Hughes Markets? (Was Re: Copyright commerce and the street musician protocol)

[R. Jason Cronk]

>From: "William H. Geiger III" <whgiii at invweb.net>
>Date: Thu, 06 Nov 97 19:12:16 -0600
>To: Robert Hettinga <rah at shipwright.com>
>Cc: cypherpunks at cyberpass.net, cryptography at c2.net
>Subject: Re: Hughes Markets? (Was Re: Copyright commerce and the street
>musician protocol)
>

<SNIP>

>
>Well how exactly does one prevent data from being stolen once it has been
>unlocked? I pay my 2X to view the picture anonymously and now I copy it
>save it and distribute it worldwide. I fail to see how any
>encryption/watermark scheme can prevent me from doing so.

Most of my discussion on this subject took place in DCSB mailing list,
which I didn't cc to cypherpunks or cryptography at c2.net.

Anyway, the gist the most ERMs (Electronic Right Management) is that the
"unlocking" has to be integral with the playing.  In other words, you don't
pay for and then get an "unlocked" version on your computer, but rather the
player and decryption mechanism are integrated to the point that they can
be unintegrated.  Still this doesn't prevent one from sticking a microphone
up next to the speaker to pointing a camcorder at the video screen, but it,
in theory, prevents one from making an exact digital duplicate.

This is not to say that I agree that ERM will work.  I am of the impression
that market forces will negate the benefit of said system.  Its easy when
there are just a few media producers, but with hundreds of thousands vying
for attention, those that seek to control their content through ERM are at
a disadvantage in the marketspace.

Jason Cronk