My idea for managed copy

With "managed copy" in the news lately it seems a good time to mention again my idea for allowing end users to make personal copies:

Digital Media: Copy protection

REALLY simple idea which involves having end user's own machine encrypt copies to itself, so that it can read its backup copies made of DVD's but other people cannot--without a key that can be passed by flash drive--and also it burns onto its copies identifying information.

My idea includes allowing users to use a flash drive to pass a key to their other systems or to friends for maximum flexibility, with the knowledge that the copy they pass tells who they are, and also cannot itself be copied.

To me that idea solves all the problems involved with protecting digital media from casual copying, though criminals may of course go that extra mile in trying to make copies for money, there would be an end to the very casual copying where usually law abiding citizens consider it to be like speeding on the highways and would do it as a matter of habit.

Today it is like everybody does it, there is no onus on it, and it is very easy.

With this idea, a friend could get angry with you if you pressed for a copy, since it would contain information about them and possibly leave them open for prosecution, so what kind of friend would you be in pressing for one?

Knowing that yeah, you can give your friend a copy but if that ever gets to the FBI, they have your digital signature all over the thing, which your friend cannot use without a flash drive for them to get the key anyway, and they cannot copy it again themselves, would take most casual copiers out of the equation, leaving only the die-hards.

I am an idea person so I know how hard it is to get attention for even great ideas, so rather than go through the pain and misery of trying to copyright that idea, and market it, I have given it away open source.

It is a free idea. It is free!!!

Does not mean anyone will use it though as hey, I know, no matter what most people think, mostly we have a dumb world. I know because I have had lots of ideas.

Easy solutions are routinely ignored if people do not like the source.

Brilliance is mostly a burden and a source of frustration today, as hey, people really do not like you for coming up with simple solutions, as it makes them feel stupid.


James Harris