Piracy Contest Is Not Music to Hackers’ Ears

It seemed like a contest computer hackers would sprint across cyberspace to enter: Dismantle the music industry’s latest anti-piracy technology and win $10,000.

Instead, many of the most prominent members of the hacking community are refusing to participate in the contest and are urging their peers to boycott it because of one not-so-minor catch.

The contest is being run by the music industry itself, announced this month as part of an effort to test an array of new technologies that are later supposed to keep hackers at bay.

“Thanks . . . but no thanks,” Don Marti, technical editor of Linux Journal, recently wrote to contest organizers in a message since posted on Web sites popular with hackers and programmers. “I won’t do your dirty work for you.”

The protest spread across the Internet last week, as organizations and other activists, from the Electronic Frontier Foundation to a Norwegian hacker noted for defeating the encryption scheme used to protect DVDs, lined up to support the boycott.

Their protest targets the Secure Digital Music Initiative, an organization that encompasses 175 high-tech, electronics and entertainment companies.

SDMI was formed to cultivate new technologies to protect songs from being copied once they are released on the Internet. It is part of the industry’s search for a solution to rampant piracy fueled by such online song-swapping services as Napster.

After selecting six systems, SDMI decided to test them by posting them on a Web site, https://www.hacksdmi.org, and inviting hackers to hack away.

“We want to see which one performs the best,” said Leonardo Chiariglione, executive director of SDMI.

To take part in the contest, hackers download samples of songs wrapped in the security systems and have until midnight Oct. 7 to figure out a way to extract the music from its protective sheath without undermining the quality of sound.

It’s the kind of assignment hackers ordinarily undertake on their own, with no financial incentive. But many are resisting the temptation this time because they believe the contest is either a publicity ploy or an effort to deprive them of what many consider their right to make digital copies of music they buy and share online.

Marti said he believes the contest was rigged with a short deadline so SDMI could claim its technologies had survived the hacker gantlet. “They’ve probably already written the press release,” he said.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based nonprofit civil liberties group, sent out e-mail to its members last week urging them to boycott the contest, arguing SDMI’s efforts will ultimately undermine the free flow of content online.

Shari Steele, executive director of the foundation, said musical artists have a legitimate right to protect their work from piracy. But she said she fears SDMI’s technology could prevent even copying that is legally protected, such as when it is the subject of criticism or parody.

And even Jon Johansen, a Norwegian programmer who is celebrated in hacker circles for unlocking the encryption scheme for DVDs, weighed in last week. It is impossible, he wrote in one posting, “for us to contribute to enhance the same technologies that are designed to take our rights away.”

Marti said he has heard from hundreds of hackers and others supporting the boycott. But Chiariglione said the protest hasn’t disrupted SDMI’s plans. “They are not helping,” he said, “but they are not disrupting.”

An SDMI spokeswoman said no one had submitted a successfully hacked song but the test tracks posted on the HackSDMI.org site have been downloaded several thousand times.