4 ms·

The way cdrom.com worked is you would upload a fingerprint of your music. Then if they already had a track that matched the fingerprint, they would link that t

The way cdrom.com worked is you would upload a fingerprint of your music. Then if they already had a track that matched the fingerprint, they would link that to your account and not require you to upload the whole track. So this was technically not within the scope of what is allowed by copyright law, which is why they got in trouble. Which is kind of strange how when something is "technically" a violation, even if it is within the spirit of the law (or equiv. to what is allowed), the copyright hammer comes down. Whereas when something is "technically" NOT a copyright violation, the hammer still comes down (such as that company that used a bunch of tiny TV antennas to stream broadcast TV over the internet to other markets -- each customer was "renting" one of the dedicated TV antennas and using the internet as a "long cable". Or the company that would dedicate a DVD player to each customer and stream movies across the internet, again claiming the internet was just a "very long cable". They both got shut down hard even though they weren't "technically" in violation).

jandrese 6y ago
The whole "they're not physically your bits" argument never made a lick of sense. They never would be after you uploaded them over the Internet. The whole case depended on the Doctrine of First Sale not applying to CDs, so that's what the courts agreed to. The record companies could have gone after second hand record stores, at least the ones that sold CDs, if they wanted to at that point but it was kind of unnecessary because they were already dying.
AdamJacobMuller 6y ago
The reason why cdrom.com was sued out of existence was that it became trivial to simply publish directories of fingerprints and upload massive numbers of fingerprints into your account and get access to music you never bought.
- derekp7 6y ago
  So if they had an algorithm that would ask for a unique fingerprint (say by sampling random parts of the track), then they would have been in the clear? Or, more accurately, would the record labels have been more likely to strike a deal if that was the case?
  - jandrese 6y ago
    The record companies wanted them dead. There was no negotiating. Remember this was back before iTunes. They saw streaming as only a threat.

jandrese 6y ago

The whole "they're not physically your bits" argument never made a lick of sense. They never would be after you uploaded them over the Internet. The whole case depended on the Doctrine of First Sale not applying to CDs, so that's what the courts agreed to. The record companies could have gone after second hand record stores, at least the ones that sold CDs, if they wanted to at that point but it was kind of unnecessary because they were already dying.

AdamJacobMuller 6y ago

The reason why cdrom.com was sued out of existence was that it became trivial to simply publish directories of fingerprints and upload massive numbers of fingerprints into your account and get access to music you never bought.

derekp7 6y ago
So if they had an algorithm that would ask for a unique fingerprint (say by sampling random parts of the track), then they would have been in the clear? Or, more accurately, would the record labels have been more likely to strike a deal if that was the case?
- jandrese 6y ago
  The record companies wanted them dead. There was no negotiating. Remember this was back before iTunes. They saw streaming as only a threat.