Music Industry claims MP3's are traceable

SpinnerSpinner Birmingham, UK
edited September 2003 in Science & Tech
Recording industry lawyers have claimed that they can prove MP3 music files were downloaded illegally by performing detailed analysis of the coded data.

This claim came with the recent release of court documents relating to a case against a New York women. She claims to have simply made copies of her original CD's into the MP3 file format, but lawyers of the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) say they can prove the MP3 files found on her computer, weren't from CDs that she owned.
The RIAA says the username of another computer user was found in the header of one of the MP3s. Headers are routinely used to store a song's title and length, but some MP3 compression software may also add information such as the username of the person who created the file.

The RIAA said that it also examined the digital fingerprints, or "hashes'', of the MP3s and found that some matched those of files previously see on file-sharing networks.

Markus Kuhn, a computer researcher at Cambridge University, UK, says the process of MP3 encoding involves variables that can create tell-tale differences between two files of the same song.
If an MP3 is copied digitally it will be identical. But making the first MP3 involves compressing the output from a CD, meaning small errors in the sampling process may produce a slightly different final pattern of bits.

Different MP3-making software programs may also compress files in a different way, producing different end results. But Kuhn points out that to his knowledge no-one has yet shown how statistically reliable using such features is in identifying the source of an MP3.

MP3 compression reduces the size of CD digital music files by 90 per cent. This has made it possible to send music over the internet quickly and store thousands of music files on a computer hard drive. The loss in listening quality of the music is minimised by removing sounds in the original file that are calculated to be inaudible to the human ear.

The music industry has been granted more than 1300 US court subpoenas forcing ISPs to reveal the identity of users offering files for download through peer-to-peer networks. Those found guilty could face fines of between $750 and $150,000 for each song.
Source - Newscientist

Comments

  • LawnMMLawnMM Colorado
    edited August 2003
    Doesn't matter where the hell you get it if you already own the CD, stupid RIAA
  • danball1976danball1976 Wichita Falls, TX
    edited August 2003
    I wouldn't be surprised that if all of RIAA's current process of suing everyone fails (which it will), that they go on another tangent of trying to completely ban the use of MP3's and make us go back over to WAV files or something.
  • TheSmJTheSmJ
    edited August 2003
    WAV files are too large, even by today's standards.

    Methinks this is a war over song swapping in general, not just MP3s.
  • celchocelcho Tallahassee, FL Member
    edited August 2003
    they can't ban mp3's, it can be used for noninfringing activities, like voice recording or any other instance where it would be useful to have audio compressed. i'm not worried about that. even if they did ban mp3's (not possible), everyone would just use ogg or something else.
  • ShortyShorty Manchester, UK Icrontian
    edited September 2003
    Celcho has it on the head. I've converted a vast amount of my MP3's to OGG format recently (my cellphone has an open source OGG player and the file size rocks).

    If they start tracing MP3's... OGG will come in the door.. they trace that.. something else will come instead.

    If the RIAA and friends really think the MP3 tactic will work, well then they are as dumb as we all KNOW they are ;)
  • IC-GamesIC-Games
    edited September 2003
    indeed
Sign In or Register to comment.