Copyright
Another crack in the SDMI wall
A team of researchers claims to have successfully hacked a digital music watermarking system.
A coalition of cryptography and watermarking researchers from Princeton University, Xerox PARC and Rice University claims to have successfully defeated a music protection system proposed by the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI).
Led by Edward Felten, a computer science professor at Princeton, nine graduate students, professors and researchers pooled their efforts to come up with what they believe are hacks that will pass all three of SDMI’s “tests” of a successful hack. The researchers say that they have also come up with more than one way to remove the watermarks that are supposed to protect the four SDMI-supplied music files.
The team initially submitted the hacks to SDMI as part of the “Hack SDMI” contest. According to one researcher, the hacks have already passed SDMI’s automated “oracle” test — a procedure that examines the hacked file to see if the watermark has been totally removed. As for the audio quality and repeatability tests, which SDMI representatives have repeatedly said would be the determining factor for a truly “successful” hack, the researchers say they have good reason to believe that their efforts will pass these tests as well.
As Scott Craver, a Princeton grad student and coauthor of the book “Information Hiding Techniques,” explains: “We have attacks that quantitatively don’t damage the music files’ audio quality more than the watermarking schemes themselves,” based on measurement techniques that the team developed. He adds, “The real question in terms of quality degradation is whether the sound quality is good enough for the common pirate. If you subject a music file to a modification whose quality degradation would bother a recording engineer but would not bother most of the people who download MP3s, that would be a problem.”
The group also posits that its work could easily be repeated, and that it would be a cinch for an enterprising coder to turn one or more of its watermark-removal techniques into a downloadable program that would let any MP3 pirate “press a button to commit piracy.”
The group decided to participate in the SDMI challenge as a research endeavor, and initially submitted its hacks to the contest; but it pulled out during Phase 2 of the challenge (which is currently taking place). “We wanted to get a bunch of people combining our collective knowledge about how to analyze security systems, and wanted to participate in SDMI as long as it had scientific value,” explains Craver. In Phase 2 of the contest, however, SDMI is supplying only one watermarked music file, with no oracle or nonwatermarked file for comparison, and participants get only one chance to remove the watermark. This, says Craver, wasn’t a valuable way to conduct research: “Once it got to the point where all we were doing was participating in a contest, then we were no longer interested.” As a primarily academic group, the group wasn’t interested in the cash prize.
Instead, the coalition is taking its research public. Professor Felten has posted a FAQ about the group’s efforts on his Web site, and will post the extensive documentation within the next two weeks. The group is taking the risk that SDMI authorities could try to prevent it from publishing its work — participants in the contest were supposed to be sworn to secrecy — but Craver believes that by forgoing the prize they may not be required to sign any nondisclosure agreements.
The group doesn’t believe watermarks are useless — but merely inadequate for this kind of project. As Craver puts it, “We are not out to get the recording industry; if our results can help anyone develop a better security system, we’re happy.”
Janelle Brown is a contributing writer for Salon. More Janelle Brown.
Is it OK to steal “Downton Abbey”?
Obsessive TV fans are turning into shameless online pirates, as cult shows air in the U.K. before making it here
In an otherwise civil discussion of “Downton Abbey’s” second season, actor Hugh Bonneville let loose on an interviewer who casually let it slip that she’d gone online and viewed a pirated version of the British period drama’s Christmas special, which aired in the U.K. in December but won’t hit PBS until Feb. 19. This turned out to be the wrong thing to tell the man who plays proud patriarch Robert Crawley.
Continue Reading CloseDoes culture really want to be free?
Are new media companies "digital parasites"? The author of "Free Ride" tells Salon piracy is killing art
(Credit: l i g h t p o e t via Shutterstock) Over the last few weeks, Salon has been looking at the destruction of the creative class by the Internet, the recession and a transforming economy. A new book, “Free Ride,” by the journalist Robert Levine, intersects with some of these concerns. Subtitled “How Digital Parasites Are Destroying the Culture Business and How the Culture Business Can Fight Back,” Levine’s book looks at how publishing, the music industry, newspapers and other industries drank the dot.com Kool-Aid, effectively killing themselves off. He’s particularly interested in copyright, the U.S. government’s role in unleashing the Internet and the impact of digital piracy.
Continue Reading CloseScott Timberg is a former Los Angeles Times arts and culture writer who has also contributed to the New York Times, GQ and other publications. He is the co-editor of the book "The Misread City: New Literary Los Angeles." He blogs at scott-timberg.blogspot.com/. More Scott Timberg.
Your favorite author, brought to you by a wealthy patron
As copyright erodes and the book industry changes, a combination of Kickstarter and the rich might fund writers
(Credit: iStockphoto/NickS) A passage from Stephen Greenblatt’s new book, “Swerve,” on Renaissance book culture, has this to say about how writers paid their bills several centuries ago:
Continue Reading CloseAuthors made nothing from the sale of their books; their profits derived from the wealthy patron to whom the work was dedicated. (The arrangement — which helps to account for the fulsome flattery of dedicatory epistles — seems odd to us, but it had an impressive stability, remaining in place until the invention of copyright in the 18th century.)
Laura Miller is a senior writer for Salon. She is the author of "The Magician's Book: A Skeptic's Adventures in Narnia" and has a Web site, magiciansbook.com. More Laura Miller.
Copyright concerns for “Wizard of Oz” prequel
Surprisingly, even a James Franco project isn't immune to legal battles over "iconic" images
"The Wizard of Oz." When you think about Dorothy’s slippers from “The Wizard of Oz,” are they silver or ruby? How about the Wicked Witch … what color is she? What kind of dog is Toto?
Your answers to these questions are probably based on the 1939 MGM (now Warner Bros.) classic, “The Wizard of Oz,” and not the 1900 fairy tale “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.” And unfortunately, this could mean trouble for Sam Raimi and James Franco’s new star-studded project, “Oz, the Great and Powerful,” according to a new ruling set by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Continue Reading CloseDrew Grant is a staff writer for Salon. Follow her on Twitter at @videodrew. More Drew Grant.
Mike Tyson’s tattoo artist can’t stop “Hangover II”
Despite a copyright lawsuit over the ink on Ed Helms' face, the show will go on
Tyson's tattoo on Helm's face. “The Hangover: Part II” premieres this week, despite an attempt at an injunction from the man who tattooed Mike Tyson’s face in 2003. A federal judge ruled that S. Victor Whitmill could not stop Warner Bros. from releasing the film, despite the artist’s claims that the movie infringed on his copyright of Tyson’s facial tattoo. Warner Bros. claims the image falls under fair use.
Continue Reading CloseDrew Grant is a staff writer for Salon. Follow her on Twitter at @videodrew. More Drew Grant.
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