Electronic Frontier Foundation ALERT -- Sep. 18, 2000
Please redistribute to relevant forums, no later than Nov. 1, 2000.
The Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI), an entertainment industry trade association led by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), has announced a "contest" in their "Open Letter to the Digital Community" (at http://www.sdmi.org/pr/OL_Sept_6_2000.htm ), where they challenge hackers to test the security of their music encryption program. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) urges the Internet community to boycott this contest and refrain from helping the recording industry perfect a way to undermine our fair use rights.
EFF is the first to acknowledge that hacking at encryption code is vital to ensuring security in digital architecture. However, we question the motives of SDMI, which has indicated an interest in severely limiting your ability to listen to digital recordings in your favorite format and in undermining all attempts at non-SDMI-compliant music distribution models.
EFF therefore urges anyone with the technical expertise to compete for the $10,000 prize to refrain from doing so and to tell SDMI - and your friends, relatives and colleagues that you are participating in this boycott and why.
EFF also invites musicians and listeners to participate in a "contest" to Set Digital Music Free (SDMF), where the prize is your freedom to distribute your music any way you choose. The SDMF challenge, part of EFF's Campaign for Audiovisual Free Expresssion (CAFE), is aimed at empowering musicians and listeners through alternative business models with open architectures in cyberspace. Detailed explanations of SDMF and CAFE are available at http://www.eff.org/cafe .
SDMI has proposed a new standard that they are heavily pushing on equipment and software manufacturers. The Digital Music Access Technology, or DMAT, format is intended to put an encryption-based shell around digital audio content that prevents unauthorized copying or playback. Examples of "unauthorized" uses are likely to include your attempts to: play music files on any player that does not honor DMAT; make backups of your music files; excerpt portions of music files in high quality audio; or have multiple copies of music files, such as having one for a portable player and one in your car. Furthermore, there has been some speculation that SDMI will arm-twist equipment makers into either disallowing playback of non-DMAT music or converting it permanently to DMAT format, regardless of the intent of the artist that produced and released it. Finally, copyright is only intended to cover works for a limited time, after which they are supposed to become part of the public domain. This transition will no longer be allowed to take place with technology such as DMAT, where a song that is branded with the industry's watermark will be copy-protected eternally.
DMAT is designed to undermine fair use and related rights, such as: the ability to play content on whatever equipment the purchaser desires; the right to "time shift" and "space shift" (e.g., record for playback at a later time or in a different format); the right to make backup copies of purchased content; the right to actually own instead of simply "license" purchased content (the "First Sale" doctrine); the right of artists to distribute content digitally without signing ownership of their works over to a major record label; the rights of journalists and educators to re-use content excerpts without having to pay licensing fees; and many more. SDMI's neglect to address these fair use issues displays a shocking and callous attitude towards the public domain rights of consumers and artists in the digital world.
Most at risk by the SDMI proposal are independent artists and the consumers who appreciate their work. Increasing numbers of artists are recognizing the awesome potential of the Internet to directly connect with their listeners. Technological advances and alternative distribution methods should allow more musicians to enter the market at a lower cost to consumers. This change is not welcomed by the big record labels, however, which have depended on musicians only being able to reach potential listeners through the exclusive distribution power of the recording industry. SDMI's DMAT is the industry's attempt to keep its stranglehold on music distribution.
SDMI wants DMAT to be uncrackable so that all who dare to exercise their rights will be cryptographicly prevented from doing so. The RIAA is mischaracterizing all "unauthorized" access or duplication - no matter how well protected by fair use and other rights - to be copyright piracy. And now SDMI is asking the very hackers they malign in the press and in court as criminal copyright pirates and thieves to help SDMI make DMAT unbreakable!
EFF has attempted dialog with SDMI and even asked to be part of SDMI in an attempt to improve it from a public interest perspective. SDMI consistently rejected our applications and has completely ignored all of the fair use, constitutional, anti-trust and social responsibility concerns we have raised with DMAT. Enough is finally enough.
EFF urges all hackers, reverse engineers, digital audio experts, cryptographers and others targeted by SDMI's Trojan horse invitation to refrain from giving them free consulting on how to hack away at your rights. Please:
If you are not a tech expert but are a user of digital music technology, you too can play a role:
If you are an independent artist, you can:
If you are a "signed" artist, you can really help:
EFF's Campaign for Audiovisual Free Expression (CAFE)
http://www.eff.org/cafe
The "HackSMDI" site:
http://www.hacksdmi.org
the SDMI homepage:
http://ww.sdmi.org