EFF Calls for Boycott of "HackSDMI Challenge"

Don't Undermine Your Own Fair Use Rights!

Electronic Frontier Foundation ALERT -- Sep. 18, 2000

Please redistribute to relevant forums, no later than Nov. 1, 2000.

Introduction

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's Motivations

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.

Civil Liberties Concerns

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.

Don't Do Their Dirty Work!

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:

Refrain from participating in the "HackSDMI" backstab.
Publicly say you are doing so (in your e-mail signature file, on hacking, engineering and other relevant mailing lists, on your own web page, and wherever else you deem appropriate).
Write to SDMI and tell them that you refuse to help them undermine your own rights, and why.
Urge colleagues to do likewise.
Inform and encourage musicians to participate in the SDMF challenge through CAFE.
Join EFF!

If you are not a tech expert but are a user of digital music technology, you too can play a role:

Write to SDMI and to your favorite MP3 equipment/software vendor(s) and tell them that you want to be able to choose how you listen to your music. Express your concerns with distribution systems that lock you into a single technology or music player. Tell them that you do not appreciate being considered a thief by default.
Pass this alert around to your friends. (Please only recirculate to appropriate forums if sending to mailing lists, etc.)
Write to your favorite artists (e.g., via their record labels) and ask them to take a public stand.
Join EFF!

If you are an independent artist, you can:

Participate in CAFE and the SDMF initiative ( http://www.eff.org/cafe )
Inform and encourage other artists to participate in CAFE and SDMF.
Release your material in MP3 and other open formats.
Send your music to outlets that are dedicated to giving exposure to artists using open formats such as Radio EFF (http://www.eff.org/radioeff/)
Tell SDMI you oppose their attempt to force manufacturers to disable support for non-DMAT music in an attempt to herd new artists toward the RIAA oligopoly.
Join EFF!

If you are a "signed" artist, you can really help:

Tell SDMI you do not agree that protecting music industry and artists' revenues is dependent on stripping everyone of their rights;
Tell your label you do not support SDMI or DMAT.
Tell your fans (live, on your web site, in lyrics, etc.) that you do not believe they are all a bunch of pirates, and that they should write to the labels and protest being treated like they are all thieves by default.
Contact us about becoming more involved in speaking out against the direction the industry is pushing digital content.
Join EFF!

For More Information

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

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