By Brooks Boliek

WASHINGTON (Reuters / Hollywood Reporter) - The recording industry isn't about to give up on its multifaceted assault on music piracy on peer-to-peer networks.

Just this week, the recording industry's trade group renewed its legal battle, continued its copyright-education efforts and reasserted its campaign to get policy-makers to see them as the good guys and purveyors of P2P networks as the bad guys.

On Tuesday, the Recording Industry Assn. of America launched its second wave of lawsuits in less than two months as it filed copyright-infringement actions against 531 individuals, using "John Doe" subpoenas to get their identities. It filed similar actions against 532 people in January.

On Wednesday, the RIAA demonstrated for reporters, aides on Capitol Hill and other policy-makers an Audible Magic technology that can block copyrighted works from distribution. At the same time that Audible Magic CEO Vance Ikezoye was showcasing his technology at RIAA headquarters, the Joint Committee on Higher Education and the Entertainment Industry was meeting down the hall to discuss ways to combat copyright piracy at the nation's colleges and universities.

The FBI and the major copyright industries have scheduled a news conference for Thursday in Los Angeles with the FBI's cyber-division assistant director Jana Monroe to announce recent collaborative measures to "address the wide-ranging problem of digital piracy." The FBI, along with the MPAA and RIAA, also plan to show a new logo for warning against the illegal copying of movies and music.

While the timing of the different actions was serendipitous, it shows the seriousness of the effort.

"We recognize (that) there's no single bullet here to getting a handle on this problem," RIAA chairman and CEO Mitch Bainwol said. "It takes a campaign-like focus and a comprehensive plan that includes education, deterrence and technology. You blend it all together, and hopefully you create an environment in which the entire community will benefit."

As dog-and-pony shows go, Ikezoye's demonstration was a convincing one, and it's not hard to imagine that it made an impression on lawmakers and their aides as they watched it. In it, he showed how his company's technology -- which is used by the SESAC licensing society to track airplay, Universal Music Group's anti-piracy unit and to certify copyrights at CD plants worldwide -- can be transferred to P2P networks.

It works by tracking the sound "fingerprint" that a recording leaves. Ikezoye said the technology only needs to "see" a few seconds of a song before it can recognize if it's a copyrighted song that is contained in Audible Magic's library of nearly 4 million songs. "It's a pretty well-established technology, and it's doable," he said.

It's a technology the RIAA is not afraid to exploit for political purposes. If P2P companies are serious about their desire to become legitimate operations, they should use copyright-filtering technology, Bainwol said.

"We obviously believe you can filter, while our friends on the other side say you can't," Bainwol said. "Sometimes I think when they say 'I can't,' it means, 'I won't."'

P2P executives questioned the veracity of the demonstration.

"I think it's interesting that they are pimping Audible Magic all over Capitol Hill when nobody at the RIAA or Audible Magic has called us and demonstrated the technology to us," said Wayne Rosso, CEO of Optisoft, the originator of Blubster and Pilot. "What does that tell you?"

Rosso said that integrating the technology into their P2P systems would "cripple our network." That is a charge Audible Magic denies, saying it would be no different than integrating new functions into P2P software that is done all the time.

It will be sometime before the impact of demonstrations like Ikezoye's as well as Bainwol's arguments can be gauged. Bainwol deflected questions about their legislative desires.

"We're at the point where we want to prove a fact pattern," he said. "We will address the policy concerns down the road."

But to Rosso, the RIAA's strategy is obvious.

"Clearly, they are losing in the courts, so clearly they have to do everything they can to leverage the lawmakers to see it their way," he said. "Of course they're going to come up with a legislative proposal. That's what they do when they aren't suing people. Lawsuits to them are like Prozac. They're not happy unless they are suing somebody."

Bainwol, however, urged the P2P community to look beyond their own rhetoric.

"It's not a question of a cute political response," he said. "I'd be happy to e-mail these folks and give them Vance's information if that's what they want. ... The technology has matured to a point where it's not a concept.

Oblivious. No, not the TV show on Spike TV. It's what the RIAA is. I bet their whole agenda was to take over P2P networks and make the networks pay them money to license software to stop "piracy".

They'll be embarrassed by demonstrating this. They're the ones still saying that P2P networks are centralized servers. That shows how much they know. Who would know more about the networks? The RIAA or the people who programmed them? Hmm... take a wild guess.

How does the RIAA know that it would work? Is there a section in the Terms Of Service of any of these networks that prohibits cracking the program for code? Because if this works even a little bit, then I would try to find out if they cracked the programs for a copy of their code.

"We obviously believe you can filter, while our friends on the other side say you can't," Bainwol said. "Sometimes I think when they say 'I can't,' it means, 'I won't."

Even if thats the case, where does the RIAA get the nerve to tell other companies and services how to do things? If the RIAA could control the will of people, then they'd be eternally happy.

I'm assuming that this new anti-piracy logo the FBI is developed is going to contain a swastika????

Did the get any comments or thoughts from the 15 year olds?

if i owned a p2p i would have to be licensing them at four hundred dollars a download. then a twenty five dollar license per week for each. if they wanted their solfware in my program. boy would i get rich. then i would set up another p2p.

Earth to Itchy Bunghole, aka Bainwol...
uh,....see, you have all the control over filesharers that the tee totalers had over people who wanted to drink alcohol...and they had a constitutional amendment banning recreational consumption of ethanol...

You're gonna lose!

I have a question... so say congress likes this new crap that Audible iis shoveling, and mandates that all peer to peer networks incorperate it. Would that actually have any effect? or would users simply move to a different program that did not pay attention to such things? It seems to me, while such a law is rather dumb, that the only ones affected are thos businesses producing peer to peer software. Small anonymous groups have hardly ever held to the letter of the law.
As I see it... this is just another example of how the RIAA is pushing the technology forward, and in the end will make it even harder for themselves.

This technology works if the files are being transfered through a network running it. but when it's from one computer to another I can't see how that would happen unless they built it into every download.

I hope our boys are going to capitol hill to demonstrate that as well. if the lawmakers will listen

I've got a good way of defeating their technoolgy. I'ts called "zipping" the file.

Geez, these people are so stoopid.

Eventually, file trading will be hidden from the prying eyes of the RIAA.

So what's the point ?

They would almost have to put the software on every client that runs the software. Than some crafty programmer would make a patch file to disable it. Than what are they going to do. Just because one network gets it the underground ones will never get filtering software. It is almost like all these ceos and the folks on Capitol Hill have no idea how any of the software works. Not just the file sharing but anything. They will learn one day. Not in my lifetime but maybe one day.

I will laugh especially loud when congress orders other countries that p2p networks are based in that they have to utilize the software on their servers. "What, we are the French! F.o.a.d. you sstoopid amereecan government agency! I fart in your general direction!"

Questions:

1. I assume that 'Audible Magic' could be incorporated into future P2P software versions. But what about the many millions who already have a version of P2P without this filtering program?

2. What if artists want their songs to be shared, even though they are copyrighted? What insurance would there be that those songs could still be traded?

I'd like to hear goldenpi's opinion on the feasibility of 'Audible Magic'.

"Bainwol, however, urged the P2P community to look beyond their own rhetoric."

I just threw up on my desk.

Chijin "What, we are the French! F.o.a.d. you sstoopid amereecan government agency! I fart in your general direction!"

And thats just Quebec! Canada :0) ~~pepe~~

did you know:

timewarner is a mirror for mute-net

"We obviously believe you can filter, while our friends on the other side say you can't," Bainwol said.

They have "friends"?
The "other side"?

Mitch -- trick question -- How do you tell the difference?

"We're at the point where we want to prove a fact pattern," he said.

Like price-fixing? Like market manipulation? Those fact patterns are right out in the open and the government doesn't seem to care about that.

Remember when we checked the list prices at Amazon on Dec 26? Everything was $18.98.

Today's new list price for the same titles -- $18.08

Mysteriously, the "suggested list" changed exactly 90 cents at all of the labels simultaneously. But we're not still price-fixing. No, no. Perish the thought.

"The technology has matured to a point where it's not a concept."

No, it's all the way to a dim-witted idea.

my concern isn't that this technology will stop downloading. like all other attempts, it's a joke. my concern is that congress will buy into it without even hearing from our side. I hope the P2P united lobby group is on top of this

Why don't they just find a possible way to prove to us that piracy is wrong without bullshit copyright laws that don't even have to do with downloading? Possibly, they would have no proof, so then Congress will have no choice but to simply let file-sharing be, despite low CD/DVD sales.

How would they make this digital fingerprint transfer from a wav file to a mp3? Can't I also play the CD in a CD player, take the analog outputs and run them to my computers analog inputs and make a "near perfect" copy without the so called digital fingerprint?

Yeah, that sucks...

-Jess

rocknrollman, Piracy is wrong. going out on the ocean and plundering other ships and murdering people should be punished.

It's the copyright infringment that happens in these cases that are not wrong.

thanks comp...
great minds think alike!

~Code....

code no prob. I've still got that file and I'm doing another one this weekend

Big F'n deal. Just encrypt the file and give the person you are sharing with the key.

centeroftheuniverse, that works too, an mp3 isn't even a good digital file to begin with, won't make any listening difference to me if it was an analog conversion

? post not working

looks like it is now

they can't bypass protowall lol

they got there ip ranges in the list allready

http://bluetack.co.uk

For it to work would mean every P2P client going through a central server with a database of copyright fingerprints or the database being each and every client. Decentralized is based on the principle of there being no single server to connet to/through so it's bull.

OOoooh! New Technology! I'll just have to keep pressing the Shift key.

First, why can't I d/l mp3's of all of the CD's I lost in a fire 4 years ago? Or how about the CD I bought last week but don't have the software to rip and encode. Is their magic software magical enough to know that and let those files through? Where is it illegal to own an mp3 of a CD I purchased?

Second, every time I reindex my mp3 collection and stare lovingly at the long list of thousands, I realize that is we who have already won this battle.

Imagine a giant being swarmed by millions of locust, and just before he dies, he brags about how he pulled the wings off of 531 of them.

Big Deal!

ha, jefrystube. My feelings exactly.

Who does this anti-p2p organization (FBI) have that the rest of the world doesn't?

Listen - there are enough people out there that hate Microsoft so much they've made a superior opensource replacement for MS Office (openoffice.org). Same with Linux. New P2P systems without this garbage in them won't be a problem. The great majority of people in the government, and even business, are technologically stupid when compared to their competition (the public).

I think multi-region DVD players, DVD players that strip Macrovision, and KaZaa Lite forecast exactly what'll happen to this technology.

Ya know...they really ARE keeping the pressure on us pirates...I was just talking with Pegleg the other day about my parrot, Polly...who has gotten really nutty due to all the pressure....Polly was saying "Polly want a cracker...." but that has gotten all out of whack...it became "Polly Want a Saltine" and then "Polly Want a Bagel"....
and then it just became as garbeld as the ramblings of a hebephrenic schizophrenic..the last time I heard it ...it was "Polly want a gjoiefmnoemomok...." or something like that....

Shaking my hook at the RIAA...DAMN YOU CARY SUE

I'm not a pirate... I'm a Buckeneer!

I would be a Buckanear....but I would only have two bucks