[mythtv-users] Zap2it Labs Shutting Down?

Peter Schachte schachte at csse.unimelb.edu.au
Thu Jun 21 03:27:09 UTC 2007


R. G. Newbury wrote:

> Given that the computing power is available you could 'watermark' by 
> seeding bad data into many more groupings than just one-half at a time.

Sure.  You could have a unique watermark for each subscriber.

> And the 'watermark' need not be a particularly visible piece of 
> information...a 'mis-spelling' in a description for a late night movie, 
> 3 days out, etc. Even if a commercial user ran a diff against data from 
> a different account, they would not be able to know which was correct. 
> And the next download could 'correct' the error.

But a determined pirate could download, say, a dozen copies through a dozen
different accounts, and traverse all the data in parallel using a majority
rules approach wherever the data differs.  And even if the majority
occasionally gets it wrong, that doesn't matter so much because the watermark
on the data they post for profit would not match that of any of the dozen
copies they downloaded, so the pirate copy couldn't be traced back to any of
the accounts it was derived from.

I really can't see any technological way to stop this kind of commercial data
piracy.  The best way I can think of would be just to make sure it is widely
known that the data can be had for free -- why would anyone knowingly pay
pirates for something they can download for free?

-- 
Peter Schachte              We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great
schachte at cs.mu.OZ.AU        ones to public office.
www.cs.mu.oz.au/~schachte/      -- Aesop
Phone: +61 3 8344 1338


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