There's a P2P system that uses a similar idea: http://offsystem.sourceforge.net/
Technology to circumvent online copyright enforcement
11–20 of 30 posts
Re: Technology to circumvent online copyright enforcement
#12Wow, you're way overthinking this. If you are responsible for getting a copy of some copyrighted material into the hands of people who don't deserve it, then you are almost certainly liable. It doesn't matter how obfuscated the process or where the bits live.
If you have a copy of Copyright File A and through some actions cause another copy of it to be simultaneously possessed by someone else, then you distributed it.
Re: Technology to circumvent online copyright enforcement
#13Not new, Jason Rohrer even wrote a proof-of-concept implementation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monolith_%28computer_program%29
There is a really good rebuttal to said implementation entitled "What Colour are your Bits?" at http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/lawpoli/colour/2004061001.php (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=506986).
Re: Technology to circumvent online copyright enforcement
#14Not new, Jason Rohrer even wrote a proof-of-concept implementation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monolith_%28computer_program%29
There is a really good rebuttal to said implementation entitled "What Colour are your Bits?" at http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/lawpoli/colour/2004061001.php ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=506986 ).
Quoted from the article:
> Under the lawyer's rules, Colour is not a mathematical function of the bits that you can determine by examining the bits. It matters where the bits came from.
Unless one end of the bits source is from blackbox countries, like China. If you finally get some international cooperation done perhaps the work is already unpopular and no one really cares. Enforcement takes time, and technically in today's unpefect world copyright can be dragged to an unworthy degree.
Re: Technology to circumvent online copyright enforcement
#15Since the OP is talking about XOR, why not use Information Dispersal Algorithms ? I asked a similar question on #askreddit the other day, what if I put the odd bits of a movie on a server in Ukraine and the even bits on a server in Sweden, a special kind of media player live steam the content, reassemble small chunks in memory on the fly and playback it on a monitor directly? Technically I am not pirating the movie u…
This is just a more obfuscated version of the incorrect "BitTorrent isn't infringing" argument.
Distributing half of a copyrighted work is probably still infringement, so whoever is operating those servers would be in trouble.
Re: Technology to circumvent online copyright enforcement
#16Since the OP is talking about XOR, why not use Information Dispersal Algorithms ? I asked a similar question on #askreddit the other day, what if I put the odd bits of a movie on a server in Ukraine and the even bits on a server in Sweden, a special kind of media player live steam the content, reassemble small chunks in memory on the fly and playback it on a monitor directly? Technically I am not pirating the movie u…
This is just a more obfuscated version of the incorrect "BitTorrent isn't infringing" argument. Distributing half of a copyrighted work is probably still infringement, so whoever is operating those servers would be in trouble.
> Distributing half of a copyrighted work is probably still infringement, so whoever is operating those servers would be in trouble.
Which leads to a natural but important question: to what degree of information means copying? Does 1's and 0's also means part of copyrighted work so nobody can use binary?
Also, mathematically, can we build something like probability of copyright?
Re: Technology to circumvent online copyright enforcement
#17Music is hex-data which is complicated to discuss, let's talk about copyrighted code.
here's the scenario: What if some deductive programs (like prolog) happens to compile another piece of code to your code?
First you can't sue a system like prolog (assume the system itself is copyright free)
Secondly you can't sue some deductive code since it's totally different thing, which went through some process and happens to be the exact same as your code.
A perfect example to make myself clear: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=911331
This applies to music as well. Let's talk about .midi files first. I have a sequence of notes which is still playable music, went through a magical convert formula, and produce the exact same midi as copyrighted ones, which step is liable?
In one word, copyright just a label, for a certain static combination of information. And this static state can be generated by infinite alternative legal means, which is why copyright system is ridiculous. The only thing copyrighted in this universe is time. You can't reverse time (at least for now).
So copyright is really a moral issue. People are doing you a favor for your copyrighted works' publicity.
Re: Technology to circumvent online copyright enforcement
#18This reminds me of when Richard Stallman cracked down on CLISP (before it went open-source) for being distributed with, and linking to, a GPL-protected library of some sort. The legal argument of the distributor was that he was providing the library, and it was the user that was linking it. Stallman checked with a lawyer, and apparently the law treats that as a "subterfuge" and that you're "really" distributing only one program, which has only been "disguised" as two (quotes from [1]). IANAL, but I would assume that judges would follow similar lines of reasoning in this implementation, that for practical effects you are "really" distributing a copyrighted file, even if the distribution process at one point happens to involve only a pair of statistically random data[2]. In the limiting case, they can just say that the two files comibined constitute a distribution method, and you'd be hard-pressed to argue that.
[1] http://clisp.cvs.sourceforge.net/*checkout*/clisp/clisp/doc/...
[2] Note that while either file on its own is technically random in a statistical sense, they are not independently random. Even if you XOR in Firefox, the data is only pairwise-independently random, not completely-independently random. So the random argument actually falls on its face.
[N] It also made me think of this, even if it's not directly related: http://xkcd.com/538/
Re: Technology to circumvent online copyright enforcement
#19There are an infinite set of mathematical tricks available here, some of them so obfuscated that enforcement would probably need a few years to catch up. Not to forget that printing a hard copy of the bytes of an MP3 may even warrant you free speech protection (remember the reaction to the DeCSS legal issues, like printing it in T-shirts).
Encryption and obfuscation barely slows down enforcement at all.
1. Install the P2P software du jour.
2. Download some infringing content.
3. Notice what IP addresses the software talks to. (e.g. using Wireshark)
4. Send "pre-settlement" extortion letters to the people behind those IP addresses.
5. Profit. (Seriously.)
Re: Technology to circumvent online copyright enforcement
#20Not new, Jason Rohrer even wrote a proof-of-concept implementation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monolith_%28computer_program%29
There is a really good rebuttal to said implementation entitled "What Colour are your Bits?" at http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/lawpoli/colour/2004061001.php ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=506986 ).
The rebuttal is indeed good but I believe that the following quote is a bit strawman-like: "When it's scrambled by Monolith, the claim is that the resulting file has no Colour - how could it have the copyright Colour? It's just random bits!"
The claim is not that the file has no Colour. The claim is that there is no way to distinguish it from one that has no Colour. I am not convinced about the implications, this way or another. Just saying that it is not as simple as in the quote above.