OFF: Anti-piracy encryption article

[Sen. Volstead]

Brian Halligan wrote:

> June 29, 1999
> CDs To Have Anti-Piracy Feature
>
> By The Associated Press
> SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The latest round of portable digital music players will
> soon be available in stores nationwide, equipped with security features
> designed to prevent piracy, designers say.
> Members of the Secure Digital Music Initiative announced Monday they had
> completed design specifications for the Walkman-like devices they claim will
> thwart online piracy.
> On a yet-to-be determined date, new CDs released by the major record producers
> will be digitally encrypted to prevent piracy, and the digital players will
> need to be upgraded to accept the new music, the Secure Digital Music
> Initiative said.
> ``SDMI will enable the future of music and today's announcement signals to
> consumers that this future is coming quickly. This future holds the promise
> that consumers will have access to vast amounts of exciting new content with a
> new level of portability,'' SDMI director Leonardo Chiariglione said in a
> statement.
> Diamond Multimedia, which makes the popular and controversial Rio portable
> digital music player, said it will comply with the new standards. The original
> version of the Rio player has served as a focal point for the music piracy
> debate because it doesn't require copyright protection to play music using MP3
> technology.
> New devices, available as early as Christmas, would initially support all
> current digital music formats, including MP3. After the new digital standard is
> implemented and the machines' software is upgraded, the only new songs that
> work on the machines will be ones that are digitally encoded with copyright
> protections.
> Even with the new protections, the players will still be able to play old music
> already illegally copied using the MP3 format, a major concession by the
> recording industry.
> Future versions of Rio players will be completely SDMI-compliant, said Lorraine
> Comstock, of Diamond's RioPort division. A spokeswoman for Milpitas,
> Calif.-based Creative Labs said its Nomad digital music player, to hit store
> shelves in July, will also comply with the SDMI standard.
> Industry members adopted the design specifications at a conference in Los
> Angeles earlier this month. They are under technical review and are to be
> ratified and made public by July 8.
> Analysts said the security features, however cumbersome, were inevitable.
> ``I think for the traditional music industry to back this, there has obviously
> going to have to be some fairly rigorous copyright protection,'' said Clay
> Ryder, an analyst for Zona Research.
> He suspects computer-savvy hackers will try to find a way around the security
> features, but the chore will prove labor-intensive.
> ``Nothing's 100 percent crack-proof, but you would go through a hell of a lot
> of effort to descramble something,'' Ryder said.
> The SDMI members include each of the big five record labels -- BMG
> Entertainment, EMI Recorded Music, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music
> Group and Warner Music Group -- all looking to capitalize on the growing
> digital music marketplace while protecting artist and label copyrights.
> The Recording Industry Association of America lost a suit earlier this month to
> halt sales of the Rio -- a portable machine that carries about an hour's worth
> of CD-quality MP3 music on a computer chip.
> Comstock thinks the design specifications will help make popular music
> available to online consumers.

Huzzah! the planet is saved!!!