record companies should talk to their lawyers

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Peter Swire <peter () peterswire net>
Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2003 10:03:26 -0400
To: dave () farber net
Subject: RE: [IP] Madonna to RIAA: file share watermarked MP3s?

Dave:

    Before the record companies do this, they better read the
anti-spam laws carefully.

    Is Madonna putting out a "deceptive header" for the file when
she gives the correct label for her song but includes her rant instead?

    If record companies flood the peer-to-peer networks with
apparently good files, but fill each download instead with ads for their
music, then it looks like commercial advertisements over the P2P network
with deceptive headers.  (I haven't checked all the state laws or
federal proposals, but there is likely a winning spam case out there for
this behavior.)

    The RIAA's answer could be, once again, to seek legislation.
They have sought the right to hack, in order to disable playing of
unauthorized recordings.  Now they might seek the right to spam.

    Peter

Prof. Peter P. Swire
Moritz College of Law of the Ohio State University
Consultant, Morrison & Foerster LLP
Formerly, Chief Counselor for Privacy in the U.S.
     Office of Management and Budget
(240) 994-4142, www.peterswire.net

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-ip () v2 listbox com [mailto:owner-ip () v2 listbox com] On Behalf
Of Dave Farber
Sent: Sunday, April 20, 2003 7:37 PM
To: ip
Subject: [IP] Madonna to RIAA: file share watermarked MP3s?


------ Forwarded Message
From: Rich Wiggins <wiggins () msu edu>
Date: Sun, 20 Apr 2003 11:50:23 -0400 (EDT)
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Madonna to RIAA: file share watermarked MP3s?


Dave,

Jon Pareles reports in the NY Times that Madonna is planting
fake MP3s on file sharing networks, taunting free downloaders:

  Madonna cursing fans who try to download her music free. She has
  introduced decoy versions of her new songs to file-sharing Web sites.
  Anyone hoping to listen to a track hears her annoyed voice instead,
  sneering, "What the [expletive] do you think you're doing?"

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?

It'd be an audible watermark, analogous to the visible watermarks
you see on high-res stock photography for sale.  Instead of cursing
the listener as Madonna does, you could have the artist give the URL for
a for-fee download, give ads for concerts, whatever.

This could devalue file sharing networks tremendously.  If you make
free file sharing far less effective, you might drive people to
buy your authentic versions. So why not adopt electronic
countermeasures?
I don't see how this violates DMCA; they'd just be offering their own
content (in altered form) for global peer to peer networks.

/rich


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