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CD Copy "Protection" in California
Tabercil writes "According to this New Scientist article, the SafeAudio system has been employed here in North America in an unidentified CD which has already sold 100,000 copies." It'll be interesting to see what CD it is. My biggest concern is the car CD players that actually are computers not being able to play these discs. Presumably the copy protection will be broken soon enough, so thats not really an issue.
When *I* was in college, around 1975, a high-priced LP was in the $9 range. Using the Cost of Living Calculator at http://www.newsengin.com/neFreeTools.nsf/CPIcalc?O penView we find that $9 in 1975 is the equivalent of $29.44 today. In other words, if a CD today costs $15, then its about HALF the cost of a music recording in 1975.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
My vote is definitely for John Tesh (I got a good laugh out of the ad he did for that new show on Comedy Central).
Back in college I worked as a consultant in the undergrad computer science lab (only CS students had accounts). Like most CS labs, many people brought in CDs and listened to them on their headphones using the CD-ROM drive on the machines. Ocassionally someone would forget their CD when they left, but we'd just put them next to the machine and they'd be back for them. One time someone forgot their John Tesh CD. We put that one up next to the blackboard with a big arrow and something like "Whoever forgot their John Tesh CD it's right here->".
Nobody would claim it.
It sat up there for the next month until the semester was over and the CD was, presumeably, discarded. Hence my vote is for John Tesh all the way!
-"Zow"
They state that it doesn't prevent analog copying, so yes you could copy the analog signal.
Copy protection is not what most "everything for free" Slashdotters think it is: It is not black and white, and just because a techie with a lot of free time can "break" it doesn't mean that the protection is a failure. It doesn't have to be 100% effective to be effective.
All copy protection has to achieve to commercially protect a product is that it makes the process more inconvenient for the average Joe/Jane than simply going to the store and picking up the CD: Whether it degrades the quality enough that they are willing to just buy a copy, or it makes the process inconvenient enough (i.e. The deCSS process in the early days was ridiculously inconvenient for the average Joe, which is why they sought to squash it in the early days before it becomes a Windows "wizard" to rip a DVD to a MPG), or it takes too much of their time: For the $15 level that we're talking about it's a very small "nuisance factor" that will lead most average citizens to just go buy the product rather than waste their time. I've ripped MP3s just because I can go in and select a track (and through IMDB instantly it's even titled correctly and everything), and it automatically pulls an MP3 copy. If, on the other hand, I had to sit here pressing record and stop at the right moment, and prune off the ends, and live with a degraded copy (all audio-in channels on the major soundcards are garbage), and manually identify each track: There's no way I'd do that, and while there's lots of little kids with nothing better to do who are willing to, a large majority of the consumers would rather part with $15 than deal with the hassle.
It's similar to the software market: There are warez channels on IRC, and to most people that is the downfall of the software industry...then after a couple of 1GB+ downloads which were corrupt you give up and never touch warez again. Even if you duped the CD off a friend, often you need a crack and most people are extremely wary of cracks (trojans, viruses, etc.), so they'd rather just buy the product that endure the risk.
The article is talking about SafeAudio from Macrovision. The Charley Pride CD is using Mediacloq by Suncomm.
Q.
I thought there were costs built into blank CDs to offset some of thus. Does this mean the prices of blanks will decrease?
Also, since this wonderful copy protection prevents piracy, will the cost of a CD go down because of the increase in revenue on more sales of "originals"?
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Charles E. Hill
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
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A question I have is, what if the CD gets scratched? If the error correction is already strained by having to interpolate between their deliberately induced data corruption, will audible distortion occur sooner when the medium is actually damaged? And since you now have no way to make a backup copy.....
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TO BUY A NEW CAR WOULD MAKE YOU SEXUALLY ATTRACTIVE.
THEY OWN THE COPYRIGHT. That means they have the right to release the information any way they want to. Up to including music CDs with microbursts of static interspersed with the music. In fact, an attempt to prosecute them on a fair use claim would be in violation of their First Amendment rights.
Fair Use is a real protection - they can't stop you from ripping your non-protected CDs because it's perfectly legal to make copies to shift formats, make it more convenient to use a product, or as a back-up against breakage or degredation. But it doesn't stop anyone from making a product that copies poorly. Your beef in this case is with the creator for producing a less useful product... unfortunately, whoever is responsible for the information on the mystery CD lost control of their product as soon as they signed their contract - making the de facto creator the company, and giving the right to fuck up their product any way they want - including replacing their music with meaningless bursts of noise.
Funny thing, if I were a musician I would object to that. I wouldn't sign with a major label. I'd get a day job and work with really intelligent people on cutting out the middleman of industry entirely, understanding that compressed song-file trading is like free play on the radio, and selling CDs is still a perfectly viable business plan for the independent musician decades to come.
Oh wait, I am... and I do... and I won't... and I do...
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
if we can play it on a computer why can't we write a driver that captures the data going into the sound card, (like a screenshot or in this case a "SOUND SHOT")?
It's because the audio is already analog by the time it hits your sound card - your system never sees the bits. The cd-rom drive contains the hardware to act as a player, and outputs analog audio on a separate wire to the sound card, which plays the analog audio directly. Whatever cd-playing software you use merely acts as an interface to the cd-rom drive, and doesn't manipulate the signal at all.Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
If for no other reason, this scheme is horrific for the fact that it intentionally degrades audio. From the article:
... the system deliberately gives some of the digital code on the CD "grossly erroneous values", adding bursts of hiss to the audio signal. In addition, the error-correction codes on the CD, which would normally correct such errors, are distorted. So error correction fails, leaving tiny gaps in the music.
The company claims that no one can notice the difference, but I think their test group was too limited. I have a friend whose wife will only use fresh VCR tapes because the distortion caused by reusing a tape is noticable to her. She also can tell the difference between CDs and analog sources, such as cassette tapes. Again from the article:
But this doesn't placate hi-fi buffs. "It's a dreadful, dreadful thing to contaminate the sound deliberately, says Martin Colloms, a British hi-fi expert whose columns are syndicated around the world. "We all hate piracy but the idea of mucking up the sound of a recording is reprehensible. It's like slashing paintings in a gallery to stop someone stealing them."