Math Wiz Claims Piracy Solution

from the if-you-can-hear-it,-you-can-record-it dept

The LA Times (yes, registration required) is reporting that a "millionaire mathematician" claims he has created an unbreakable anti-piracy scheme for computers. The guy, Hank Risan, claims he came up with the method after the RIAA accused him of having downloadable songs available on his own website about guitars. The obvious response to any "unbreakable" digital rights management scheme is, of course, that if you can hear it, you can copy it. However, it sounds like this technology takes a slightly different path - in that it tries to prevent every possible way that a computer would attempt to record a stream of audio. In other words, what this "anti-piracy" technique is designed to do is cripple your computer. It's not about protecting the specific music, but specifically taking over your computer to make sure that it can't be used to record. This seems like it's going a bit too far in terms of what rights an individual computer owner is giving up just to listen to music on their computer. Once again, though, it shows how much effort the industry is spending on copy protection, when they should be spending that time (and money) on coming up with new business models for a new world.

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