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They have been illegal in the UK since the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988, with the first specific testcase in 2002:

http://www.xenoclast.org/free-sklyarov-uk/2002-Jan uary/001464.html

http://www.lawdit.co.uk/reading_room/room/view_art icle.asp?name=../articles/CD%202001%20Part%204%20v 7.htm

On linux, so long as you're playing via /dev/dsp you can always grab the digital signal, for example via vsound. I wouldn't be surprised if that's possible with MacOS X too, or even Windows.

Even better is to get at the digital audio data before it hits the digital-to-analog converter. Vsound is a free, open source program that does this under Linux.

No, they don't get it.

Will either of these two new versions allow me to record from a realaudio stream to WAV or similar?

Please consider that this same reporter, Stephen Evan, sided with Disney etc. in a story stating that allowing copyright to lapse and the properties go into the public domain was not only wrong but tantamount to theft.

Unfortunately, I can't find the article when I search the BBC News web site. I know it was from the middle of last year and was noted on /. The only documentation for which I can find here.

It seems that this reporter's particular view of IP which puts it in the same class as a chair or a pot of gold. He also seems to go with whatever big business says rather than the opinions of others.

Wednesday, and the BBC Today programme's Stephen Evans files
a shock exclusive revealing how European politicians pirated
popular music - by refusing to raise the duration of copyright
beyond fifty years. The piece, a barely concealed plug for
EMI's attempts to get Euro copyright limits upped to the 95
years of the recent US, was shocking and exclusive only in
the sense of being shockingly exclusive to one side of the
story. Evans, most famous for being that BBC correspondent
in the WTC on September 11th, commiserated with EMI that
their hard-earned 1950s properties might be finally be
free for everyone to enjoy via the criminal practices of the
public domain and European law. "Why should companies invest
big money now to record the classics of tomorrow if they
*can't keep the profits they make*?" he pondered. Even
Laughing Larry Lessig - prompted by the righteous hordes of
the Brass Eye mailing list - chipped in to marvel at the
bias of the show. You'd think that the Todayians would know
that there might be at least some controversy on the topic -
especially when their own higher-ups are talking to Lessig
about reforming the BBC's own copyrights to be a bit more
public domain friendly. Less of the nation speaking unto nation:
maybe the BBC's left hand could have a word with the right?

I've been doing this with a combination of trplayer and vsound for Real media programs. You can also buy content at audible. I've used them in the past, and it's a good service. If they supported Linux, I'd still be using them.

Capturing audio isn't quite that simple - the program may check the return values of ioctl(2)s it issues, so it would fail. It is, however, easy with LD_PRELOAD hacks like VSound. Unless hardware becomes completely locked down, it'll always be possible. And even then, there's the analog hole.

• RIAA member
• GPL violator
• DMCA wielder
• Freedom hater
• DRM purveyor

• RIAA member
• GPL violator
• DMCA wielder
• Freedom hater
• DRM purveyor

You may recall that /. covered the ruling in favour of an Australian who was selling PS2 modchips. He still got caught on trademark infringement, but nevertheless modchipping a PS2 is now legal in this country.

Some quick googling turned up this link which pretty much explains the situation.

The DMCA can't touch us if we all live Down Under.

For a little while. Until we join the Coalition of the Willing-To-Suppress-Basic-Freedoms.

The UKCDR is considering this.

Use vsound to rip a realplayer stream. Works great.

I use this script to convert realplayer stuff into mp3's, which gives me heaps of stuff to listen to on the way to work. vsound will convert ANYTHING played on /dev/dsp into a sox stream.

[craig@furby /ulb]$ cat realplay_to_mp3.sh
vsound -s -d realplay "$1" | sox -V -t au - -t wav -r 44100 -w - | lame -b 48 --verbose - "$2"
[craig@furby /ulb]$ realplay_to_mp3.sh http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/totn/20030117.totn.01. ram science_friday-bruce_perens.mp3

According to this post, it appears that the new iMacs lack a manual release hole for the cd-rom drive and the disk has to be released by 'manually winding the cogs' or returning the machine for professional repair.

Dang I forgot, there is an analysis of the copy protection used on the Charley Pride cd on the mailing list which can be found in the archive at http://www.xenoclast.org/free-sklyarov-uk/2001-Sep tember/000648.html

In the UK a group of people have formed the Campaing for Digital Rights (CDR ;), and our web site can be found at http://uk.eurorights.org/

At the moment we are campainging for three things: Consumer Digital Rights,with regard to use-restricted cd's, to free Dmitry Sklyarov and to prevent dumb laws like the EUCD (Europes version of the DMCA) from being passed.

We have held a couple of protests outside the US embassy, to ask for Dmitry to be released, the first of which had a ten minute report on NewsNight, the BBC news review program.

On October the 6th we are going to start our leafletting campaign to raise awareness of the new brain-damaged cd's being released. A copy of the leaflet can be downloaded from http://uazu.net/cd/index.html

Any people looking to take part in the campaign, should join the (now incorrectly named) Free Dmitry UK mailing list, which can be found at http://mailman.xenoclast.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listi nfo/free-sklyarov-uk

There is going to be a demonstration outside the US embassy in London, England this friday at 1pm.

Details can be found at http://www.xenoclast.org/freesklyarov/ where you can also subscribe to the Free Dmitry UK mailing list (http://mailman.xenoclast.org/cgi-bin/mailman/list info/free-sklyarov-uk)

Obviously the more people that can attend the better, so come along.

How long will it take for Bugtraq and similar full disclosure lists to be prosecute under the DMCA ?

Last year I posted a simple exploit to Bugtraq which allowed remote access to a users file. That after all is a way of gaining an unauthorized copy of a file by circumventing copy-protection methods (i.e operating system defences). Would this now be a violation of the DMCA ?

How long before buffer overflow exploits get regarded as methoods to circumvent copyprotection methods ?

How long until legal action is taken against SecurityFocus ?

If you're in the UK write to the foreign office and try and get them to change the "LOCAL LAWS AND CUSTOMS" section in their USA travel advice to include a warning to anyone who is either a computer developer or taking any computer software/hardware abroad that they could be arrested if they or any of their possesions violate the DMCA.

While your at it don't forget to have a look at the Free Sklyarov UK protest site and Fax your MP abput the issues that matter to you.