Bainwol
WASHINGTON -- Technology wizards from cutting-edge software companies visited the Recording Industry Assn. of America's D.C. office Wednesday to hail a new way to curb online music swapping.
Vance Ikezoye, the CEO of L.A.-based Audible Magic, which specializes in managing and tracking copyrighted material on the Web, demonstrated the merits of a system that digitally fingerprints songs and could prevent file-sharers from accessing copyrighted material on peer-to-peer Web sites.
The system assigns a fingerprint to all copyrighted songs and attaches the program to peer-to-peer software as a mandatory upgrade. If a computer user tries to download or share a copyrighted song such as The Beatles' "Let It Be," the technology identifies the song and blocks it. A notice then appears on the computer screen letting the user know his access has been "terminated."
"The fingerprint is so accurate that we can identify different performances of the same song, an actual performance, live or studio," Ikezoye said.
The real purpose behind the demo, however, was to prove the peer-to-peer networks where a majority of the illegal music-sharing takes place, such as Kazaa and Morpheus, were not truthful in recent comments to Congress that filtering technology didn't work with the "architecture" of their systems.
P2P trade group the Distributed Computing Industry Assn., told the lawmakers that filtering copyrighted material and pornography is "far more complex, both technically and legally, than to be properly subject to simple commitment to implement effective filtering, though filtering may prove effective as part of a larger solution."
Not buying it
The RIAA flatly rejects claims that the fingerprinting technology is not technically feasible.
"The P2P people say they want to go legitimate and this is a clear step along the way," RIAA topper Mitch Bainwol said. "Failure to move in this direction means perhaps those statements about becoming 100% legitimate are not genuine."
Marty Lafferty, who heads the DCIA, agrees the fingerprinting technology works, dubbing it "fairly robust," but he argues that Internet service providers also must agree to use the blocking program if peer-to-peer networks are expected to sign onto the idea. If only a few P2P sites voluntarily block copyrighted material, then those intent on swapping free music will find other sites on the Internet who don't use the technology.
"Unless all of them did it or it is mandated by law or divine intervention, the only real effect would be that traffic would migrate to other (sites)," he said.
In the past few weeks, the RIAA has demonstrated the fingerprinting technology to influential members of Congress, but Bainwol won't say whether he's lobbying for a law forcing P2Ps to use it. In fact, U.S. law would apply only to P2P companies located in the United States, when most of them have international headquarters.
That's why Lafferty said he thinks ISPs also should agree to use the fingerprinting technology. That way, the RIAA could at least see a significant change within the U.S.
Verizon phones in
So far, at least one of the major ISPs has not been asked to the negotiating table by either the P2P trade groups or the RIAA. Verizon veep and general counsel Sarah Deutsch said current law is very specific about what companies like hers must do to help protect copyrighted material.
According to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, ISPs must agree to accommodate but not interfere with "standard technical protection measures," she said.
"The key is this standard has to be developed pursuant to broad industry consensus and cannot burden the service providers' systems or impose substantial costs," Deutsch added.
The RIAA brushed aside any requests to involve the ISPs in discussions about filtering technology as another excuse to create extra industry barriers to finding a solution.
"Our good friends on the other side of the equation are letting the perfect be the enemy of the good," Bainwol said.
"It's the P2P community that is responsible for inducing American kids to break the law," he added. "It's the traffic through these networks that's illegal. The P2Ps can fix it on their own."
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