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| SDMI plans to keep CDs as "the key" for digital music |
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| posted by Derek Sivers on Friday January 26 2001 @ 03:41PM PST |
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SDMI Cuts Compression Detection from Plan
by Mark Lewis
http://news.webnoize.com/item.rs?eID=20010126&ID=11802
The Secure Digital Music Initiative agreed last night to rework some basic components of a digital music security system it has been developing for two years, SDMI members said.
The multi-industry consortium decided to drop a technology that would have been used to detect whether a music file was compressed without authorization. A robust watermark, which will be placed on CDs and in commercially-distributed music files, will still be used. It is supposed to withstand compression and hack attacks, though questions about the impregnability of several of the submitted watermarks remain.
The main element of the now-rejected compression detection system was a "fragile" watermark, designed to break if a song was compressed without authorization and then sent through a song-swap service, for example.
Though that has been eliminated, the SDMI system is still supposed to control digital piracy by requiring that users verify they own CDs that correspond to compressed files. The system will only work with CDs that contain watermarks. It is unclear how the verification process will work if consumers make personal-use copies of commercially-distributed downloads, move them to other devices and then have to verify they own the originals.
Consumer electronics companies and some consumer advocates are concerned that the CD verification process will burden consumers when they attempt to use personal-use copies. They are also concerned that the system rejects legitimate copies.
EMI and Philips Electronics submitted technologies that handle that verification process; a decision on which will be used still has to be made.
Existing developers of watermark technologies SDMI has examined, including Blue Spike, CRL and Verance, can resubmit their technologies if they desire, taking into account the verification technology. Those companies may also submit new watermark detectors. That may require more testing on the part of SDMI, which will have to make certain the detectors do not overly tax the processing power of portable devices.
SDMI has still not tested the effect of watermarks on the sound quality of 192 kHZ DVD-Audio or Super Audio CDs, two audiophile formats expected to enter the mainstream market during the next five years.
Paul Jessop, who works on SDMI's testing committee, said last July that a technology would not be selected until it has been appraised for those high-quality formats. Jessop is the chief technology officer of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.
SDMI members interviewed did not know the deadline for submissions. The group next meets in Tokyo from February 28 to March 2.
THIS ARTICLE FROM WEBNOIZE AT:
http://news.webnoize.com/item.rs?eID=20010126&ID=11802
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