[Rumori] Detritus Update: Monolith: a software experiment with copyright

[Darren Wershler-Henry]

Here's the devil's advocate position on Monolith:

http://www.corante.com/copyfight/archives/004291.html


June 09, 2004
Monolith - An Uninteresting Experiment in Copyright

BoingBoing links to a new "copyright experiment" (Monolith and digital
copyright). The software project, called Monolith, takes two digital files
and XOR's them (what the author refers to as "munging"), creating a third
file. The author calls the two input files "element" and "basis." I think
many people might call them "plaintext" and "key." The output file (aka the
"monolith" file) would be called the "cryptotext."

The conceit of the concept is that neither the cryptotext nor the key is
copyrighted. Thus, it should be legal to distribute both. Otherwise, the
author of Monolith claims, everything is copyrighted and nothing can be
distributed because there is always a number such that, if XOR'd with
another number, will produce a copyrighted work.

This argument is not new and it not terrible interesting. It basically
postulates that any encrypted transmission of information is actually not a
transmission of information at all.

On 6/10/04 11:54 AM, "steev at detritus.net" <steev at detritus.net> wrote:

> (((( Detritus Update: Monolith: a software experiment with copyright ))))
> 
>                            June 10, 2004
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> http://detritus.net/blog/archives/000061.html
> 
> 
> 


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Darren Wershler-Henry
darren at alienated.net

"George Jones is a funky motherfucker."
--Ray Charles