6 ms·

Lets say this service is generating truly random bytes. If a subset of the bytes that you download happen to describe, say, the last episode of Mr. Robot encode

by bradhe 11y ago

Lets say this service is generating truly random bytes. If a subset of the bytes that you download happen to describe, say, the last episode of Mr. Robot encoded in MP4, does that actually constitute piracy?

Mojah 11y ago
You're talking accidental piracy. That would make for a great court case!
- heinrich5991 11y ago
  Unfortunately (or fortunately?) this can pretty much be claimed to be impossible. Even just generating one specific kilobyte of data using uniform randomness yields a probability of 1/2^8192 (Python tells me that 2^8192 > 10^2000, which is far bigger than the estimated number of atoms in the universe, which is somewhere around 10^80).
slavik81 11y ago
No. Copyright only covers copying. If two people independently create the same work, they both have rights to that work. Though, note that what you're suggesting is basically impossible for a work of any meaningful size, and the act of searching for a specific work in a random stream probably would prevent it from being considered an independent creation. http://www.techpatents.com/Blog/independent-creation-is-a-defense-of-copyright-infringement.html http://www.techpatents.com/Blog/independent-creation-is-a-de...
- baddox 11y ago
  How is searching for something in a random stream equivalent to copying it?
  - slavik81 11y ago
    It's hard to call it "independently created" if you used a copy of the work in question as an input to your algorithm.
  - dredmorbius 11y ago
    At some point the copy of the work you use to either compare or generate a comparison hash might be considered copying. The maths tend to work against you as well.
- kozhevnikov 11y ago
  What if it's not random but π? https://github.com/philipl/pifs https://github.com/philipl/pifs
  - cbd1984 11y ago
    > What if it's not random but π? π is known to never repeat (that is, it's irrational); it is not, however, known to be normal. That means the digits in its decimal expansion (to pick a base) are not known to be normally distributed. This means that it is not necessarily the case that every possible sequence of decimal digits is present in π. For example, for all we know it's the case that beyond a certain (massively huge) number of decimal places, π never contains another '7'. That would render some sequences impossible, while still preserving the proven-to-be-true property that π never repeats itself in its entirety (that is, that it's irrational).
    - leni536 11y ago
      > That means the digits in its decimal expansion (to pick a base) are not known to be normally distributed. You mean uniformly distributed. Being a normal number states more than that: any finite sequence of digits are uniformly distributed. While you are right that Pi isn't proven to be normal, constructing a normal number isn't exactly hard. I think the following number is proven to be normal (binary representation, I added spaces for clarity): 0.0 1 00 01 10 11 001 010 011 100 101 110 111 ... It's clear to see that this number contains all possible finite binary sequences.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- scintill76 11y ago
  This is getting even more offtopic, but I'm kind of curious if anyone knows if it would be illegal to distribute a copy of something copyrighted, if it's "encrypted with itself" -- for example, an encrypted eBook with plaintext metadata that tells you how to derive a decryption key from a long sample of words in the book. In theory the copy is random bytes until you possess the book, which should mean you have the right to possess the copy for personal/backup/interoperability purposes. (The usecase in mind, which perhaps applies best to books, is being able to turn physical media into high-fidelity, open digital formats that can be distributed lawfully, without the cooperation of the copyright holder.)
  - coldtea 11y ago
    >In theory the copy is random bytes until you possess the book, which should mean you have the right to possess the copy for personal/backup/interoperability purposes. In what theory? We can very well theoritically conceive that you just ask for those "sample words" from someone else who has the book either legitimately or illegitmately, and he gives them to you. Even if the set of sample words is different for each metadata file, the book would be the same, so you just need a person willing to share the words with someone that doesn't own the book.
    - scintill76 11y ago
      Yes, but in such cases you can also just borrow the entire book, photocopy it, and keep the copy. It's still legal to loan books or have photocopiers, but using them together without license is illegal. The point is to make it so that the distributors can reasonably argue they are not actually distributing copyrighted material and have made some effort to ensure the recipients have a license to the work, and that there are no reasonable physical prohibitions the law or copyright holders can make to stop this (i.e., banning the sharing of books isn't reasonable -- for the moment.) It's the responsibility of the decrypting party to only decrypt lawfully, just as it's currently with disc copying/ripping. Now, an actual lawyer might obliterate this through some logic I don't know, and/or appeal to "bit color" as others are pointing out. P.S. I do have to admit my idea reminds me of warrant canaries, a "clever hack" around the law that I ultimately believe can't really be lawful. P.P.S. CleanFlicks et al may be relevant case law, as from what I understand they made varying efforts to "ensure" their customers held a license, but were basically still distributing copies of works they didn't own.
- grkvlt 11y ago
  See also "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" by Borges (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Menard,_Author_of_the_Quixote https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Menard,_Author_of_the_Q...) about the differences between Menard's and Cervantes' Don Quixote. Both the same text, 100% identical, but one written in contemporary times to the setting, one in modern times. The modern 'copy' has a different meaning, due to the authors different circumstances, despite the content being syntactically exactly the same. Really interesting concept, like all of Borges, really!
leni536 11y ago
Mandatory "What Colour are your bits?" post. http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23 http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23
danbruc 11y ago
At least for me it is all zeros (0x00). Except when I downloaded the entire file for the first time, there I first got zeros (0x00), then zeros (0x30) separated by two windows newlines (twice 0x0D 0x0A) and reached infinity after 544,930 bytes.
p1mrx 11y ago
The probability of that occurring is on the order of 1 in 2^1000000000. You would exceed the computational capacity of the universe long before that point.
sklivvz1971 11y ago
Of course it does, that's equivalent to what torrents do. The "index" and "length" would constitute the copyright violation. In the same way torrents are lists of hashes, which are used as keys to find byte blocks in the "cloud" of torrent clients.

by bradhe 11y ago

Mojah 11y ago

You're talking accidental piracy. That would make for a great court case!

heinrich5991 11y ago
Unfortunately (or fortunately?) this can pretty much be claimed to be impossible. Even just generating one specific kilobyte of data using uniform randomness yields a probability of 1/2^8192 (Python tells me that 2^8192 > 10^2000, which is far bigger than the estimated number of atoms in the universe, which is somewhere around 10^80).

slavik81 11y ago

No. Copyright only covers copying. If two people independently create the same work, they both have rights to that work. Though, note that what you're suggesting is basically impossible for a work of any meaningful size, and the act of searching for a specific work in a random stream probably would prevent it from being considered an independent creation. http://www.techpatents.com/Blog/independent-creation-is-a-defense-of-copyright-infringement.html http://www.techpatents.com/Blog/independent-creation-is-a-de...

baddox 11y ago
How is searching for something in a random stream equivalent to copying it?
- slavik81 11y ago
  It's hard to call it "independently created" if you used a copy of the work in question as an input to your algorithm.
- dredmorbius 11y ago
  At some point the copy of the work you use to either compare or generate a comparison hash might be considered copying. The maths tend to work against you as well.
kozhevnikov 11y ago
What if it's not random but π? https://github.com/philipl/pifs https://github.com/philipl/pifs
- cbd1984 11y ago
  > What if it's not random but π? π is known to never repeat (that is, it's irrational); it is not, however, known to be normal. That means the digits in its decimal expansion (to pick a base) are not known to be normally distributed. This means that it is not necessarily the case that every possible sequence of decimal digits is present in π. For example, for all we know it's the case that beyond a certain (massively huge) number of decimal places, π never contains another '7'. That would render some sequences impossible, while still preserving the proven-to-be-true property that π never repeats itself in its entirety (that is, that it's irrational).
  - leni536 11y ago
    > That means the digits in its decimal expansion (to pick a base) are not known to be normally distributed. You mean uniformly distributed. Being a normal number states more than that: any finite sequence of digits are uniformly distributed. While you are right that Pi isn't proven to be normal, constructing a normal number isn't exactly hard. I think the following number is proven to be normal (binary representation, I added spaces for clarity): 0.0 1 00 01 10 11 001 010 011 100 101 110 111 ... It's clear to see that this number contains all possible finite binary sequences.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
scintill76 11y ago
This is getting even more offtopic, but I'm kind of curious if anyone knows if it would be illegal to distribute a copy of something copyrighted, if it's "encrypted with itself" -- for example, an encrypted eBook with plaintext metadata that tells you how to derive a decryption key from a long sample of words in the book. In theory the copy is random bytes until you possess the book, which should mean you have the right to possess the copy for personal/backup/interoperability purposes. (The usecase in mind, which perhaps applies best to books, is being able to turn physical media into high-fidelity, open digital formats that can be distributed lawfully, without the cooperation of the copyright holder.)
- coldtea 11y ago
  >In theory the copy is random bytes until you possess the book, which should mean you have the right to possess the copy for personal/backup/interoperability purposes. In what theory? We can very well theoritically conceive that you just ask for those "sample words" from someone else who has the book either legitimately or illegitmately, and he gives them to you. Even if the set of sample words is different for each metadata file, the book would be the same, so you just need a person willing to share the words with someone that doesn't own the book.
  - scintill76 11y ago
    Yes, but in such cases you can also just borrow the entire book, photocopy it, and keep the copy. It's still legal to loan books or have photocopiers, but using them together without license is illegal. The point is to make it so that the distributors can reasonably argue they are not actually distributing copyrighted material and have made some effort to ensure the recipients have a license to the work, and that there are no reasonable physical prohibitions the law or copyright holders can make to stop this (i.e., banning the sharing of books isn't reasonable -- for the moment.) It's the responsibility of the decrypting party to only decrypt lawfully, just as it's currently with disc copying/ripping. Now, an actual lawyer might obliterate this through some logic I don't know, and/or appeal to "bit color" as others are pointing out. P.S. I do have to admit my idea reminds me of warrant canaries, a "clever hack" around the law that I ultimately believe can't really be lawful. P.P.S. CleanFlicks et al may be relevant case law, as from what I understand they made varying efforts to "ensure" their customers held a license, but were basically still distributing copies of works they didn't own.
grkvlt 11y ago
See also "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" by Borges (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Menard,_Author_of_the_Quixote https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Menard,_Author_of_the_Q...) about the differences between Menard's and Cervantes' Don Quixote. Both the same text, 100% identical, but one written in contemporary times to the setting, one in modern times. The modern 'copy' has a different meaning, due to the authors different circumstances, despite the content being syntactically exactly the same. Really interesting concept, like all of Borges, really!

leni536 11y ago

Mandatory "What Colour are your bits?" post. http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23 http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23

danbruc 11y ago

At least for me it is all zeros (0x00). Except when I downloaded the entire file for the first time, there I first got zeros (0x00), then zeros (0x30) separated by two windows newlines (twice 0x0D 0x0A) and reached infinity after 544,930 bytes.

p1mrx 11y ago

The probability of that occurring is on the order of 1 in 2^1000000000. You would exceed the computational capacity of the universe long before that point.

sklivvz1971 11y ago

Of course it does, that's equivalent to what torrents do. The "index" and "length" would constitute the copyright violation. In the same way torrents are lists of hashes, which are used as keys to find byte blocks in the "cloud" of torrent clients.