Well, duh. I wonder how long it took to figure that out. New.COM reports in this article that a report filed with Congress indicates that filtering out copyrighted or illegal content is technologically infeasible in a decentralized network. This isn’t rocket science here. The decentralized peer networks were designed specifically to avoid these copyright issues by not centralizing anything. To filter, the peers would have to communicate with a central server that maintained a database of prohibited content and, of course, none of the peer companies want to do that. Centralizing anything would make them liable for the content running on their “networks”, a decidedly bad idea.

Of course the RIAA points out AudibleMagic as a solution for this problem, but it’s not really. AudibleMagic sits at the ISP level and scans packets that fly by, essentially doing the same sort of content filtering that child protection software does to discover prohibited material. If the ISPs or certain enterprises want to get involved in this sort of filtering, so be it.

But in reality, AudibleMagic’s technology will work for, oh, about 10 minutes. I sure hope no one really invested much money in this company. How long do you figure until the peer networks start using SSL or other forms of TLS connections instead of unprotected ones? That’s the next logical step and then AudibleMagic is out of business. It’s trivial to set up arbitrarily encrypted connections between two end points. The encryption doesn’t even have to be that strong, just strong enough to make sure that companies like AudibleMagic don’t work.

If you really want “funny”, how about supporting connections on port 443? That’s the standard SSL port. Sure, probably a few people run web servers on the same box that they run Kazaa, but most don’t. Supporting port 443 for connections, with a fallback to the regular port will really foul up the works. Sure snooping sounds great until you’re snooping on ports that are also used for banking connections and credit card numbers and the like.

The only sane thing to do here is to end it. Canada has implemented a compulsory license with a tax on MP3 players (considering them recordable media). It’s time for the US to do the same.

The Register reports today that Steve Jobs admits that the iTunes is really a loss leader for Apple in a fascinating article. (Just in case you click through and notice the date, remember that it’s in European format — 07/11/2003 is 7 November, not July 11th.) So even though Apple made a big deal about on-line music purchases being the future of digital music, it turns out that all of the money goes to right back to the recording industry. Apple is at best breaking even, likely even losing money, all in the hopes of selling iPods.

The rest of the article is kind of a fun look at why Apple might be doing this (unclear at best) and a pitch for compulsory licenses (talked about earlier in my blog).

I don’t know how many of you caught it, but last night’s episode of South Park was a hoot. Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny are attempting to form a band (“Moop”), when Cartman breaks off to form a Christian rock band because the market is easier. Cartman and Kyle bet $10 on who will have the first Platinum record.

Stan, Kyle and Kenny decide that the best way to establish a style is to listen to many other bands, but when Kyle’s request for $300 to purchase several CDs is denied, they discover that they can download music off the Internet for free. However, after downloading three songs, the FBI arrives and promptly arrests them. The kids say that they didn’t think they were hurting anyone, so an FBI agent brings them through a hilarious tour of musicians that are unable to purchase gold-encrusted shark tanks, must fly in Gulfstream-3 jets (instead of Gulfstream-4 jets), and can’t purchase islands for their children’s birthdays. The kids decide to go on a music strike because of this, and soon Metallica, Britney Spears, and others have joined them.

After a while they realize that they shouldn’t be striking because musicians are artists and they should be doing what they do for art’s sake, not just for money. Of course, Metallica, Britney and the others say that they are in it for the money. Kyle decides that if they produce good music, that people will pay for it, whether as CD purchases or concert tickets.

So, this is clearly the “it’s-time-to-change-the-business-model” argument for the music industry, where my head is currently at. I believe that this attempt to legalize music on the Internet (iTunes, etc) is a wrong headed attempt to force consumers to pay virtually the same amount for bits that they were paying for atoms. Until the prices significant drop (to about 25 cents per song), I think the music industry is going to continue to flounder. The business models must change, and Kazaa, Morpheus, Limewire, and other P2P apps continue to push this along. I think that the record contracts should start to change so that the industry gets more involved in the promotion of concert tours for these artists — that’s where their next dollars will be coming from. While it’s great to believe that someone can record something once and continue to get paid for it many times, the music industry has finally hit a wall where the goods are so desired that everyone is willing to break the law to get them. That’s when things just have to change.

Anyway, if you can catch the replay of this episode, it’s worth it. You’ll get a good laugh at the RIAA’s expense.