And the opportunity is now, while Napster and Scour face the very real possibility of being turned off for good. That window is the next two to three months, and if that is not done, or if there's just a few months' lag time before that experience is broadly available, then the unplanned confluence of hackers and tens of millions of consumers will create their own system that can circumvent anything that the industry puts in front of consumers. The opportunity to create a huge artistic bonanza will be missed. Janelle Brown is a senior writer for Salon Technology. An industry group says its watermarking scheme for digital music has withstood the assault.
Hackers break the recording industry's vaunted music protection system.
But the technology insiders behind the system say hackers could kill it once and for all by participating.