University of Colorado at Boulder : Tom Lookabaugh

Highest Priority: How Big is the Analog Hole?

Measure the economic value lost for analog hole copying of various types and various media. Providing the economic value remaining from analog hole copying exceeds the cost of distribution, a pirate business that uses the analog hole to defeat digital rights management is viable. Experiments involve evaluating and demonstrating the technical difficulty and cost of analog hole copying, then using econometric technqiues to estimate the economic value of copies relative to originals.

Media types of interest are:

• Audio (particularly popular music)
• Video (particularly movies)
• Text (particulalry electronic books)

Variants to focus on are:

	Consumer/Casual Use PC's and simple, easily available, inexpensive applications.	Professional/Careful Use prosumer or professional equipment with sophisticated skills.
Line In/Line Out Use analog electrical signals.	×
True Analog Convert to and from light (image/video) and sound (audio).		×

Second Priority: What is the Broader Context for the Analog Hole and DRM?

How does it fit with other copying and distribution inhibitors?

• Quality (directly affected by analog hole copying (AHC), unaffected by digital copying)
• Legality
• Morality
• Convenience and reliability (easy to find, stuff is what it says it is, performance)
• Potential for carrying malware (virus, spam, spyware)

An attempt to estimate the economic value to consumers of different attributes might include:

• Quality {original, AHC (line in/line out, consumer/casual), AHC (true analog, professional/careful)}
• Legality and Morality {with permission of copyright owner, without permission of copyright owner}
• Convenience and Reliability {?}
• Potential for Malware {?}

How does it fit with fair use?

The analog hole has been proposed as sufficient to preserve fair use even if a digital rights management precludes fair use. See Corley Decision and Benkler and Lessig Brief.

Can we Model the Propensity of Individuals and Populations to Copy?

What factors help predict attitudes towards copying and propensity to copy? Demographics, direct experience, experiences of others in a social network?

How Effective can Watermarking and Fingerprinting be as a Defense?

Watermarking and fingerprinting invovles inserting a signal that does not diminish the value of the content for an authorized user, can survive analog hole copying, and is difficult to remove. A succesful watermark could make it possible to reactively trace analog hole copying, but this involves issues of maintaining a reliable database of authorized users and proving culpability (when source material can be stolen, borrowed, or analog signals recorded surreptitously). There is some experience with this in the movie industry, both in tracking leaked copies of Oscar award evaluation videos and in camcorder recording of movies in theaters.

What is the Impact of Legal Action and Darknets on the Cost of Distribution?

The MPAA, RIAA, and others have been vigrously pursuing peer-to-peer network providers and with the Grokster case appear to have an opening to hold peer-to-peer networks liable for secondary copyright infringement even if there are noninfringing uses providing the provider appears to encourage infringing uses. A techincal response to this is the "darknet", a peer-to-peer network with low visibility and strong anonymity characteristics. Can we convert these trends into a projection of the "cost to distribute"?