A new file-sharing standard designed to distribute copyrighted music and movies legitimately has been developed by a technology consortium. The system could deliver any content format to any computer, and users might even earn rewards points for sharing the files.
The Content Reference Forum (CRF), founded by Universal Music Group and backed by technology companies including Microsoft, released the first specifications for the standard this week.
Using the new standard, computer users could share small files containing information about music, video or other data, but not the content itself.
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Someone downloading the file would then use it to retrieve the actual content from a 鈥淐ontent Reference Server鈥�. The content would be in a copy-protected format, designed not be shareable.
Because the files contain no content, they could be distributed in any way without concerns about piracy. The files could even be distributed through the file-sharing networks such as Kazaa that have been blamed by the entertainment industry for encouraging widespread copyright infringement.
Most efforts to tackle digital piracy have concentrated on protecting the audio or video data itself using encryption, not preventing sharing.
Reward points
Each CRF file would contain metadata about a song or film, rules concerning its use and perhaps information about the person who sent it. Barney Wragg, of Universal Music鈥檚 eLabs, says the standard would make it possible for people who prefer different types of computer or music file format to share music more easily.
Albhy Galuten, chairman of the CRF, says: 鈥淭his would essentially say, if you have the rights to this piece of content, we don鈥檛 care what kind of device you鈥檙e using. It would say, tell me the device, and we鈥檒l send you the correct file.鈥�
Wragg thinks the entertainment industry could offer bonuses to people who send a certain number of files on to friends. 鈥淚t could be that you would earn reward points for the number of people you recommend a film to,鈥� he told 快猫短视频.
The CRF is hoping the sharing file standard will be adopted by technology companies and incorporated into software music players. Wragg says it could easily be used to send data to non-PC devices such as mobile phones.