Does Audible Magic Violate Wiretap Laws?

Found on Corante on Tuesday, 13 July 2004
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Basically, Audible Magic filters content based on an audio fingerprinting service that checks against a database of copyrighted works. Installed in a piece of P2P software, it prevents copyrighted works from being transmitted in the first place, which is what the article above discussed. However, Audible Magic is now attempting to sell its technology to schools and universities. In such cases, Audible Magic's technology will listen in to the data transfers (aka sniff packets) in the network and attempt to terminate those virtual circuits it believes are violating copyright.

Session encryption for file transfers based on ephemeral keys represents a cheap, easily implemented countermeasure that would effectively frustrate Audible Magic's filtering technology. Based on publicly available information, it does not appear that this vulnerability can be easily remedied. Should Audible Magic's technology be widely adopted, it is likely that P2P file-sharing applications would be revised to implement encryption. Accordingly, network administrators will want to ask Audible Magic tough questions before investing in the company's technology, lest the investment be rendered worthless by the next P2P "upgrade."

Until today, the industry has always proven its interest in obviously doomed ideas. Just look at all the protection experiments with audio CDs, which only anger customers at a large scale. Even if they don't get sued for wiretapping, P2P developers will quickly upgrade.