producing the track. Bob is happy because he was able to access the track.
Later Bob will be investigated for file shareing. He will not have the GRid's to prove he bought the file. The GRid's are not part of the music track. The RIAA will say but "Palladium" can solve that. Bob will ask to have "Palladium" implemented so that he does not have to go to jail.
Vegas Odds (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, unfuck took 24 whole hours. (Score:2)
Re:Vegas Odds (Score:2)
Figure out where it is in the file (beginning/end/n bytes offset). Write a script to zero out those bytes in a WAV (or randomly perturb a little in the least significant bits if that's what it takes).
Shouldn't take more than an afternoon, I'd think. The whole thing can't be that hard--CDs are basically a list of samples. Without more advanced data storage, there isn't much to hide.
I suppose the watermark could be at a random location in each track. That would be harder, but in the worst case: take two WAVs of any song and average the two.
Solution without a problem? (Score:3, Insightful)
It appears this is supposed to be used so that a retailer can be charged correctly for every download they offer. Meaning a standard method of keeping track of online retail sales. To do this they will encode some unique bits in every file sold online. Sounds bogus already. I do not see the connection between me having a unique coded file and tracking total sales from retailers. Where is the discussion about how my number is reported or disclosed to anyone? Seems to me the real goal is to track a specific file after it is downloaded. They find your file on KaZaa, track it to the retail source, they release your name and bingo, full swat team visit. Maybe you would become the retailer and they will charge you the original downloader for every instance of the unique indentifier they can find online.
I'm not some consipracy theory nut but I can not honestly see the connection between tracking sales and a unique number embedded in a file.
Identifier Tags (Score:2)
They do not know that I've taken the brownies and made "Magic Brownies" with some THC stashed in the closet.
I don;t see the GRiD being used to track who downloaded what individual song. All it will show when it shows up on Kazaa is that someone bought this song legally and is sharing a song with a friend or three.
How long will it take for a utility to be released that removes the GRiD from an MP3 or song track?
If the press release is accurate... (Score:2)
No different from the number stamped on a copy of a movie to identify which copy from which master it is. If the movie gets ripped it gets traced back to the movie theater and distributor. If the music gets copied and the tag stays intact they can go bitch to the distributor and the person it was sold to.
Always adding the usual provisos:
1. Does the press release match the reality?
2. Is it one step in a bigger nasty plan?
Provided the answers are yes & no, I think this is reasonable. Anyone have more detail?
Its the Economy stupid! (Score:2, Insightful)
At least (or at last) (Score:2)
fire up the hex editor... (Score:2, Interesting)
Problem solved.
Unique ID's on CDs (Score:3, Informative)
I believe this is why some software includes a key on a sticker that you have to type in. The CD will recognize a whole bunch of keys, but by entering the one on the sticker, you give your software an ID number.
This being said, I don't think we are in immediate danger of getting unique ID's on CDs. Unless someone knows if there's a manufacturing process for writing small amounts of data on a mass-produced CD?
How's this going to work? (Score:3, Insightful)
The next step (Score:2)
The sky is falling, the sky is falling! (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a harmless number & metadata scheme that is intended to identify electronically distributed content since the existing identifiers (e.g. UPC and ISRC) have limitations that don't satisfy the needs of content owners, publishers, and retailers. I was involved in the project so I know first hand this has nothing to do with P2P or consumer tracking.
what's next? (Score:3, Funny)
the analog hole (Score:2, Redundant)
any audio file, i don't care how well you secure it, has to be turned into an audio signal at some point to be understandable to the human ear. at which point, the signal can be copied. this will never be preventable or difficult to do for any vaguely committed technically clueless wannabe music pirate.
you are talking about the skillset and the resource level of your average 13 year old. the same 13 year old who has the deepest desire for pop music, and the least amount of money. put 2 and 2 together and you get the downfall of the riaa right there in a nutshell.
when will the riaa get this clue? i mean c'mon, talk about fighting historical inevitability.
what next? implant digital audio chips in people's eardrums and transmit the data through 802.11/ bluetooth?
wait, forget i asked, i don't want to give the recording industry police any ideas... they are so stupid, they'd probably propose that as a reasonable solution
Sounds like bullshit to me . . . (Score:3, Insightful)
Bullshit.
Why would they have to "tag" a downloaded file in order to pay for that download? The Only thing this does is to allow the seller to provide a way to associate the buyer with a particular file.
People who swap copyrighted files are breaking the law. However, the RIAA is going to assume that the files were traded. It is also possible for files to be stolen from buyer's hard drives.
If all else fails... (Score:2)
Yeah, right... (Score:2, Insightful)
Ahem, soapbox please!
First, the RIAA will lose this one to wise consumers and 120-IQ hackers. Now that we the
Secondly, support for so-called pay-per-download is very mimimal. Pressplay is one example. Countless other music industry-sponsored portals have failed miserably. There is no way this will become as popular (or acceptable) as the current retail system.
And, finally, we have Gnutella {BearShare | Limewire | Morpheus}, WinMX, and more already penetrating the online music "market." It's no wonder that I can download ANY -- and I mean ANY -- song I have ever so desired. The truth of the matter is...there will never again be a reason to purchase a copy-protected or DRM-restricted CD again.
Re:too much... (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with electronic files (say MP3) as commodity isn't just piracy. A retailer could easily sell of 4 copies of a song and only report selling one. 3x free money. Or an interrupted download might be counted twice. Etc.
You would think there is a better way, but this is what they came up with.
Re:too much... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Just... (Score:2)
u r dumb. (Score:2)