Re: Backdoors

On 15/12/2019 18:48, Rick Smith wrote:

> Compare this to the digital rights management problem. MPAA members would love to identify which movies are being pirated, and by whom.

MPAA could quite easily identify which movies are being pirated, in 
exactly the same as anyone who watches pirated movies.

Identifying who initially pirated the movies is harder, but they could 
use traitor tracing (individual small changes or digital watermarks in 
each copy) to do so.

However there are so many legitimate copies out there that it isn't 
worth their while except for people who initially pirate new movies on a 
large scale, who can be caught using standard law-enforcement techniques.

To some extent MPAA do identify pirated movies, probably by using Google 
and/or torrent trackers, then you get:
"In response to multiple complaints that we received under the US 
Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 3 results from this 
page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaints that caused the 
removals at LumenDatabase.org: Complaint, Complaint. "

I suspect you can use the links to the complaints to find the movie ... 
I digress.

MPAA want to increase income and monetary value. They do this rather 
successfully by making pirating seem anti-social and a little risky, and 
making mass commercial pirating highly illegal. Many of those who watch 
pirated movies do so because they can't afford to go, and preventing 
their piracy would not increase income and monetary value.

Being seen as too heavy-handed in prosecuting individual piracy would 
not help either - "bad MPAA = bad movies" - though mass pirates are fair 
game.

While MPAA are not exactly happy about piracy, they do have it under 
control.


Peter Fairbrother
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