Mandatory DRM for Podcasts Proposed 432
Knytefall writes "Joe Biden, Dianne Feinstein, and two GOP senators are sponsoring a bill called the PERFORM Act that would require podcasts with music and satellite radio to be locked-up with music industry-approved DRM software. From the article: 'All audio services — Webcasters included — would be obligated to implement "reasonably available and economically reasonable" copy-protection technology aimed at preventing "music theft" and restricting automatic recording.'"
Completely ludicrous (Score:5, Insightful)
I have not read the act itself but the TFA (and summary) is worded in such a way that implies that it applies across the board regardless; whether the content is free or not. What about all those podcasts with 100% legal content? Music from the podsafe music network [podshow.com] or other Creative Commons [creativecommons.org] licensed work for instance?
Implement a DRM system but do not force us to use it. I would much prefer the RIAA simply not license content to DRM free broadcasts and sue those who don't have a license.
Requiring DRM by law for all statutory licensed work is massive overkill.
Re:Completely ludicrous (Score:5, Funny)
Fuck, we should really mandate all line-in, cassette recorders, and DAT recorders have this technology retroactively installed. We wouldn't want this precious content being recorded by those means!
Report for retroactive DRM installation immediately!
Of Mozart, Allegri and the Miserere (Score:5, Interesting)
Suddenly reminded of the story of Mozart and the Miserere [wikipedia.org]. The Miserere, a choral piece of exceptional beauty, was written around 1630 by Allegri. The Church in due course decided this was too good for the plebs so one of the Popes decreed that only it could only be performed in the Sistine Chapel in Rome and furthermore, this is the part I love, any of the performers who divulged, copied or gave any part of it to anyone else would be excommunicated. Ahhh original brand DRM.
When Mozart was 12 years old [classical.net] he went to Rome and witnessed the performance. Then later wrote it down from memory.
DRM didn't work then, and wont work now.
My 2 cents worth.
Re:Completely ludicrous (Score:5, Funny)
Well it seems the logical way of implementing such a scheme is direct implants in to everyone's ear drums. If the implant detects any illegal music or noise, your ears turn off.
That'd certainly make electronics manufacturing simpler. The next phase could be for ocular implants.
Re:Completely ludicrous (Score:5, Informative)
Actually they've been trying to implement an uncrackable watermarking system which would flag restricted music, then they wanted to mandate all recording devices and computers everywere detect these watermarks (at an increased expense in terms of cost for hardware and/or processing time--scanning all audio data is not free). It was called SMDI [stanford.edu]. Didn't really fly: first off, Professor Ed Felton [internetnews.com] showed he could easily crack the watermarking. Second, the bills which would've enforced things like the mandatory watermark detection (such as the SSSCA [cryptome.org] --info at EFF [eff.org]) caused a huge uproar. I think the MPAA also wanted it for video too.
I mean those systems could cause major problems. Just imagine if you are filming your best friend's wedding, some joker walks by with his jukebox--maybe not even audiable enough for you to notice, but loud enough for the system to detect it, and the watermarking causes your camera to stop recording. Let's say you lose the "I do" part. That could really happen.
From what I understand, banks and national treasuries have convinced some software and hardware developers to detect watermarking for photographic things. Such as Photoshop [slashdot.org] and printer drivers and such. Some printers also create a fingerprint so supposedly the secret service (or whatever agency controls currency fraud in your country) can trace the printed paper back to who printed it.
Re:Completely ludicrous (Score:4, Funny)
If the camera had stopped recording, My best friend's wedding [imdb.com] would have been much improved.
Re:Completely ludicrous (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Completely ludicrous (Score:5, Interesting)
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Hopefully this bill stands little chance of making its way through the house...
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MS Doesn't mind (Score:2)
Re:Completely ludicrous (Score:5, Insightful)
Bass Ackwards? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Completely ludicrous (Score:5, Insightful)
My head starts spinning when I'm trying to understand how this applies to copyleft. The only fitting scheme I can think of is ROT13 applied twice:
"You have unlimited rights to record, copy and/or shift the format of the streaming media. Our DRM system will ensure that no single user will be able to perform these functions more than infinity times. If, for example, you make an infinite number of copies, the playback feature for the media may become disabled."
Uh... DRM never looked so good.
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Here is the text. [loc.gov] (Shorter than the link, BTW.) My guess is that as it's part of the copyright section, not a communications section, the idea that it applies to freely distributable content is just FUD, but IA(obviously)NAL.
Technically no, practically maybe. (Score:3, Informative)
They are not affected. If you own the copyright, or get explicit permission from the copyright holder, you can do whatever you want, or they allow. However, working out licencing deals with potentially thousands of copyright holders is impractical, and therefore in order to to make radio feasible congress created an exception to normal copyright law called a statutory license, which basically says that can broadcast any song you want without negotiating
underground (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:underground (Score:5, Informative)
Re:underground (Score:5, Informative)
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I wonder how much these people are getting bribed^Wpaid for pushing this utter crack.
Danger danger, buzzword overload (Score:2)
copyleft? (Score:5, Interesting)
What about copyleft-licensed broadcasts? You can't "steal" something that's free.
Re:copyleft? (Score:5, Funny)
"Before getting to the music, you have to listen to this GPL license.
*mad llama rant*
"If you do not agree to the license, please stop the tape and listen to something else instead.
Cryptomnesia (Score:2)
How could the composer of the music used in the broadcast prove that he or she had the authority to publish the music under a copyleft or otherwise Free license? It might have been a case of cryptomnesia [wikipedia.org] like what happened to George Harrison.
Don't they (Score:5, Insightful)
Damn. Feinstein needs to be doing stuff for me, a Californian. I want her to get us off of using Oil, not worrying about Podcasts.
Re:Don't they (Score:4, Funny)
The basic problem with California is it's about equally divided between ultra-left and moderate/right. The left being concentrated in the big cities (San Francisco, Los Angeles, etc), and the right spread out across the rest of the state. The ultra-left usually has a slight edge when it comes to votes. I'd love for us to elect a couple of moderate demos OR republicans. Either is good, so long as they are moderate.
Oh, and someone please do us a favor and nuke Berkeley into a glass parking lot. I used to go there all the time to visit a certain book store (Another Change of Hobbit), but I avoid the place now as I end up wanting to beat the crap out of far too many assholes hanging out in the streets there.
Re:Don't they (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Don't they (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately for you, a good number of big-time entertainment execs and mega-superstar performers are also Californians. Such people don't truly give a rat's arse about oil dependency--they are very much a self-interested lot and care very dearly about being able to make their Ferarri payments using income from Podcasts. Also, unfortunately for you, they can donate (or withhold for that matter) much larger campaign contributions.
Until there is some meaningful campaign and lobby reform in the US, voters shouldn't worry about a pregnant-chad-laden paper cards or the touch screens on a glitchy computer terminals...because the REAL US election ballot is the dollar bill.
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How about getting YOURSELF off of oil? Waiting around for the government to do this work for you is insane and a mark of laziness.
If you really think the US of A is controlled by corporate interests and you want to see the us move away from oil than cast your votes with your dollars.
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The government needs to be involved. They need to push car makers to increase the MPG of cars, and promote Hybrid technology on all cars. In fact, they should mandate 90% of cars being made to be hybrid by that time.
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The REAL Reason behind DRM'd Podcasts... (Score:5, Funny)
Brilliant!
Availability of entertainment (Score:3, Insightful)
It makes me wonder if these senators know they are poking a sleeping beast with a stick. If I were a senator who preferred constituents who didn't care, I would be wont to introduce such legislation that may them from their distractions.
Why call out only the Democrats? (Score:4, Informative)
The "two GOP senators" are Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.).
Because they're in power (Score:2)
Hey Armericans: You have a supposedly democratic society. Write your senator etc.
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Re:Why call out only the Democrats? (Score:5, Insightful)
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A bill to raise minimum wage has been introduced by Democrats. But an exception to this bill is the US territory of American Samoa.
Why one might ask?
Because StarKist the tuna company has a factory on that island. But why does that make them special? Because their HQ is in the district of Nanci Pelosi who introduced that part of the bill.
Anyone who says that Democrats are "for the p
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Expect more of it. Slowy the press will shift their attention and when that happens there will be claims of a bias towards the right in the press.
Still I truly expected McCain to have been one of the Republicans, he isn't any friend to our rights, especially after trying to hamstring the public's ability to get into politics.
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"Joe Biden": 997,000 results
"Dianne Feinstein": 849,000 results
"Lindsey Graham": 676,000 results
"Lamar Alexander": 502,000 results
So if Google is any measure of their recognition, Biden and Feinstein are clearly more "well-known", but Graham and Alexander are hardly nobodies. Either way, I think that if anyone was named they all should have been named.
On a separate note, don't you just love bipartisan politics?
Copying music is not theft (Score:4, Interesting)
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grow up.
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I'm not against copyright, but I'm against being presumed thief unless proven innocent.
Re:Copying music is not theft (Score:5, Insightful)
Old news (Score:3)
Thank God The Democrats Are Here to Protect US (Score:4, Insightful)
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Nobody did (Score:4, Insightful)
At least, nobody I know. I voted Democratic to have Congress run in opposition to the President.
The machine works best at a standstill, IMHO.
Re:Thank God The Democrats Are Here to Protect US (Score:4, Insightful)
Party ideologies quickly go out the window, as we witnessed with the Republicans supersizing gov't with runaway deficit spending. The main differences between political parties are the differences in who funds them. And the bulk of the money comes from wealthy commercial interests who fund incumbents, regardless of party.
If you manage to get a majority of any non-Republicrats in power, you'll learn that within a term or two the system corrupts even them.
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Re:Thank God The Democrats Are Here to Protect US (Score:4, Insightful)
People who voted for democrats thinking liberty would be restored should take notice. Only Libertarians truly stand for constitutionally protected freedoms!
Libertarians only stand for what Libertarians think of as "freedom", which is generally on the opposite side of common sense (like selling off the national parks, as one small example). It'd also be nice if the Libertarian party read the Ninth Amendment some time.
The simple fact is that there is no party in the United States with moderate balances of individual liberty, reasonable and restrained government services, low taxes, business growth, and strong defense. It simply doesn't exist.
Re:Thank God The Democrats Are Here to Protect US (Score:4, Funny)
The Abuse of Private Power? (Score:5, Insightful)
Libertarians (at least, your traditional anarchocapitalist) also have their problems, often including a rather large blind spot towards the abuse of private power and some seriously inconsistent views regarding the trustworthiness thereof and the strength of the profit incentive.
Not that I don't think it might do us some good to turn the entire Democratic and Republican parties out of office for a term or two, and I agree with the libertarians that civic power presents the problem of misuse. But a vacuum leaves only private power to protect from other private power, and once collusion sets in, the problem becomes nearly intractable, and freedom is again lost. The alternative -- having a democratic republic where civic power is accountable to the citizenry -- also has flaws, mainly that it's only as good as the citizenry attempts to keep it, but it's more easily subject to change when the citizenry chooses.
Libertarian strategy (Score:2, Insightful)
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Libertarians, to do anything effective on the national level, need to acquire power within one or both of the established parties. So far they've tried mostly within the Republican Party
It makes sense Libertarians work more with Republican than they do Democrats. The Libertarian Party was started by Republicans who were fedup with Republicans under Nixon. Some opposed cointel and the efforts of Hoover, others were fedup with Nixon policies ans statements. One such statement was that no matter what Nix
This shouldn't be a legislative problem. (Score:3, Insightful)
If it's not your music, why do you care?
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because if people actually discover you can get good music through means other than the RIAA labels (as if they have much in the way of good music anyway), the entire industry will collapse and bring out the end of all civilization!
Idiots (Score:4, Insightful)
The bill is meant to secure music libraries and broadcasts, but there's nothing there about exclusions for educational (non-music) streams and podcasts like JapanesePod101.com. They also go on to say this:
Ok then, what the hell is DRM if it's not inhibiting the consumers' recording habits??
My rights : Your rights (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm an independent filmmaker who releases all my movies under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 License [creativecommons.org] that allows anyone to freely copy, distribute, display, and perform my work.
This pro **AA act could be the nail in the coffin for not only the Creative Commons, but MY freedom as an artist.
I admit I am Anti-DRM, but there's two sides to every viewpoint. When big business wants to trample on MY rights, they'll trample on yours next. Call your House and Congressional representatives immediately to stop allowing big business interests to stomp on the rights of the actual artist.
Although my rant here is over, I won't quit until this legislation is dropped in a hole, set aflame and then buried.
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Call your House and Congressional representatives immediately to stop allowing big business interests to stomp on the rights of the actual artist.
Actually, the House is part of Congress. I assume you were referring to the two chambers, the House and Senate. However, since this is a House bill, calling your Senators probably won't do very much good at this stage.
DRM doesn't work (Score:5, Insightful)
When it comes down to it, DRM is not intended to control piracy. It's intended to maintain **AA stranglehold over the market, to be used as a cudgel against hardware manufacturers, and to be used as a way to extract money, justified or otherwise, from the content-buying public.
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Again, please write these representatives! (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/sector.asp
Of course they represent those who donate to them and unless you write their offices and your own they'll get away with this sort of crap!
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WTF
1) Most US corporations are merely incorporated in Delaware -- not headquartered there. Big difference.
2) Why are you singling out the Republicans? Half of these people (Biden and Feinstein) are Democrats. Feinsteinis is the only one on this list that I see wi
lol absolutely useless (Score:2, Insightful)
First things first (Score:2)
Second; this is another example, a fine one at that, of government types trying to show they know something about the intarwebs and failing miserably. This shows little understanding of the actual content on the intarwebs, or the licensing models currently in use. They might as well have said that all wheels need to have an extra tax on them, or that all chairs should be taxed unless rated for less than 45 lbs. None of it ma
Ill tell you why they are proposing this ; (Score:5, Insightful)
Feinstein PERFORM/DRM/DMCA form letters (Score:4, Informative)
Feinstein responds with a form letter about the PERFORM DRM act:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=193819&cid=15
And the same response to someone else:
http://www.orbitcast.com/archives/congressman-res
Feinstein response with a form letter about the DMCA:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=21099&cid
"....
If you have other questions or comments, please do not
hesitate to write to me again, or contact my Washington, D.C. staff
at (202) 224-3841."
Police raids (Score:2, Interesting)
What's that Spell? (Score:5, Funny)
Sigh.
-tom
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EFIRA would be a good name for a Rock Band.
[/DAVE-BARRY]
idiotism prevails (Score:2)
Could they take away by force the people's right to give something away for free and/or without any restrictions ? Ok, I know they could do it, in a theory [i.e. they can do anything these days with none to any repercussions], but could they do it in practice ? Would the Act get signed ? Would the people let it happen ? This whole thing sounds so ridiculously ignorant. But, I have to add, not really surprising.
So what happens to... (Score:3, Interesting)
Hollywood's Influence (Score:5, Interesting)
An incredible coincidence that the Democrats control the Senate and House now. ("control" being very loosley defined in the sentence)
Sad, especially since the legions of
"Reasonably Available Technology" Full Quote (Score:3, Informative)
The full paragraph containing summary's quoted section is:
So, on the face of it, this particular "feature" of the Act shouldn't affect the use of music that is licensed freely (e.g., many Creative Commons licenses). In that case, the step of "negotiate a licensing agreement through the market" is done up front in the form of the music license.
What would probably cause problems for free music is the terms that restrict what players can do (e.g., "What a listener cannot do is set a recording device to find all the Frank Sinatra songs being played on the radio-service and only record those songs."). Hopefully, we can figure out a way to create players that support restricted features but only use them against music with appropriate licensing metadata, versus those features simply not being implemented.
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(FTA): obligated to implement "reasonably available and economically reasonable" copy-protection technology
So far, no one has mentioned the glaringly obvious flaw here... No such thing exists!
We currently have states arguing over the legality of "means" tests for voting over showing a $30 drivers' license or state ID. How much does it cost to license any of the existing DRM implementations, if even an option?
Fine. Y'know what? If this passes, I'll write a GPL'd
my letter to Senator Feinstein (Score:5, Insightful)
Senator Feinstein,
I continue to oppose your misguided attempts to impose draconian digital rights management on consumer electronics.
The so-called PERFORM act will put the government in the business of mandating technology, and instituting what amounts to price controls on media distribution, and will prevent important technological and social innovation that increases the agency of the mass public, and will instead further entrench dangerous media consolidation in our republic.
The so-called rights of big media are a creation of 20th century technology, and did not exist before centralized mass production instrumentalities utilizing expensive technologies out of the reach of the people were invented by technologists such as Thomas Edison and Philo Farnsworth. Newer technologies now are changing the means of production and distribution, and make these "rights" as appropriate as the "rights" of 18th century Russian noblemen to own their landed serfs. Importantly, the new technologies of the PC and the Web are cheap, fast, and decentralized, and allow the people to re-assert democracy rather than passively consume the "Spectacle" offered by Fox and other media conglomerates.
The copyright and patent clause in the Constitution has been warped out of recognition by Congress passing such laws as the Sonny Bono act of 1998 in response to the corrupting influence of campaign financing on the part of members of the RIAA and MPAA. Current law bears no resemblance to the intent and practice of the founders. Your quotes of the Constitution in response to my previous two letters to you on this subject are dissembling, at best.
Although I am a "liberal", I will vote for an opponent of yours who opposes DRM in the next election.
Please change your position, so that I may support you in the future.
Robert Tow
Unconstitutional (Score:2)
It looks like they are forcing copyright holders to have their works DRMed, whether the copyright holder wants that or not.
It should at a brutally fascist minimum allow opting out, and more seriously, it should be opt-in. Forcing this on everyone is totally unfair to those who want their content to be as widely distributed as possible. Imagine advertisers. No wait -- imagine works that contain a political message; now in order to broadcast, you have to comply with a government-mandated standard that int
the ironic part is... (Score:2)
The sickly ironic part is "GOP" is supposed to stand for "Government of the People".
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GOP actually stands for "Grand Old Party", though I agree with your sentiment. Copyright seems to be one of those odd issues that rarely follows party lines.
Call your congress critters (Score:2)
As effective as spam legislation (Score:2)
This has as much effect on podcasts and the like as legislation against DVD-ripping software developed and hosted in Europe.
Just how the hell do they intend to enforce US laws against foreign produced and/or hosted content?
Don't use the temporary shutdown of ThePirateBay as an example; the majority of podcasts are perfectly legit, otherwise Apple wouldn't dare point to them in iTunes.
"reasonable" loophole (Score:2)
even if this "law" passes (remote), the "reasonable" loophole exists.
Maybe it can be as simple (and economical) as a javascript alert box.
Thank god (Score:2)
This braindead piece of legislation won't have the slightest effect on any podcasts I care about.
How, pray tell, is this going to be enforced? The internet is still international. Requiring DRM for podcasts in the USA does what exactly? Force americans to put their podcasts on servers outside the USA? Damn, that's freaking scary.
What were we supposed to do in November? (Score:5, Insightful)
- Richard Mountjoy, a far right Christian with all the usual values.
- Diane Feinstein, a bleeding-heart liberal who is a bought and paid member of the mafiaa *.
A lose-lose situation. I voted for technofascism over theocracy.
* To avoid a slander lawsuit, I note that the misspelling of "mafia" with an additional "a" is intentional and is a known term on this discussion forum. It does not mean the Cosa Nostra.
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Unnecessary. The Mafia don't sue for slander. If you've upset them they'll deal with you through different channels.
Industry-approved? (Score:2)
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Think Backwards (Score:5, Insightful)
Solution looking for a problem? (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't see the benefit of this act, to anybody. Surely, if you're webcasting/podcasting music at the moment, you're either:
Number 1 is the one affected by this, but then the purpose of all of this, stated in TFA, is to prevent music theft. If the music cannot legally be stolen (because it is being given away), can the act still apply?
Number 2 is not affected, because they're already using DRM. (I'm not sure if this one actually exists yet, but I stuck it in for completeness.)
Number 3 is the bad guy that the RIAA could go after with some amount of moral justification, but if he's already breaking copyright laws then he's not going to be particularly bothered about breaking the PEARFRHIM (sorry, PERFORM) act either. And if there's already a law to prosecute him with, why introduce another one?
Of course, the bad guy in the RIAA's eyes might be Number 1, if the RIAA have acknowledged that independent artists are competition that must be crushed...
OK thats easy... (Score:5, Funny)
I propose ROT-13. Its free and easily available.
DRM has NEVER been about piracy -its about control (Score:3, Interesting)
The MPAA learned from this, and since video gear is about two decimal places more expensive, they've had a head start in making sure that independent film makers are fucked when it comes to producing next-gen video. I can shoot, edit, and create totally fine high-def product - but the MPAA is preventing me from distributing it. I have to go thru them, or pay an insane price to ensure that high def disks (BR/HDDVD) will play on consumer gear by going thru a high priced disc publisher so-as to get the new DRM put on the thing.
The point of DRM is to prevent the next George Lucas (his beginnings, not his shitty blockbusters of the 2000s) from going out, making a damn fine movie on prosumer gear, editing it in Final Cut, and burning copies of the disks that will look stunning on all those plasma/LCD/DLP screens that people will want to buy and see more of. Right now, it could be done on DVD since you can make DVDs without CCS. You can't make movies without AACS and BR+ that will playback on consumer gear.
They have, by all logic, prevented independent production of next gen video disks ahead of the formats even being available. You want to make a disk - you gotta pay the toll, or you don't play. No more small, independent firms making a living heling folks get their content onto next gen disks... no more making home movies that you can send to other people.
That's what it has been about all along, it has been very little to do with piracy. Its all about making sure that when the equipment is up there with what Peter Jackson and Spielberg can get that you can't compete with them.
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Uh, AC, do you realize that Biden and Feinstein are fairly prominent DEMOCRATS?
we did it here in canada
That explains the ignorance but doesn't excuse it.
Please, stop acting like one party has the public's interest in mind more than the other. Too many people in the states already "think" like this, why do you think we're so screwed no matter what we do an
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