AMERICAN company AT&T believes that people will soon be buying CD-quality
music by downloading it over a phone line, and it has applied to patent an
administrative set-up that will ensure that publishers and musicians still
receive royalties (EP 717 338).
An independent trade body plays the role of 鈥済overnor鈥�, allocating 10-digit
numbers to electronics companies, which they use as an identification code for
every recording machine that is capable of capturing music by wire. The 鈥渧endor鈥�
is any company which offers to send music down a phone line to order. The music
is encrypted using DES, the US Government鈥檚 robust data encryption standard.
Another independent trade body plays the role of 鈥渞eferee鈥�, and issues a
permit to customers each time they pay a vendor to send a piece of music by
wire. The permit combines the music and the customer鈥檚 player number, ensuring
that the music can be de-encrypted and played only on the player owned by the
person who has paid to receive it.
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As a teaser, a small section of music is left unencrypted to allow potential
customers to listen before buying.
In a variation of the scheme, a mail order company will send out CDs
containing previews, or publishers can put them on magazine covers.
