Legal Virals

[Nicodemus Phaulkon]

Some of the world's biggest record companies, facing rampant online piracy, are quietly financing the development and testing of software programs that would sabotage the computers and Internet connections of people who download pirated music, according to industry executives.

Here's the full article from the NYTimes: Software Bullet Is Sought to Kill Musical Piracy

Some notable passages for those wishing to avoid NYTimes registration (which is really worth it, IMO, and FREE, I might add):

Among the more benign approaches being developed is one program, considered a Trojan horse rather than a virus, that simply redirects users to Web sites where they can legitimately buy the song they tried to download.

A more malicious program, dubbed "freeze," locks up a computer system for a certain duration — minutes or possibly even hours — risking the loss of data that was unsaved if the computer is restarted. It also displays a warning about downloading pirated music. Another program under development, called "silence," scans a computer's hard drive for pirated music files and attempts to delete them. One of the executives briefed on the silence program said that it did not work properly and was being reworked because it was deleting legitimate music files, too.

...

Whether the record companies decide to unleash a tougher anti-piracy campaign has created a divide among some music executives concerned about finding a balance between stamping out piracy and infuriating its music-listening customers. There are also questions about whether companies could be held liable by individuals who have had their computers attacked.

"Some of this stuff is going to be illegal," said Lawrence Lessig, a professor at Stanford Law School who specializes in Internet copyright issues. "It depends on if they are doing a sufficient amount of damage. The law has ways to deal with copyright infringement. Freezing people's computers is not within the scope of the copyright laws."

Internet service providers are also nervous about anti-piracy programs that could disrupt their systems. Sarah B. Deutsch, associate general counsel of Verizon Communications, said she is concerned about any program that slows down connections. "It could become a problem we don't know how to deal with," she said. "Any technology that has an effect on a user's ability to operate their computer or use the network would be of extreme concern to us. I wouldn't say we're against this completely. I would just say that we're concerned."

Verizon is already caught in its own battle with the recording industry. A federal judge ordered Verizon to provide the Recording Industry Association of America with the identities of customers suspected of making available hundreds of copyrighted songs. The record companies are increasingly using techniques to sniff out and collect the electronic addresses of computers that distribute pirated music.

...

But the more aggressive approach could also generate a backlash against individual artists and the music industry. When Madonna released "spoofed" versions of songs from her new album on music sharing networks to frustrate pirates, her own Web site was hacked into the next day and real copies of her album were made available by hackers on her site.

Anyone remember the old Shadowrun RPG? Shades of "Black IC" or what?

I'm not an advocate of piracy by any means. However, this seems a tad Machiavellian to me. It's hard to hold the high moral ground when you're using the same methodology as your opponents. Of course, the corporations might have sacrificed the "high moral ground" a long time ago, especially in the light of the price-fixing that was reported a few months ago.

Weapons on both sides. Are we looking at the first true Internet war?