The music industry might want to listen to this swappers' deal
By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff, 7/7/2003
hat's the country coming to? It's getting so that you can't steal music any more without being busted. That's the kind of reaction coming from Internet file-swappers now that the recording industry has vowed to file lawsuits and maybe even criminal complaints against people who trade pop tunes without paying for them. Makers of file-swap software like Morpheus are urging users to write their congressfolk in protest. One imagines some sort of form letter: ''I'm a thief and I vote.''
Actually, what the swappers want is a new deal for the music industry. Consumer file-swapping would be made legal, but all Internet users and computer buyers would pay a special tax, to be divvied up among the music producers as compensation for lost CD sales. So far, though, the Recording Industry Association of America is turning up its nose at the plan.
They may think better of it in a year or so. Only success can justify the RIAA's present hardnosed strategy, and success is far from assured. One of the big file-swapping services, Kazaa, reported a big falloff in usage right after the RIAA made its threat, but swapping rates have since bounced back. Other swap services report that usage remains strong.
Remember that many swappers still purchase at least a few CDs. Imagine them stopping altogether and getting all of their music free off the Internet, as a protest against the lawsuit blitz. Imagine the amount of swapped music actually increasing as a result of the protest. Imagine swappers contributing to a legal defense fund for their fellow felons. Now, imagine any savvy politician ignoring all of that and supporting the RIAA. Yeah, this could get ugly.
And that's just the short-term problem facing the music industry. Lurking over the horizon: file-swapping services that will make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to track the swappers.
Today's swapping systems let people link their computers directly to one another to exchange files. As a result, a system like Kazaa makes it possible for a user to identify the Internet address of his fellow swappers. Not to worry; this isn't your home address. It's just a string of numbers such as 192.168.22.44.
But your Internet provider will know who was using that address on a given date and time. So the music company can camp on Kazaa, intercept these Internet addresses, then subpoena the relevant Internet companies to get the names and addresses of the swappers.
What the swappers need is a system that lets people exchange files without revealing their true Internet addresses. And such systems have long been under development.
The granddaddy of them all, Freenet, was born in 2001. Ian Clarke, then a grad student at the University of Edinburgh, wanted to help people in repressive countries like China to evade the Internet censors. So he came up with a complex form of file-swapping, where every piece of data is encrypted and bounced through multiple servers. As a result, it's never clear who sent the
original data request and who responded to it. ''It's actively being used in countries like China right now, as a way to distribute politically sensitive or censored information,'' said Clarke. And there's no reason it couldn't also be used to swap MP3 music files.
Well, actually there is one reason. Freenet is slow -- brutally, dreadfully slow. All of the data-hopping and encryption combine to make a Freenet session an exercise in frustration. There isn't even a simple way to search the network for files you might want, because it's so hard to create such a system and retain the pure anonymity of the network. A substitute for Kazaa? Not even close. At least, not yet.
Others are trying to layer anonymity features atop their existing file-swap programs. The Spanish service Filetopia, a fast, easy-to-use swap system, offers a piece of Java code that can be used to set up a ''bouncer.'' That's a proxy server that can reroute swapping requests to conceal their origins. But for the system to work, somebody on the Net must set up computers to act as bouncers.
Filetopia creator Enrique Martin said his firm distributes the bouncer software but doesn't know of anybody who runs it. And a Google search didn't turn up any sites offering their services as Filetopia bouncers. So it's hard to know how well Filetopia will work until the bouncer system is widely deployed. Given the threats from RIAA, we'll soon find out.
Morpheus, one of the best-known swap services, is also looking at ways to conceal users' identities.
''There's independent proxy servers out there that people could use,'' said Michael Weiss, CEO of Morpheus's parent company, StreamCast Networks. Weiss, whose company is locked in federal litigation with the record companies, wouldn't flatly say that Morpheus would help illegal file-swappers evade detection. Instead, he blandly vowed: ''We are going to provide our users with a measure of security and privacy that will let them feel comfortable on the Internet.''
Maybe so, but it sounds like a bed of nails for the music moguls. Their legal campaign may only hasten the day when people can swap files in perfect secrecy. If that day arrives, the RIAA may welcome the swappers' proposed new deal, as the only way out of the music industry's great depression.
Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray@globe.com.
This story ran on page C2 of the Boston Globe on 7/7/2003.
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