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11.16.2004
Pay per Download P2P?
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CNET today reports that Shawn Fanning's new company, Snocap, is almost ready for launch. Its product is technology that uses audio fingerprinting to identify copyrighted music on file-sharing networks. This would allow the transfer to be blocked, or simply recorded and billed. (A previous story is here.)
Yesterday's WSJ (subscription required) says that Vivendi's Universal Music Group will soon announce a deal to license its content to Snocap, which will then provide back end services for on-line distributors.
Snocap is not the only player in this space. Many content people are interested in Audible Magic, which has comparable technology that it is selling to organizations, such as universities or companies, that want to control P2P.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which never met a mode of protecting IP that it didn't dislike, snorts that AM technology can be defeated.
But this misses an important point. Any P2P network that added devices specifically designed to defeat content protection of copyrighted material would be dead-duck liable for contributory infringement under Sony, and even Grokster. Such a technology has no non-infringing uses. (And this is true without even looking at the legality of such a program under the DMCA.)
posted by James DeLong : 11/16/2004 11:40:01 AM
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