Might iCloud Be a Musical Honeypot? 375
An anonymous reader writes "Between watermarked MP3 files and matching identical files, iCloud Music Match might wind up being a giant trap for finding owners of illegally copied files should the RIAA subpoena the evidence."
Absolutely not (Score:5, Insightful)
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It would be interesting to know if they are paying RIAA off out of the revenue from the iCloud service.
However, as far as "Steve wouldn't do that, Steve loves us"... when it comes to subpoenas, Apple might not have a choice but to comply.
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In addition, does this criticism not apply to Google's budding Music service?
Re:Absolutely not (Score:5, Funny)
Google good. Apple bad.
Please report to the nearest /. reeducation center.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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Google good. Apple bad.
In all seriousness, the "Google good" thing was undeniably true a few years back when most Slashdotters' attitude towards them was almost 100% positive to the point where (in retrospect) it was fanboyish.
However, it's noticeable that this seems to have died down quite a lot in the past five years or so. Some may argue that Google still get cut too much slack here, but there's definitely a lot more scepticism about them now, and the blatant halo that Google seemed to have during the first half or so of the
Re:Absolutely not (Score:5, Insightful)
Google good. Apple bad.
Please report to the nearest /. reeducation center.
You think you're being sarcastic, but your comment is 100% accurate. Apple is the single most evil corporation I'm aware of, and Google is the single most ethical corporation I'm aware of.
You need to meet more corporations.
Re:Absolutely not (Score:4, Interesting)
Google already claimed they'd delete "unauthorized" tracks, didn't they?
Ah, yes... [gizmodo.com]
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I think there were leaks noting 70% of iTunes Matc 24.99 yearly fee is going to the studios.
Also Apple can protect consumers by simply not gathering any signs of piracy. In theory they don't even need iCloud to do this, they could do this years ago just by datamining iTune libraries. They already scan it for Genius recomendations and have done so while respecting user privacy.
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Don't be daft. They absolutely want to know what songs you have, and which you listen to, and how often you listen to them, so they can profile you and sell you more crap.
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His point is that they don't have to actually store the file in violation. So it doesn't necessarily have to even look like a violation in their records.
Note that I'm saying it doesn't have to, not that it will not, which remains to be seen. However, it would be a PR disaster for Apple if people wound up sued over using iCloud, so it seems unlikely to me.
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More specifically, they'd be insane to ever have the file. It would mean sending it to them. Much smarter and more efficient to hash the file on your computer (ignore meta-tags) and match against the tag on their server. Done. They never have the file and never look at the incriminating bits.
This is why Apple thinks they can have all your music to you quickly instead of the weeks of upload time to get it to google. Because you don't upload it. They might still be uploading meta information that would be inc
Re:Absolutely not (Score:4, Insightful)
a) Who cares what Apple thinks or their brand (in context of this discussion). If the RIAA or one of it's members files suit and gets access to music stored in iCloud in discovery, Apple has to obey the law. Apple's employees probably care a lot more about not going to jail for contempt of court than they do about getting your business or being cool. All the money and lawyers in the world will not intimidate a Federal Court Judge who spends the better part of their career dealing with litigation between companies, governments and people with more money than God.
b) If 90% of Apple's customers use iCloud for storing pirated music, that will be a problem with the business plan, unless you are right about some legal/license arrangement existing in advance.
c) Assume nothing. It would be wise to read the contract, terms of service and any license agreement between the labels, RIAA and Apple before putting yourself and your family at risk. Personally, I hope Apple has got a solution on this. If not, then I'd rather not be left out in the wind like iPhone developers are right now (see Lodsys).
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It would be wise to read the contract, terms of service and any license agreement between the labels, RIAA and Apple before putting yourself and your family at risk.
Good luck with that. It will surely be twenty pages long and be "updated" every week or so.
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a) Who cares what Apple thinks or their brand (in context of this discussion). If the RIAA or one of it's members files suit and gets access to music stored in iCloud in discovery, Apple has to obey the law. Apple's employees probably care a lot more about not going to jail for contempt of court than they do about getting your business or being cool.
Should any of the record companies try to pull that off, I'll bet that their share holders will receive an offer they cannot refuse, and when Apple has bought them out everyone responsible will be fired. That would be the only way Apple could prevent total damage to their business, so that is what they would do.
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On top of that, many forget how tiny the music industry really is. Sure, they have been around a long time and sure, they are just about everywhere you look. But really, it's a few billion-dollar companies. Apple, on the other hand, is a $65B company that would gladly buy up or pay off any of the pathetic little music companies that might try to get in their way. Apple wants what it's customers want, after all; music that's affordable and easy to manage.
Sure it *COULD* be... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Or it'll just be a PR nightmare for Apple.
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your wiki link confirms the broken windows theory thing is incorrect.
Meanwhile, there's no way to sue anyone for having files in the cloud - they would have to sue apple - you don't contain the file once its in the cloud.
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Depends how it works (Score:2)
Are you actually uploading the MP3s to Apple? I don't think so.
The service has to "fingerprint" the files in some way. A hash of the file wouldn't be enough to identify it, since there could be an unlimited number of hashes for the same song.
At most, it's probably like SoundHound or Shazam that just listens to the track. Based on that type of analytic data, there's no way the RIAA or whoever could know whether you purchased the track legally or not.
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Based on that type of analytic data, there's no way the RIAA or whoever could know whether you purchased the track legally or not.
I once read an article about various methods of encoding an inaudible watermark in audio's phase. Shift the audio two samples early or two samples late after a kick drum, or invert both channels' phase by 180 degrees after a crash cymbal, or the like. All this is imperceptible to the human auditory system, but the information it encodes still survives popular psychoacoustic codecs.
FUD? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Actually... (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is much worse with Amazon, Google, DropBox, etc. With those services you're uploading the file itself to their servers. The RIAA could stomp in with a fancypants court order and demand to see your music collection.
With iCloud you're not uploading the file; you're getting the "right" to play a different copy of the file that already exists on Apple's servers. Even if the RIAA came in, it's not clear there's much they could do.
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Because it's Apple! Gotta talk about Apple!
I don't see the appeal of clouds (Score:3)
Am I out of touch or am I, by default, wise? I look at these services and think "why would I want that? I have an ftp site of my own anyway."
Considering there must be a business model behind these services to make $$$ I wonder what I might have to put up with
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"Cloud" is just the latest buzzword for storing data at a network-accessible data repository or using network-accessible servers to handle some workload.
The only real benefit I can see from storing media in such a solution would be that all your devices anywhere can stream the media from the repository. You might have a FTP server, but you won't find a mobile app that plays songs directly from your FTP server in real-time.
With that being said, the only "cloud" I will use is one at my home network. A private
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This I do already. Thank you subsonic! My next project is photos so I don't need to upload to Picasa. It's not a bad site, but why duplicate effort. Hosting one's own media server is not for beginners, but I'd rather learn then trust the "cloud".
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Am I out of touch or am I, by default, wise? I look at these services and think "why would I want that? I have an ftp site of my own anyway."
The main advantage to iCloud over your own server appears to be that they'll upsample your music for you, as long as it's something they sell on iTunes. If you only have a crappy copy (that's what you could find for download, you ripped it from CD in a low bitrate, whatever), your copy on your FTP server won't be any better, but the copy in iCloud will be 256kbps AAC. Whether that's worth the price is up to you, but it's at least one clear advantage over running your own server.
Re:I don't see the appeal of clouds (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not marketed towards you, if you're willing to set up, configure, and run your own music server. This is marked towards the people with enormous music collections at home, who want to be able to listen to any song in their library on their mobile device at any time, without having to worry about whether their data is synced.
Your "wisdom" is no deeper than someone who says, "Why would I go out to a restaurant, when I could cook a gourmet meal myself?" or "Why would I take my car into the shop, when I'm perfectly capable of diagnosing and repairing any problems that it might be experiencing?" Cloud storage is offering a valuable service to those without the expertise or patience to do it themselves.
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Unlike the parent, I realize expecting regular people to set up FTP sites is a bit much, but what about USB thumb drives? How hard is it to copy all your music onto one of those? These days, you can get a 32GB USB flash drive for $35 (incl. shipping) from Newegg.com. That really should be enough space to hold most peoples' entire music library. How many people really have "enormous" music collections that can't fit on one of these, or at most a 64GB drive? (Don't forget, flash prices keep coming down;
Re:I don't see the appeal of clouds (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, you are out of touch.
Most people do not have the skills or desire to set up their own FTP site, even if iCloud didn't do a lot more for ease of use than a simple FTP site. Do you want to set up a streaming service? Write the apps to automatically download the songs to your device? Even if the user had the skills to set up all of these services, do they have the skills and abilities to keep them secure?
I have my own FTP server set up and even that's getting to be a pain in the butt for me to maintain. I'm moving to hosted environments as quickly as I can at this point - they're good enough now and I don't have to dick about maintaining the hardware and OS anymore. I'm looking forward to the day when I can simply own one computer again.
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The main point is, yes, you can setup something remarkably similar; not everyone can or wants to do the same. After setup, you have to maintain your site including backups. For some people, they would rather pay someone else a small yearly fee.
A secondary benenfit is that you can upgrade your lower bit MP3s to higher bit AACs
You guys are completely paranoid (Score:4, Interesting)
You guys are completely paranoid.
There is no telling the difference between a CD that iTunes ripped or aggregated from your disk (which might have been ripped prior to iTunes' existence). Remember MacAMP (or any *AMP)? How about SoundJam? There was music before iTunes. (I tell ya!)
They are SELLING you an online subscription to "upgrade" (ie, crossgrade) this music to their catalog. This way they can stream to your devices and... believe it or not... possible upcoming thin, storage-less inexpensive devices.
The only trap in there, if any, is user's reliance on a yearly subscription; how many times are you willing to pay for the music you already own?
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RTFA. Each time you rip from a disk, the rip is slightly different. If twenty people have the exact same file, they'll know that at least 19 of them didn't get it by ripping disks.
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Actually, no.
If you use different compression algorithms, sure, it'd yield a different result. But if you rip a CD with default settings in whatever music manager - say iTunes, for posterity - you'd end up with the same file hash as the next guy that did the same thing with the same software. Digital data, et al.
Rip jitter can be ignored (Score:3)
Each time you rip from a disk, the rip is slightly different.
True. CD has one "subcode" byte per six samples to store timing information for the 588 audio samples in each sector. The digital data from several lossless rips is the same; it just has a random amount (up to one sector) of silence before and after it because drives are allowed to let the subcode data drift slightly out of sync from the audio data. This leads to so-called jitter [cdrfaq.org]. But rip jitter doesn't interfere with the ability to identify the actual timing of the first note of a song.
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So, if people buy music from Amazon, they'll have the same file (since Amazon doesn't re-rip for every customer). Which ones are valid purchasers, and which ones received a copy from a friend or file sharing site?
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There are these things called computers and they work over discrete values -1 and 0 to create a completely deterministic outcome.
If you take a CD, all copies are identical as the data is stored in frames lasting 1/75th of a second. If you then read the identical data, and apply a transform to it given the same parameters, using deterministic computers, you'll arrive at the same output. I don't think rand() is used anywhere in DSP, because it would result in incompressible noise...
And FWIW, just because you
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>>RTFA. Each time you rip from a disk, the rip is slightly different. If twenty people have the exact same file, they'll know that at least 19 of them didn't get it by ripping disks.
For analogue sources, sure. From a digital source, you will get the same result each time.
The RIAA thugs would have no way of knowing which songs were pirated unless they created a mp3 themselves (with custom encoding or other means of uniquely tagging it) and then sharing it on the internet. Which would be illegal, I gues
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What happens when the RIAA leave a trap on the piratebay? If they had a watermarked mp3 that you download, then put in the icloud... suddenly you've made it obvious that you downloaded it from the piratebay...
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It would be, but that's no proof you shared the file. It's only proof that you shared the ID3 metadata.
Stupid argument for several reasons (Score:2, Informative)
1) Apple doesn't get the file; that would take forever. They fingerprint or otherwise use ID information from the file to see what song you get. Without the file there is no "proof".
2) The implied message of the program is to bring pirates in "out of the cold" with a blanket payment. The music industry doesn't care as they finally get something instead of nothing. They would not seek to kill this golden egg they are about to hatch.
3) Suing individuals has just about run the course; there is no profit in
One more, cannot prove you shared it... (Score:5, Insightful)
5) Even if you owned a file that was without a shadow of a doubt pirated, that doesn't matter if they can't prove you SHARED it. If you just own it all you MIGHT be liable for the 0.99 the song could be purchased for, not the 200x damages they normally seek in lawsuits. There is no way to prove, from a file, that YOU have shared it as opposed to someone else.
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Even if you owned a file that was without a shadow of a doubt pirated, that doesn't matter if they can't prove you SHARED it.
I hate to hit you with this, but the whole "shadow of a [reasonable] doubt" standard applies to criminal cases, not civil suits. Even in criminal cases, we're talking about reasonable doubts, not the sort of infinitely elastic justifications that small, grouchy children in the back seat on road trips give about how they really didn't touch each other. In a civil case, the standard is the preponderance of the evidence which, even if it's on your side, will cost you an arm and a leg to prove, with the usual r
It's not doubt at all, need proof to bring suit (Score:2)
I hate to hit you with this, but the whole "shadow of a [reasonable] doubt" standard applies to criminal cases, not civil suits.
a) Without any inking of who might have pirated music, the companies have no reason to legally compel Apple to give up data they are probably not even keeping. If the companies already have proof you are pirating music they don't need Apple's data anyway.
b) To bring a suit you must have some proof. If you are bringing a suit for copyright infringement you must have some notion a
You do not understand lawsuits or what is proven (Score:2)
No one needs to prove anything. What percentage of the population has the financial means to merely defend against the accusation?
There has to be some proof to even bring a suit or else the company bringing the suit will be heavily fined and the lawyers possibly disbarred. Witness the major damage currently in progress for Righthaven and you will understand what a company insane enough to try this would face...
All that assumes that Apple would even let them have the data, which why would they without proof
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And also, there is no way for them to prove just by looking at the possibly 'pirated' file that you are not just being lazy. I could, for example, have a case of CDs that I feel like downloading in 5 minutes per CD, rather than ripping (and using my precious CPU) for 10 or 20 - not to mention all that wear and tear on my optical drive.
The one who sent you the file still committed a copyright violation, so there's no difference whether you own another license to it or not.
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2) The implied message of the program is to bring pirates in "out of the cold" with a blanket payment. The music industry doesn't care as they finally get something instead of nothing. They would not seek to kill this golden egg they are about to hatch.
I think it's important to note that past services have existed to bring pirates in "out of the cold" before. Internet radio, individual song purchases, etc. Yet the industry still pursues legal cases.
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Proof of WHAT (Score:2)
There is no reason a cryptographically secure hash, e.g. from the SHA-2 family, would not be considered proof.
That you have a file with a given song, yes.
That you own a copy that came from pirating instead of a copy that came from ripping using the exact same software on a different system, no.
You also assume Apple wants to keep all those hashes. Why would they? They don't care.
Good point (Score:2)
This isn't entirely correct -- if the song isn't already in the iTunes Store's library, the file *will* be uploaded.
That's actually a very good point; music Apple doesn't sell will be uploaded.
However, again it's not proof you have shared the file with anyone (which they need to seek damages), and also at this point if a song is not on iTunes it's probably not owned my a major label so who would come after you?
It also assumes visibility into the "cloud" by third parties which I can assure you is something A
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This is a red herring anyway. For copyright violation stemming from sharing a file, whether you originally pirated the file or ripped it from your own CD is wholly irrelevant. What matters is whether you have the right to distribute the song. The source of the file only really matters if it can actually make the damages *worse* (and, potentially criminal), such as a situation where you leak an unreleased album.
Ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
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Well, why not?
Will Apple make more money selling music at $0.99/track, or $hundreds_or_thousands_or_millions selling infringers to the lawyers?
My money is on the lawyers.
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I'd take that bet.
iTunes is now the dominant force in the music industry. Apple has the RIAA members over a barrel, with respect to distribution. Any play to "get pirates" would not come from the RIAA or its members. That leaves Apple to make the move. If they did this, they'd lose a lot of revenues from iTunes and have the customers having illegal files leave iCloud almost immediately. They'd probably lose a buttload of revenue on their other products since this would be a major dick move.
If they actually
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What?
The drugs, man. Lay off the drugs.
They won't make more money selling music at $0.99/track -- they, various reports indicate, don't really make much money off of that at all. They do, however, make enormous, mountain-sized piles of cash that they can't manage to haul off to the bank fast enough, selling their devices that tie into their Ecosystem. The iTunes Music Store isn't about making a ton of money selling music -- its about keeping customers (and record labels) happy-ish in the iUniverse that Appl
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Well, why not?
Um, he explained why not.
Will Apple make more money selling music at $0.99/track, or $hundreds_or_thousands_or_millions selling infringers to the lawyers?
Selling iPhones, iPods, iPads, and Macs. Something they will find extremely difficult to do if people are afraid of them.
My money is on the lawyers.
Well, you know what they say about a fool and his money.
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Will Apple make more money selling music at $0.99/track, or $hundreds_or_thousands_or_millions selling infringers to the lawyers?
Apple makes billions every quarter selling hardware to their customers. "Happy customers" is worth billions and billions to them. Do you really think they would give one damn about any amount of money the record industry could pay them, when that would turn their customers into "unhappy customers"?
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Much cheaper ways to do this... (Score:2)
Follow the money (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Apple creates this service to upload your music
2) User's upload massive amounts of pirated music
3) Apple passes to RIAA all the logins of people who have uploaded watermarked music
4) RIAA sues these people with massively punitive lawsuits
5) Apple profits!!... profits?!?! Right? Hey, where are all our iPhone customers going?
Such a move is entirely not in Apple's best interest and Apple would not let such a thing happen. Nor would Google or Amazon, unless compelled by a court of law. Steve spent months negotiating so they wouldn't get sued, they wouldn't turn around and allow their customers to be sued en masse. All the Android fans could only hope that Apple would be this galactically stupid.
Re:Follow the money (Score:5, Insightful)
> All the Android fans could only hope that Apple would be this galactically stupid.
Which is exactly why this article was posted in the first place.
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All the Android fans could only hope that Apple would be this galactically stupid.
Actually, I'm an Android fan that wishes nothing but good things for Apple, and stronger iPhones. It's unbelievably awesome that iPhones aren't just limited to AT&T, I'd like to see every carrier have an Apple offering. We're not talking sports, were talking products. Better iPhones means that Android manufacturers have to do better to compete. Apple fans should be hoping for better Android phones to come out, to continue to push the iPhone to be better. That's the problem with Windows. As soon a
Illegal to distribute. (Score:2)
It's not illegal to have a copy of a song.
Pretty trivial to have made a legal copy in a variety of ways including recording off the radio or your personal CD.
It is illegal to distribute songs.
No (Score:2)
To date, no one has been sued for downloading a file. Simply possessing a copy that was illegally made is not illegal. It is making the copy that is illegal. Since this service cannot determine who made the copy, it is no threat whatsoever.
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Are you sure about this? Citation needed.
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How can I cite the absense of a law? Typically the burden of proof is on those making a positive claim, i.e. that possessing an illegal copy is in itself illegal. The best I can do is offer the list of exclusive rights [cornell.edu] from Title 17 and note that possession of a copy is not among those rights.
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Um, a citation that something hasn't happened? How exactly do you provide that?
Only for stupid pirates (Score:2)
Not that I would ever do such a thing -- cough, cough -- but if I was pirating mp3s and wanted to store them on a remote server under the control of someone else, which is not very smart to begin with, I sure as hell wouldn't pick a service run by the music industry or one of its primary partners like, just for the sake of argument, Apple.
Ergo, I read this story as an excessively wordy way to say that, yes, if you are dumb as a fucking rock, the odds that you'll get caught doing something illegal are higher
Thank you... (Score:2)
... Capt. Obvious. Without this story, the re-re's would never have thought of this.
As for those talking about "Aww, they'd never go after individuals!" Um, what universe did you come from? Before, they had to settle for little girls downloading Happy_Birthday.mp3. You think they'll ignore someone with a 50,000 mp3 collection given the chance? Hell no! Why? Because most people SETTLE. And they can hold you up and say, "See, see, here are the ones we've been talking about!"
So, are you, owner of 50,000
Question for any budding lawyers out there (Score:2)
I was rather under the impression that possession of copyrighted works isn't the illegal bit. It's distribution that's the illegal bit.
As iCloud won't provide any evidence of distribution, I'm not sure how useful the information will be.
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even though there was only 1 comment when I clicked, I knew I would be too late.
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What user information is that, exactly? Apple will only have a list of what songs you have (it's not illegal to have a song)
Yeah, but Apple doesn't have to prove the songs are illegal. The whole point of the program is the assumption that you are replacing illegally obtained songs with good, clean songs. Just by signing up you are admitting guilt. So the user information would be names and contact information, a list of illegal songs you used their service to replace, and admission of guilt in the form of the TOS of the program you signed up for. All of the lawyers' work is done for them.
Re:Admiral Akbar saw this coming (Score:4, Insightful)
Not quite. It has the user's email address in a tag which is easily removed.
which will rarely be done by Joe Filesharer
Which is not illegal to do, and won't happen anyway.
at this point you are proving to be either ill-informed, or sitting in the RDF (both?). there is little hope in helping you understand the gravity and the possibilities; bummer.
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It could be part of the agreement signed to get the music companies to agree to put their stuff up on it
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That doesn't answer the question. What motivation would Apple have to agree to something like that? It's completely absurd.
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Transcoding doesn't fool YouTube's Content ID (Score:3)
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Remember SDMI? (Score:5, Informative)
Because YouTube is looking for a particular song.
And Apple is looking for a particular song to stream it to the user.
The watermarks allow them to trace a song to the person who bought it.
So we have two separate pieces of information to convey: the identity of the work and the provenance of the copy. YouTube's Content ID adequately identifies the work, leaving inaudible watermarks to identify the provenance. Do you remember the SDMI challenge [wikipedia.org], involving watermarks that were allegedly inaudible but could allegedly survive a transcode?
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The author of the article seems to think they're just hashing the file.
It's a stupid assumption, because you could easily fool it unless Apple had already scanned every song ever made, encoded it with every configuration of every version of every encoder ever developed, and stored the hash.
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Re:Transcoding doesn't fool YouTube's Content ID (Score:4, Insightful)
Given that Apple is in bed with the recording industry
Having an agreement which allows copying copyrighted material to several devices SIMULTANEOUSLY is HARDLY "in bed with the recording industry."
Quit trolling.
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If they assume you have permission, store evidence that you actually don't have permission, and then get subpoenaed on behalf of the RIAA, you're going to be up shit-creek without a paddle.
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No! Bad! No biscuit!
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If their hashing includes a spectrum analysis that wouldn't work.
If they want to find pirated copies they will, it won't matter how many times you transcode it (unless you actually modify the song). And a good genetic algorithm won't be fooled by that either.
I just doubt Apple will ever let anyone look at those files... Especially because apple is paying the big companies for the right to stream copies of their music (even if illegal). So they get payed even by the songs you downloaded.
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Wouldn't it be easier (and less damaging to the quality) to just write a script to strip all non-essential metadata (ie, everything except title, album, and artist) out of the file?
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It's an MP3 file of a given size. Yes if the MD5s match, it is the same file.
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There simply must be business value for them to bother with this endeavor at all.
Yes, it's called "selling hardware", which is something Apple intends to do for many years to come, and something which they will find exceptionally difficult to keep doing of they *EVER* do anything like this idiotic notion.