Thursday, April 26, 2001

Pressured by Music Industry, a Researcher Is Expected to Scrub Encryption Speech By ANDREA L. FOSTER A Princeton University computer scientist who had planned to give a speech this morning about unscrambling encrypted digital music is instead expected to talk about why the recording industry won't let him discuss his research publicly. The researcher, Edward W. Felten, was scheduled to address an international conference in Pittsburgh at 10 a.m. and to talk about how he and his colleagues from Princeton and Rice Universities had succeeded in breaking codes, known as "watermarks," that were created to protect digital music from unauthorized copying. His talk was to have been published as part of the conference proceedings. But the Secure Digital Music Initiative, an organization working to prevent the dissemination of copyrighted music, warned Mr. Felten this month not to discuss his research. In an April 9 letter, the organization said that if he did so, he would be "facilitating and encouraging the attack of copyrighted content" and would be violating an agreement that he and other scientists had made with the group. (A version of the letter was published on the Cryptome.org Web site.) The organization, known as S.D.M.I., said that he would be flouting the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and that he and his research team could face "enforcement actions under the D.M.C.A. and possibly other federal laws." The recording industry maintains that the copyright act prohibits the distribution of data designed to circumvent copyright protections. The S.D.M.I. letter noted that Mr. Felten and his colleagues had cracked the digital encryption code because of a challenge offered by the organization. By accepting that challenge, the researchers agreed not to jeopardize the integrity of encryption technologies, the letter said. But the researchers, in an online document labeled "Frequently Asked Questions," say they waived all rights to a cash prize so they could later publish their findings. The also say the Digital Millennium Copyright Act does not apply to the challenge because S.D.M.I. granted researchers "explicit permission to study" the encryption technology. Mr. Felten was on his way to the conference Wednesday afternoon and could not be reached for comment. A Princeton spokesman would not say whether Mr. Felten planned to reveal his research. But a source who asked not to be identified said that the professor was planning to keep mum on his findings, and would probably discuss only the reasons for Princeton's decision. Researchers and lawyers for Princeton and for the Secure Digital Music Initiative have been busy negotiating this week over whether and how Mr. Felten could present his findings. The conference, called the 4th International Information Hiding Workshop, began Wednesday and is set to end Friday. Researchers are discussing technologies designed to keep digital information hidden. Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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