Blocking Illegal MP3's?
from the false-positives dept
A new product from MailZone is definitely going to cause a stir. It claims that it can distinguish legal MP3's from illegal MP3's in email attachments. If it determines that an attachment is illegal it will notify the system administrator or whoever the system is set to alert. This brings up a whole bunch of issues, most of which are discussed in the article. I fully expect that one of these days we'll hear a story of an employee who was emailing a legal MP3 that for some reason wasn't in the MailZone "acceptable" database and was fired for passing along stolen goods, or something equally ridiculous.
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This is nonsense.
That's because, for instance, I could completely legally rip an .MP3 off a CD I own and mail it to myself at work without violating any copyright whatsoever.
And just how much overload are you building into your e-mail system by doing a bitwise check on the .MP3 files?
How many people have sound cards at work anyway? I've never seen it, because of just this kind of problem. No sound cards, no people bogging the net connection listening to RealAudio radio, no .MP3s, no annoying startup sounds. Though I suppose if you run a Mac shop, you're stuck with sound on all the machines.
For the loser company that needs that extra something to drive away their last few talented employees, though, this could be just the ticket.
Jon
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Moot
I doubt the ISPs want to be seen as doing anything that promotes piracy, but given their economics, I doubt they can afford much for tools like this to "help" them look like they are "preventing" piracy (quotes used until, as Mike says, the html sarcasm tag is perfected).
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