The manufacturing is not the problem, in the software industry they routinely make a hundred thousand unique but functionally equivalent CDs in one run.
A big difference from the current system is that nobody is restricting file-sharing software like Napster which has plenty of legitimate uses. The problem now is that once you have the music on your hard drive no one can tell where you got it from, whether you read it from your own CD or illegally downloaded it from a hacker network. With my system, legal innocent activity is utterly unrestricted.
You can make a pretty good inference about the legal ownership of music available through P2P systems now
Not true, these systems have legit uses; and the difference between "a pretty good inference" and legal proof is important. Atlas publishers and dictionary publishers routinely introduce tiny intentional mistakes into their work to snare illegal copyists, and that stands up in court -- this would be similar.
You misunderstood me on encryption. I wasn't recommending that players be crippled so they can't play old music -- just that the DISPLAY the watermark if there is one, while still playing the music if there isn't. I'm not encrypting the whole watermarked audio -- I have regular audio with an encrypted watermark. Get the difference?
I don't care if I can't trust the client machine. I'm NOT trying to place restrictions on how you can listen to something! I'm just making sure that an evidentiary trail remains in order to discourage you doing something illegal. The user's experience is exactly the same as before. And you may copy the file and give it to whomever you want -- but if you do so illegally you will have more to worry about than before, because it is no longer "a perfect crime". The RealPlayer app displaying the serial number or a "munged" flag is a feature that is there for SOCIAL reasons -- remember the analogy with ripped-cover paperbacks or notch-jacketed LPs. You may have a circle of friends who views such things with equanimity, but for some the disapproval factor will be there.
The RealPlayer app displaying the serial number or a "munged" flag is a feature that is there for SOCIAL reasons -- remember the analogy with ripped-cover paperbacks or notch-jacketed LPs. You may have a circle of friends who views such things with equanimity, but for some the disapproval factor will be there.
LOL. I don't think it's a matter of anyone's circle of friends - the history of payments on the honor system is not a particularly positive one. Ask any author of a reasonably popular shareware program what he thinks the rate of payment is among people who regularly use his program - and then realize that he's fooling himself if he tells you much more than about 10%, and in my experience, 5% is usually closer still to the actual truth.
And then, of course, many people will find their consciences assuaged by simply using a player that doesn't read or recognize such a watermark. And all this is still assuming that your watermark is robust enough to survive dedicated, repeated attempts to find a method of wrecking it, which, as I've noted, I have my doubts about...