Software Bullet Is Sought to Kill Musical Piracy

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Sounds like  a very bad idea. If they skirt the law , why cannot the users
and damage them. Djf


Software Bullet Is Sought to Kill Musical Piracy

May 4, 2003
By ANDREW ROSS SORKIN




 

Some of the world's biggest record companies, facing
rampant online piracy, are quietly financing the
development and testing of software programs that would
sabotage the computers and Internet connections of people
that download pirated music, according to industry
executives. 

The record companies are exploring options on new
countermeasures, which some experts say have varying
degrees of legality, to deter online theft: from attacking
personal Internet connections so as to slow or halt
downloads of pirated music to overwhelming the distribution
networks with potentially malicious programs that
masquerade as music files.

The covert campaign, parts of which may never be carried
out because they could be illegal under state and federal
wiretap laws, is being developed and tested by a cadre of
small technology companies, the executives said.

If employed, the new tactics would be the most aggressive
effort yet taken by the recording industry to thwart music
piracy, a problem that the IFPI, an industry group,
estimates costs the industry $4.3 billion in sales
worldwide annually. Until now, most of the industry's
anti-piracy efforts have involved filing lawsuits against
companies and individuals that distribute pirated music.
Last week, four college students who had been sued by the
industry settled the suits by agreeing to stop operating
networks that swap music and pay $12,000 to $17,500 each.

The industry has also tried to frustrate pirates
technologically by spreading copies of fake music files
across file-sharing networks like KaZaA and Morpheus. This
approach, called "spoofing," is considered legal but has
had only mild success, analysts say, proving to be more of
a nuisance than an effective deterrent.

The new measures under development take a more extreme -
and antagonistic - approach, according to executives who
have been briefed on the software programs.

Interest among record executives in using some of these
more aggressive programs has been piqued since a federal
judge in Los Angeles ruled last month that StreamCast
Networks, the company that offers Morpheus, and Grokster,
another file-sharing service, were not guilty of copyright
infringement. And last week, the record industry turned a
"chat" feature in popular file-trading software programs to
its benefit by sending out millions of messages telling
people: "When you break the law, you risk legal penalties.
There is a simple way to avoid that risk: DON'T STEAL
MUSIC." 

The deployment of this message through the file-sharing
network, which the Recording Industry Association of
America said is an education effort, appears to be legal.
But other anti-piracy programs raise legal issues.

Since the law and the technology itself are new, the
liabilities - criminal and civil - are not easily defined.
But some tactics are clearly more problematic than others.

Among the more benign approaches being developed is one
program, considered a Trojan horse rather than a virus,
that simply redirects users to Web sites where they can
legitimately buy the song they tried to download.

A more malicious program, dubbed "freeze," locks up a
computer system for a certain duration - minutes or
possibly even hours - risking the loss of data that was
unsaved if the computer is restarted. It also displays a
warning about downloading pirated music. Another program
under development, called "silence," scans a computer's
hard drive for pirated music files and attempts to delete
them. One of the executives briefed on the silence program
said that it did not work properly and was being reworked
because it was deleting legitimate music files, too.

Other approaches that are being tested include launching an
attack on personal Internet connections, often called
"interdiction," to prevent a person from using a network
while attempting to download pirated music or offer it to
others. 

"There are a lot of things you can do - some quite nasty,"
said Marc Morgenstern, the chief executive of Overpeer, a
technology business that receives support from several
large media companies. Mr. Morgenstern refused to identify
his clients, citing confidentiality agreements with them.
He also said that his company does not and will not deploy
any programs that run afoul of the law. "Our philosophy is
to make downloading pirated music a difficult and
frustrating experience without crossing the line." And
while he said "we develop stuff all the time," he was also
quick to add that "at the end of the day, my clients are
trying to develop relationships with these people."
Overpeer, with 15 staff members, is the largest of about a
dozen businesses founded to create counterpiracy methods.

The music industry's five "majors" - the Universal Music
Group, a unit of Vivendi Universal; the Warner Music Group,
a unit of AOL Time Warner; Sony Music Entertainment; BMG, a
unit of Bertelsmann; and EMI - have all financed the
development of counterpiracy programs, according to
executives, but none would discuss the details publicly.
Warner Music issued a statement saying: "We do everything
we feel is appropriate, within the law, in order to protect
our copyrights." A spokeswoman for Universal Music said
that the company "is engaging in legal technical measures."


Whether the record companies decide to unleash a tougher
anti-piracy campaign has created a divide among some music
executives concerned about finding a balance between
stamping out piracy and infuriating its music-listening
customers. There are also questions about whether companies
could be held liable by individuals who have had their
computers attacked.

"Some of this stuff is going to be illegal," said Lawrence
Lessig, a professor at Stanford Law School who specializes
in Internet copyright issues. "It depends on if they are
doing a sufficient amount of damage. The law has ways to
deal with copyright infringement. Freezing people's
computers is not within the scope of the copyright laws."

Randy Saaf, the president of MediaDefender, another company
that receives support from the record industry to frustrate
pirates, told a congressional hearing last September that
his company "has a group of technologies that could be very
effective in combating piracy on peer-to-peer networks but
are not widely used because some customers have told us
that they feel uncomfortable with current ambiguities in
computer hacking laws."

In an interview, he declined to identify those technologies
for competitive reasons. "We steer our customers away from
anything invasive," he said.

Internet service providers are also nervous about
anti-piracy programs that could disrupt their systems.
Sarah B. Deutsch, associate general counsel of Verizon
Communications, said she is concerned about any program
that slows down connections. "It could become a problem we
don't know how to deal with," she said. "Any technology
that has an effect on a user's ability to operate their
computer or use the network would be of extreme concern to
us. I wouldn't say we're against this completely. I would
just say that we're concerned."

Verizon is already caught in its own battle with the
recording industry. A federal judge ordered Verizon to
provide the Recording Industry Association of America with
the identities of customers suspected of making available
hundreds of copyrighted songs. The record companies are
increasingly using techniques to sniff out and collect the
electronic addresses of computers that distribute pirated
music. 

But the more aggressive approach could also generate a
backlash against individual artists and the music industry.
When Madonna released "spoofed" versions of songs from her
new album on music sharing networks to frustrate pirates,
her own Web site was hacked into the next day and real
copies of her album were made available by hackers on her
site. 

The industry has tried to seek legislative support for
aggressive measures. Representative Howard L. Berman,
Democrat of California, introduced a bill last fall that
would have limited the liability of copyright owners for
using tougher technical counterpiracy tactics to protect
their works online. But the bill was roundly criticized by
privacy advocates. "There was such an immediate attack that
you couldn't get a rational dialogue going," said Cary
Sherman, president of the recording industry association.
He said that while his organization often briefs recording
companies on legal issues related to what he calls "self
help" measures, "the companies deal with this stuff on
their own." 

And as for the more extreme approaches, he said, "It is not
uncommon for engineers to think up new programs and code
them. There are a lot of tantalizing ideas out there - some
in the gray area and some illegal - but it doesn't mean
they will be used."

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/04/business/04MUSI.html?ex=1053001791&ei=1&en
=8d9f2b1d372d3733



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