Bit of history of "spoof" MP3 files

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Tom Rombouts <rombouts () compuserve com>
Date: Sun, 20 Apr 2003 20:17:14 -0400
To: "dave () farber net" <dave () farber net>
Subject: Bit of history of "spoof" MP3 files

Hi Dave -

First, anyone who downloads music by Madonna deserves anything they get!
:)

> This raises an interesting question.  Why doesn't the recording
> industry do this on a massive scale?  Why not set up servers that
> offer authentic-looking file names and sizes, only the MP3 is
> rendered unusable for full-length listening?

Can't recall if this was on IP before, but here is some history of "spoof"
MP3 files from June, 2002:


from:
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/3560365.htm

Posted on Thu, Jun. 27, 2002
 
Music industry swamps swap networks with phony files
By Dawn C. Chmielewski
Mercury News

  
Major record labels have launched an aggressive new guerrilla assault on
the underground music networks, flooding online swapping services with
bogus copies of popular songs.

The online music sites know they're under attack. Darrell Smith, chief
technical officer of StreamCast Networks, parent of the popular
file-swapping service Morpheus, said he first noticed the practice about a
year ago, but chalked it up to ``rogue teenage hackers just being
obnoxious.

``It's more prevalent in the last three months,'' he said. ``It's gotten
real, real, real severe.''

Sources at three major labels admit they're deluging popular services like
Morpheus, Kazaa and Grokster with thousands of decoy music files that look
identical to a sought-after song, but are filled with long minutes of
silence -- or 30-second loops of a song's chorus.

By making stealing more of a hassle, they hope to persuade more people to
shell out for a CD at the local record store.

The practice is called ``spoofing'' and it is widespread. Over the last
three months, virtually any song destined for the Billboard pop music
charts has been spoofed, the sources say.

``Several of the labels are doing it with every release,'' said one record
label executive speaking on condition of anonymity. ``We're not using any
of this with any kind of promotion or marketing in mind. We're doing this
simply because we believe people are stealing our stuff and we want to
stymie the stealing.''

This ``fight theft with deception'' initiative is a tacit acknowledgment by
the industry that legal victories are not enough to stop the wildfire
popularity of online music swapping, which researcher Ipsos-Reid estimates
now attracts 40 million users in the United States alone.

Taken together with the growth in sales of recordable compact discs and
burners, it is fueling an epidemic of piracy that the labels blame for a 16
percent drop in global music sales.

``From the outset, it's been very clear that one of the only ways -- as a
practical matter -- to deal with the peer-to-peer problem is by means of
technological measures,'' said Cary Sherman, president of the Recording
Industry Association of America, the leading trade group for the labels.
``There are certainly mechanisms that are available -- that are completely
lawful, such as spoofing.''

Smith, from StreamCast, said the network is being flooded with bogus files
-- all coming from sources that can marshal massive amounts of bandwidth
and banks of computers occupying a narrow range of Internet addresses. It's
clearly intended to disrupt the file-sharing network, he said.

No one expects spoofing to deter hard-core pirates, who download entire CDs
or feature films from online sources that require sophisticated knowledge
of file-transfer protocols or Internet Relay Chat trigger commands.

``This is putting your finger in the dike,'' said Bruce Forest, a noted
Internet piracy expert. ``This is going to slow down piracy a bit. It isn't
going to stop it.''

But the labels hope to discourage mainstream users from turning to popular
file-swapping services rather than the local record store for their copy of
Sheryl Crow's ``Soak Up the Sun.''

``Things got out of balance. It's too easy to find pirated music,'' said
Josh Bernoff, an analyst for Forrester Research in Cambridge, Mass. ``Now,
they're moving the balance back in the other direction.''

Label sources describe spoofing as only the first in a series of electronic
countermeasures intended to frustrate the 18.7 million consumers who
researcher comScore Media Metrix estimates turned to the digital
underground last month to download bootleg copies of music, films, games
and software.

Some label execs say they're evaluating other technologies that would
scramble search queries or add file attachments to make a compressed music
file that would typically download in less than a minute ``move like
molasses.''

Those countermeasures could cross ``into a gray area as far as legality,''
admits another record executive who asked not to be named. He said
frustrated record label employees could resort to such measures as
propagating viruses, rationalizing `` `Hey, if you don't mind stealing my
career and livelihood, I'm sure you don't mind if I destroy your hard
drive.' ''

Paving the way for more aggressive industry counterattacks, Beverly Hills
congressman Howard Berman is preparing a bill that would let copyright
owners, such as record labels or movie studios, launch high-tech attacks
against file-swapping networks where their wares are traded.

Berman said that copyright owners need new legal protections to combat
online piracy. Some of the labels' and studios' high-tech tricks for
stopping online file traders might be illegal under current anti-hacking
laws.

It's impossible to know whether these electronic countermeasures exist now
or whether the labels are engaging in a bit of bravado, hoping to scare
away would-be file-swappers.

The leading vendors specializing in piracy detection -- Overpeer, Vidius,
NetPD, Media Defender and MediaForce -- fall mute when it comes to
revealing the names of their media clients or the nature of their work.

In the spy-vs.-spy world that has become online piracy, online swapping
sites are fighting back. The next version of Morpheus' software, due out in
three months, will contain its own countermeasures in an attempt to foil
the spoofers, StreamCast Network's Smith said.

It will incorporate a rating mechanism that allows users to identify fake
files and a method of certifying users as legitimate users.

``Without any checks and balances in place the individuals who are spoofing
can create all types of havoc on files,'' said Smith.

Precisely what the labels had in mind.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
Contact Dawn C. Chmielewski at dchmielewski () sjmercury com or (800)
643-1902.  


[ end - TWR ]


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