http://monolith.sourceforge.net/
Monolith is a simple tool that takes two arbitrary binary files (called a Basis file and an Element file) and "munges" them together to produce a Mono binary file (with a .mono extension). Monolith can also reconstruct an Element file from a Basis file and a Mono file.
Monolith was developed on a lark. It is a philosophical experiment, a curiosity, and perhaps even a hare-brained scheme. In any case, Monolith is meant to stir debate: a perfect, flawless system would not stir debate very well, would it? Monolith exists comfortably in a world of logical gymnastics. The real world of copyright does not operate in a logical fashion. Thus, a word of warning: if you apply Monolith in the real world, your legal mileage may vary.
Copyright ==> ?
Things get interesting when you apply Monolith to copyrighted files. For example, munging two copyrighted files will produce a completely new file that, in most cases, contains no information from either file. In other words, the resulting Mono file is not "owned" by the original copyright holders (if owned at all, it would be owned by the person who did the munging). Given that the Mono file can be combined with either of the original, copyrighted files to reconstruct the other copyrighted file, this lack of Mono ownership may be seem hard to believe.
Consider this simple fact: for a given Element file and any other file of the same length (call it fileA), it is possible to choose a Basis file that, when munged with the Element, will produce fileA as the resulting Mono file. Therefore, if a copyright holder claims that she owns the information in all Mono files that are munged from her work, she is also claiming copyright over all possible binary files that are the same length as her work. For example, suppose that fileA is an MP3 of a Beatles song, and the Element file is an MP3 of a Britney Spears song copyrighted by Jive Records. It is possible to find a Basis file that, when munged with the Spears song, will produce the Beatles song as the Mono file. Jive Records certainly cannot claim copyright over the Beatles song (which is copyrighted by Apple Records), nor can they claim copyright over any other Mono files munged from MP3s of their songs.
What does this mean? This means that Mono files can be freely distributed.
So what? Mono files are useless without their corresponding Basis files, right? And the Basis files are copyrighted too, so they cannot be freely distributed, right? There is one more twist to this idea. What happens when we use Basis files that are freely distributable? For example, we could use a Basis file that is in the public domain or one that is licensed for free distribution. Now we are getting somewhere.
None of the aforementioned properties of Mono files change when we use freely distributable Basis files, since the same arguments hold. Mono files are still not copyrighted by the people who hold the copyrights over the corresponding Element files. Now we can freely distribute Mono files and Basis files.
Interesting? Not really. But what you can do with these files, in the privacy of your own home, might be interesting, depending on your proclivities. For example, you can use the Mono files and the Basis files to reconstruct the Element files.
Bring Taping Home
The Internet, despite all of the intellectual freedoms that it bestowed upon us, had an odd side-effect: it moved the "Copyright vs. Home Taping" clash into the public sphere. Home Taping used to be a private issue, since the act itself (the Taping) happened in the privacy of one's home. There were laws forbidding Home Taping, but they were unenforceable laws. The Copyright holders got their "blank media" taxes passed and otherwise gave up on their crusade to stop Home Taping. However, with the Internet, Home Taping has moved into the public realm, and the laws forbidding such Taping are suddenly enforceable. Now we have a royal mess: a public that is fond of Home Taping is butting heads with Copyright holders who are trying to enforce laws that have never been enforced before.
Monolith moves Home Taping back into the private sphere. There are laws that forbid combining a Basis file with a Mono file to produce a copyrighted Element file, but since such combining happens in private, those laws are unenforceable.
To best explain the logic behind Monolith, we need to explore the odd properties of digital information.
Digital Information is Weird
How can something so simple be called "weird?" We have our standard grade-school explanation of digital technology: "everything is ones and zeros." Nothing weird about that. The oddities crop up when you try to represent analog (in other words, "physical" or "non-digital") entities digitally.
Copyrightable entities are inherently analog. Music, painting, sculpture, writing---all of these must be presented in the physical realm to be consumed by a human audience. Even mediums that are always created and represented digitally, such as digital photography, must be translated into the physical realm (for example, into a lighted display on an LCD monitor) to be consumed. The bits (the "ones and zeros") used in the representation mean nothing to us by themselves---we cannot experience or otherwise consume them.
The bits are fully devoted to the representation, not to the presentation. A digital photograph, represented as a JPEG file, can be presented in many ways---on a monitor, on an envelope with an ink jet printer, on photo paper, on the side of a building with a projector---the possibilities are endless. Furthermore, the same digital photograph can be represented with many different file formats (JPEG, PNG, TIFF, etc.). Each of these formats might use its own unique bit-level representation of the photograph, though the presentation (for example, the color of each monitor pixel) might be identical. In other words, many different sequences of bits can be used to represent the same photograph. In fact, if we count all possible formats, including those that have not been (and may never be) invented, an infinite number of different bits sequences can be used to represent that same photograph. We have not even brushed upon the impact of various resolutions and quality settings: there are thousands of ways to represent the same photographic content as a JPEG bit sequence.
But could we not make the same statement about analog representations? For example, there are perhaps hundreds of analog audio formats: 45 RPM records, 78 RPM records, reel-to-reel tapes (of various widths and speeds), 8-tracks, and cassette tapes. We can certainly imagine an infinite number of possible analog audio formats. How is this space of possibility any different from the space associated with digital encodings? For true analog formats, the difference is in the form of the representation. Analog formats represent one physical property directly using another physical property. For example, the intensity of a sound wave is represented directly by the depth of a groove on a record. As another example, sound wave intensity is represented directly by magnetic intensity on an analog tape. Though analog formats are representations of content (a record groove is certainly not the same thing as a sound wave), they are not encodings of content, since no "decoding" is necessary to reveal the represented content. For example, if you drag a sewing needle through a record groove, you can hear a faint rendition of the sound, and this particular operation cannot be described as decoding. True analog representations are isomorphic to the content they represent (in other words, they have the same structure as the content). Digital encodings, on the other hand, are generally not isomorphic to the content they represent, especially when examined on the binary level.
Looking at the issue from a slightly different angle, we can see that digitization involves representing something that is infinitely detailed (an image) with a format that is inherently finite (a sequence of bits). Digitization, therefore, is the process of deciding what to keep and what to throw away. Of course, an infinite amount of information must be discarded in this process, and there are clearly an infinite number of ways to do this.
The point is that, in the digital realm, the content is copyrighted, while the binary representation surely is not, given that there exist an infinite number of representations for the same piece of content. This point is well-demonstrated in the realm of digital music. The copyright holders record a physical act (plucked guitar strings, vibrating vocal chords, etc.) and eventually give it a digital representation (as a CD track). In most cases, the copyright holders never translate their content into other formats, like MP3 or OGG files---those translations are usually made by "unauthorized" third parties for the purpose of exchanging the content online. There are a myriad of different settings and algorithms that can be used to create an MP3 file, and each of these results in a unique bit sequence. The copyright holders do not construct any of these bit sequences themselves, so the sequences cannot be rightly called part of their work. The content, in this case the music, is what is copyrighted.
So, why is this weird? Because the Internet cannot be used to exchange content; it can only exchange bit sequences. When people download an MP3 file via the Internet, they are downloading a bit sequence, one of an infinite number of possible digital representations for a particular piece of content. It is only when that representation is rendered, or decoded and played through speakers, that the content itself comes into existence. Thus, it is the act of playing an MP3 of an unlicensed song that is actually illegal under a true-spirited interpretation of copyright law. Downloading or otherwise exchanging the bit sequence surely cannot be illegal, unless the copyright holders are ready to lay ownership claims upon an infinite number of different bit sequences for each copyrighted song.
People have been getting sued for sharing MP3 representations of copyrighted files, and its not even illegal, huh? That would be pretty weird if it was true, but it is still hard to believe, so I will tackle the issue from yet another angle.
Μια πολύ καλή ιδέα
