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Tiny, Secure Music/Data CDs Due in the Fall
An anonymous reader submitted a story about a new recordable disc the size of a quarter, that holds about the same amount of data as a CD. Of course its an intermediate step before we
simply stream all audio from the net, but the RIAA sure is making that
obvious last step a royal pain.
Unfortunately I can see many problems in going along with what the majority want, because there are times when you really don't want the majority running a country. Funny how everything works in theory, but not in practice.
--- I used to moderate, then I read the -1 articles and decided having to filter through them was not worth it.
A quarter of buck, of course. What else do americans think about?
They will have to continue the CD-sized packaging... ease of theivery is too high for a quarter.. you could feasibly walk out of the store with 300 bucks worth of music without making a pocket dent.. and where are the liner notes and pictures going to go, and how would you be able to find what you wanted on the racks if it were just thousands of rows, 1.5 inches wide?
Sorry about the run-on sentance. I'm tired.
Brant
Brant
Argle. Bargle.
Whats the difference? Music IS sounds. You mean you`re happy with an mp3 of a mono AM broadcast which was recorded with shitty recording levels on a dodgy tape? Why complain, theres still SOME music there...
You`ll be lauging on the other side of your face when i mess up all your MDs with my big speaker magnet! :)
I used to think this was all audiophile whinging - until I heard a 128Kbit MP3 of a song that I'd been listening to quite a lot in my car CD and I could tell it was worse than the CD version. Not by a huge amount, but it was still noticeable.
Now, imagine lots of fed up people like you and I that might have cd burners and high speed internet connections. We will always find a way to trade music even if they bring down napster, so then we make our own CD's. We simply record the audio from MTV or however we want in order to get the mp3's we need. Of course, I can see the quality increasing in digital audio as well so that we get CD quality files on our hard drives, and simply write the cd's ourselves.
Also, this could become a big pirate business. Because noone will be able to play music with these handicapped disks, people will look for alternatives. We could start burning CD's for our friends and family for $1 a piece, bypassing the record labels and (unfortunately) the artists. The RIAA is shooting themselves in the foot with this technology I think. We've gotten too used to CD's and there is too much money already in the CD players, and the future is the mp3 player, not this minidisk that has it's crippleware.
Mas vale cholo, que mal acompañado.
...just so long as you don't get a Canadian quarter instead of an American quarter - you can't play those damned Canadian discs anywhere. =)
--
reverendrich.com
Now for the on-topic... A new format is great, except for a few pitfalls: What about all the computers that have CD-ROMS and DVD drives? And cars with CD players? Perhaps if this came out several years ago it would have a chance. But now, with hard drives getting smaller and smaller with larger capacities, as well as solid-state memory, the portable device market won't pick them up, either, especially if people have to pay for music they already own.
From the article: 'Music "hasn't had a new format in 20 years," says DataPlay CEO Steve Volk. "It's time to do something new, something smaller, better and more versatile.' Of course there was MiniDisc (which I really like) and DCC (which no-one liked at all).
> Or, just as everything else from speeding to marijuana, will we simply keep breaking the rules rather than reforming them?
Key difference: In their minds, copying music means less money, (that has proved otherwise as napster's growth has meant an increase in CD sales) whereas smoking marijuana is a personal freedom, which, if decriminalized, would give profits to no major corporations until it was socially accepted.
Surely something so simple could be easily cracked. I mean, SDMI was a huge failure, how can they expect these not to be?
-- Nerds on toast in the new millenium
Relinquish
Hi! This is the Sig, blatantly attached to the end of this comment.
If you read the text of the article, the devices are WORM.. and I didn't see any reference to multisession capability.
Brant
Brant
Argle. Bargle.
Yes, there is a difference between Coke (tm) and Pepsi (tm). Just like there's a difference between S-video and Composite, as between DVD and VHS. Similarly, any serious audiophile (and probably anyone else who listens for music quality) will be able to tell the difference between an MP3 and a CD. I can certainly tell the difference, even on my not-so-great PC speakers.
Others have commented on the difference between MP3, OGG, and CD. I don't know yet, because until Icecast streams Ogg Vorbis format, I won't bother re-ripping my CDs.
I mean, what if www.riaa.com started offering downloadable SDMI (or similarly encrypted) music files tomorrow provided that you could only listen to the stream, not save it or time-shift it or anything
Just wait about 24 hours, and someone will have reverse-engineered the protocol used to connect to the server, allowing them to create a player that supports "Save stream to..."
---
Check in...OK! Check out...OK!
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
So this disc is the size of a quarter. A quarter of what? I guess that this is some obscure american reference that us in the rest of the world just don't get. Could someone please enlighten me as to how small these discs actually are (diameter in mm, cm or inches for preference).
Thanks
HH (who has never even visted America)
The downside to MD is that there is no support for just storing data on them. If this functionality was available I would easily switch to minidiscs. They are even incapsulated which takes away some of the durability issue of CDs.
Yes, I think so. I don't know who else agrees with me, but:
- CD's don't fit into pockets.
- CD's scratch easily as they are not protected by any casing like floppies and these new DataPlay discs.
- Portable CD players are terribly bulky as they must house fair sized motors to spin heavy and unweildy CD's and must house the CD entierly.
- CD's are still primarily a music meduim. Aside from the breach into the software installers, backups and games market, they are not too successful at photo storage, video storage and are silly for e-books.
That's just off the top of my head anyway. It's a format that is targeted at data storage in general.The dataplay marketing machine at least is doing it's job well. Prop-a-ganda worked for me! (read as hooked-on-phonics)
How exactly is the music going to be CD quality if you can store 5 hours on 500 megs. What type of compression is being used on the discs. I can't stand MP3's simply because of their lossy compression and will not support any other format that uses similar compression.
Doesn't matter anyway, because I'd end up losing the discs between the cushions on my couch. I think I'll stick with CD's until DVD-audio becomes a reality.
Slashdot: Open Source, Closed Minds.
"We are in need of a new format," says BMG's Sami Valkonen
looks like we know where they stand. sales slump, so they try to get people to go out and re-buy all their old cds.
"I don't need a compass to tell me which way the wind shines." - Mr. Furious, Mystery Men
they ought to make the players the size of a purse...
Even now my CD's are sometimes hard to find. Now they're making them even smaller.
Second, AOL en Compuserve CD's made such nice coasters for my all my cups of coffee. Does smaller CD's also mean smaller cups of coffee?
Well, there's no consumer demand for this. The Evil RIAA has a demand for it though. They are going to push an (likely) inferior product on the consumer in the name of copy protection, and try to make sure they think they need to buy it. (just like dvd's, while not inferior, could have been sooo much better).
The (Hopefully) Great Slashdot Blackout Apr 21-27
Coincidence? No.
Don't hold your breath waiting for truly durable media -- just think of all the lost resales the music industry would 'suffer' if Joe/Jane Average never scratched a CD without having a backup...I know I've myself rebought at least 5 CDs in my lifetime due to lost or badly handled media. The cynic in me is screaming that the size reduction here is largely for the purpose of boosting incidence of lost mini-CDs...but alas.
It's no more painful to record to a mini-disc than rip an MP3. For those of us who have good ears, you just get better quality. Sure, you can't carry as many songs, but mini-discs are small, it's not a big deal to pop in a new one.
there are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots
They already have defined most of what constitutes "Fair Use". What's left has to be judged on a case by case basis, which is why people like the RIAA and the MPAA wanted (and got, ouch.) the right to make the process of utilizing "Fair Use" technically illegal. (see DMCA).
o de17&STEMMER=en&WORDS=fair+us+&COLOUR=Red&STYLE=s& URL=/uscode/17/107.html#muscat_highlighter_first_m atch)
Here's something to get you started:
US CODE Title 17 - copyrights
"Sec. 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a
copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords
or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism,
comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use),
scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining
whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be
considered shall include -
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether
such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit
educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in
relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or
value of the copyrighted work. The fact that a work is unpublished shall not
itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all
the above factors. "
(from http://www4.law.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/htm_hl?DB=usc
Of course that section doesn't include such things as time-shifting, space-(aka format)shifting, reverse engineering, or making backups of things you legally own. I don't have those laws/rulings at my finger tips but "Sony vs. Betamax" & "Concentrix vs. Sony" come to mind.
Then there is that pesky little thing known as the "First Sale Doctrine" (look for the media companies wanting to 'license' not sell audio/video/ebooks)
That's enough for now though.
Do a seach on google for "Fair Use" copyright
I hope that helps.
someone247356_AT_yahoo.com
Unfortunately, I think the average public would buy them. It will take a while to catch on, like the CD did, but if they get shelf space in the music stores and there are cheap players everywhere for them, they will catch on.
There will have to be lots of cheap players. $200 portables won't sell the format. A $59.99 boombox at wal-mart will, and a car player for $200, and a component stereo player for $150, and a computer-drive player that comes with your computer. There have to be players everywhere, with base models affordable by everyone.
And they'll get away with it because the average comsumer doesn't make backup copies of his music. The average consumer is actually pretty computer illiterate, and just loans out his CDs or makes a tape. The average consumer doesn't think FM Radio sounds any worse than CDs. The average consumer puts one speaker in the living room and the other in the kitchen and never notices that his music sounds different depending on what room he's in. The average consumer will think the little discs are "cool" and want to be the first to have them.
sad, but true.
wishus
---
Excellent point banuaba, moderators please mod this up.
Let me add, the reason I still buy vinyl and compact discs is because I want the artwork on the cover, on the inside, i want the liner notes, i want the lyrics if they are printed, I want all of this information which would be rather difficult to package in a smaller medium. Sure, I'd love to buy something smaller and more convenient, and probably would support a format like this. However, I'd still buy the other medium as well. But then, maybe that's the RIAA's point. They know that we want the best of both worlds, and figure that there are enough music enthusiasts to make it worth their time and marketing effort.
Thus was born the wasteful cardboard box, designed to make the CD the same height as an LP. But how long did that really last?
I seem to recall they were gone fast (1-2 years), especially in the "hip" music stores that wanted to show they were with it. Expect the same here: it will take a few months before stores start changing over, assuming the new format takes off.
Eric
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
I think we're missing the point here...its not only for music. Use it in your digital camera..
if i recall correctly, Sony came out with a *bulky* digital camera that burnt images directly onto a cd. And it would make travelling with a digital camera easier too...
They also have a blurb about e-books on the data play site, but i don't know about that...:)
Just to play Devil's advocate for a second...You have these tiny assed, 5 hours worh of music, they will go into anything that has a drive bay for one, your car, your computer, wherever. Now you can listen to your music anywhere you want. That's what the whole row about fair use is about, right?
Of course as the AC below points out, they might not be the sturdiest of all things, and of course your "fair use" right to back up your data probably won't be caught dead with these things, so what can you do? Kids are going to start buying these things as soon as they get the player out the door, in hopes that someone will come along and unlock all that extra "free" content, joe consumer isn't going to care or notice until his first disc goes bye-bye in the dryer and he's out his content, and by then it's too late. They're already the standard, a few brave souls who managed to get around the copy protection are in jail with their new friend "Spike" and the cycle is complete. As chef emerel would say, "BAM!" no more fair use, no more mp3's, no independant artists releasing on the "new format". Life for the RIAA could never be better.
Data Drive
MD Still Camera
Video Camera
Information wants to be free like speech wants to be free, not like we want beer to be free.
From the article: Prerecorded discs are expected to sell for about the same price as current CDs; blanks, about $5-$12. But record labels could include three or four additional albums on the disc as well -- "locked" until users pay for them via the Web.
I think this one deserves a "What the fsck?" If I bought this new medium, but I have to pay extra to listen to the music on it, then what am I paying for?
Sniff...smells like the original DivX to me...think I'll stick with CDs, thank you very much.
SIG: 11
Small is just not ergonomic. It's why wristwatch calculators are still just an ultrageek niche, and Dick Tracy radios never caught on.
Anything smaller than a floppy is just too hard to handle, organize, and keep track of. Imagine storing 500 of those little discs, and then finding the one you need? What a pain in the butt.
I can see the fnords!
You have to remember that behind these bif corporations are people too, millions of them. If you say laws are for the people, by the people, you also have to include these people too. I'm not saying that they are right to want to controll every aspect of everything.= \=\=\=\=\=\=\
=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\
How exactly is the music going to be CD quality if you can store 5 hours on 500 megs.
500 megabytes / 5 hours * 8,000,000 bits/megabyte / * hr/3600 s = about 224 kilobit/s. And 224 kbit is just about enough for sounds-just-as-good-as-a-CD quality; see also r3mix.
All your hallucinogen are belong to us.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I don't want to stream audio from the net ever, actually. I want physical objects I can put, physically, into physical devices. I want to be able to put them on a rack when I'm not using them so visitors can admire my taste in music by simply looking at the shelves...
Hacker: A criminal who breaks into computer systems
"Information wants to be paid"
Well, if it's pure analog output, there's nothing to stop you from recording it. If it's digital output, as it most likely will be, then you can bet there will be copyright (ie: copy protection) info stored in the data stream. So, likely you will be able to make a less than perfect copy with no problem, but not be able to make a perfect copy at all.
The (Hopefully) Great Slashdot Blackout Apr 21-27
Ahh, so, someone else noticed it :)
-CrackElf
"Blake is an idealist, Jenna. He cannot afford to think." - Kerr Avon, Star One, Blakes 7
I disagree... Besides DAT there has been no new uncompressed format. CD and CD-R is great because the audio isn't compressed like it is with MD, MP3, etc. Judging from what I see on Dataplay's site it looks like raw audio on their discs will also be compressed. Now unless it's lossless compression (which MD and MP3 are not) this will most likely never gain wide acceptance. I, for one, don't want all my music to be subject to artificating and all the other problems associated with compressed audio.
I can't agree more with what you said, but I think the main shift is "I like that new Britney song and I want it and I don't much care how much it costs or how it's packaged to me". Mainstream America sells out faster than Metallica... About that Fullhouse reference.. I don't understand it myself.. I was flipping one day and saw a rerun and wonder how the hell that show coulda lasted THAT long on National TV... Ah well, says alot for american society..
-- ER, listening to his new, kick-ass MD player as he posts this
They reuse the CD chastity belts, so why couldnt they do the same for the quarter discs?
minidiscs are pretty tough when it comes to resisting magnetic fields due to use of magneto-optical technology. In any case, i'd bet your tapes would die first, then standard magnetic discs (floppies, hard disks) and the minidisc would last the longest against your "big speaker magnet". So which one would you prefer?
1. Those who listen to the sound.
2. Those who listen to the music.
Group 1 can tell the difference, and are bothered by it. Group 2 can probably tell the difference as well (I haven't tried), but don't really care that much as long as the musical ideas come through fine.
Guess that now makes two of us...
With MDLP mode player and recordrs. These use the same discs as the regular player so the cost is about the same.
Most new players have MDLP. Although the 296 minute mode is a little rough its no worse than 128 kpbs mp3s.
I read your post. I saw 'Michigan, MD' and thought "I've lived in MD for years, and never heard of a town called Michigan. Wild."
Took me til the end of your post seeing MD again that it dawned on me.
The sentence even still makes sense if read that way. I love the english language and it's ever-growing log of abbreviations.
KM
Kinda like Moe, but just a little more Kool
The music industry could decide to artificially sell this (or another) new format for a lower cost than CDs. They could make some bogus argument about the 'high cost' of CD pirating to justify the high price of CDs. Lower prices could give people the (short term) incentive to change format full of 'content protection.'
I know. I felt compelled to reply, having bought a MD player over MP3 player only two days ago. When I saw the number of replies, I felt a big YHBT sign light up. :)
heey but top cat did have a quarter with a string so it could be "reused" ... now only if encryption were so easy to break :)
At least around here, CD-RW's are about $.50 for 80min. You can also get cd cases that are half the standard thickness. (drawback with that is you can't have those paper-inserts in the back/spine)
'course I can't say anything for car use... My car just has a non-functional 20-yrs-old tape player. :6
Everyone who matters is on the net.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
[whack]ghoti gets a tap in the back of the head with a clue stick[/whack]
:-D
Geez, you don't get it do you? The Internet is NOT a place to store stuff - it is a public communications network
Quote:
Now I don't think networks will ever replace storage media. Of course, everything has to be stored somewhere, but that's not what I mean.
Umm, one does NOT store data on a network, one stores data on storage media. The storage media is accessed from the net.
If I have enough bandwidth (isn't 44 KBits/second enough for CD quaility?) I could access my personal MP3 server behind my firewall connected to my @Home pipe with my VPN client. All of that gear is in my home, even though I access it from any Internet access point. Yup, I can get to my legally purchased and ripped CD collection from wherever I have sufficient access - be it wireless or whatever. That is the crux of the argument here - I paid to listen to the content, so I should be able to get at it from wherever I am.
'Nother quote:
Another point is access speed. No network can ever be as fast as locally existing media. I can easily and very quickly browse the stuff on my harddrive and find everything at once. That is not the same with the net, which takes much, much longer. And the network is certainly not as reliable as my harddrive. Yes, it gets better, and there are few problems now. But still, there are many more things that can go wrong, so it's much more likely to be a problem.
AOL giving you fits?
As long as the RIAA and other organizations that oppose consumer freedom allow that. Actually, I can do that too to my personal stuff on my personal servers behind my personal firewall - "ls -l \mp3z\rush\*.mp3" don't take a whole lot of time across a reasonable PPP connection. And I do everything I can to make sure my connection is reliable and secure. (I paid to use all the content on my hard disk, and feel others should do the same, so I secure my access to it to the best of my ability. Wish I could just give the money to the artists instead of the corporate elite, but that's a different story.)
With this tiny media, the industry is trying to kill one of the reasons for MP3s - solid state storage, a la RIO et. al. Anyone can make MP3s for thier RIO, but not these disks.
If the RIAA had thier way, any internet router would drop packets from any MP3 stream, or inform them so they can a$k you where the $ong came from. And I've lost a little more of my freedom.
Hope I've given you a clue - don't ever trade freedom for convenience.
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
I think the problem is just that none of the new formats have been hugely successful. Minidisc is doing pretty well (not pre-recorded, maybe) and HDCD is good (as a compatible extension of CD) but generally people are happy with CDs + something smaller for portability. Originals on CD (or an enhanced version), downloadable for portability.
Sure there is. you can have a 2" disc that also has videos and such on it, and crap.
besides, Taco is a tool, he keeps forgetting that 99% of the population can't get broadband yet, and 80% won't be able to for 5 years at least.
---
Desperation is a stinky cologne
Yeah I'm having some re-direct problems... udel.edu/~jgephart/ works
------
Let me give you the lowdown
Is that the direction we're going?
Why wasn't I told this? Who decided this? Did I miss a /. poll or something?
Dammit Malda you never tell us anything in advance.
Sorry if I lose a karma point to this, but this mini-thread has some of the best one-liners I've read in a long time. Thanks for the (rare) LOL's.
------
Let me give you the lowdown
thats the only way i can think of for the descrepency.
"I don't need a compass to tell me which way the wind shines." - Mr. Furious, Mystery Men
Ditto. Except I bought my MD a couple years ago and it's still going strong.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
don't be a dolt. MD format is far superior to CD. ATRAC compression is equal to that of 128 bit or better MP3 compression. You can record to MD an uncounted amount of times. You can edit the tracks. You can name the tracks. You can not scratch an MD. They are smaller. They are cooler looking. They are easier to label. The only reason they are more expensive is because people like you perpetuate the idea that CD is the ultimate media. go to hell.
-- ghx
Lots of people do not want to steam from the net right now. Think how many people don't have a good enough connection to get high quality music. Also, many people would not want to download mp3's as their primary source of a song. Many people I talk to cannot stand the quality of mp3's. Obviously, things will get better in the future. We'll "all" have great connections that will enable us to download half a gig in a reasonable amount of time. But this isn't happening tomorrow.
Those artifacts don't have to be there. There is something called variable bitrate encoding that will detect when extra information is needed to encode a sound.
Also, what you've been listening to, 128kbps MP3, is definitely compressed too much. There is quite a difference between say 128 and 256.
They ARE out to get you simply because They are in it for themselves and they don't care about you.
The story first says that the discs hold ~500MB of data, enough for one album. Then they turn right around and say that extra albums may be stored on the disc and later opened via some secure payment/key mechanism. It didn't sound like these things use compression (MP3, etc) but I don't see how they would be able to achieve this without some sort of non-raw audio encoding. Where is there more info on this?
Don't Panic...
In the mechanical world we think in terms of things that can exist in a space at a particular point in time.
In the virtual world, that of recorded things, the space is already taken up. Recording simply makes that space more useful.
The net does something weird. It melds space and time into bandwidth. I have used several resources to get media that I wanted to preview.
And I do mean preview. Getting a whole series of songs or anime episodes becomes a full time job.
I wanted the VKLL fan sub of End of Evangelion which until recently wasn't licensed and as is the custom among anime producers fan subs may be sold until someone pays for the license on the original work.
It took me WEEKS to get it over the net (thank god for resume functions). I have a 10Mbit connection to the Internet as well as 100Mbit connection to the school intranet.
It's as real a handicap as you can get in the virtual world.
Why?
1. I got stuck behind 50 56kers waiting for it.
2. I lost queue slots during frequent netsplits
3. I lost queue slots while morons kept flooding the channels (which abuses everyone on that whole network).
4. Servers dropped off the face of the net
5. People from whom I got half of it got all the trades they wanted and moved the movies offline.
6. People who wanted to trade were never around
7. Kinda hard to babysit this stuff late at night during low traffic hours when you've got exams coming up.
The second reason is:
int market-interest-in-net;
int bandwidth-installation-by-companies;
int profit-intended;
int bandwidth-use-by-customers;
int average-speed;
int bandwidth-cost-for-ISPs;
int bandwidth-cost-for-customers;
market-interest-in-net = k1 * average-speed / bandwidth-cost-for-customers;
bandwidth-cost-for-customers = profit-intended + bandwidth-cost-for-ISPs;
bandwidth-use-by-customers = k2 * market-interest-in-net;
bandwidth-cost-for-ISPs = k3 * bandwidth-use-by-customers;
average-speed = bandwidth-installed-by-companies / bandwidth-use-by-customers;
bandwidth-installed-by-companies = k4 * market-interest-in-net - profit-intended;
Sure they're not perfectly stated, but the above relationships point out that the average-speed of the net eventually levels off.
So this so called infinite space is quite finite.
There's speed bursts at every technological evolutionary step, but eventually it decreases which forces more evolution.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
Notice one of your links is dated 1995, another 1997. Yes you could once get MD data drives but:
a) They were really expensive
b) The media was not interchangable with music MDs.
As a result, you can't get these drives anymore, short of ebay.
If anyone has a pointer to a currently manufactured data MD drive that takes normal music MDs, I'd love to see it.
There are (however) still and video cameras that use MDs.
spreer
Ummm...I don't want to "simply stream all audio data off the net". I want my audio data here in my hands (or in my drawer, or on my harddisk). That's the whole point of this whole Napster thing (which I'm pretty sure you've heard about, since it's all we talk about anymore). It isn't about "We want to be able to download"--it's about "We want to be able to do what we want with the stuff we own (which includes downloading)".
I mean, what if www.riaa.com started offering downloadable SDMI (or similarly encrypted) music files tomorrow provided that you could only listen to the stream, not save it or time-shift it or anything. Thanks but no thanks. I don't want a specific medium, I want a choice of mediums.
--
324006
What's wrong with 'autumn'?
Fall is what happens when something isn't supported.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
And now, finally, we have the RIAA's latest weapon in the fight against "music thieves". Change the media. Put out another media format, spend your millions hyping it and telling everyone how great it is, watch the CD die a slow, painful death.
I'm not saying this new thing won't be cool or useful, but don't be fooled. The one reason above all others this format is going to be pushed is so record companies can gain back some control they've lost.
Roger Dean, Mouse and Kelly, the whole Hipgnosis team... its really kinda sad to see an artform pushed aside like that.
Hi! This is the Sig, blatantly attached to the end of this comment.
> So, likely you will be able to make a less than perfect copy with no problem
Which is what illegal mp3s are, and the "less than perfect" aspect doesn't seem to have deterred anyone.
So why exactly is DataPlay going to be any different?
"You are only young once, but you can be immature forever." -www.animemusicvideos.org
Actually, you both have it wrong, although you're closer than the person you were responding to. During recording, a MiniDisc uses a laser in high-power mode to heat a domain on the disc itself; a magnetic field is then applied to change the optical phase of this domain, setting a "bit" on or off. During playback, a low-power laser is used to read the phase of these domains. A strong magnetic field applied to a MiniDisc, therefore, will have no discernible effect on the data stored on the disc unless the media were heated somehow, such as being hit with a high-power laser pulse.
This is one of the reasons I like MO technologies; the shelf life of MO media is typically better than many other types of media, magnetic and pure optical alike.
they will offer '1984' and such on these things.
-CrackElf
"Blake is an idealist, Jenna. He cannot afford to think." - Kerr Avon, Star One, Blakes 7
ACtually the opposite could be true. The companies like the tobacco and booze companies already have the infrastructure and in some cases the equipment that would be needed to sell Marijuana as a consumer product. If the government threw on a couple hidden taxes and licensed some "dealers" everybody's happy. Even the quality of the marijuana would go up and you'd never have to be afraid of buying weed laced with heroin or speed.......
"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality." -- Dalai Lama
Mini-discs died a pretty miserable death, and the continued failure of people to adopt any of the other recordable mediums suggest that we're pretty content with CD's for the time being. I think that there is a sort of law of diminishing returns with size, and anything smaller than a CD doesn't appeal to many people.
Any new medium must offer something substantial for it to be adopted. In the case of CD's it was quality of music. For MP3's it was transferability and effective HD storage. What new quality is offered by these disks that doesn't already exist in another form? Are CD's at 4.75 inches in diameter and negligable thickness really that inconvenient?
The next wave in media will most likely be based not on size but on durability. This is the one area where all current forms of storage are severly lacking.
Music "hasn't had a new format in 20 years," says DataPlay CEO Steve Volk. "It's time to do something new, something smaller, better and more versatile."
How old are CDs? How old is DVD-audio?
And, why would anyone want to replace their CD players, these new discs seem like they'll get lost easily...
So while music media moguls would love to replace all the CD players in the world with their protected proprietary system, it's simply not going to happen. This is just another MiniDisc in the making. Now this MIGHT work as a media for PDA applications and data, but for music, we have our CD's and we have our MP3s. DataPlay offers no benefits for the end user compared to these.
$9 for 128MB DIMMs on pricewatch.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
Um. None of that sound doctoring stops at the concert, unless you mean an orchestra concert. Have you ever seen the huge mixing panels in use at a concert? Have you noticed that they use amplifiers? Guitar pedals? Microphones? Those all change sounds.
Or for an even better example, the one time I did spend money on a Metallica ticket, the sound quality at the live show was terrible. All of the speakers were facing somewhere else, so all I really got to hear was echos-- which in a stadium is a severe distortion because of the size of the room.
But I can't really tell when I've converted a song into mp3 then burned it back as AIFF/WAV on CD in a mix. I've found some mp3-players (especially the free ones for Mac OS), though, that really blow-- washed out sound, etc etc.
I do not have a signature
Do know how they are protected? With like a watermark? Or is with something else?
Diplomacy is the art of letting people have your way
Do they deliver magnifying glasses with a music CD, because otherwise it's a bit hard to read the lyrics :)
The net is not infinite. Just like the in the mechanical world there IS a loss when something is transferred from one person to another even if it is a copy.
People who buy from artists can make money, which means they can guarantee their bandwidth will be better than of those who are legally required to give the copies away.
It improves the net, it gives artists an audience that can actually afford to pay for more of their stuff, and it keeps those who casually distribute out of the game.
If a seller is discovered to have sold copies without buying a CD prior to the sales he should be forced to give up the profits to the artist.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
This is the same disc mentioned on slashdot earlier.
Here Dataplay
Remove the spam reference to email
(Donning asbestos long johns...)
This is another example of technological measures to enforce copy right, which will inevitably lead to somebody cracking the technological means, lawsuits, destitute geeks, and wealthy lawyers.
We need to know (in the US at least) What is fair use.
OK, this thing is definitely going to keep me from extracting small portions of a cd for purposes of review, etc. which has always been upheld as fair use. The RIAA is almost cetainly not afraid of me doing this, they're afraid of me Napstering albums. But they feel they have to do something.
OK, its time for Orrin Hatch to carry out his threat and ask the Congress to define "Fair Use".
What would this do for Us ?
1. Buisiness owners who depend on production of copyrighted material would KNOW what can and can't be done. Technological measures which prevent legal fair use would *NOT* be protected.
2. Buisinesses would LIKE this. All buisinessmen LOVE determinism, all they really want is to know what they can and can't do... and then beat up competitors for the can't.
3. We would love this. We would know what we CAN do, and would have a legal leg to stand on, as opposed to having some ignorant judge use an undefined concept like fair use is now to uphold what he sees as "pirates" against a "legitimate" buisiness.
Technological means of copy control are going to be upheld by the courts until such time as the courts have SOMETHING codified to look at (that's what they like). An incontrovertible definition of fair use would provide this.
-- Rich
Free your mind and your Ass will follow -- George Clinton
As I see it, this is not just a dog with fleas, it is a flea in a dog costume. The whole point of this format is the "secure" part. They just had to add some other feature to get people to switch. And switch they will, when CDs are quietly pulled off the shelf. Industry pressure + consumer preference = new format. Same with DVDs, people were so eager to get the new hyper super ultra mega digital format, that they didn't realize how much they were being $crewed over in the fair use department.
"It's a secure format, which the labels are concerned about". How secure, exactly? As secure as digital watermarking? Will it take 2 weeks to crack, instead of just 1? The new format uses CD-like discs about the size of a quarter that hold up to five hours of CD-quality music plus extras, up to 500 megabytes of data. 5 hours of music PLUS 500Mb of data? At the same time? If the format wasn't "secure", I'd be extremely interested. Maybe it's based off the same technology Nintendo is using for their cube (1.5Gb mini-DVDs). However, I don't like the size. Quarter-sized is too small. I lose regular CDs now, imagine when this hits... "Where did I put that damned Dave Matthews CD? Ah well, since it's a secure format and I couldn't copy it, I'll just have to buy it again..."
Digital format been around longer than a CD?
Uh, MiniDisc?
Besides, what's all this crap about MiniDisc being dead? Walk into a recording studio sometime, it's an alive and well media. Most of the time it's a choice between MD and DAT. DAT has all the disadvantages we've come to know and love from magnetic tape, so MD is still alive and kicking.
Dangit, my sig is outdated...
Silly slashdot, sigs are for kids!
I notice that most of the other posters here claim "MD isn't dead" but every time I'm at BestBuy or the like I see an increasingly smaller MD display and more emphasis on CD-R(W). MD prerecordeds are nonexistant (Sony had a few titles from their own in-house labels, I never saw others).
That being said, I believe MD is a superior technology. I just wish that Sony would get off their arses and give us MP3 capabilities. Somebody did a great mockup of a Palm/MD/MP3 combo player which would be HUGE if someone would actually build it.
The one thing missing from flash-based MP3 players is their cost per unit of storage. MD is the ideal storage media for MP3.
Don't forget DAT, CD singles, DCC, DVDs, and mp3s.
---
Heh. But if someone needs "an expensive professional sound system" to tell the difference, then to the consumer, there really is no difference. And guess what? The target market is consumers.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Sorry - No USEFUL format in 20 years you babbling fuck.
Yum
Ignore all replies that don't mention the bitrate of the MP3s.
Take all replies that don't mention the encoder, or who didn't try a "blind taste test", with a grain of salt.
Keep in mind that listening to any MP3 though most computer speakers is not going to sound as good as listening to CD audio through most stereo systems, and that 99% of the MP3s on Napster were apparantly ripped and encoded by poorly trained monkeys.
Check out this site for the best discussion of MP3 quality I've ever seen, including the link to a German computer magazine's test of 300 audiophiles. 90% of the 128kbps MP3s were rated as worse than CD Audio; the 256kbps (constant bitrate) MP3s were not.
I personally can hear the difference between (constant bitrate) 128 and 192 kbps, but not between 192 kbps and CD Audio. My roommate is happy with 160. My one audiophile friend reencoded all his music at 384kbps after discovering how lousy 128 sounded through $2000 speakers.
--
Well, I guess its now official: the RIAA is pulling shit out of their ass to stop the mass distrubiutions of music. Too bad whatever they pull will be shoved right back in! Expect the crack within days of debut.
Slashdot Hypocrisy at work?
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/02/08/062321 6&mode=thread
"And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'" - HST
Okay, this is somewhat off-topic, but I want to take issue with this statement in the write-up: "Of course its an intermediate step before we simply stream all audio from the net" - no, I don't think it is.
;-) Any opinions?
Storing all your data "on the net", getting all your music "from the net" - that has been promised for quite some time. Oh, and there was "the network is the computer", too.
Now I don't think networks will ever replace storage media. Of course, everything has to be stored somewhere, but that's not what I mean. When I copy a CD to MiniDisc, for example, it is available to me, and I can take it with me. I don't depend on the infrastructure I would need to download the music. Yes, I know, eventually, every place on earth will have wireless access at 5 bazillion terabytes per nanosecond, but we are far from that now. And then, why should I pay for streaming the music? And even if I paid a flat fee, why should I waste resources (frequencies) to do that, if I can have the data in my pocket, easily?
Another point is access speed. No network can ever be as fast as locally existing media. I can easily and very quickly browse the stuff on my harddrive and find everything at once. That is not the same with the net, which takes much, much longer. And the network is certainly not as reliable as my harddrive. Yes, it gets better, and there are few problems now. But still, there are many more things that can go wrong, so it's much more likely to be a problem.
And last, but not least: Despite all the talk about leasing music and selling services, there is something very deep inside us that simply wants to own things. I own my CDs, I can take them in my hands and be sure I got something real for my money. Yes, it's stupid, but I think it's something very basic. And it doesn't matter what the media look like that we buy, but we will want to buy things in the future, too, not just some abstract data streams.
Phew, that's a bit more than I thought I would write
EagerEyes.org: Visualization and Visual Communication
You've got to be kidding me? Another format? Of course, I know the RIAA doesn't "get it", and they probably never will. This new format is ridiculous. So you've got these little discs now. Great. What ever happened to the mini-disc, what was wrong with that? It was small, it was recordable...oh, wait, the record cartels did not control the distribution media of the mini-disc.
My advice to all of you who own stock in any of the big five cartels...sell it. You're revenue streams will evaporate. Face it, if you make money from a record company and you are not a recording artist, than you are a parasite. Don't try and justify it, just accept it and move on, because the new methods of music distribution are like a flea & tick collar and you are going to lose. Get out while you can.
This is hardly new news. The company is DataPlay. There was an article in Slashdot about them and their technology a few weeks back.
Now I can eat all the Metallica discography and poop them.
--
Je t'aime Stéphanie
We already saw this...
3 21 6&mode=nested
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/02/08/062
Editorial jokes aside... It hasn't even been a month for petes sake.
Nothing along the lines of "consumers want a new format". Just "we're not getting enough cash from an obsolete format, and we're so incredibly arrogant that we think we can force it down eveyone's throats"
Actually, these things would sound fantastic if it weren't for all the copy protection malarky. I mean, it's going to be a number of years before 500MB of flash memory costs $5 - $12. Going by current trends, it will be over a decade. These tiny media will provide a very nice stopgap, thank you very much (just as soon as they are uncrippled / (cr | h)acked / whatever)
As for Taco's comment about being "an intermediate step before we simply stream all audio from the net", err, did you realise that the primary market for these media is going to be portable devices? Apart from the expense of the bandwidth to stream mp3 over UMTS (when it finally arrives) you're going to need a hell of a battery pack to give you 12 hours solid listening mate.
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[an error occurred while processing this directive]
I think we can pretty much say that DataPlay disks will replace cassettes, with lower-quality sound than CDs but higher capacity.
Consider this analogy, if you will: 35-mm cameras and APS cameras. APS cameras have demonstrably lower quality, objectively speaking. Yet, people love APS cameras. Why would someone put up with low-quality crap? Because it's good enough. APS film is 35% smaller than 35mm film, yet because of the convenience of its intelligent processing and the cool-factor of panorama shots, it has gained a nice toehold in the market. But, the 35mm cameras aren't going anywhere, because people who care about the absolute best images, and the best control of the photography, spit on automated point-and-shoot gimickry, and use 35mm or large-format cameras.
I see the same situation possibly coming into play with the DataPlay disks. The amazing convenience of putting a handful of albums in your pocket will outweigh the (relatively minor for most purposes) difference in audio quality.
Illegitimi non carborundum
Whoa there, cowboy! Jeezus, did I hit a nerve or what? The guy asked if anyone can really tell the difference - I can, and I bet you can too. Let me make myself crystal clear - 256k .mp3 is just fine for everyday use.
.mp3 as compared to the original, and I responded with my own opinion about that comparison. Don't take it personally - it's just my opinion, and it's neither whining nor complaining about the quality.
The question asked about
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
In 1980 You couldn't find any CD's...
Group 3: those who don't listen at all.
My friend at school regularly has mp3's playing on his computer. The computer is regularly overloaded with tasks and regularly skips.
He regularly _doesn't notice!_
Some people are just different.
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
If push came to shove, could you simply not connect all the audio-out ports on your stereo to your soundcard and hit "Record?"
How exactly do these new DataPlay discs thwart music thieves?
I mean: a decent sound system can be wired to a decent sound card to produce a re-digitised product "as good as" the original and then compressed back into MP3, no?
What I find so interesting about Napster and it's recent downhill battle with the RIAA is that it has started forcing people to *think* about the level of corporate control in our lives...
I mean, Napster & it's distributed filesharing equivalents are _insanely popular._ If the laws are, supposedly, by the People and for the People -- shouldn't these People decide whether or not the copyright laws are valid?
I wonder though if Good Old American Apathy will set in, again... I mean, how many Napster users will stand up and say, "I believe this activity is moral and should be legalised." Or, just as everything else from speeding to marijuana, will we simply keep breaking the rules rather than reforming them?
Hm... how does that quote go? To live legally is to live immorally, to live morally is to live illegally?
BRx.
Life after capitalism? The participatory economics project
Prerecorded cassettes fell to 76 million shipped last year vs. 123 million in 1999, the industry says. "We are in need of a new format," says BMG's Sami Valkonen.
So, really old technology (cassettes) starts falling off so they need a new format??? They make it looks like the industry is not doing well or they are losing sales! My question is how the CD sales are going?!
Answer: Up only ~$400 Million USD for US sales only.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you have a decent-quality soundcard you could still connect the headphone out on the player to the line in on your soundcard to capture an analog stream. This stream would do fine as an MP3 (and depending on the quality of it to burn to a "classic" CD)
This is just the hype from the folks holding the patents. Sure there web site is full of pretty graphics of "products" that will use the new disks. But
Who in the hell is going to pony up the 5$ to $12 US per disk the wankers are quoting as their prices for the media.
Yeah I'm sure the member studios in the RIAA are going to increase ther cost per disk by an order of magnitude - why the price for the new Brittney Aguilera album would be like $180.00 once everyone in the distribution chain passed the cost increase along.
Sorry, those little disks look jus as cute as a button and are about the same size, but I have better uses for my money.
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
can I put it in a payphone a make a call?
Seriously... it could be used like a phone card. Put it in the phone, phone reads the data off of it to tell how much time you have, call goes through. Course you'd have to have something to read and write to the quarter built into the machine and it's probably not worth it.
But you wouldn't have to carry around a bunch of quarters.... only one.
Actually scratch all that.... it's just a bad idea.
Let them sell the little buggers to their black little hearts content. *shrug* Nothing can make me or anyone else buy them.
I and all users would have a choice. Either:
OR
Now... I'm not going to any MENSA meetings, but you really have to be rucking fetarded to either puchase these mini cd's or think that average public would be stupid enough to buy them.
hmmm... on second thought... Full House was on the air for 8 years.
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
"Looks like I'll have to buy the White Album again."
.sig
Hardware makers such as Rio, Samsung and Toshiba are expected to offer new music players (at about $200-$300 to start)
Translation: It's not going to be *overly* popular with consumers initially. It's going to have to be RIAA saying "We're not going to buyback cassettes anymore" to actually get stores to adopt this technology (That's how records went out, and CD's came in.)
"locked" until users pay for them via the Web.
I wonder how this is going to be implemented. I'm guessing since the media is write-once, it's going to be some sort of key-based system, which means that key will be good on only one player. (Sounds like fair use is going out the window if that is true.)
Talks continue with retailers, who may be amenable to stocking a new format that fits in current racks
Sure, drop it in a CD case, like so many other things these days. I'm not so sure that music retailers will be too happy to be selling products where additional musical sales are funneled through the web, instead of their own cash registers...
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
Yep, telling the difference is easy on decent equipment. Not that this is really to the point here; I would imagine the main reason for putting 5 hours of music on a disc that small is for walkman type devices.
While I can easily tell the difference at home on a hifi (and even CD is noticibly worse than SA-CD or a sufficiently expensive record deck), I doubt many people can notice MP3's shortcomings on a tiny pair of headphones in a busy shopping precinct - this should be fine for music on the move where little vocal crunches and the type are drowned out by background noise.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Mr. Volk has obviously been hidding under a rock for the past 20 years....
AC comments get piped to
Remember when people put effort into album covers?
Sticky Fingers, Yes albums, In the Court of the Crimson King, Dark Side of the Moon, and too many more to name. All had substantial creative effort put into their designs.
Mostly lost in the age of the CD, reducing the size even further puts the nail in the coffin of this artform, the album cover.
*ahem*
I recall listening to 'license to ill' on
CASSETTE
TAPE
but, perhaps that compact format, that lasted for years when maintained, wasn't significant.
....that smaller is *always* better!? How much smaller are cell phones, for example, going to shrink until you can't talk into one end and still be able to hear in the other? I don't want a match box with a numeric keypad...I want something I can hold comfortably and not break if it gets sat on! And these tiny miracle CDs with magical compression algorithms, special features and encryption so tight, your Britney Spears won't be cracked for at least three times as long as the universe is old! The point has been made before about putting these things into soda machines or lost in the sofa like spare change. Knowing the RIAA, these things sure won't cost spare change, so the lost won't be trivial. Then, of course, you'll need a tiny player for this new wonder format. Thing will be so small, it will probably be a device in line with a pair of headphones. Can I interest anyone in some inline stream encryption? Oh, and convenience of conveniences, there's no good way to get the music off this cute lil' button and onto your computer (and henceforth onto the Napster of the Nanosecond (tm))
Well, ApSci 113 draws near, and I think I lost my PDA in the lint trap last night...
"These people look deep within my soul and assign me a number based on the order in which I joined" --Homer re:
why would you want to pay for the bandwidth to download a song, everytime you want to listen to it, instead of recording it to media or buying the media pre-recorded?
also, mp3s (a standard stream format) do not sound as good as cd audio. hopefully, in the future, we'll have higher res audio (24bit 50khz, > 2 channels), not effectively lower rez (mp3).
This is reminiscent of the discs that were on "A Clockwork Orange". hmmm life imitates art, except its got florescent clear plastic packaging why does everything hafta have florescent clear plastic these days?
Is there heaven? Is there Hell? Is that a Tuna Melt I smell?-Primus
doomed-to-fail
Of course its an intermediate step before we simply stream all audio from the net
/. crew but.....
OK, I realize that this is news to the
NOT EVERYONE IS ON THE NET. Online music sales, even if you counted every single napster download as a sale, don't begin to touch the amount of music that is sold through normal channels.
SONY in all the wisdom they have decided to make two kinds of MD's. One is a DATA MD. It can be used for comupter programs and other binary uses. It can not be used to cut a MD mix to play at your party. This is because it can be copied. The other format is the Music MD. It has serial copy protection built in. Their is no getting the original binary recording back off the disk. A copy does have a generation loss and the number of generations are set in the software. Unlimited copies of copies do not happen. The copy is not the same as the original. Because the original demand was for music, the data discs got no shelf space. Computer interfaces were even more scarce. Now they are a hard to find specialty item at 5 to 10 X the price of a music blank. CDRW took SONY's market on that one as a blank could be used for either purporse and didn't have serial copy protection. Free market forces went around the roadblock. I see a competitor to DataPlay entering the MD market with a portable MD MP3/Data walkman/external computer drive that will fill the void in the market!
The truth shall set you free!
"Second, AOL en Compuserve CD's made such nice coasters for my all my cups of coffee. Does smaller CD's also mean smaller cups of coffee?"
I say great! I'm in need of some matching espresso coasters for my nice latte ones.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
I like to go in record stores and look at cds. I like to see and feel them. When I buy music, I like to have the covers, the leaflets, the full experience. Even if it's not an 12" vinyl, it's still a physical record with a physical presence, with it's physical cover art. If the media goes down to the size of a quarter the cover art would probably go down to about the size of a minidisc. Yuk. Not to mention having no media at all. Whoopee, I've got a .jpg of the cover.
And to stream everything off the net? This geek 'utopia' is far from A Good Thing (tm). I like to go on the bus and listen to music. I don't wan't to pay by the minute to listen to music I already purchased. Also, not everyone has an wireless internet connection. Hey, there are even people on this planet who don't have an internet connection at all! Also, the sound quality? When you pack something with a lossy compression, you will - suprise, suprise - lose something in the compression.
If streaming would become the trend, cds (or whatever the media is at that time) wouldn't probably die, but it would be increasingly difficult to find what you're looking for in a physical form. Yes, you could (I hope) always burn it yourself, but if I'm paying for it, I don't want any extra hassle for me to be able to listen to it.
I'm getting very bad vibes off both geek and RIAA fronts..
at the typical naspster bitrates (128, 160), there is a distinct "MP3" sound. to my ears it sounds like it's been put through a very subtle phaser (groovy 70's guitar effect).
it's probably much worse on anything better than my crap-ola PC speakers.
-c
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.
Wow. This guy obviously doesn't use any of this stuff himself.
1) Time to do something new? I don't think so. CDs are more popular than ever, and CD-R drives are just recently entering the price range that Joe Average wants to pay for them.
2) Something smaller? Definitely no, not for me anyway. I lose CDs often enough, and they're 5 inches across. I don't need to be trying to keep track of 3/4" discs.
3) More versatile? I fail to see how this applies. These discs supposedly hold 5 hours of music or 500mb of data. 80 minutes is hard enough for me to fill up, same for the 700mb in terms of data. If these discs do both at once, that's an improvement, but the article wasn't clear on that.
However, it's not going to be more versatile at all until it become ubiquitous. That's why I bought a CD burner instead of a SuperDisk drive. The LS-120 disks would suit my needs just fine...until I need to share data with a friend, or bring things between work and home.
Yeah, CDs suffered the same issues early in their life, I'm sure. And how long did they take to catch on? If they're 20 years old like the guy says, it took about 10 years or more, didn't it? I wouldn't expect these discs to catch on much sooner. People are just now getting comfortable with CDs.
--
--
"I personal[ly] think Unix is "superior" because on LSD it tastes like Blue." -- jbarnett
Uh, MiniDisc?
'"It's time to do something new, something smaller, better and more versatile."'
Uh, MiniDisc again?
Nothing quite like conveniently forgetting something for marketing purposes.
Asikaa
Asikaa
Come in, twenty-seventy-seventy, your time is up.
This won't work. You think I am gonna go out and buy a player, a burner, and more CDs?? Bah! Only fools will do this. The big five are just trying to hang on as long as they can. I guess this is their last defense.
How is this going to be any more secure than DVDs?
If the format is ever available as pure data format, and we can get readers for these, someone sooner or later will decrypt these songs so that they can listen to them on these devices too.
What license? CDs don't come with a license. They are covered by ordinary copyright law.
The reason why you can listen to your CDs all you want without permission of the recording company isn't because you're licensed to do so. It's because private listening to a CD isn't one of the "exclusive rights" granted to copyright holders in Title 17 Section 106:
Sec. 106. Exclusive rights in copyrighted works
Subject to sections 107 through 121, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:
(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;
(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;
(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;
(4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly;
(5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly; and
(6) in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.
You know, with all the people who complain about the quality of music encoded as MP3 vs Ogg vs the original CD....It just makes me sick. I mean, the recorded music you're listening to was all doctored to hell anyway to make it sound right. I say, just go to the concerts by these artists and hear the music how it really sounds, and stop your frickin' whining, it's pissing me off.
...you know that Aerosmith isn't worth a quarter. ;)
You could accidentally put the Aerosmith minidisk into a jukebox...in order to play an Aerosmith song.
Mas vale cholo, que mal acompañado.