Free Republic

Shift key breaks latest CD anti-rip tech - grad student By Tony Smith Posted: 08/10/2003 at 15:53 GMT   A Princeton PhD student has published a paper detailing the music industry's latest CD copy protection scheme - and how the technique can be bypassed by simply holding down the host computer's Shift key when a 'protected' CD is inserted. The copy-protection mechanism in question is SunnComm's MediaMax CD3 system. Launched in September, the company claimed its technology had passed strict testing to Recording Industry Ass. of America (RIAA) copy-protection standards with "flying colours". The "comprehensive test procedures" - SunnComm's...

MP3s Are Not the Devil Since every penny I earn depends on copyright protection, I'm all in favor of reasonable laws to do the job. But there's something kind of sad about the recording industry's indecent passion to punish the "criminals" who are violating their rights. Copyright is a temporary monopoly granted by the government -- it creates the legal fiction that a piece of writing or composing (or, as technologies were created, a recorded performance) is property and can only be sold by those who have been licensed to do so by the copyright holder. Without copyright, once a...

<p>When the recording industry said Wednesday it would sue heavy music sharers, it left one unnerving question unanswered: Just who would they consider a heavy sharer?</p> <p>In a conference call with reporters, the Recording Industry Association of America's President Cary Sherman said the group will begin collecting evidence against those who offer "substantial" amounts of music online to others over peer-to-peer networks, then will file hundreds of copyright-infringement lawsuits beginning in August. But he declined to say specifically what "substantial" means.</p>

Friday in a California courtroom, a small St. Louis software company begins a fight for its life against a phalanx of powerful Hollywood movie studios. The outcome could impact our collective digital future. On one side is 321 Studios (321studios.com), maker of computer programs that allow home users to copy DVD movies they own. On the other is the Motion Picture Association of America, which charges that 321's software circumvents copy protection schemes in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The court proceeding represents a head-on collision between the DMCA and fair use rights of consumers. Since the DMCA's...

<p>SANTA CLARA, California -- The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is threatening innovation in Silicon Valley, and it's time for businesses and consumers to mobilize to change the law.</p> <p>That was the message at the Digital Rights Summit here on Wednesday. Intel hosted the event at its Santa Clara headquarters with Digitalconsumer.org, an organization dedicated to protecting consumers' fair-use rights with regard to digital media.</p>

<p>LONDON -- The head of an Internet cafe chain pledged Wednesday to appeal a judge's ruling that the company broke copyright law by letting customers copy music from the Internet.</p> <p>Greek entrepreneur Stelio Haji-Ioannou said Tuesday's court decision against his easyInternetcafe chain had failed to consider that recordings for private and domestic use were exempt from Britain's 1988 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act.</p>

<p>Norwegian prosecutors will appeal the acquittal of a Norwegian teenager charged with digital burglary for creating and circulating a program online that cracks the security codes on DVDs.</p> <p>Rune Floisbonn, a prosecutor with Norway's economic crimes police, told the NTB news agency Monday that an appeal would be filed. He did not immediately return calls from The Associated Press.</p>

Faulty Genes Explain Why Cloning Is So DifficultMon May 27, 3:07 PM ETCloning may not always completely reprogramme an egg cell the way sexual reproduction does, which might explain why the process fails more often than it works, experts say. Dolly, the world's first cloned animal, stands in her pen at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh in this February 23, 1997, file photo. REUTERS WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Cloning may not always completely reprogram an egg cell the way sexual reproduction does, which would explain why the process fails so often, researchers reported on Monday. While lawmakers around the world debate...