Talk:Monolith (computer program)

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Is this much different from One Time Pad ? Possible original research? Kim Bruning 12:18, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Technically, this is a one-time pad. The interesting question, however, still seems to be the copyright claims. I don't think the claim is correct. There is not an underlying formal logic of copyright law according to which (A xor B) is or is not a copy or derivative work of A and/or B. The underlying logic of copyright law is that of common law, which has to do with real-world outcomes (this is not to say that current copyright law is not bloated/unbalanced). I am not a lawyer, but here's how I think this sort of thing would play out in court:

• Distributing A xor B, without identifying either A or B, is not a copyright violation.
• Distributing A xor B, along with a statement to the effect that it is A xor B, plus B or a reliable method for obtaining B, is a copyright violation, because it is simply a very convoluted way of distributing A (and B).

-- Ben Newman —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 141.154.221.222 (talk) 07:03, 4 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Problem with theory

I know, this article is in itself a bit of OR in its entirety. Still, I wonder how the supposed theory of distributing obfuscated content is conceptually any different than using, say, a simple zip archive. Either way, you are supposedly not distributing the content itself, but as an "unrelated" file that may be translated back into the original if one has the program to do so. If the argument is that Monolith requires an additional keyfile, well, this is moot if its purpose is to be used for distribution; to be useful you would have to distribute both, and it seems highly unlikely that any court would find a meaningful difference between Monolith and any other kind of obfuscation, including compression or encryption. IANAL, but it seems to me that as long as it can be shown past a reasonable doubt that the intent was to illegally distribute copyrighted material, that would be enough to convict. As written, I don't see any reason why Monolith would be more defensible than any other technicality. Ham Pastrami (talk) 16:32, 11 April 2008 (UTC)