For some months ago the recording industry of America promised a 10.000 USD reward for those who would succeed to crack their new watermark technology.
A couple of scientist worked on it and were able to crack it. They wanted to publish the results, but the recording industry tried to stop them.
Well it seems they didn't succeed, the scientists have published their findings on a website.
The paper in question, entitled "Reading Between the Lines: Lessons from the SDMI Challenge," explores the inner workings of a technology developed to prevent unauthorized copying of digital-music files, and explains how the researchers broke the code. |
Backers of the technology, a consortium called the Secure Digital Music Initiative, launched a $10,000 contest last September challenging computer experts to hack the code.
Consortium members include Vivendi Universal's Universal Music, Sony Music, AOL Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Music, EMI Group Plc and Bertelsmann AG's BMG. (AOL Time Warner is the parent company of CNN.com.)
SDMI awarded the prize money to two hackers in November after weeks of speculation and embarrassment. Felten's group pulled out before the contest's final round but claimed it had defeated four of the protection technologies and would make its findings public.
Shortly before the group was due to present its paper at an April conference in Pittsburgh, a lawyer for SDMI and the RIAA sent Felten a letter telling him he could face legal action under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a 1998 law that bars efforts to defeat copyright-protection technologies.
More information about the technology can be found here in both real audio stream as in Ogg Vorbis.
Source: CNN.com
