Re: [7.8.2002 44916] Notice of Copyright Infringement]

["Mark C. Langston" <mark () bitshift org>]

On Thu, Jul 11, 2002 at 07:11:26AM -0500, Seymour, Keith wrote:
> While I don't agree with Threatening letters from large corp reps it's
> better than what it could be. Maybe you should all take a minute and let
> your congressman know how you feel on this issue:  

I wholeheartedly agree.  There's another potential measure that could
be taken, to "muddy the waters", as it were.  Some of you may be
familiar with the efforts the RIAA has taken to seed the various P2P
networks with files designed to deceive the potential downloader into
believing they are full, copyrighted works (see 
http://slashdot.org/articles/02/07/06/0229236.shtml?tid=141
http://www.zeropaid.com/news/articles/auto/07052002e.php ).

One could imagine a scenario in which P2P users begin distributing
"fake" files named provocatively, such that one is led to believe they
contain full copyrighted movie or television works, but in reality
contain static, or perhaps more appropriately someone reading the
text of the decision in the Betamax case.

The technique that the RIAA employs via Overpeer is useful to them,
because they know exactly what files were seeded, and exactly how
they were named.  Rather than attempt to plug the sieve, they've
attempted to poison the well.  If the P2P community were to turn 
the tables on a group like the MPAA by employing similar tactics, 
the group may find it difficult to pursue cases based on a list of 
provocative filenames.

It's not difficult to imagine these tactics, on both sides, being
the first blows in an escalating arms race of content obfuscation.
Eventually, we may see the P2P community availing themselves of
other tactics used by the media conglomerates, such as embedding
weak encryption into the files being shared, so that only those
with the appropriate key can view or listen to the files.  This
key could be kept suitably "secret", distributed only to the
group of people "authorized" to have the key, in much the same
way the CSS scheme works today.  It would be interesting to
see if the DMCA could be applied from either side of the street
in such an instance.


-- 
Mark C. Langston  
mark () bitshift org
Systems & Network Admin 
http://www.bitshift.org