RUMOR MILL
Wednesday, June 14, 2000
SOFTWARE COMPANIES SEARCH FOR PIRACY SOLUTION
Software To Tap Into Users’ Identities By The Way They Tap Keyboards
A pair of software firms teamed Tuesday to use new, advanced "biometric" identification technology to lock up online music against would-be pirates, Cnet's online news service said.
Musicrypt.com and Net Nanny Software, best known for Web filtering programs, said they are joining forces to create software that can identify individual music listeners by the way they tap out letters on computer keyboards. This information would be used to protect songs against unauthorized distribution and use.
The companies want music labels or online retailers to insert the technology into downloaded music, so that only a person who buys a given song would be able to play it on a computer.
"What we're doing with (this software) is making the user the key," said John Heaven, Musicrypt's CEO. "We can also tell blood type, sexual orientation and wealth by the way a user strokes his keyboard."
