Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg
ISP's? I think we are talking about public internet file hosting sites, not ISP's.
Whenever they do a takedown, they should obtain a hash* for the book. As a programmer, this doesn't seem onerous to me. It might take a lot of processing for large movie files, but, as a reader -- not my concern 
Then, whenever uploading something that fits in the size range of a book, software would check the database of taken down hashes and make sure it didn't match. If you consider that snooping, well, I'm pretty sure they are already doing it, for all uploads, to see if it is on the child pornography hash list. So there's no new snoop.
Are there ways the pirate uploader can get around this? Yes, I can think of several. However, complicating piracy means fewer copies available for download at any one time, and less piracy. No law enforcement action stops all crime, but this would help.
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* A character string that can uniquely identify the contents of a file while being far shorter than the original. |
I would venture to say that a vast percentage of those sites are actually torrent sites. Aside for the difficulty in hashing a file that was never uploaded, some of those sites e.g. The Pirate Bay are probably not going to be all that cooperative.
A lot of the rest will be copies-of-copies, which means they won't be byte-compatible. e.g. it won't help copyright holders trying to take down a home video that has music playing in the background...
This suggestion will not complicate piracy in any way, shape or form. Most infringers will circumvent it, and they will do so
by accident, without even knowing there was something to get around.
Also, what child pornography hash list? I can imagine more inefficient ways of recognizing and blocking child pornography, but I would have to resort to things like "throwing darts at a list of names".