May 2001 • Rockbites Alternative Daily
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May 2001 • Rockbites Alternative Daily
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SDMI shows its ass and its contempt for science 2 May 2001
Last September the SDMI issued a public challenge to crack their so-called watermarking scheme that attaches identification to music files, allowing illegal copies to be blocked in the future by SDMI-compliant players. The challenge offered two options: sign a confidentiality agreement through which you promise to not disclose your results, making you eligible for a US$10,000 prize; or don’t sign the agreement and be free to publish your findings. Princeton University associate professor Edward Felten and his team, which included researchers from Rice University and the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (Xerox PARC), chose the latter option. In October they announced they had cracked the code. The team wrote a paper on their work which, following peer review, was accepted for presentation at the Fourth International Information Hiding Workshop, held last week in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. But the SDMI, in an extraordinarily bold move that at once reveals its initial challenge as a farce, undermines the scientific process, and throws its stated motives into question, instructed its lawyers to threaten Felten, the conference organizers, Princeton University, Rice University, and Xerox PARC with lawsuits. The research team backed down. Here is Felten’s statement read at the conference last week in lieu of his paper “On behalf of the authors of the paper 'Reading Between the Lines: Lessons from the SDMI Challenge,' I am disappointed to tell you that we will not be presenting our paper today. “Our paper was submitted via the normal academic peer-review process. The reviewers, who were chosen for their scientific reputations and credentials, enthusiastically recommended the paper for publication, due to their judgment of the paper’s scientific merit. “Nevertheless, the Recording Industry Association of America, the SDMI Foundation, and the Verance Corporation [designers of the SDMI’s watermarking technology] threatened to bring a lawsuit if we proceeded with our presentation or the publication of our paper. Threats were made against the authors, against the conference organizers, and against their respective employers. “Litigation is costly, time-consuming, and uncertain, regardless of the merits of the other side’s case. Ultimately we, the authors, reached a collective decision not to expose ourselves, our employers, and the conference organizers to litigation at this time. “We remain committed to free speech and to the value of scientific debate to our country and the world. We believe that people benefit from learning the truth about the products they are asked to buy. We will continue to fight for these values, and for the right to publish our paper. “We look forward to the day when we can present the results of our research to you, our colleagues, through the normal scientific publication process, so that you can judge our work for yourselves.” The team of researchers on the front line of this challenge are Scott A. Craver, John P. McGregor, Min Wu, Bede Liu, Adam Stubblefield, Ben Swartzlander, Dan S. Wallach, Drew Dean, and Edward W. Felten. Their findings were to be included in the forthcoming IHW conference proceedings in Springer’s Lecture Notes In Computer Science series. The SDMI comprises more than 180 technology companies inclusing Microsoft and Sony, along with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Last week, following his team’s decision to back down, Felten told reporters “We are not encouraging theft. We are interested in understanding how this technology works. These [SDMI’s watermarking plans] are costly measures, and there is no reason to deploy them if they don’t work.” The RIAA, meanwhile, disingenuously assumed the role of good cop with a brief statement by Matthew Oppenheim, their senior vice president of business and legal affairs (check our link). | SDMI challenge info from Princeton (includes FAQ list) | | SDMI | | RIAA statement | | Verance | | top of page | |
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