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Restricted CDs Quietly Distributed
fantazem writes: "I was just browsing news.com and found this rather interesting article just posted. The article basically explains that Macrovision along with unnamed labels have released thousands of CD's with a new form of copy protection." This is a follow-up to this article. Whitfield Diffie noted that the identity of the restricted CDs can be ascertained by polling a large enough sample of CD-buyers; a good way to avoid these defective products. Anybody bought one yet?
There's no classical music available on vinyl anymore. Is that "pop bullshit"?
And no, records don't sound better. They have better FREQUENCY RESPONSE, which is only one part of fidelity. On music that isn't ultra compressed (classical, jazz, folk, etc.), the low-volume information is buried in a wall of vinyl noise. CDs don't have this problem.
Grow up, emo kid. Some people are actually a lot smarter than you.
Well I got this album the other day and I decided to rip it straight away. I've tried every ripper I know on 6 different cd drives and each time the exact same results. All 4 tracks were filled with high pitched static and noise. Goddamn bastard record companys seem to have got it right this time!
I dont understand though as this CD is quite old so perhaps its an early test of this copyright protection.
Oh the cd? It was Lou Reeds Metal Machine Music.
Ahem.
If the CD is opened you are usually only allowed by the return agreement to exchange it for another copy of the same CD.
Gonna go in every day for the next two months to return yet another copy?
The method of 'stemming thr flow of returns' will eventually turn into some sort of machine at the return counter to make sure it really isn't a 'defective' CD.
It was broken up like that so you could jump to particular sections that were described in the text and not for copy protection. It would be trivial to concatenate tracks in software.
underpaid best buy clerk: (Takes CD B and sticks it into a audio CD player and successfully plays it)
"Looks like you've got a problem with your computer there buddy. We got new ones in aisle 8. Good luck!"
Er... actually both Epitaph and Fat Wreck are *members* of the RIAA. They ain't the upstanding punk citizens they used to be. Check out riaa.org and know your enemy, kids!
Although I'd like to see Mona fucking Lisa, I have to disagree. Britney's breasts are fucking A!
The law passed in 1992 allows for personal music collection as long as you own the originals. The argument of the music industry is that the law doesn't require that they allow you to do it with the equipment but just that they can't stop you with lawsuits. Hard disk is not listed but that is because it wasn't used then and the politicians never thought that it would become used. From the discussions that I heard at the congress they wanted the voters to enjoy their music any which way they wanted and made sure they could legally do that. I would not be surprised to see the issue back at the congress, either Republican or Democrat to put teeth into the law. It is political dynamite and the congress knows it.
My Audio CD player says that it has 99 tracks (can you imagine 99 tracks of 'N Sync? Ohmygod!), and it seems to take about 30 seconds longer for the CD player to recognize it.
I haven't tried it in my car CD player yet.
God must be supporting piracy and needs to be sued, right?
You know what just scared me? That this is probably true, they just put in errors. Now doesn't this mean that if you do write a software based CD player that gracefully does error correction you will then be in violation of DMCA?
It isn't worked around by Vorbis, but it is handled correctly by Monty's other software: CDparanoia. It appears that this 'protection' only provides protection along with certian popular windows ripping applications which have sold out their users in order to prevent being sued. CDparanoia does not have this problem.
Use Free Software and don't worry about it.
Aren't there laser turntables which don't damage the record at all now?
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100% pure freak
- A.P.
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"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
What use are the CDs intended for? If they're intended to be played on a hifi audio player only, then you might run in to problems.
Typically it comes down to what the "reasonable man" considers would happen.
If, on the other hand, you specifically ask if it will work on your computer's CD drive and they say yes, you have a right to complain.
IANAL, obviously enough.
...j
Can't say as I'm surprised. Turns out I don't even need to show anybody what a declicker is because it's already being done. Anyone wants more info on implementing one for their own digital audio project, just ask me.
Not a bad talking point: tell people to buy only CDs with the Compact Disc Digital Audio logo, explaining that many discs these days are not allowed to carry this logo because 'they have too much error and the error correction is intentionally broken'. That's literally true.
The music companies have been trying to cover up links to the Mob for _decades!_ They are not nice people, and they are not about 'competency'. You go on and think what you like, but you're only marking yourself as somebody who hasn't even begun to think about speculating on the possibility of considering the idea of beginning to TRY to learn how things actually work. *pant, pant, gasp for breath* ;)
Seriously: the music industry are NOT NICE PEOPLE. They ARE dishonest and greedy. Whether you still do business with them is another story, and your affair, and nobody's asking you to clean up the world. But for God's sake, quit with the annoying, self-righteous naivete. I could give you enough background on this to fill a _book_. In fact, someone _has_ written such a book: "Hit Men", by Fredric Dannen.
Accept a clue, please.
No, actually they can't legally do this. They've really fucked up ('scuse my french). The problem is in two parts: on the one hand, the distortion they add could damage or destroy stereo equipment if uncorrected (and there are players out there, like car stereos, that both fail to correct this and also have wattage enough to fry tweeters instantly given this kind of distortion), and on the other hand, they are surreptitiously introducing this without any type of consumer warning or identification. The combination is fatal. They are hosed- they should have introduced some type of labelling system and tried to brazen it out, and then they'd probably be fine. Right now, they are totally vulnerable to legal action, and probably damages. (obIANAL, yet... this is _awfully_ clear cut)
So you're saying that they are intentionally introducing errors on the CD to create this copy-protection scheme. So, that means that because there are already errors, it takes less physical damage or other cause of data loss before the error correction capabilities are exceeded. Hence, manufacturers are putting out an intentionally flawed (more susceptible to scratches/skipping) product without notifying consumers. I smell a lawsuit.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Only blank CDs with the "taxed as audio" bit set.
PCs are exempt from the AHRA, which means you can burn audio to a "data-grade" (read: cheap and untaxed) CD.
The ONLY difference between "music" CD-Rs and "data" CD-Rs is a bit pre-burned into the CD somewhere. (I don't know where this flag is set - but those "music" CD-Rs are only needed for standalone CD-R deck equipment, which will refuse to record to "data" CD-Rs.)
In fact, I wonder if the standalone recorder decks are affected by this copy-protection, or if they do error correction before copying.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I've always wondered in cases like that who has the copy. If you make a .mp3 copy of the songs you bought but had stolen does that make your copy leagal and the original CDs the copy? I mean information is information irespective of the medium. If you're paying for the privalige of owning a copy, if you make an (illegal) copy and someone steals your the original disk, does the disk that was stolen become the (illegal) copy?
Consider the following:
Two CD-R disks. Each one with the same information on it, but one was copied off the other. Which is the original? The term "original", with proper digital data looses all the conotations of "better" or "less corupt" or "higher fidelity". The only thing that remains is that one disk was copied before the other. If nobody knows which one is which then is there an original at all?
Now see, that's a problem. The geezer shouldn't be sharing his inferior mp3 files in the first place. That's called copyright infringement and got a company called Napster in quite a bit of trouble recently. If connecting the lineout of his stereo to his computer is good enough for him then so be it. I mean hell, how else can you make mp3's out of all those audio tapes you have lying around?
I think that the DMCA requires that for a circumvention device to be illegal its primary purpose must be circumvention. There already exists a lot of software out there, such as cdparanoia, which was written to interpolate out the errors on CDs and I believe that their primary use has been to do this on normal (i.e., not brain-damaged) CDs. I doubt that the DMCA would make such software illegal as it serves a legitimate purpose in its primary use.
This raises an interesting point, though - wouldn't the music labels intentionally introducing errors onto CDs actually encourage copying? If I purchased a CD with errors on it I would use something like cdparanoia to correct the errors and then save the results on a CD-R as the results would be more resistant to actual errors that arise from scratches and physical jostling while playing in the future (this assumes that I liked the music enough to do this - my first inclination would be to return it for a refund). I would not have needed to make the copy had the CD been normal because the error correction capabilities would have not been degraded already.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and the above should not be taken as legal advice.
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Free P2P Backup, Windows & Linux
Wouldn't be too hard to write something that automatically finds and interpolates over them.
It's quite possable that cdparanoia will handle that. It may need to be configured to give up on a perfect read more quickly, and just do the interpolation in order to rip in a reasonable time.
Apparently the main defense is take out tiny portions of the music. Small enough that CD player error correction will accomodate, but a direct data transfer will turn into bursts of gibberish.
Does this mean that if you play your CD (analogfully) into an audio in to your computer/mp3-making device, the copy protection is 100% defeated? If so, that's good enough for me. Is there any hope that any digital watermarking/copy protection/enforcing dumb formats system won't suffer from this weakness?
I'm not a smorgasbord.
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Some [expletive deleted] broke into my car last fall and made off with about $600 worth of stereo equipment and about $600 worth of CDs (don't believe it when they tell you a detachable faceplate is protection against theft). Every single one of my favorite albums was stolen (and I stil haven't replaced most of them). The morning I discovered this, I swore I'd never keep an original CD in the car again.
BUT WAIT!! If the theif makes off with a copy of a legally-purchased CD, YOU are now responsible for illegal distribution! Horrors! The record company lost out on another sale because YOU made a copy!
Who cares that the theif wouldn't have bought it... it's a COPY and it's DENYING the recording agency the RIGHT to PROFIT! Somebody PLEASE think of the children!
Macrovision played with the colour, not SYNC. They compressed the dynamic range of the colour signal, then tacked on some bogus signal that maxed out the range. VCRs that tried to automatically adjust the colour gain would overcompensate, and you'd end up with a very dim image on tape, almost unwatchable. (rent and try to copy "Back to the Future" to see what its like). TVs don't autogain, so there is no problem watching it, and the super-bright stuff is carefully placed so it is off-screen.
I wonder if modern LCD and Plasma screens have trouble with macrovision.
Stop moaning.
At least you don't live in the UK. Here we have some CDs at 17 UKP. So that's ~24 USD for recordings like 'Kill Em All' by Metallica. Granted some are cheaper, but most are in the 14 to 17 UKP range, even (see previous example) for old recordings.
What in the world are they doing modding up posts that say "I have one" and don't have any supporting data (like even a album title!?!?)
/. article from totally degrading to a "me too!" fest and a panicked shouting match of fears that big brother is coming: Don't post "me too"'s without at least putting the title of the disc so someone else can confirm it.
Here's a suggestion to keep this
And don't let all the unconfirmed "me too"'s stir the coals even more.
I'm glad I don't listen to any mainstream music.
When I did, only one person had a copy of it. Now if that one person hadn't had it, I very well might have bought the cd. And maybe with copy protection, that one copy wouldn't have been out there.
Assuming the record company in question hasn't just decided not to publish that music anymore but just sit on it instead.
It's surprising how much stuff is out of print - in the RIAA-perfect world, you shouldn't buy from used record stores, or copy from a friend (or strangers) copy, so you only listen to what they decide to make/sell this week. Welcome to commercial-music-only land.
If I could buy an albums-worth of tracks for say $5-8 from a record companies' entire backcatalogue, rather than what is currently in the warehouse, I daresay I might buy some of those - lots, even. Especially if I didn't have to pay 4 layers of middlemen for the privelege.
--
the telephone rings / problem between screen and chair / thoughts of homocide
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
If minidiscs work in digital mode with these discs, then the game is over anyway. S/PDIF in is not that unusual on soundcards nowadays, and there you have your digital copy.
Side question: anyone know of a soundcard with S/PDIF or TOSLink out that can send the track markers that minidisc uses? I'd really like to be able to make minidisc compilations with the markers in them automatically...
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the telephone rings / problem between screen and chair / thoughts of homocide
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
But the point is, like "Microsoft Java" vs Sun, I believe Phillips[0] licenses the use of the CD logo on the packaging. In the same way that Sun chose to sue MS for calling their VM 'Java', Phillips could chose to withold the use of the CD logo on discs that aren't 'valid' CDs. Pretty much every CD I have has at least a tiny version of that logo on it...
[0] or the consortium that handles the technology - I don't remember if it's just Phillips, although looking through FOLDOC suggests it is.
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the telephone rings / problem between screen and chair / thoughts of homocide
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
I was discussing this with a colleague yesterday, and an interesting question came up: are these new discs actually marked as CDs? Do they have the little Phillips' Compact Disc logo on them? If they are just relying on people assuming that the 5-inch silver disc is a 'real' compact disc, then what you should expect from this CD-like disc is your problem, at least to a greater degree.
Not that I am in favour of the 'protection', especially at the expense of the error correction - I too rip all my CDs straight after purchase.
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the telephone rings / problem between screen and chair / thoughts of homocide
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
I wonder if you even have to muck around with a D/A A/D setup. I have a cd player with a "digital out" (spdif?) on the back. I have a soundcard with a "digital cd in." From the sounds of it the cd player will do all the interpolation stuff and the digital out will be the correct sound. I guessing that I can rip at 1x speed pulling the digital sound straight off the sound card.
I am not even sure it will slow down Joe Users much. In my experience the kids who are doing the ripping are taking the time to learn the best way to do it. While visiting friends it was their 13y old who made the compilation CD's for travelling and who could comment on the merits of various mp3 rippers. I doubt that this is uncommon.
I use Linux
A lawsuit may not be the best approach. This is clearly deceptive business practices and possibly fraud. Take a few minutes to visit the Federal Trade Commission website. They have an online complaint form which you can fill out against Macrovision and the "John Doe" record companies.
;-)
m l
Please do not flame the FTC - it won't help our cause any.
The information for Macrovision that they request is:
Macrovision Corporation
1341 Orleans Drive
Sunnyvale, CA 94089
408-743-8600
The text of my complaint reads:
Macrovision Corp. along with various John Doe corporations (unnamed record
companies) have introduced copy-protected music/audio CDs into
U.S. distribution channels. No notice is given consumers who purchase these
CDs, yet these new CDs take away a right which consumers have come to
expect, and which is protected by the Supreme Court's "Betamax" decision
and the Audio Home Recording Act, namely the ability to copy said CDs onto
a personal computer for personal use.
I believe this constitutes fraud and deceptive business practices due to
the failure to disclose this information to consumers. I urge the
Commission to help stop this activity.
Please see the following article for additional information:
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-6604222.ht
This is what really annoys me. The record labels say that most of your money goes towards the rights to listen to a CD, but when you already own the rights to listen to a CD and simply need to replace the physical disc most of them force you to purchase the rights again in order to get the physical disc. I had a few CD's damaged a couple years back and asked the record labels how to get a cheap replacement disc since I already paid them for the rights to the music, and all of them except for one told me I would have to buy the CD from the store again
No, you don't understand: it's not one or the other -- whether what you paid for is ownership of the physical disc or a license to listen to it depends entirely on what right you're trying to exercise at the moment. I'll try to clarify:
If you want to justify some unconventional use of the disc by claiming that you own it and can do with it as you please, then the answer is that the piece of plastic is not important -- it's the information stored on it that matters, and to that you've only been granted a license, not ownership, and such uses are not allowed.
If on the other hand you want to use the license in some abstract sense to justify moving beyond the limitations of the physical disc, e.g., by making copies to keep in different places (home, car, office, etc.), converting to MP3, streaming the content from my.mp3.com, or demanding a new copy when the old one gets damaged, then the answer is that there's nothing special about the license -- the CD is a physical product that you buy and if you did those other things, you'd be stealing.
Hope this helps.
David Gould
David Gould
main(i){putchar(340056100>>(i-1)*5&31|!!(i<6)<< 6)&&main(++i);}
> As you no longer possess the physical media, I imagine the RIAA would make the case that you no longer have anything to back up
He said he was going to make backup copies in future so he needn't keep originals in the car. If he'd done that, he'd still have the originals, so he could legally make new backups.
The thief would have "stolen" the music (the owner still has the original, so it's not really stolen any more than making illegal copies is stealing), but he's a real thief anyway (he took the CDs and stereo), so he doesn't care.
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rant
He said his car was broken into, not stolen. And the car is (presumably) insured, but most insurance won't include that much contents cover. And replacing a car means finding one suitable car, replacing hundreds of CDs means replacing hundreds of CDs, sme of which might be hard to find now.
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rant
> Aren't there laser turntables which don't damage the record at all now?
Yes - http://stereotimes.com/ELP_Turntable.htm
I'd heard that because they don't push tiny dust particles out of the way it ends up not sounding as good as a needle, but this review says the built in cleaning machine does handle that.
On the other hand, they aren't cheap -
http://www.elpj.com/purchase.html
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rant
I don't know about anybody else, but I often come out of the store, and open the CD right there so I can play it in my car on the way home. If I *ever* find that I can't play a CD on my car's CD player because of this retarded attempt by Macrovision to reduce copyright infrigement, I can personally guarantee that I will *never* buy another CD again. It's just not worth my time or money.
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Join my fight against Subway's new cut!
http://spine.cx/subway/
Be sure to check out the discussion in this article for more info. Can anyone tell me how that article is different from the current one?
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Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
Ah, but I bring my laptop with me. I show them that CD A works perfectly in the laptop's CD drive. I show them that CD B is not a CD and cannot be read (by the CD Player application of course). This will be more effective if the laptop is running Windows, due to the average level of knowledge of a retail worker (Oh, it's not compatible with Linux, the CD is fine!) Of course, this only happens the /second/ time I bring in the CD to swap for the same one. I can only exchange it for the same CD, since it's defective, but it will cost the store and record company quite a bit if I open four CDs and only pay for one, and probably get an apology and a swap if I can demonstrate this clearly. I can also say that this isn't a CD that works in any other computer, in my car (since I have an Aiwa CDC-MP3 -- a computer), etc.
You have to prove to the store that every CD of that title is broken. That's the only way to place pressure back on the record company.
I'm willing to bet that more than 1% of people will not that their CD doesn't work in their computer at home or at work, or in a new walkman (that handles MP3s), or in a new car deck, etc. This is going to backfire badly, I hope. If those of us who do note it immediately raise holy hell, it'll make it more obvious.
-30-
The backup copy argument is best. Personally, I don't have original CD's in my car, I prefer to make a copy on my computer and listen to the copy. This way, I save having fragile CD cases in my car (which take up room; I have a CD holder which holds 20+CD's in the same space as 3 jewel cases) and if the hostile environment of the car (dust, dropping CD's while changing etc) damages a CD, I just make another copy.
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How long till cdparanoia will be declared an illegal circumvention device that breaks protection on copyrighted works and has the author jailed?
It just happened. It can happen again...
Buy Vinyl. If it isn't released on Vinly it probably is some pop bullshit that isn't meant to last (or be good anyway). Records sound better anyway, pure analog, can't copy protect that.
Sure, no problem... just as soon as they make turntables for the car, or a portable turntable I can attach to my belt loop while jogging.
I'll certainly admit that a brand new vinyl LP played with a brand new needle is going to produce a better-quality sound than a new CD on a new CD player. But on repeated playings, that vinyl record you hold so dear is going to sound worse and worse, even when you change the needle. A CD may not be perfect, but it's a little bit more resistant to defects caused by time.
That and, well, it's easier to rip a CD to make an MP3/OGG file. Point me in the direction of an LP-ROM that'll make it just as easy to rip vinyl, and I'll convert.
They take up so much damm room (physically) !
:P
When I buy a CD, the first and only time I play it is usually to rip the contents onto my music server. Then I file them - in the roof space.
Just as I would never consider using a paper based encyclopedia or phone book these days, I don't want to wade through hundreds of 5 inch plastic disks to find a track, when I can just get my PC to search for it in seconds (not to mention those awful cases that break as soon as you open them, or eject the CD at 30 mph across your living room).
I'm not out to rip anyone off - people deserve to be paid for their work, but RedHat don't insist I keep the damm distro CD in the drive when I use my PC - why should I have to keep the delivery media for the music I buy to hand just to listen to it?
I'll probably do the same with the DVDs I have when I can get sufficent storage online, and figure out a way to do it without loss of content.
These guys need to break free of the concept that the delivery media is the product. They are trying to adapt something rather than come up with a solution to the catual problem. I see the future of music distribution being network based - I'll donwload what I want from mp3.com or similar and they will bill me, and keep some sort of record of what I've paid for.
All I have to then, is figure out what to do with the big pile of VHS tapes I have. Hmm I wonder if my WinTV card can digitize those
But what about CDs purchased online, where restricted CDs are likely to be offered as though they are the same as normal CDs? I buy most of my music online, and I doubt most stores will make any distinction between good products and "protected" products. It's hard for a savvy customer to beware when he or she must rely on inadequate summaries.
However, if you take the original (O) and make a copy (C1). Then, record both (O) and (C1) thru the SPDIF output of CD player, then you can find the defective bits and create new track files with only the correction bits by subtracting the from each other.
Now, since C1 and O are identical ( in theory) the correction bits tracks will contain all zeroes.(In practice they will not.)
Next you subtract the corrective tracks from C1 and creating C2.
1) You have not violated DMCA since the corrective bits tracks are theoretically zeroes, thus you have not created any new info from the CDs.
2) You have (theoretically) not altered C1 since what you have subtracted from it is (theoretically) all zeroes.
Thus you have derived nothing from the original, and you have added nothing to it.
Sinan
As I understand it, many European countries (including Russia) require by law that the consumer be able to make at least one copy of any data or software sold as a backup. By preventing this, Adobe ebooks is actually illegal software in these countries (wouldn't it be delicious irony if the CEO of Adobe were imprisoned while on a European vacation for selling illegal products ... but I digress).
... by implimenting copy protection schemes which prevent the customer from making legal, fair use copies they are, in fact, violating the law of several European countries and therefor cannot sell those CDs there? If such a CD should be bought in one of those locations *cough* Amazon *cough* then wouldn't the publisher(s) be subject to civil and perhaps criminal prosecution?
Wouldn't the same thing apply to these CDs
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Macrovision has had copy protection that inserts noise and monkeys with your picture on DVDs and videotapes for many years now. I've used a product called the Sima SCC[0] that removed this annoying feature.
If all the protection does is add noise to music files, then I'd imagine it likely that there's a mathematical method to remove the noise, or barring that just using a filter like the ones that remove LP noise from copied vinyl records.
[0]- I don't work there, I'm just a satisfied customer
Trolling is a art,
cdparanoia predates this protection method. Therefore, it can be argued that Macrovision's "technological measure" does not live up to the definition of "effectively control access" since previously existing and widely-used tools that many people already used by default, were already capable of reading the CD.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I think you miss point. This isn't a compression/encoding issue; it's a ripping issue. You would hear the defects even listening to the raw WAV or AIFF, prior to any encoding to Vorbis/MP3/whatever. No encoding (regardless of Monty's godlike powers) is going to remove defects at that point in the process.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
DMCA doesn't come into play with these CDs, because the method used doesn't fit even the broadest interpretation of "effectively control access." At least with CSS, a tool had to be written specifically for getting around the "technological measure." With this error-introduction method, many robust players and copiers, even ones that are many years older than the offending copy protection, will still be able to read the CD. And they will be able to do it, not because they were created with the goal of defeating copy protection in mind, but as part of their natural and necessary error-tolerance.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
The volume level of a directly ripped audio file also varies -- it's not just a D-A-D conversion issue. The actual recording level of a CD isn't "standardized".
I have some CDs that are very "quiet", and I have to turn up the volume when I play them back (most of these are classical, and are recorded with a lower volume because the greater dynamic range requires it).
On the other hand, I have some CDs that are recorded at a much higher volume level than everything else. One example of this is Californication by the Red Hot Chili Peppers -- this disc is recorded at a higher volume than any of the other RHCP discs I have, and also higher than just about any other pop/rock music I have. The volume level is high both when playing it in a normal CD player, and when playing back ripped audio files. Compressing to MP3 or Ogg doesn't change this.
It seems that what the record companies are doing is a whole lot closer to the spirit of "pirating"
Courtney Love agrees with you!
redbook is the standard for how data is stored on the disk. The data is stored properly, it's just corrupted first. The disk should still conform to the standard.
If you normalize a waveform, all you're doing is making sure that the peak amplitude hits 0dB. ALL CD's have been produced so this is true, but most modern albums have been mixed hotter than older ones, so the overall volume is greater.
The only way I've found to fix that when making mixed CDs is to use Adaptec's JAM to change the gain on the individual tracks and watch the level meter.
Don't believe me? Here's a visual aid: both tracks are direct CD imports and have been normalized to 100%. The one on the left (Pink Floyd's "Run Like Hell") is STILL going to be quieter than Monster Magnet's "Tractor": http://homepage.mac.com/kabong/images/audio.png when listened to.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Yeah, but God forbid you walk past the record player while it's playing.
Basis for a suit...
I think there is one. I expect that, when I buy a CD, I'm buying something that conforms to the standard that has been used for ages on CD's. If it's somthing else, I'm being ripped off.
No. THe AHRA of 1992 says that copying music for noncommercial use using *the devices covered by the act* is not actionable. Computers are not covered by the act. The AHRA also says that digital devices must follow the SCMS (serial copy management system).
I'm not saying it's illegal to copy music, just that the AHRA does *not* give de-facto permission for people to copy music, even it it appears to at first glance.
There is a difference between something being 'not illegal' and being 'a right'.
ALl the act says is that you cannot be prosecuted for using a compliant device to copy some music; it does not say you have a non-infringable right to copy the music. Nothing in the act prevents them from making it technically difficult for you to copy music.
Dude, read the article again. It has nothing to do with encoding. What they do is to intentionally insert defects in the CD. Normal CD players will extrapolate and you'll get a normal audio signal, but CD-ROMs will try to read it exactly as it is, including the errors. You'll get a wave file filled with pops and clicks. Only after this does the encoder come into the picture...
If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress?
Yeah, I don't see why not. But this doesn't belong in the mp3 encoder, but in the CD-ripping software... what if I want to encode with Vorbis?
If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress?
Yeah, you don't have to explain this to the store. Just say it pops and clicks on your old CD player at home. It's conceivable that you have an old one that cannot do error recovery very well... this way, if enough people will do it, it will skew the statistics on the efficiency of this method and maybe they drop it...
:)
Can you imagine a Beowulf cluster of disgruntled customers?
Damn, I'm still asleep, I need some coffee...
If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress?
is it illegal for me to make copies (or partial copies) of CD's that i own for my own personal use?
No, according to the Home Recording Act of 1992, it's perfectly legal for you to make personal copies of CDs you own.
However, that same Act does NOT say that the record companies can't try to stop you from making such copies (through content control mechanisms) -- just that they can't sue you if you suceed. Of course, if you try to bypass these content control mechanisms, you're most likely in violation of the DMCA.
All of this may be moot as far as using your computer as a jukebox, however, since the courts still haven't decided whether or not a computer should be classified as a digital recording device (if it were ruled not to be so, it wouldn't be covered under the Home Recording Act).
There are no real difficulties in writing code to read over a ripped CD image, and do the interpolation in software.
I just hope that solutions to this come out soon (and, in particular, for Windows and not just linux), so that the record companies realise how pointless the scheme is and stop writing trash all over our fairly purchased music!
--indecision
In a previous article, they mentioned using "golden ears" (people with discerning hearing) to test it beforehand. Apparently, none of these people could tell the difference between the copy-controlled version and the other.
The definition of defective is what's important.
If
I can't take my (lawfully obtained) (Sony) copy-protected CD and play it on my (Sony) Vaio laptop due to the protection scheme
I can't take my (lawfully obtained)(Sony) copy-protected CD and play it on my (Sony) MP3 player due to the protection scheme
I can't make a backup copy of my (lawfully obtained) CD for personal use (I know...I can make an analog one........)
Then I would consider it defective.
If this happens enough times to enough people, I'd think it would get to be a class-action or even an FTC matter.
I think we're working at the device level here, not the decoder level.
This means that playing the protected CD digitally through *any* decoder will manifest the protection scheme.
So I'm not sure if changing the encoder will do anything for a protected disk being digitally decoded.
If:
I can't download the (legally obtained) songs to my MP3 player
I can't make a backup copy in case my (legally obtained) CD gets that aluminum eating virus we read about
I can't listen to the CD at work on my laptop
I'll take it back to the place of purchase.
If enough individuals do this, the stores will be forced to spend their resources (time and money) with the returns (which take 2-3 times longer than a purchase).
If it happens enough, the stores will in turn be forced to work with the record labels to stem the flow of returns.
I would add that should you still not meet with satisfaction, mention the possibility of a small claims lawsuit. The CD was unfit for a particular use (playing it on a computer CD player.) Sure, this might not be a protected use, but your average small claims judge is just a regular slob, not like the assholes we have read so much about in /. at the federal level. When you tell him/her that it won't work in your PC, they'll likely say "well, shit, give 'em his money back". After all, s/he probably has a computer, and probably listens to CDs on it.
Unfortunately, the best you are probably going to get is a store credit, not cash.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
I dunno, I've not yet bought a CD in the US for more than 10-12$ unless it was a Jap import which can go up to 30$
I havent bought a RIAA audio cd for two years now, but I would buy one of these just to give the record companies a hard time.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
And the RIAA corporations will just say 'Well, too bad that your fans arent buying your music, you still owe us some huge gobs of money for production, studio time, mastering and marketing, so pay up, and then you get the distinct pleasure of having to release another 3 albums for a huge loss and spend the rest of your life penniless and in debt. And after we get this new inheritable debt law for music contracts passed, your children down to the last generation will be working for us. Without pay.'.
Im not buying any CD's from any artist or company I can ascertain is connected to the big ones anymore. Its just a pita to know who owns what.
Whatever it's called. I have to laugh every time I hear it because the first minute or so of the song has this 'hic' sound in the background that's almost exactly like blips in bad MP3s. I wonder how many people listened to the start and started re-downloading from another source. If I wanted that song, it would have driven me nuts. Good trick.
DataSquid.net, a little about me.
well, that punk sampler was released in to the mp3 "scene" on the 17th, so it obviously didn't stop that ripper.
I just wish Courtney would notice that her own idea for a solution to the problem -- tipjars and contributions given voluntarily by fans -- could be happening on her page right now, if she wanted it (and not just with my preferred metal-currency, either, though that's obviously my main interest).
Napster changed everything (and not always for the better, IMO, because whether or not either one of us likes paying the RIAA quintopoly too much for a CD mostly because we like one or two songs, I suspect we both agree that musicians deserve to be paid something for making music we enjoy). I wish Fairtunes had come along before Napster, instead of the other way around. Unless the idea of tipping music artists we like (and not just talking about it!) spreads a lot faster than I think it will, we're going to see more stuff like this -- a bad thing.
JMR
Try e-gold - (contact me). I'm NOT e-
The real problem I see is that the quality 'degrades' faster with these new CD's than the old ones because the error correction has a harder time dealing with scratches and the like.
> Apparently the main defense is take out tiny portions of the music. Small enough that CD player
:)
> error correction will accomodate, but a direct data transfer will turn into bursts of gibberish.
so... does this mean that my non-error correcting cd player will spoo on one of these discs? also, this kinda implies that the disc is full of little `scratches' (not literally, but for all intents and purposes)... might I suggest cdparanoia?
Heh, as a poor techie trapped at NDSU in Fargo, I can say that you better bring not only mix CD's, but some artificial scenery and airscrubbers for your AC...ND's flat, brown, and smells like poo. Didn't the Fargo city planners understand that putting the city dump UPWIND OF EVERYTHING was a bad idea???
------------------------
Co-founder of GerbilMechs
Why don't record lablels just ROT13 all the lyrics? Can't really hurt today's pop songs...
------------------------
Co-founder of GerbilMechs
I'll certainly admit that a brand new vinyl LP played with a brand new needle is going to produce a better-quality sound than a new CD on a new CD player. But on repeated playings, that vinyl record you hold so dear is going to sound worse and worse, even when you change the needle. A CD may not be perfect, but it's a little bit more resistant to defects caused by time.
Actually, I've always found that it sounds better the third or fourth time you play it. The grind of the needle smooths out sharp edges left in by the pressing.
Charley Pride exists. I know, because I used to live across the street and 3 or 4 houses down from him in Great Falls, Montana. Scary, huh? :)
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
This is a really interesting observation, one I had never considered before now, but let me take a run at an explanation:
:)
I notice that trade paperbacks for sf/fantasy/horror/mystery titles seem to run from $5 to $12 (usd) for a really long book. CD's, on the other hand, seem to start at $15 and go up, even for short 30 minute releases, unless you want to listen to re-releases of old jazz/classical recordings (like I do) in which case you can find decent CD's for something like $12 for a 70 minute recording. I recently saw a re-release of a Led Zepplin album from 1972 for $17(!).
I read a fiction book once or twice. By contrast, my computer books get read over and over. My wife and daughters will read a good fiction book over and over till the pages start to fall out. I'll listen to the CD's until everyone else is sick of them. I'd guess that the marginal utility of both is about the same, but the CD price is much higher, on average.
I'll also note that few publishers are as flamboyant as the music industry pimps^H^H^H^H^Hpeople.
I think maybe the music lovers feel raped by ticket/cd prices. Imagine that!
Well, it's a theory
Sure - but now they have the DMCA on their side, and judges dumb enough to think that fscking up a CD just enough to make it worthless when copied is a protection scheme covered by the DMCA.
cdparanoia for Windows...
------
a lot of sound cards have a "virtual input" that soft-pipes all output back into a virtual recording device (similar to a line-in, but all digital). Makes for simple ripping if it can't be done the normal way.
Yep. Worst-case scenario, we rip at 1x instead of 10x, and we do it before we go to bed, or when we get up in the middle of the night to take a piss.
(Hilary Rosen, what are you doing on the floor of my washroom? No, I don't care if your stomach's on fire...)
made off with about... $600 worth of CDs
This is what really annoys me. The record labels say that most of your money goes towards the rights to listen to a CD, but when you already own the rights to listen to a CD and simply need to replace the physical disc most of them force you to purchase the rights again in order to get the physical disc. I had a few CD's damaged a couple years back and asked the record labels how to get a cheap replacement disc since I already paid them for the rights to the music, and all of them except for one told me I would have to buy the CD from the store again (I wound up buying new jewel cases and moving the liners to them and bringing them to a couple of stores saying I just got them as a birthday present and they were broken and exchanged them for new ones, I would have been happy to pay a dollar or two to the label for a new CD but instead got them for free). Luckily I was able to do this since I still had the physical CD, but if I had ever lost it or had it stolen I'd have been out of luck. The record companies say you're purchasing the rights to listen to an album, but for the most part their actions are contrary to this (unlike software manufacturers, in the old days you could easily get a replacement for a defective floppy).
The logical track would be to see an increase in cassette sales, and dual cassette/CD car decks as people would use casettes to record their own personal mix of music while using th CD player for the originals. I'm also curious how this would affect the music industry as sampling is quite popular. In order to continue this practice among it's artists these same music companies would have to come up with a method for people to still digitally sample and still maintain the copy protection. Or else they would be shooting themselves in the foot. I also suppose that this would not be available to smaller independent artists, who can't afford suites like cool edit pro. Digital copying is used for so much more than just pirating songs and personal collections that the music industry would be stifling more people with this than they would gain. I expect the lost profits would be greater from the lack of new music or ideas gained from sampling, than it would ever be from revenues lost to pirates.
Can I make illegal digital copies with this cd?
-No.
So, I CAN make digital copies with this cd?
-Yes
How are these different. If the technology limits digital copies then what is the difference??
Can I bypass this stupidity by adding a DA-AD conversion to my digital copying?
-Most probably, yes.
I guess, but that would be the same as recording the CD from via analog methods through your soundcard to your PC and we all know this is not quite the same. Although quality is pretty good still. Also, anytime you have an DAC->ADC then there are quantization errors and the copy is not quite as good. My 2 cents..
JOhn
Campaign for Liberty
Sorry about messed up italics tag.. shoulda used preview.. doh!
JOhn
Campaign for Liberty
I fully support capitalism and have no animosity toward corporations or the rich. I also recognize that what the music companies are doing has very little to do with stopping piracy and everything to do with destroying fair use rights. If they wanted to be honest, they should have consumers sign a contract every time they buy a CD stating that they give up their rights to space-shift or make backups. Of course they won't do that because the last thing they want is for consumers to be aware of how they are being screwed.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
for every CD you buy, ask the store clerk if it's copy protected. If he doesn't know(or he knows, and it's protected), don't buy the CD, because you are legally allowed to make a copy for the car or on your computer (explain this to the clerk. ask WHY you're not allowed by $recordcomp to exercise your rights to make copies). Make sure people know you're not buying the CD because of the copy-protection.
do this preferrably when it's a busy day, so more people hear. Ofcourse, if he says it ISNT protected, and it turns out it is.. bring it back. it's a broken CD, you payed specifically for one that's NOT protected.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
AFAIK, it isn't required by law, just allowed by law in th EU. However.. I _DO_ think it's required by law in Russia. Don't take my word for it though...
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
The cake is a pie
Of course this is not true - just because a thief has run of with your CDs doesn't mean you don't still own them
I am still boycotting them over napster, the cost of buying the music, and the crap that they try and tell me is music. I haven't bought a cd in a long time. I don't even remember when the last time I bought a cd was.
At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
Probably, but MacroVision would have a pretty good argument against them: they're doing this scientifically. If they told everyone, "hey, this new CD has copy protection, tell us what you think," there would be TONS of people like "no, the sound is worse, money back please."
Whereas if they do it quietly ("blind" experiment), they'll get a much more accurate picture of whether people are genuinely affected by the loss of sound quality.
A better question is about the ethics it takes to turn thousands of customers into research subjects without permission, probably without any debriefing after the experiment is over. D'oh.
---
I am a seventeen year old girl reading Slashdot - and I've been reading since I was at least fourteen or fifteen. I had always thought that those reading Slashdot were a bit more open minded...who cares what one listens to? Especially when that's not the matter at hand?
-k-
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Quality isn't a matter of 'digital' or not. MP3's have poor sound quality. They're digital, but they have poor sound quality. The sound quality is the important issue. The point the previous poster was making was that you can use the error correction in your cd audio player to generate a good quality wav file, which you can then use to create good sounding mp3s. If your concern is perfect sound quality, don't use mp3s at all. If you just want listenable music, use the above technique to copy these 'broken' cds. The cd ripping hardware you envision would only be an 'all-in-one-box' version of what was already proposed - a player with error correction, a wav file recorder, and an mp3 encoder. Feel free to design or buy such hardware if you want to, but your computer is already capable of functioning as the second 2 and your cd player can function as the first, and you own these products already.
"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong." --Voltaire
Correct. The car was not stolen (nor were a lot of valuable, non-music-related items, including a $400 Valtentine-1 radar detector and a $120 Gtech Pro).
...some of which might be hard to find now.
Luckily, some of the hardware was covered by my insurance -- stereo and amp were, since they were "installed" in the car. Sub wasn't, 'cause it was strapped down in the hatch area, and not actually screwed/bolted in. Heh, if I'd only known. CDs were not covered at all.
You hit the nail on the head. Incidentally, if anyone knows where to get MC 900 Ft Jesus recordings (other than "One Step Ahead of the Spider") please let me know!
"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong." --Voltaire
The fact is, it will reduce the number of users who simply want to use their MP3 players or make backup copies of their CDs for use in the car. The RIAA is trying to make it difficult to use MP3 players. The pirates, who do understand D/A A/D conversion, will continue making copies as they always have.
Hello little man. I will destroy you!
There have been some interesting tests where the watermarks on SACD's have been made audible by subtracting the original signal, and this results in a buzzing type sound, that apparently (this is second hand info) once heard, can be detected on marked recordings.
Never a problem with a properly setup and supported LP12, or I suspect many other turntables.
What astounds me is the method they seem to be using to check if it affects the sound quality. There are no increase in returns therefore they seem to be inferring that the change is inaudable. It would be great if the drug companies tried this, "This drug is 100% safe, not one person who disn't know they were taking it, told us they died". Have they considered that maybe the sound quality is reduced, but the effect of this is to make people assume its just the way the band should sound, and resolve never to buy the next release (and tell their frends, etc)
I know this has only been covered 5 or 6 times in the previous comments (and that's only the ones that have been moderated up), so here are a few more repetitions:
It's the DAE step, not the encoding step.
It's the DAE step, not the encoding step.
It's the DAE step, not the encoding step.
furrfu...
How does this crap get modded up as insightful?
It's a basic fact of human psychology that people hate people who they see as more fortunate as them and love making excuses for it. So, if you're rich, no one will like you. If you're rich, everyone will assume you got there by lying, stealing, being dishonest, etc. (that rationalizes why they, themselves are not rich).
That's also the reason why every loser on Slashdot hates all "evil corporations". Most people - especially the incompetent - simply cannot accept the success of others as being a result of their competency.
So you go ahead and defend your theft by pretending the music companies are dishonest and greedy while they'll go ahead and try to stop themselves from being robbed.
Mmmm.. Donuts
From a technical point of view, the fact that the CDrom played it okay is interesting...
I gathered that CDroms don't have the specific error correction CD audio players have (even when playing instead of ripping). Was I misinformed ?
Nice explanation !
.wav file ?
;-\
This however leaves only one question to ask; who is stopping anyone from implementing Reed-Solomon error correction in software, correcting the ripped audio on the fly before it is written as
I believe such code might be VERY cpu-intensive, but in this era of realtime video-decoding and SSE / 3Dnow equipped CPUs that should no longer be a problem, right ?
P.S. Did posting this idea make me guilty of breaking the DMCA ? Because, I'd like to visit the US sometime. I'd be a pity...
Who the fuck is John Tesh?
Buckets,
pompomtom
Buckets,
pompomtom
"There's an exception to every rule. Except for some rules"
As a MiniDisc user, I like to copy my CDs to MD digitally via an optical cable (my car radio has MD and not CD). This means I have no DA-AD conversion and it automatically puts in the track breaks on the MD. It also sets the "copy bit".
Over the last few years I've noticed that a large number of consumer CD players (for home systems - not portables) have optical out. My soundcard has optical in - more and more soundcards have this feature, including some of the newer SoundBlasters. AFAIK the optical connection is part of the SP/DIF standard. Optical cables aren't particularly expensive either.
If the new copy-protection is supposed to hinder CDs from being played in CD-ROM devices, it's not a big problem to use an external player with a digital interface. If the CD won't play in a standalone consumer CD player, it will definately go back to the shop.
As an aside, sound cards tend to ignore the copy bit on data coming in over the digital interfaces.
-- Steve
Some people will never buy a CD again. That's fine, that's not me. I find songs online, and if I like the artist, I used to go buy their CD. When MP3s were in the wild I spent more time in CD shops than ever before.
I recently took the time to rip all my CD's onto a computer into Vorbis format, my originals are sitting safely in my closet.
Now you're telling me that I might buy a CD (that I probably would already have the MP3s to at this point), and I wouldn't be able to rip and listen to it?
So the money I've been spending on CD's is now working AGAINST me? That makes me think twice.
You should demand to be paid as an employee, as you are assisting in the execution of their business.
Yes, blah blah evil etc. However Amazon is very customer-oriented and has happily replaced defective media (DVD and CD) for me, no questions asked. They even pick up shipping both ways. /That/ is customer service.
It all comes down to standards. There are certain standards for redbook audio, and the disc must conform to those standards to bear the CD-Audio label (AFAIK). Therefore branding a non-compliant disc CD-audio is essentially fraud, since it will NOT play on plenty of standards-compliant drives.
What software do you use? It would be cool to see it implemented with DeMuDi, assuming it's for Linux.
Psychic spies from China try to steal your mind's elation.
I wonder the viability of simply buying all your CDs with your credit card. Then, if the store refuses to take back the opened 'restricted' CD, get your credit card issuer to refund your money due to the fact you did not receive 'working goods'.
--
Anybody heard of the priest who walks around East L.A., wading in and out of gang shoot-outs, but nobody will touch him?
Nope, never heard of him. References?
-no broken link
This acutally happens a lot. Someone asked Mr. Brett (Founder of Epitaph) what he thought of the song 'All I Want' by The Offspring. His reply: "It's a good Bad Religion song"
Hollow words will burn and hollow men will burn.
ask and ye shall receive
===== Warble://VX
I don't really think it will slow down piracy. It will only take *ONE* person ripping a cd to mp3 and putting it up on a service like Gnutella before it spreads out to everyone who wants it. The only way to really slow it down is to make it so difficult to extract the actual music that it's not worth the effort to do so. The problem being, when it gets to that point, imagine what it will be like for the average consumer? : Hello thank you for calling , how may I help you? : I can't play my cd in my cd player! : Can you give me the "Super ID #" On the cd, and the "Product ID#" on your cd player please? : *gives #* *looks up id#* Oh I'm sorry! you need a model security upgrade 49.7023 before you can play that cd! : *Customer hangs up and quits buying music*
*SIGH* that will teach me not to preview.
I don't really think it will slow down piracy.
It will only take *ONE* person ripping a cd to mp3 and putting it up on a service like Gnutella before it spreads out to everyone who wants it.
The only way to really slow it down is to make it so difficult to extract the actual music that it's not worth the effort to do so. The problem being, when it gets to that point, imagine what it will be like for the average consumer?
(Customer Service Rep): Hello thank you for calling , how may I help you?
(Customer): I can't play my cd in my cd player!
(CSR): Can you give me the "Super ID #" On the cd, and the "Product ID#" on your cd player please?
(C): *gives #*
(CSR): *looks up id#* Oh I'm sorry! you need a model security upgrade 49.7023 before you can play that cd!
(C): *Customer hangs up and quits buying music*
You say that sarcastically, but youre absolutely right, you are denying the record companies a sale if your copy is stolen, because if the original were stolen YOU would have to buy a new one, or your insurance company would, either way, its an additional sale that the RIAA isnt making because you made a copy. The RIAA DOES support piracy, just the old fashioned kind, yarr!.
Anyone see this as a HUGE DMCA case? Similar to the DeCSS case? If you bypass their copy protection scheme by interpolating over the pops and clicks, even if "normal" cd players do this anyways, wouldn't you be violating their supposed rights, and thus get to sue you?
Mostly, the limiting factor for sound quality is the soundcard and the earphones. However, if I have a decent pair of earphones along with a decent soundcard, I'll hear a BIG difference between a directly ripped mp3 and a da-ad-brigded signal.
So, again, the ordinary geezer is a total arse for sharing his inferior mp3 files. Not only do they sound like crap, they're also affected by the volume setting on his local computer. The result is the well-known problem of having to continuously adjust your volume when playing back mp3s.
Stop the brainwash
Ehh.. Thanks.. Frankly, I was going for the "funny, but informative" theme..
Anyhow, I ask you to make two mp3 files - one the high quality way, and one the low quality way. 128kpbs encoding. Then play that back at a good soundcard, with a good pair of headphones. I certainly hear a major difference! No hiss, clearer sound, better treble, clearer, punchier bass. (Unless you're using a £400 cd player into a £100 sound card).
Stop the brainwash
It appears that the clicks are actual clicks that are interpolated over by regular cd players. CD rippers don't bother about interpolating. That is how it works - simple and vulnerable.
In Unix terms, we'll just need to run a simple program in our pipe when ripping.. It would probably look something like
cdda2wav <options> | interpolate | <encoder>
and it should work like a charm. i stress the should.
Stop the brainwash
I'm not quite sure about that one. I suspect that depends on the internals of the cd player.
Anyhow, if you're on *nix, you can make or find a simple interpolating filter, and use that in a pipe between the cd ripper and the audio encoder. Gotta love the *nix idea of "everything is a stream".
Stop the brainwash
Did anybody with a restricted cd try to encode it with ogg vorbis yet? I suspect the distortions are manipulations that get enhanced by the mp3 encoder/algo/formula. Since Ogg Vorbis is supposed to be fairly disjoint from all the patented stuff, we might see that working. Anybody care to give it a go?
Stop the brainwash
Actually, you're probably right. But if it were to progress in the same way as DeCSS, they wouldn't come after someone for bypassing the copy protection scheme. Rather, they would seek to hammer someone for showing others how to remove the copy protection or distributing tools to remove the copy protection. These actions are expressly forbidden under the DMCA.
According to the DMCA, it is illegal for anyone to distribute information for the purpose of bypassing a copy protection method employed to secure a copyright. Therefore, others are legally restricted from telling you how to make copies, even if you have a right to make those copies under the license or legal right. (As I understand it, this is also why linking to DeCSS was bad under the DMCA; linking to a site containing DeCSS was a method of distribution). If you are going to make those personal backups, you are going to have to know or be capable of deducing the appropriate methods yourself.
The little guy just ain't getting it, is he?
This is true, which is the point I made in an earlier post, the last place I would expect that crap is from a section of the industry that produces sample cd's for 3 bucks. But I need to check who made the cd, if it says it at all, it may be some sort of package deal that Epitath has worked out with another company... you never know. It's not the Pennywise cd it's the sampler, believe me if the Pennywise cd wouldn't play on my cdrom I'd have taken it back immediately.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
It's good. I love Pennywise so of course I liked it, they're pretty consistent. A guy at work summed it up pretty nicely though "It's a so-so pennywise album but a good Bad Religion album". For some reason a lot of the songs sound a lot like BR.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
Yes... err no actually. But there is in general a transition of some bands from punk to mainstream. Green Day is one of them Kerplunk was great and they went steadily downhill from there. The Offspring were pretty good until they started constantly ripping off the Vandals.
Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of bands that have become succesful and stayed true, Social Distortion, Pennywise, Bad Religion, NOFX (even with the frat boy following they developed).
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
Yeah it does get annoying that the only song you hear from Social D is ball and chain, except for a few weeks around the release of a new album. I still love Ball and Chain, but one of the reasons I don't listen to the radio is because of their repitition of music. It's kinda funny though when you think about it. Ball and Chain is played relatively frequently on the radio, and it's not a pay-for-play song, it's played 'cuz people want to hear it, not because a record company is paying to have it driven into your head.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
It sounds like a good test for the record industry, "let's distribute a protected cd for free to see if anyone complains, and they can't return it because it's free".
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
Couldn't someone sue them for this, since it's being done so discreetly? I know when I buy a cd I assume it conforms to the redbook standard(or whatever) and will allow me to rip it. I don't even listen to CDs anymore except in mp3 format--too much hassle compared to the incredible ease of making playlists on the computer, or 700 minutes of mp3s to a cd and listening to them in my mp3-cd player.
So, find out what CDs these are, and lets start a class action lawsuit. I bet you could get half of Slashdot in on it...
What affect does anti-trust have on a cartel as opposed to a monopoly? Same? Different? Yellow?
N Sync??? yeah right!
You're using her as bait, Master!
"Although this is a familiar--and legally protected--task in the world of cassette tapes, the legality of creating music collections on a personal computer is more cloudy. "
It's BS statements like this that make the buying public think that they're breaking the law when excercising their rights. Just the other day, my girlfriend was dumbfounded when I explained that mp3's where perfectly legal *if* you purchased the original. In a country where the media is constitutionally gaurded so as to be the champion of free speech and rights, it is sickening to see it become the corporate mouthpiece that it is today.
-Aaron
"The price of liberty is eternal vigilence" - Thomas Jefferson
The problem with this form of trust is that it only seems to work when you are actually face to face with the other party.
No matter how honest you are, if the other party doesn't know you or can see, they _will_ screw you over, since it's so easy to do! Those gang members don't shoot the priest, and won't curse and swear near the priest, but as soon as he's around the corner, they'll start all over again.
So even if the record companies get honest, there will still be people piracing. So why should the record companies get honest at all, they'd better fight this piracy with everything they got.
<grub> Reading
I know you weren't being totally serious here, but there is a point here. The right to listen to that music via your recorded MP3 ended the moment the thief made off with your CD collection. As you no longer possess the physical media, I imagine the RIAA would make the case that you no longer have anything to back up and no longer have a right to listen to your MP3s. They would require that you go buy another copy of the CDs in question (or recover the ones that were stolen, of course) and then you could restore your MP3 collection.
Sad, but probably true.
---------------------------------------
hang on, I thought tha one doesn't buy cd's but a licence to listen to a cd. the theif might have stolen the physical media but he did not steal your right to listen to the music. you have the licence even though you can't prove it.
this is a weird point. you have no proof that you own a cd but morally at least (and maybe legally) you still have the right to listen and should be able to get yourself a copy by whatever means you can.
dave
Problem 1 can be fixed by properly setting your input level to take into account the strange impedance and expected level that many sound cards expect. Also use a high quality sound card and not the $15 or the nutty one thats built into your motherboard (packed on the same chip with your drive controllers and pci master heh).
Secondly use shielded high quality low impedance cables so that static is not added to the music. Make those cables SHORT and make sure they don't run past the power cable to your computer because the inductance will add static and buzz to the signal. Last do not record from the cd drive in your computer to the sound card unless you spent way more money on the cd-analog cable than the place that built my computer did.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
-No
Does this mean the "CD" (remember to say "CD" in quotes if it doesn't follow the Red Book) will fail horribly on any stereo equipment with digital output because the digital output could be piped directly to the digital input of some recording device? Or does it mean that in order for a player with digital outputto play it, it has to pollute the output?
My money's on door number one, which would mean:
Can I make illegal digital copies with this cd?
-Yes
The thing that strikes me in the article is the fact that they are so certain that this protection will prevent (or diminish) the copying. If on thing can be learnt from the past is that every protection can and will be cracked.
As soon as someone notices the defect (i.e. that a CD can't be backed-up), they should have a single place to list the title, musicians, label, etc. to let the community know.
Who's going to offer to come up with such a site...?
Don't take it out on me dude. I was agreeing with you. I was disagreeing with the guy who called YOU an idiot. Don't be so quick to punch. My position still stands that you are right about the error correction capabilities, and that the guy who says there are none other than checksums and calls you an idiot is the ignorant one. I fully studied the Reed Solomon codes in a math course appropriately titled "Error Correcting Codes", in which the professor even handed out the exact SIAM article you linked to along with the Syllabus on the first day of class.
This raises the question: It is illegal under the DMCA to crack encryption no matter how trivial, but it is legal to make coppies of music for personal use. Does this mean that I would be within my rights if I were to develop a mechanism to copy and store streamed music from subscription music services such as are being developed now? - this assuming I could play the music that I hace coppied off of the streaming service...
This is why the DMCA is bad, under the "Fair Use" laws you have the right to make copies of music you have purchased for personal use. However, under the DMCA, if the music is encrypted, any attempt to break the code is illegal, even if it is for "Fair Use" purposes. Further any tool you use to break the code is also illegal even if it also has non-infringing uses, which might otherwise be protected under "Fair Use". This is the reason why it is thought the DMCA is not about copy protection, but control, greed, corruption and power.
Jesus died for sombodies sins, but not mine.
"Our products just aren't engineered for security,"
-Brian Valentine,VP in charge of MS Windows Development
If you *really* wanna piss off the labels, buy your CD's on the used market from the smaller stores. Places like Djangos music have great online databases of fairly recent used music and movies that cost a crapload less than the new stuff does. Support your local used music shop.
Wouldn't it be possible to add error correction to the ripping software? 99% of the digital music will be intact, it will just be the occasional piece of broken data that makes the sound, so it should be trivial to use the error correction or some other audio correction technology to fix these without going through the hardware.
---
They that quote Benjamin Franklin on liberty and safety deserve neither.
Mod this shit up, just for nostalgia's sake. :)
Yes, I remember this. I also remember my father (I was 10 or so at the time) constantly fixing our drives because of mis-aligned heads.
Good post.
---=-=-=-=-=-=---
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Are you suggesting that cnet.com, slashdot, and I invented this whole story to entertain the /. community during the summer? :)
Of course there is the possibility that I made something wrong. However, my previous experience at copying audio CDs, the time I spent trying to copy that particular CD, and the results I got that match the effects of macrovision listed in the cnet article make me strongly believe that the cd is copy protected and that I did nothing wrong.
And for those who asked, the disc in question is called Harmony Voix, it's a compilation of classical music distributed by Virgin France. Definetely not a top selling record, but probably a good one to test the reaction of the public.
!
^_^
I bought a copy protected CD audio once. There wasn't anything special mentioned on the case or even on the CD itself. It played fine on my computer, but when trying to copy it with normal software (I tried with easy cd creator & cdrwin for windows and cdrdao for linux) the copy was full of pops and scratches (even in 1x) and didn't work in some cd players. And I know my cdrom drive & cd burner are not faulty because it's the first and only time I had troubles copying an audio cd.
However, I eventually managed to copy the cd by extracting all the tracks with cdparanoia under linux (with all the possible jitter correction options turned on), and then burning the wav files on a cdaudio.
Your mileage may vary, it worked for me but I'm not sure it will work for every kind of copy protection system on the market.
!
^_^
"and then you spew that into an mp3 encoder"
So says the individual calling someone 'nitwit', 'stupid', someone who is 'polluting the online earspace' and shoud 'die an agonizing death'. MP3 is lossy, and frankly if you want to complain about sound quality then start with the company who decided to break the error correction algorithm on the CD, who is sticking deliberate distortion and hiss onto the signal, rather than someone who points out a workaround for all those who are sufficiently uncaring about sound quality as to use a format with lossy compression in the first place.
Still, nice trolling - I certainly caught it.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
aah, thanks for clearing that up. I guess I've read too many /. trolls to catch the 'funny' rather than 'nasty' tone, though now you say it I feel a bit dumb for missing it. You're right there will be a difference, but then as someone who only accepts my minidisc player for walkman use I'm too picky to bother with 128kbps recording for anything other than live bootlegs anyway. Oh, and as the proud owner of a proper good old fashioned Soundblaster 64 card and a decent hifi I don't have too much trouble with the analogue way - its been great for cutting CDR compilations of my 12" vinyl records.
Actually, while you're being informative do you know if the digital out from my CD player into a soundcard would already have been error corrected, or if the protection is still in place? If the player will fix the digital stream before it hits my fibre then the 'protection' is toothless.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Why aren't more people starting to use lossless compression instead? My guess is that lossless is going to get a boost from this...
No doubt this sort of thing is possible, but I think that point is that the majority of people won't know how to do this and won't bother. Everyone here seems to argue that 'look this is stupid because piracy is still possible'. But the point is that it will be reduced (to only people who, for example, knwo what D/A A/D means, which I assure you is a minority). As far as the RIAA is concerned, that's a big win.
--
I'd rather be lucky than good.
It will certainly also reduce the ability of people to make legitimate backup copies of their cds (to cd or to mp3). I am not disagreeing with that, and I agree that that is unfortunate.
However, that wasn't what I was discussing. My point was simply that people who respond to these things by saying "the RIAA is so stupid, I know a clever way to get around this, so their copyright proctection is worthless, I'm so smart", are missing the point, which is that a lot of people will be stopped, even if they're not among them. You're right that people's legitimate rights are being impeded, but the RIAA companies also will increase their profits with this move, and anyone who tries to argue that they won't is very naive.
--
I'd rather be lucky than good.
As I said above, it's a big win (for the companies involved) if less people can copy/rip cd's from each other. This is very common. I know a lot of people whose hard drives are full of albums they've borrowed off friends for a day and ripped, a lot of which they otherwise would have bought. A lot of these people wouldn't go through the trouble if it wasn't so easy, and instead would have just went to the store and bought the cd. Many of them also don't know what gnutella is. If your gnutella example is supposed to prove that copying still will occur, believe me, I know that. But it will be reduced, and as far as the RIAA is concerned, that is a victory.
--
I'd rather be lucky than good.
It seems you are making the same point as everyone else: saying that some piracy will still happen, and then explaining how/why. I agree with this, but again, I think it will be reduced especially because I think that legal action will be taken against anyone who makes an mp3 ripper that does "error correction" and allows ripping of copy protected cds. After all, why would they bother introducing this copy protection if they didn't intend to do everything possible to stop people from getting around it?
So let me ask directly: do you really feel that when all cd's are are copy-protected like this, piracy will not be reduced at all? That no one anywhere will be prevented by ignorance or laziness or fear (of using an "illegal" mp3 ripper) from getting mp3s he otherwise would have gotten? Because that's what I'm hearing, and I don't buy it.
--
I'd rather be lucky than good.
On a similar note, I made microsoft $99 profit by deleting a pirated copy of Windows 98 this morning....
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. (Einstein)
Somebody else here said it once before, but...
It's starting to get to the point where I am going to actively pirate material, just to piss all these music industry execs off. In fact, if I had the resources, I probably would start on this tonight. I would go home and start ripping every CD I own to mp3, and rip every DVD and VHS I have to video and distribute them on the internet.
Don't worry, RIAA/MPAA/whoever the fuck else. I won't be doing this. I don't have the resources. That is, unless you want to donate a file server with massive amounts of storage space and a high speed internet connection. :-P
--------------------------------------
If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.
...there's still nothing stopping you from connecting the output from your stereo to your sound card and recording it manually. A bit more time-consuming than ripping the tracks straight off a 52x CD-ROM, but it still works.
You need to watch your "TARGET=" tags. They're part of your URL, and your links don't work without manually removing it. (Note to everyone else: When you click on one of his links and get a 404 error, just delet the TARGET=_BLANK from the end of the URL and you'll get it.
But more importantly who wants to spend $75 on the wages of 3 or more employees to ruin the day of everyone involved and end up with a customer who hates them even more than they did when they felt they got ripped off? I think I can safely say no one in the US.
Except for RIAA staff members.
---
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
Tell me what makes you so afraid
Of all those people you say you hate
Tell me what makes you so afraid
Of all those people you say you hate
Essentially, your car CD player reads at a faster speed than 1x, buffers the data, then plays it back. The buffer isn't mechanical and therefore won't skip unless it underruns due to excessive skipping such that the player can't read properly to fill the buffer.
--Perianwyr Stormcrow
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
Okay, so they put errors in the digital side... Why can't we make a filter that does the same CISC filtering that the Audio CD's do, while ripping it.. I am 100% sure that this will be broken in no time via a method like this.. The only reason there are clicks and pops is because we aren't doing the error correction that the audio player is doing.. We can do the same thing in code, can we not? This seems to me to be a stopgap measure to hinder (but not stop) the free trading of MP3's.. Your common joe isn't going to be able to do it (right now), but in 3-6 months, there will be 'CopyRip.EXE' and it will fix the pops and clicks as it is ripped into WAV/MP3...
Jay
"What's this script do? unzip ; touch ; finger ; mount ; gasp ; yes ; umount ; sleep Hint for the answer: not everyth
And trying to read a good-sized novel on a computer screen didn't make your brain curl up and hide down your spine, then yeah, we might have a book piracy problem.
My music sounds about the same whether I bought the CD myself or got it from Napster. Reading a book on a screen just isn't the same. Tried it with 1984, and it sucked ass (reading it, not the book itself).
--
Dyolf Knip
The story goes that some the guys working a computer lab found a John Tesh CD left in one of the drives. Ordinarily, they'd just leave it next to, on top of, or in the computer and the owner would pick it up in the next day or so. Evidently owning a John Tesh CD is like the mark of Cain and the guys stuck it on the wall with a big sig saying "Whoever left their JOHN TESH CD here can pick it up", and predictably, nobody did.
--
Dyolf Knip
This wouldn't be because it is not particularly easy to do, would it?
I mean, ink on paper is not an easily reproducable format. Translation into such a format is not a trivial task, certainly if you care about efficiency or accuracy.
Now, if books were released as standard as pdfs, without copy protection, and portable readers were cheap and readily available... I really don't think the hardback book market would be quite as robust.
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
I am inclined to believe this is due more to the
immaturity of the techology, than some flaw
inherent in the idea of digital books.
Personally, I am quite content to read
considerable amounts of text from a standard
crt display; the encumberance is that I cannot
take my monitor to bed with me, or on the bus to
work, and the screen of my Palm Pilot is of
insufficient size and contrast to be of use.
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
Temper temper....
It's a basic fact of human psychology that people hate people who they see as more fortunate as them and love making excuses for it. So, if you're rich, no one will like you.
So you say, I choose to think otherwise. I am often surprised by the number of people around me who admire rich, successful people. Frequently I don't share their regard, less often I do. I base my opinion of these people on their actions, not their personal wealth. I would actually assertthat today's society breeds people who do admire personal success over most other traits. More is the pity.
If you're rich, everyone will assume you got there by lying, stealing, being dishonest, etc. (that rationalizes why they, themselves are not rich).
Many rich people really did get that way by dishonesty. If you don't see that from everything that goes on around you, why, perhaps you are blind? Yes, there are also some rich, successful people who have got to where they are whilst maintaining principles and standards. But they truly are in the minority.
That's also the reason why every loser on Slashdot hates all "evil corporations". Most people - especially the incompetent - simply cannot accept the success of others as being a result of their competency.
But life is not just about competency. It's also about what you use that competency to accomplish. If what you accomplish is to make the world a worse place, then that is a bad thing, even if you did it very competently and made lots of money doing it. This is the bit you seem to miss.
So you go ahead and defend your theft by pretending the music companies are dishonest and greedy while they'll go ahead and try to stop themselves from being robbed.
This story, and the threads I have read so far, art not about theft and robbery, but exploitation of the masses by the minority.
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
Thank you! If you don't want record companies putting copy protection on your CD let them know by hitting them wear it hurts - their pocket book. Go and support your local music scene, there are tons of artists right in your town who deserve your cash. Go and buy CDs from indie labels and artists, they're almost always better than the pop crap that record companies put out now. Just do anything but put more money into the pockets of Joe Record Executive.
-antipop
Since I didn't have the exact details right at the fingertips, I quoted the details from the paragraphs from those two weblinks in my article. I guess even the internet can be wrong! [smile]
Now you get to write a nastygram to the
Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics for errors in a 1993 article,
(my story link was http://www.siam.org/siamnews/mtc/mtc193.htm)
and the European Patent Office for accepting data in a patent that erroneously describes the operation you are so angry about. (My original link here was http://swpat.ffii.org/vreji/pikta/txt/ep/0241/081/ desc.html)
Gee, I would have thought them reliable sources of information, but....
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Agreed.
The technology takes advantadge of the error correcting technology built into every audio CD. This technology is what allows the CD to play well even with hundreds of minor scratches. I think that the error correction will try to compensate for loss of data up to a tenth of a second or something like that. What they do is they put hundreds of minor glitches that are able to be corrected for by the technology. The error correction technology works really well, and is no way even close to being similar to a wave file.
If I recall correctly, compact discs use a version called cross-interleaved Reed-Solomon code, or CIRC. The basic level of error correction provided for Audio CD is one uncorrectable bit out of every 10^9. CD-ROM provides additional protection for data (ECC/EDC ) reducing the error rate to one bit in 10^13 For those interested, there is this detailed description, along with this basic introduction.
The coding system is based on groups of bits--such as bytes--rather than individual 0s and 1s. That feature makes Reed-Solomon codes particularly good at dealing with "bursts" of errors: Six consecutive bit errors, for example, can affect at most two bytes. Thus, even a double-error-correction version of a Reed-Solomon code can provide a comfortable safety factor. Current implementations of Reed-Solomon codes in CD technology are able to cope with error bursts as long as 4000 consecutive bits.
Thus it is possible to put in a couple hundred bytes of junk data every second or that would be the basis of the copy protection, all without compromising audio quality.
That said, I can record any sound playing through my computer with the software I have. The Audio Quality will be very good, then I can burn direct to CD, or convert to MP3, or whatever. Of course, all that I use this for are the music tapes I have from when I used to record certain local bands in clubs professionally.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
The guy who left the John Tesh CD in the computer lab.
--------
The ivory tower has never had to reach so h
I propose the (DFCA)Digital Freedom Continuence Act. "1. Congress Shall Pass no law restricting your ability to do anything digitally that you can do through handwritten, and or Analog means. 2. Congress shall not allow the granting of a patent for any device that would knowingly impinge upon your ability to do anything digitally that you could do via handwritten or Analog means. 3. It shall be unlawful to distribute technology which would knowingly violate the Free Speech and Fair use intentions of the Consitution of the United states of America. 4. It shall hence forth be understood that once "content" is purchased, it is the purchaser's right to do what ever they choose with that content, and shall have the right to do as they have always been able to do via handwritten, or analog means. 5. Congress Shall repeal the DMCA it does not serve the people of United States in any fair way shape or form. It abridges the freedoms that are set forth in the constitution. 6. Congress shall pass no law which prevents fair use of media, nor shall it support any initive which would do the same. 6a. it shall be illegal to develop technology or any other means which would prevent fair use of media."
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
But the point of making MP3 copies isn't usually for pure quality. If that were the case, your average joe would be encoding at 256 kbps rather than 128, or using some other, higher quality format. No, the point of the MP3 format is a) ease of use, ie, there's tonnes (CDN ;) of support (rippers, encoders, playerers) and b) it's *convenient*. And I can't stress that last point enough. The primary reason people are ripping their CDs and toting around MP3s is pure convenience. As such, your average bloke isn't going to care that there are quantization errors during the DA-AD conversion phase, especially when many more errors are introduced in the MP3 conversion process. What he/she cares about is that he can get decent, but not necessarily bit-accurate, portable audio.
I'd rather blame consumers than the DMCA. The government is such an easy bogeyman to go after, since it only requires that we carp on our elected officials-- most of whom we'll never come into contact with and it alleviates our own complicity in the current situation.
Consumers, OTOH, includes us Slashbots as well as our friends and families. And it is lack of consideration on the part of consumers, who will sacrifice their freedom of choice on a regular basis for the sake of convenience, that is allowing and funding these corporations as they take away our ability to enjoy our previous standard of behavior. If we truly care, we won't be buying DVD players and DVDs protected by CSS, we won't buy CDs with this scheme (and I guess since they aren't telling us which CDs are protected that means we just stop buying CDs), we won't be purchasing e-books that we can decrypt for Fair Use purposes, etc etc. But the consumers, and that includes the Slashbots, don't seem to really want to change their behavior or risk having to listen to all the music they've already bought when some great new Britney CD is coming out. And it includes explaining this stuff to your friends and families without drooling and raving.
You know, maybe it's time we started figuring out how to live without these sorts of corporations, if this is how they are going to be. The sooner the better.
I do not have a signature
This is the old "right v. entitlement" problem. The way I see it, entitlements are things that just fall in your lap without requiring you to do anything in order to obtain them. Rights, on the other hand, must be exercised. So, if there is a right to fair use, we the consumers (dammit I hate that word!) must exercise that right by working to bypass whatever assinine protection rackets, er, schemes, the music-note-nazis place on CDs. If it is truly a right, they should let you out of jail after you crack the scheme.
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
Wow.. I was too young at the time to understand what the heck all that racket the 1541 was making was, and it was never explained to me what that poor drive went through. It all makes sense now, thank you.
Now, just imagine if they tried a similar realignment tactic with CDs. If their copy protection causes extra duress to our devices, causing them to fail early, couldn't we eventually sue them?? Maybe they're already doing something which damages our systems and we don't know it.. I hope so, because then they'll lose even more money than if they had just taken mp3s in stride!
We don't need no Net Explorer We don't need no Thought control
Then again, who would want to ruin two continuous 70-minute sets by ripping them as individual tracks and distributing them that way? Listining to sets like that is the ultamite defence against copy protection.
I would, but my local used music shop's concept of a techno selection is 'DJ Hick's Am3r1can Dance Collection 36", which I'm not touching with a ten-foot pole.
I wish I could say that I was boycotting record companies for their action against Napster, or for some other big moral reason, but I can't. I simply haven't heard anything new that interests me.
When it was around, I found myself reading every music review I could get my hands on. Occassionaly, I'd read a review from The Onion's AV Club that got me excited about some band I've never heard of. I'd run over to Napster, and get the full album. Other people must have been doing the same thing, because the tracks were fairly rare at first, then became easier and easier to find, and the downloads from my own system increased over a week's time.
Some didn't interest me, so I deleted them (hard drive space is still at a premium.) Others, I listened to all the time. I had a general rule of thumb - if I was still listening after 2 weeks, then I would buy the CD. Not to directly support the artist, who gets a fraction of the sale, but in a way to vote, to say to the record companies that this band, who may be currently obscure, is a good band, should get promoted, and should get more backing for the next album. Sure, the current system may suck, but sometimes this is the only way to ensure another album.
Of course, now that Napster is down, I have a hard time trying out new stuff. I know there are other services, but I haven't had time to try them out. Net result - the record companies aren't getting my money, simply because I'm not willing anymore to buy a CD that I'm not sure is addictive.
Well, I'd imagine it's because an author, no matter how formulaic their work, went through the trouble of creating the entire book themselves, and has the intellectual talent to do so, thus earning respect. In addition, the print industry has been around for a great deal longer than the music industry, and from our early days in school we are taught to respect and cherish books for the knowledge we can gleen from them.
Popular music, on the other hand, is usually finding a few people who are cute and can sing a tune, and then providing these dolts with the lowest common denominator of sappy relationship songs, dance steps, and gaudy clothing. See Britney Spears, N'sync, Backstreet Boys, etc... (as a side note, I think that Limp Bizkit is the britney spears of alternative rock- lowest common denominator.) I certainley don't accord them alot of respect, however, i certainly don't listen to their music either. So I think it probably comes down to a matter of respect. Also, you can buy popular literature at convience stores, and they cost maybe $7 for several hours of entertainment.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
I don't know any of his music, but I do know his name always shows up when people discuss copying CD's. Maybe he's made up, or some sort of robot.
I really hate Dan Patrick.
"What was wrong with it?"
"I can't rip mp3's from it and exchange it with people I don't really know for music I don't want to pay for."
"I see. That does qualify as a 'defective' disc. Do you have your receipt?"
"No. Receipts are hard to come by when shoplifting."
My question is, will Napster get a Webby?
I'll provide the missing details from the post above.
The REALLY eXPensive CD players don't do the digital to analog conversion themselves. They have digital outs that then go to a different componant to turn it into an analog signal. The thing is, some sound cards accept a digital input, so hooking the digital out from the CD player to the digital input of your computer would let you record them on your computer just as though it was an analog signal, but with digital sound. That is, You would press record in your audio software and then hit play on your CD player, and the sound would transfer. It's not convinient, but it's digital.
I have no idea if this particular copy protection would mangle the digital output of these eXPensive CD players. My guess is that it would. So yes, people using these eXPensive CD players might not be able to play these kinds of CDs.
Many people are using this saying when talking about these copy-control schemes and it is really starting to irritate me. I'm an honest man and I don't need door locks to tell me not to steal any more than I need a fence to tell me not to walk off of a cliff. The record companies should stick to what they are marginally average at - distributing music. I'll worry about keeping myself honest.
If you want a euphemism, why don't you say "getting more money from the honest man". That's all this bullshit is about - another revenue stream. I rip all my CDs to mp3 on my computer for listening and keep the CD as my master back-up copy. Now, the recording companies want to change the rules of the game. Sure, I can have the higher-quality CD but if I want the mp3 I can plunk down $1 a song for their low-quality, DMR proprietary format at their website. And many honest men will play this utterly fixed game and pay for it.
Not this one. The day I cannot rip a CD I purchased to my computer is the day I will cease to be an "honest" man (in their eyes, anyway). They aren't keeping anyone "honest" with this crap. In fact, they will turn "honest" men into "dishonest" men.
-------
We want some answers and all that we get
Some kind of shit about a terrorist threat
- Ministry
Well the first start is to quit buying crappy pop. Go out and buy yourself some music from indy labels. They don't have the resources to muddle up your cd and most of them probably wouldn't in the first place. Better yet, buy youself a vinyl LP. Most bands that I listen to still put out on records. They are cheaper, last longer, and the sound is so soul warming.
-dr. layyze f. tooth PhD
SBLive Value does have digital in. Takes a little more toying around to access it (ie making homemade connectors), but it does work quite well.
Anyway, there are new standards emerging, like SACD (Super Audio CD) and DVD-Audio. If they catch on, we won't have to worry about Macrovision for that much longer.
if this spreads. I like to ogg everything on my CDs so I can listen to them on my computer, without having to stick to songs from one CD at a time and keep switching them. That enhances the usefulness of CDs I pay for, and thus makes buying CDs more appealing, at no cost to the musician or publisher.
But if CDs I want come with this copy protection, or if I have no easy way of knowing if they're "protected", then I will simply stop buying CDs. Period.
And I hope others will do the same. Maybe we should even write to our favorite artists and say "I was going to buy your latest CD, but I won't because I can't listen to it in the way I prefer." Maybe they will stand up to the publishers and say "My fans aren't listening to my music anymore, stop the copy protection!"
Or maybe not. Maybe enough of you really did just use mp3s/oggs for pirating music, and will go back to buying CDs when they're all copy protected, and thereby justify this BS. And because of that, the rest of us are screwed. Thanks.
But I'll stop buying the damned CDs anyway.
I've been thinking a lot lately about the word "pirate" w.r.t. its commonplace meaning "make a copy without paying for it"... It seems that what the record companies are doing is a whole lot closer to the spirit of "pirating" (practicing robbery on the high seas, using force or the threat of force)
How is this a big win? There was that one crap^W country CD that was released non-protected in Australia and it's all over Gnutella etc now. All it takes is one guy who makes a really good copy, and it's all over, because it's digitally copied over and over and shared everywhere after that.
"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys" P. J. O'Rourke
Well, how about The Angeles String Quartet (who just released the complete Haydn String Quartets on 21 CDs), or how about independant bands who aren't on labels yet? A lot of them are good, and it's a lot cheaper to make your own CD than your own Vinyl.
Look, I hate all the copy-protection crap just as much as the next guy, but don't try to be pompus about 'get vinyl.' It isn't an option in 99% of cases, and there is a lot of good stuff that isn't coming out on it.
"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys" P. J. O'Rourke
The previous poster proposes a solution which doesn't preserve the digital quality of the music.
In the alternative, I predict that CD Ripping will move from a highly software centric activity to a highly hardware centric activity. The Creative Labs Nomad MP3 Jukebox was one of the products in the first generation of this technology. I expect such products will disappear from the market as the manufacturers are sued into discontinuing production, then it will be left to electrical engineers in their basements in their spare time to produce CD ripping hardware capable of thwarting the distortion-based copy protection method discussed in the article as well as a whole host of the new generation of copy protection schemes. Such hardware would not be illegal to produce or sell, since it's intended purpose is for making copies of music for personal use - a legally protected activity.
This raises the question:
It is illegal under the DMCA to crack encryption no matter how trivial, but it is legal to make coppies of music for personal use. Does this mean that I would be within my rights if I were to develop a mechanism to copy and store streamed music from subscription music services such as are being developed now? - this assuming I could play the music that I hace coppied off of the streaming service...
--CTH
--
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
Totally off topic, but isn't $20 a "yuppie food stamp?"
(Rather than food pellet)
Karma: Chameleon (Mostly affected by the 1980s)
The point remains that this is a pain in the ass.
And one more thing, correct me if I'm wrong, if those CDs have the Compact Disk Digital Audio (or whatever) logo on them yet they don't conform to the redbook standards (as they don't) we can sue the labels.
I wonder if anyone has tried using clonecd or any other bit for bit cd copying program. It seems as though these would work quite easily. Of course this doesn't solve the problem with converting the songs into mp3, but I'm fairly sure you could program a quick filter into a cd-ripper to fix that.
Shit adds up at the bottom...
""The Audio Home Recording Act, a law passed in 1992, says that copyright holders can't sue people who are making personal home copies of music. But lawyers note that the act does not require copyright holders to make this power available to consumers. ""
Essentially they are now nitpicking the fight because they know they would lose. The question is, by their actions to make it harder to exercise our rights are they actually violating the right?
This has got to be one of the most anti-consumer actions I have seen. This is the actions of a true monopolistic entity. This is the type of activity that the Justice department should be jumping up and down about.
I don't know, but if I find out which labels use this process I know who I damn well won't buy a CD from.
and they wonder why people pirate music, sheesh
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
you don't have an external LP-ROM Drive!? It supports linux, too, unlike that HP Scanner.
.kb
Two Wrongs Don't Make A Right-- But They Make Me Feel A Whole Lot Better
true, but isn't it easier to rip it straight from the cd-rom?
Two Wrongs Don't Make A Right-- But They Make Me Feel A Whole Lot Better
Isn't that scarey? More pissed off about your stereo equiptment and CDs then your actual car being stolen...
I'd feel the same way...
.kb
Two Wrongs Don't Make A Right-- But They Make Me Feel A Whole Lot Better
Buy Vinyl. If it isn't released on Vinly it probably is some pop bullshit that isn't meant to last (or be good anyway). Records sound better anyway, pure analog, can't copy protect that. i listen to mostly bands on indie labels anyway. i buy their music, i see them at shows, and i know that they will be the last, if at all, to stop me from making mp3's of my CD's on my own computer for my own listening.
We are about to give you your score. Put on your peril-sensitive sunglasses now. (Hit RETURN or ENTER when ready.)
The trick is you don't want to be worth the hassel. No store gives a crap about a yuppie food pellet ($20). They rake in a few million a year taking a 25% cut. But more importantly who wants to spend $75 on the wages of 3 or more employees to ruin the day of everyone involved and end up with a customer who hates them even more than they did when they felt they got ripped off? I think I can safely say no one in the US.
I suppose the best thing would be for every US living slashdot reader to write a letter to the FTC about this group of companies using their undue market influence to deny their 'customers' choice in the market place. Of course the other side is will this make downloading music more or less popular?
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
I recently purchased two CDs, (HvG's Trad and Fön for the Österreichers out there), that have very noticable pops and clicks). Seem to come and go at random but are particularly noticable in quiet passages. The noise sounds very much like moderate cross-groove scratches on a vinyl record. First thought was that my CD-ROM was dying/ Looks like it could be something more sinister.
Hmm.. no, actually the biggest problem is keeping the protection scheme from scaring off Joe Sixpack. The tech may be nothing special to us, but the average MusicMatch luser doesn't know that. Sad, really.
(Do not sign anything.) -- Fell, Planescape: Torment
Has anyone tried hooking up their stereo to their computer's line in port, and recording with these?
It's also a good test because of the reputation of the "victims."
If anyone complains, "those punk kids always want something for nothing."
"They have to grow up and join the real world, where corporations have the legal rights of people, and it's a felony to slander beef in Texas."
Btw, Pennywise kicks ass. How is the album?
weird this would be posted now...
;)
i'm preparing for a drive across country, all my worldly posessions will be travelling by train or truck or something, so i wanted to mix down from my own CD's to make compilations to listen to on the journey (something tells me that across, say... North Dakota, i'll be at a loss for good radio stations.
things are going fine, when i come across a CD that i can't rip tracks off of. it's as if the ripper is seeing different track breaks/gaps than a playback device does. i've tried 7 different programs on 2 platforms (mac & windows) and yet to have any luck getting these tracks.
is it illegal for me to make copies (or partial copies) of CD's that i own for my own personal use?
there goes my dream of having an in-house mp3 jukebox stocked ENTIRELY from cd's that i OWN.
www.pixelectric.com
...that these CDs will NOT be playable on the expensive (read: around $10,000) CD players that audiophiles and other people who are in need of near-perfect sound quality use. Kinda shooting themselves in the foot already, huh?
Is your company running tools written by ma
The human soul is the greatest anti-piracy measure in the known world, but no major company will use it.
If your customers like you, they will never steal from you, even if they're criminal men by nature. Anybody heard of the priest who walks around East L.A., wading in and out of gang shoot-outs, but nobody will touch him?
The problem of course, is that in order to be liked, YOU FIRST have to be honest. These greedy futhermuckers can't hide in sheeps' clothing anymore; the world has become too cynical.
My prediction? The bigger and badder the fatcats get, the sharper and nastier will come the replies! The truth is, even my own sainted mother can't convince herself that these assholes don't deserve everything they get.
--S.T.
Karmic Ocean -- Beware Sharks
No, I'm not talking about a server centric P2P network, I'm talking about a banner/logo we can rally behind, get tatoos of and generally annoy record labels by showing/wearing.
18 months ago, I would have been proud to wear a Napster T-shirt while walking down the street "Take that! Geeks rule and there's nothing you can do about it", but now it'd be like wearing a t-shirt that reads "I'm the RIAA's bitch. Smack me".
We need an Anti-RIAA-Monopoly flag, something we can all be part of (eg, grip could say they're part of the "ARM" initiative).
I want an ARM t-shirt, who's with me?
----------------------------------------
Looks can be deceiving. Or CAN they?
Now on he the fiction (or is it?):
-----
Bow before my sig, for it is good.
--
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
You know if I buy a CD, and I want to make a backup of it on my HD as mp3's, isn't that my right? I mean I purchased the right to own that copy of the songs, so as long as I don't redistribute them, shouldn't I be able to store them wherever I please?
I think the record companies are just like doctors, they want to make money on the comeback. Look at the last disease cured: polio. Everything else, you have to live with it, and keep coming back and buying more drugs to live with it. Doctors are still pissed off at how much money they've lost from polio. Weel the record companies are still pissed off from how much money they think/i> they have lost from tape recorders. They see this as their opportunity to not let tape recorders happen again. That is why they are doing these things, to make money on the comeback, so when the CD scratches, we have to purchase another one.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~ now you know
You could bolt down the CD's too! Use that convenient center hole and a fender washer[1].
[1] A big washer with a small hole, used to attach car fenders.
/me starts writing up patent papers for "theft deterrent disc storage device"
-
I have plenty of Vinyl discs that are almost 50 years old. I fear they will outlast my CDs that are much newer. I have several CDs now that have a disturbing darkening [makes note to dig these out and rip them] and they have always been kept inside an air-conditioned building (unlike the Vinyl that has been in basements, in attics, and outside under a tarp!) A couple microns of Aluminum with a thin layer of lacquer to "protect" it is not an archival medium. We've covered this here before. There's a very real chance one could pull out a CD that hadn't been played in a while and find it had quietly died on the shelf.
I have nothing against CDs. I've got hundreds of 'em. Unless we're talking half-speed master audiophile albums, I prefer CDs. Just as I want to rip my Vinyl discs against their chance distruction (not to mention for convenience), I want to be able to rip my CDs against their ultimate demise. It is also important to me that I am able to move material that I have paid for to newer storage media. I'm sure our grandkids will find CDs as quaint as some find Vinyl or 8-track now.
Back in the day, many college students had crates of Maxell or TDK high-bias tapes of albums. We bought blanks by the carton. Dorms and Frat houses would go in on a case and split it. Copying at 1x and plugging line in to line out was no deterrent then, and it isn't now. And now we have digital 'line' out and in.
I've heard so many bad rips/crappy compressors that it might not be an entirely bad thing if ripping went back to the technically astute. Aunt Minnie might be able to click a button and rip a CD with MusicMatch on the default settings, but that doesn't mean anyone would want to listen to the result.
The article says that "test has been going on for four to six months" and that one of these CDs has sold "close to 100,000 copies". It is useless to test out this new copy protection scheme on CDs that have already been widely released in an unprotected form. So it would make sense that they are doing this test only with NEW RELEASES.
For a NEW release to only sell 100,000 copies in six months, it obviously means that the affected CD's are going to be ones that most people have never heard of...
Sometimes the best solution to morale problems is just to fire all the unhappy people.
So, I CAN make digital copies with this cd? -Yes
How are these different. If the technology limits digital copies then what is the difference??
Ah. Just a typo. Replace "digital" with "illegal"
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Everyone here seems to argue that 'look this is stupid because piracy is still possible'. But the point is that it will be reduced (to only people who, for example, knwo what D/A A/D means, which I assure you is a minority). As far as the RIAA is concerned, that's a big win.
That, i belive, is not the point. If they with this method prevents alot of pepole from ripping, some pepole will still be able to rip it. If nothing else, a ripping program with built-in error correction will probably see the light of day before long if this becomes a new standard for manufactured CDs.
The rapid spreading of MP3 files is the big threat to the record companies. (At least they claim it is, I beg to differ.) Copies of MP3 files spreads faster then plauges with all the p2p filesharing networks out there that just gets stronger and stronger.
Actually, you just need one good copy of an error corrected MP3 file, and you can (and will, if the demand for the song is high enough) populate the planet with it. What was the copy protection worth then?
There will still be enough pepole who knows how to rip to provide the MP3 sharing world with the music. And the only ones that will lose on this are the pepole who wants to rip their own legally obtained music for portable players, mix-CDs and such stuff.
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Actually, that one got ripped because there were unprotected ones released too. But you are right. Someone will always manage to rip, no matter what the obstacle.
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It has a lot to do with the WPA. It is an example of exactly the same thing (Technology that brings inconvenience for the law abiding customers, but no real obstacle for the pirates - that is plain stupidity wherever is it implemented.) going on in another line of business. And as the most well known example of it, which other example should I use?
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I agree with this, but again, I think it will be reduced especially because I think that legal action will be taken against anyone who makes an mp3 ripper that does "error correction" and allows ripping of copy protected cds.
:)
You may be right. Although there is an obvious legit use for a CD to MP3 converter (personal copying), that WOULD protect it from any lawsuit, the DeCSS case shows that legal action can be taken against a ripping routine. But I still think a error correcting algoritm would stand the lawyer-bashing. The legal use of it would be too obvious and too common to overlook.
Call me naive if you wish.
So let me ask directly: do you really feel that when all cd's are are copy-protected like this, piracy will not be reduced at all? That no one anywhere will be prevented by ignorance or laziness or fear (of using an "illegal" mp3 ripper) from getting mp3s he otherwise would have gotten? Because that's what I'm hearing, and I don't buy it.
No. I cannot say that we wont be affected at all. But I think the effect will be much more marginalized than you seems to fear. But generally, the music swapping seems to have a natural way of getting around problems like this. Chop a leg off and another one will sprout. As an example, the death of Napster hasnt affected the sum of MP3 swapping as much as pepole first thought. Other networks, currently the FastTrack based ones are the biggest, have almost as many connected users and availability as Napster had.
If they cut off Joe Schmoe as a provider of the swapping material, the ones that know how to rip will probably get more persistant in doing so, for the same reason software cracking teams prevail: Out of sheer spite - they are actually idealists in a way.
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Every time a signal goes through the DA/AD process, it looses detail and gains distortion.
Blah. For the ordinary cd-ripping geezer who just wants a bunch of MP3 files, the difference is not noticeable. Convering raw cd-audio into a 128 kbps (good enough for Joe Shmoe) MP3 reduces the sound quality alot more than a short DA-AD brigde.
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Can I make illegal digital copies with this cd?
-No.
Can I make illegal analog copies with this cd?
-Yes
So, I CAN make digital copies with this cd?
-Yes
Can I make legal digital copies (to my own MP3 player)?
-No
Can I bypass this stupidity by adding a DA-AD conversion to my digital copying?
-Most probably, yes.
Wont this give me MP3 files with lesser quality?
-Most probably, no. Not if you do it right.
Sooo... What we have is an encoding method that will only bring inconvenience to the law abiding consumer doing his private copying?
-Yes
The real pirates will work around it, and the music will eventually end up on Gnutella or wherever anyway.
-Yes
Doesnt this smell awfully lot like the Win XP Product Activation stupidity?
-Definitely, yes
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That said, I find it interesting, but not unusual for CDs and other media to be released, without mentioning that they're copy-protected. I suspect the reason is that most copy-protection schemes are temporal at best. They're sort of like locks on our doors and cars, they keep the honest man honest.
I found some interesting articles along this same topic:
- Copy-protected CD hacked--or is it?
- How to Create a Copy Protected CD
- BMG's New Copy-Protected Audio CDs
None of which come right out and state the obvious. With enough time, all copy protection schemes get hacked.healyourchurchwebsite.com - WWJB?
Even if you were to copy protect the CD and prevent people from "ripping," what is going to prevent people from taking an audio cable and take the output from a CD player capable of playing this and plugging it into the sound card or getting a really low-level cdrom driver that can rip the music and than emulate it. Their are literally hundreds of ways to get the file in satisfactory format. If you can get it to sound good, you can rerecord or find a way to rip it. Plain and simple. This is stupidity and a waste of money on the music industry part.
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Just because a bunch of people believe or do something stupid, doesn't make it any less stupid.
Games manufacturers used to deliberately place errors on the old 5 1/4" disks in order to defeat copiers. What happened? A variety of work-arounds were soon found (all for the genuine purpose of making only backup copies, natch, as those floppies really were rather delicate).
The favoured method, IIRC, was to use a duplication method called parameter copying. People worked out what they needed to do to get around the specific method employed on their favourite game, and then wrote a little plug-in which the copier could use to modify its copying methods for that specific disk.
As a side effect, interestingly enough, those errors often used to cause the 1541 disk drives a lot of grief. Depending on the error, the 1541 would get so confused that it would try to realign the read head by forcibly moving to the outside rail and banging very rapidly against the rail, causing a loud chattering sound. You could even get a program which would write a small loader program and lots of errors to a blank disk, causing the disk drive to play tunes by going through this realignment procedure and knocking the read head against the realignment rail at different speeds. It did this for all of 10 minutes until your 1541 died a noisy death...
Human logic: 1) I can't so you mustn't. 2) I can but you mustn't.
Does a CD encoded with this copy protection lose it's error correction ability? I know that the majority of my CD's have minor scratches on them. And I know that none of my CD's skip (save Smashing Pumpkins which has a hole in it).
Isn't this the error correction/interpolation saving my ass? If they use whatever redundant data is on a CD to store their stupid copyfucker (or maybe copylover) am I going to get a countless amount of skipping CD's?
It's amazing how much ill-will music companies are willing to generate just to get a little more dough. It's really foolish: Sharing promotes purchasing. How many CDs are in my collection because someone ripped me a copy onto CD-R or tape, and I liked it enough to buy it? 100 of em? 150? Something like that. Well, so much for those sales in the future....
I'm beginning to think a lot of the anti-piracy activity isn't there to stop piracy. It's there so labels can say "it's not our fault our profits are slipping! It's Napster/Gnutella/etc!"
That way they don't have to take responsibilty for driving the customer away with mediocre music, anti-consumer business practices, and inflated pricing.
-- John (who purchases six CDs a year now, instead of six a month.)If you couldn't tell from the rant, that guy's an idiot. Line in is the preferred jack for routing the signal from device to device. Why would I want to pull a signal that's been run through a volume pot? Maybe I should just park a junky mic next to the speakers?
As for signal quality, how many can actually hear a difference rather than see a numeric difference in some monitor? The human ear is quite discerning, but not nearly as refined as some audiophiles think. IMHO, it's a matter of enjoyment. If you enjoy the music why quibble over obviously meaningless distortion levels?
I remember Ashton-Tate's practice of burning a laser hole into their 5-1/4" floppy discs was effective at preventing copying. So effective that customers bitterly complained that they had rendered their only copy of dBase executable unreadable by laying it down on top of the magnetic field around the display monitor or boom box speakers.
They dropped that method not long after it was instituted.
Frank
p.s. Floppy drives? You had floppy drives??! Why, in my day we had to load programs from the cassette port. And boy, if the batteries were low in the cassette player, the thing would slow down and it might load a Trojan instead of tn#&gi*70...sorry, my dentures fell into my glass of Ensure...now, where was I?
slashdot: A failed experiment.
I am not a lawyer but to me, since the 'copyright protection' scheme in this instance is nothing more than digitally introduced noise, it would be fairly easy to make an argument that removing the noise is not in violation of the DMCA.
After all, since the CDs are not marked as to whether they are copyright protected, how would you know whether the noise that you are reducing is a copyright protection scheme or simply annoying noise, or a scratchy CD? The record companies' insistance on doing this secretly works against them here. A utility that would digitally 'clean' the bitstream flowing from a CD as it is ripped before it is CDRed or MP3 encoded would not violate the DMCA because it would have hundreds of legit purposes, like saving otherwise unrecoverable CDs, other than removing intentionally added 'clicks and pops.'
Does such a utility exist? Anyway, that was my thought...get a utility out that eliminates this sound quality problem, and the record companies will probably have to go back to the drawing board and come up with something that isn't quite so retarded.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I'm sorry but after reading several "it doesn't matter if they do this because you can just..." arguments I must intervene. I don't care if a chimp with a slide-ruler can break their protection scheme, the point is THERE SHOULDN'T BE A PROTECTION SCHEME. As consumers we should have the right to use material we bought however we want as long as we don't copy it AND then sell it. The monopolies don't care if you can crack their encryption, the whole point is that now you have to circumvent their protection scheme to do this.....thus are in violation the DMCA (an opressive U.S law if you didn't already know) even if you just copy it for personal use. By forcing you to circumvent their system they force you to break the law which means that you can be arrested for excercizing your rights to fair use. The only way this crap can be stopped is if it causes embarrassment/loss of profit for the company. What we need is for a non US citizen (any country where it's not illegal to do what I'm proposing) to start up a webpage with not only a list of protected CD's and an easy to read explanation on what this means for Joe Sixpack, but also complete rips for many of the Cds on their list. These rips can be sent anonymously to the site. This will educate the average person on why uncopyable (I know not a word :)) CDs are wrong and maybe influence some of them not to buy these CDs, and also the rips will embarass the company especially after they have been bragging aout their new "uncrackable" CDs.
http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article
hmmm, so if I beat someone to death with my tower could I claim I was innocent because a computer my tower is not classified as a murder weapon? If it can record music it's a music recording device why is this even under question?
http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article
Slashdot need spelling/grammar check. Proof reading went out with the invention of the modern day word processor.
http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article
People think that the record companies, and other large corporations have such power over us. If the consumers would band together and boycott companies that engage in such practices, as soon as it affected their bottom line, they would back off. WE do have the power. The problem, as I see it now, is trying to convince people to live with a short-term inconvenience in order to create a much better long-term situation.
So who knows those "mysterious" CD's ...
(or even better has one ?)
Please, only reply if you have a possitive answer.
A year or so ago in my music class at college, the textbook we were using included a CD set of full songs. Well the entire CD was divided into like 80 tracks while there was only about 11 songs on it. The effect of ripping one of Bach or Handel's or whoever's songs off the discs was pointless because in order to get a complete song, you'd needed to rip tracks 1, 2 and 3 and then assemble them on your computer as one large wav. Highly annoying! I wouldn't be surprised if this is the next step in copy protection.. multi-segment songs that can play fine as a single song off the CD, but when ripped are represented as many tracks, effectively butchering a song's integrity.
This highlights an odd difference between various entertainment cultures. In pop-music fandom, fans distribute copies wholesale and even feel mildly righteous (in a Robin Hood sort of way) for screwing over the record companies, who deserve whatever they get. In pop-lit fandom, very few would ever dream of ripping their favorite novels into pdf and distrbuting them for free. Most readers of genre fiction have enormous respect for their favorite authors, and almost no one would think of depriving their tin household gods from the fruits of their effort. The fact that of the eight bucks you may drop on a massmarket paperback, the author is fortunate to see one does not inspire readers to mount a "screw the publishers" crusade. I wonder why the difference?
Check out The CD Black List, not much to it yet, just 1 CD so far; so send me the info about your copy protected CDs! If someone has the time please comb the info here on slashdot and find all the possible leads
Right not I'm just hosting it from my personal webspace from att@home at the moment, but I'm working on moving it over to a Lin-box with full hosting. Right now its all manual, but I will try to put together some PHP scripts to automate the site this weekend and get them up by Monday.If the domain isn't up and working yet try this.
Thanks,
Zach
CDBlackList.com, raising public awareness of CD Copy Protection.