PITTSBURGH (AP) -- Bowing to the threat of legal action from the recording industry, a Princeton computer scientists decided against presenting a paper Thursday on how the research team he led broke security on digital music.
Edward Felten, an associate professor in Princeton University's computer science department, had remained mum for days on whether he would present the paper at the International Information Hiding Workshop, which is being held in Pittsburgh.
On Thursday, Felten announced he would not make the information public because threats of legal action had been made against the authors.
"Litigation is costly, time-consuming and uncertain, regardless of the merits of the other side's case," Felten said. "Ultimately, we, the authors, reached a collective decision not to expose ourselves, our employers and the conference organizers to litigation."
Early this month, the Secure Digital Music Initiative Foundation -- which has ties with the Recording Industry Association of America -- sent Felten a letter suggesting he could be sued if he released information on how "watermarks" encrypted into digital music files could be broken.
The letter suggested some of the information was confidential.
SDMI had held an open challenge some months ago, asking people to see if they could break the security measures. Stung by the Napster phenomenon, the recording industry is struggling to develop technology for protecting copyrighted music distribution on the Internet.
Felten said Thursday the group will continue to fight "for the right to publish our paper."
"We believe that people benefit from learning the truth about the products they are asked to buy," he said.
Organizers of the Pittsburgh conference had said they would allow Felten to present the information if he wanted to do so.
