[vorbis] Streaming Considerations.

[Adam Scriven]

At 20:17 2000/06/19 -0400, you wrote:
>On Mon, Jun 19, 2000 at 04:09:30PM -0400, Adam Scriven wrote:
> > Will a vorbis stream be able to be saved?  Is it possible to somehow lable
> > it private, such that it won't be able to be saved?
>
>No matter what a stream is simply _labelled_, you cannot prevent a user from
>saving or doing anything else with it. (You have the source, anyway...) They
>can always just intercept the sound card and capture the data that way. So
>the only good business model here would be encryption. How about everybody
>gives your friend their public ssh key, and encrypt the data that way? They'd
>still be able to save the data to disk (netcat?), but at least you know _who_
>is doing it.

I'm more thinking about Real Audio streams.  The provided software does not 
allow saving.  Yes, it's possible to sniff the sound card port, and do it 
that way, but the RIAA doesn't seem to care about the, what 10% of people 
who know how to do that.
If it became easy, if you could download MicroSoft SoundCard Sniffer, I 
could see it being a problem, but since you can't, unless I've made an 
incorrect fundamental assumption, I would say that that's good enough.

Now, can you do that AND have it not savable for people streaming their own 
music, or music that they (the copyright owners) Want saved?

> > If Vorbis can do better, for cheaper, and have the stamp of the
> > RIAA, then I think it would be a "good thing".
>
>Now for places where you _do_ control the data stream, e.g. a set-top box, you
>are free to do these things. A little smart card with a private key can work
>wonders.

True enough, but I'm more worried about open streaming on the Internet.
You make a good point, tho, i hadn't thought about that.

> > Now, if they were to be "unsavable" streams, and yet another piece of
> > software ignores that, that's all well and good too, as long as the server
> > ends meets the RIAA requirements, that's all I care about.
>
>I don't know if simply labelling the stream "unsavable" will satisfy RIAA
>requirements. Just throw an extra bit into the header, for all that matters.
>The end decoder is free to ignore it, as always (mp3 has a "copyright" bit,
>but have you seen _any_ decoder that honors it?).

That's what I was thinking about, something like that.  Perhaps an RIAA 
approved server will set the bit, and an RIAA approved reader will honour 
the bit.
How do we deal with non-approved readers, that I'm not sure of.
8-)

Adam
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

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