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Copyright (was GSS API)

Roger Masse's the named writes:

[chomp]
> I assume the server sends an encrypted copy of the requested 
> document to the client to avoid unauthorized access to the
> document via a sniffing attack?

Not necessarily - encryption and signing documents are on orthogonal
axes - payment methods are orthogonal to these (ie: on the Z axes)

> I like this approach, simple separation of tasks.  However isn't
> this only solving the easy problem?  The tip of the Iceburg?

Iceburg - a small town in VA? :-)

[snip - ease of bitcopy versus difficulty of paper copying]
> The $100,000 dollar question...

> What do we build that would have sufficient security to convince
> the majority of potential service providers that we have made 
> it sufficiently difficult for someone with copyright infringment
> intent, who has (as per Jeff's algorithm) bought-and-paid-for
> a legitimate electronic copy, from distributing illegal copies?

A different problem entirely, one which currently has no technical 
solution.  Look at the (extreme) example of Gibson's poem - an
encrypted file that destroyed itself after being read - it took a 
few weeks before the text was on the net.  

A better solution (IMHO) here is for traditional contracts specifying
what you can and cannot do with a text, much the same way a book does
now: may not be stored in a retrieval system.

For another approach, read this month's Wired magazine for the story
on Super-Distribution - which embraces the ease of bit-copying as
the foundation of a new system - charge per use, rather than per copy.

Christian "Is this topic-drift or what?"
References: