[thelist] You can play a song but you can't download it

Ken Schaefer Ken at adOpenStatic.com
Fri Mar 4 04:48:46 CST 2005


Stephen is both right and wrong. Using current DRM technology, one can
certainly stop users from making digital copies of documents (including
music). Without the appropriate license key, the music can't be decrypted.
Whether or not the content can be intercepted between server and player is
mostly irrelevant - it isn't useful to anyone.

However there is nothing to stop analogue attacks - you can always copy a
document down by hand, or snap a picture using a camera. Likewise you can
hold a tape recorder up to the computer speakers and make a copy that way.

Cheers
Ken

: -----Original Message-----
: From: thelist-bounces at lists.evolt.org [mailto:thelist-
: bounces at lists.evolt.org] On Behalf Of VOLKAN ÖZÇELIK
: Sent: Friday, 4 March 2005 4:00 PM
: To: thelist at lists.evolt.org
: Subject: Re: [thelist] You can play a song but you can't download it
: 
: >Some kind of streaming stuff will help. flash has inline streaming
: capability.
: >We used http://play.ground.gr/index.php?p=19 in a project.
: >
: >if you have a designer and an action-scripter, you can easily
: 
: 
: In fact, Stephen is right. If something can be streamed, it can be
: intercepted as well. That is, as far as I know, there is no 100%
: secure way to block people from listening but not saving. My
: propsition was a solution for the non-techie majority of the audience.
: 
: May be you can bring a membership mechanism. non-members can view the
: file names, band info, ratings etc. but only members can listen to the
: songs.
: 
: does that make sense?
: 
: 
: 
: On Thu, 3 Mar 2005 16:50:15 -0600, Stephen Rider
: <evolt_org at striderweb.com> wrote:
: > > Just putting together a superfast web page for my brother's rock band.
: > >  Their management has requested that the songs be playable from the
: > > site, but not downloadable.  Is there a simple way to do this?  What
: > > kind of files do I need to save them as?  They're currently MP3s.
: >
: > FYI --
: >
: > With the right software... if I can hear it, I can save it as an
: > MP3/AIFF/etc.  Said software is also easy to come by.
: >
: > I would concur with the poster who suggested that obscurity is a far
: > greater danger to a band than piracy.  I like a lot of bands of whom I
: > never would have heard had a friend not emailed me an MP3 with a "hey
: > check this out" message.  (And I almost always download the weekly
: > freebies from iTunes!)
: >
: > Steve



More information about the thelist mailing list