The virtual megalibrary
News ·Tuesday August 29, 2006 @ 21:40 EDT (link)
Content providers want DRM, but here's an idea that might slow them down a little - at least until they can buy some new legislation:
If there is a verifiable way to transfer 'possession' of a media file between a website to a user (and back), then a virtual mega-library (VML) can be founded, working like a real library, where it's legal to lend out materials provided only one person can use them at a time (and not easily copy them).
Everyone that joins rips all their CDs and DVDs to DRM'd media files and uploads them (rescinding use permission to the website). All members can 'borrow' any file that's checked in; if the user's client software doesn't report in after a certain period, it will revoke the user's license to whatever he has checked out and the website gets it back. When the client software checks in, if there are holds on the material (or the owner wants to remove their material), the license is transferred back to the site or the owner of the material. Some sort of reciprocity can be put into effect: what you can borrow is directly related to the amount of material that you've contributed. Given proper categorization (and that's already been done via the various CDDBs), and sufficient participation, I could log on with my client software and ask to play a random selection of music by Mozart all afternoon: the client would search for a media file that the site has a license to, transfer the license to me ('check out'), play the file, and transfer the license back ('check in'). If my Internet connection went down, the license would eventually revert back to the site (the contributor could assign a timeout period, say 24 hours). Popular music would be contributed from many sources, so there would be several licensed copied of a given CD or song; if the demand was higher than the availability, requests could be queued.
Given 1000 participants each with 50 CDs with 10 songs each, that's 5 million songs available - at no monetary cost to the user, who already owns their CDs. The cost is just a temporary loss of use, and, guess what, you can only listen to one song at a time anyway! It's legal to lend the media, why not do it virtually? This idea should scare the record companies a great deal.
