3 ms·

IANAL, but it seems that mens rea (intending to commit a crime) would play a big role in this area. While you are correct in saying that Abbey Road might under

IANAL, but it seems that mens rea (intending to commit a crime) would play a big role in this area. While you are correct in saying that Abbey Road might under some form of digital encoding turn out to be the number "34", this wouldn't make distributing files with the number 34 illegal unless you can demonstrate that the people sharing the number knew what it was for and how it was encoded. Otherwise, it would seem that you could infringe copyrights all day and as long as the traffic was encrypted then you could argue that you're not sending MP3 files, just numbers that after some massaging with keys turns out to be data useful for feeding to an MP3 Player. (Heck, you could probably slippery slope the analogy to simply taking the twos compliment of the digital representation) So unless I'm mistaken, they are not claiming to own a number, but rather, are claiming to own "imaginary" property in that anything digital that resembles and is being _used_ to replicate the artist's performance is infringement and thus illegal. But I agree that the whole thing is still crazy and full of logical loop-holes. EDIT: For a similar concept that's brewing, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_prime http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_prime

A1kmm 16y ago
IANAL, but from what I've read, the original legislative intent, in most jurisdictions, is that the process by which an artefact is created (including a stream of bits sent over a network or data sent on a block device) rather than the data itself which makes something a protected work - and it is the process of copying that is restricted. If you invent the exact same sequence completely independently, you own it. However, the problem of looking at data and saying that copying happened is one of inference; if I posted exactly the same comment you just wrote, I could have independently come up with your copyrighted comment, and hence own the copyright, but the much more likely explanation is that I copied your comment, and so judges and juries infer copying from similarity that they believe is statistically unlikely. So if person A generates a random string from the uniform distribution, and communicates it securely to a trusted person, B, who XORs the string with your comment, and A shares the random string with the public, while B shares the XORed string, technically only B commits direct copyright infringement, because B created a derivative work by XORing, and broadcast that work (copying). If done properly, no one could prove which person was A and which was B however. In practice, however, it is likely that if both people acted with intent to distribute the work, they would both be at least secondarily liable.

A1kmm 16y ago

IANAL, but from what I've read, the original legislative intent, in most jurisdictions, is that the process by which an artefact is created (including a stream of bits sent over a network or data sent on a block device) rather than the data itself which makes something a protected work - and it is the process of copying that is restricted. If you invent the exact same sequence completely independently, you own it. However, the problem of looking at data and saying that copying happened is one of inference; if I posted exactly the same comment you just wrote, I could have independently come up with your copyrighted comment, and hence own the copyright, but the much more likely explanation is that I copied your comment, and so judges and juries infer copying from similarity that they believe is statistically unlikely. So if person A generates a random string from the uniform distribution, and communicates it securely to a trusted person, B, who XORs the string with your comment, and A shares the random string with the public, while B shares the XORed string, technically only B commits direct copyright infringement, because B created a derivative work by XORing, and broadcast that work (copying). If done properly, no one could prove which person was A and which was B however. In practice, however, it is likely that if both people acted with intent to distribute the work, they would both be at least secondarily liable.