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Technology to circumvent online copyright enforcement

blog.adamsmith.cc

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Re: Technology to circumvent online copyright enforcement

#21

Post by adamsmith »

wmf wrote: post #19
pcof wrote: post #6

There 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.)

This doesn't work because some of the bits the software downloads couple be "innocent" bits. E.g. the firefox installer or some random looking piece of data. Any bits can be brought into involvement by the system, hence the denial of service.

Re: Technology to circumvent online copyright enforcement

#22

Post by wmf »

adamsmith wrote: post #21
wmf wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

This doesn't work because some of the bits the software downloads couple be "innocent" bits. E.g. the firefox installer or some random looking piece of data. Any bits can be brought into involvement by the system, hence the denial of service.

Note that due process doesn't apply to extortion. Mike Freedman gets a ton of inaccurate nastygrams from copyright enforcers, but they don't care. They keep sending them. This situation may be evil, but it exists today and it generates significant revenue. (It doesn't seem to deter much infringement, though; I guess people think it won't happen to them.) http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/mfreed/inaccurate-copy...

Also, any P2P system that downloads a significant amount of extra data won't become popular anyway, since it will be slower than non-deniable P2P. Freenet suffered from this, since all the pirates switched to the more efficient BitTorrent.

Re: Technology to circumvent online copyright enforcement

#23

Post by jrockway »

eli wrote: post #12

Wow, 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…

What about fair use?

It is theoretically legal for me to write an article about a song, and include a ten second clip of that song. It is also legal for another person to do the same thing, but with a different part of the song.

At some point, the entire song becomes downloadable, but without any party distributing it outside of their fair use rights.

Now what?

Re: Technology to circumvent online copyright enforcement

#24

Post by jrockway »

lmkg wrote: post #18

This 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…

Stallman was on shaky ground with CLISP. The reason CLISP became GPL is because the author eventually decided he liked the FSF's philosophy.

Re: Technology to circumvent online copyright enforcement

#26

Post by adamsmith »

cookingrobot wrote: post #9

This also allows some good plausible deniability. If someone knows you're using this sytem and forces you to decode your collection of random bit files, you can arrange 9 out of 10 of them to get a harmless plausible result (a bunch of harmless pictures / private tax files etc). Only by adding the last bit file does it turn into what you're trying to hide. If you only show part of the solution, it looks like you've u…

This is a brilliant point!

I added your idea to an edit I made on the Monolith wikipedia page, which now describes three variations of the Monolith protocol: Pseudorandom Basis Files, Lawsuit Denial of Service, and Plausible Deniability.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monolith_(computer_program)

Thanks!

Re: Technology to circumvent online copyright enforcement

#27

Post by adamsmith »

praptak wrote: post #8

Not new, Jason Rohrer even wrote a proof-of-concept implementation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monolith_%28computer_program%29

Thanks for the link!

I wrote a new section called "Possible Extensions" under that article, including a subsection for the "Plausible Deniability" angle that cookingrobot came up with!

Re: Technology to circumvent online copyright enforcement

#28

Post by cookingrobot »

adamsmith wrote: post #26
cookingrobot wrote: post #9

This also allows some good plausible deniability. If someone knows you're using this sytem and forces you to decode your collection of random bit files, you can arrange 9 out of 10 of them to get a harmless plausible result (a bunch of harmless pictures / private tax files etc). Only by adding the last bit file does it turn into what you're trying to hide. If you only show part of the solution, it looks like you've u…

This is a brilliant point! I added your idea to an edit I made on the Monolith wikipedia page, which now describes three variations of the Monolith protocol: Pseudorandom Basis Files, Lawsuit Denial of Service, and Plausible Deniability. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monolith_(computer_program) Thanks!

Thanks - the incredibly strange thing is that I was thinking about exactly this idea this morning, just a few hours before reading your post. I just couldn't believe the coincidence! Love Xobni btw.

Re: Technology to circumvent online copyright enforcement

#29

Post by extension »

jrockway wrote: post #23
eli wrote: post #12

Wow, 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…

What about fair use? It is theoretically legal for me to write an article about a song, and include a ten second clip of that song. It is also legal for another person to do the same thing, but with a different part of the song. At some point, the entire song becomes downloadable, but without any party distributing it outside of their fair use rights. Now what?

Now all of you are liable for infringement since what you did was clearly a convoluted yet deliberate scheme to distribute the song.

Re: Technology to circumvent online copyright enforcement

#30

Post by jrockway »

extension wrote: post #29
jrockway wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about fair use? It is theoretically legal for me to write an article about a song, and include a ten second clip of that song. It is also legal for another person to do the same thing, but with a different part of the song. At some point, the entire song becomes downloadable, but without any party distributing it outside of their fair use rights. Now what?

Now all of you are liable for infringement since what you did was clearly a convoluted yet deliberate scheme to distribute the song.

No, this all happened without organization. For any moderately popular song, this is likely to happen.
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