Macrovision CD Protection Bypassed

LoPan writes: "The defective CDs that have recently arrived on the market have already had their copy protection broken according to The Register. What I'd like to know is if the discs do not conform to the Red Book standard, and if so, can they actually be sold as audio CD's, with the logo? Are they marked, warning consumers that they're buying a defective product?" The cdfreaks article referenced by the Register article tells you all you need to know. It's Windows-centric, but give it a few weeks and I bet cross-platform answers will show up.

Comments

Retroactive "circumvention device" status?

[Jeremi]

According to the CDFreaks article,

Reported is that all software that is able to rip at Burst Copy Mode .... is able to rip SafeAudio protected CD's.

So does this mean that these Burst Copy Mode programs, while previously legal, are now "circumvention devices" under the DMCA?

If so, can I make a "protected" file format that Microsoft Office just happens to be able to read, and get Bill Gates arrested?

Re:congratulations, you are now a criminal in the

[nanojath]

Interesting question - if you fail to label the CD in any way, how is one to say they have encountered an "encryption method" (for which the creation of a "circumvention device" is a violation of the DMCA) rather than a "stupidly fucked up CD," for which the creation of a "repair technology" is simply the perogative of the discerning consumer.

Gets into interesting territory: in general, I know, an ignorance of the law does not preclude one from being prosecuted for breaking it ("gee officer, that's a COCA bush?! And here I thought I was makin' SALT down in my basement" will not get you off the hook), although it may be considered in sentencing (as long as you're not facing a mandatory minimum, natch)... Yet this seems to be a case where ignorance could justifiably be grounds for questioning whether the law even applies. Are these CDs really "encrypted" in the first place? Bollocks, I say - they just have a bunch of junk on them. Teaching your computer to ignore bad data on a CD is hardly decryption.

I think Macrovision is well aware of all this. They were floating them to find out a)how long it takes the story to break b)how big of a public stink about it would occur and c)how long it would take for audiophiles and compunerds to come up with a fix for the problem.

Answers:

a: practically instantaneously

b: only among a sadly tiny cadre of the technological intelligentsia c: not long at all. Thank you for playing, better luck next time!

Question about the DMCA

[Fat Rat Bastard]

This article has gotten me thinking again about the DMCA's "no circumvention device" clause again. How does one define a copyright protecting system? (I know this is a rhetorical question, something the courts will have to decide). At first glance I thought "Oh no, these guys are going to get a nasty lawyergram from Macrovision, RIAA, etc." But the more I thought about it the more I realized that this could be a quagmire. For instance, if I found a way to rip a Macrovision'ed disc that de-mungs the munged error correcting data I could see how that might run afoul of the DMCA. But what if someone simply pipes the music through the analog inputs of a soundcard, or rips the CD from a cd player with a digital audio out? Since no "circumvention" took place in these cases we now have a situation where, while the destination is the same, one "journey" is legal and the other is illegal.

Yet another reason the law should punish "conduct" and not code.

RedBook conformity

[Nihilanth]

I would imagine the "secure" audio CDs would still conform to the Redbook Standard, since the CDs are only "secure" because the fidelity of the recording is garbled ("corrupts the data", said The Register) in a way that a Hi-Fidelity playback device would be able to deal with, but would cause A CD-ROM drive to error out. Since the redbook standard seems to focus primarily on the physical composition of the compact disc (and the leadin track and "stuff") and not the format of the data on the disk, I would imagine they're still "redbook kosher", they just have intentionally error-riffic data imprinted on them.

CDFreak's software is really neat, from what i've read about it. It reads in the audio track into RAM and mounts it as a volume, and involved creating a custom VXD, sounds pretty innovative.

As for a couple of posts i've read about CDFreak being in danger of legal repercussions, their case is different from Dmitry's in that (please correct me if i'm mistaken) they're giving the software away for free, not selling it to make money, so they're not breaking any laws, even under the DMCA.

Re:Titles please?

[sdo1]

Troll? Oh, come on. First we read that they've released THOUSANDS of CDs with this Macrovision technology on them... yet still not one title documented.

Then we read "Oh joy! The protection has been broken!" Broken on WHAT? Until someone can produce a title and say what was done, I don't believe that there's really any "protected" CDs out there, and I don't believe that there's any protection that has been broken. Is that so hard to figure out. I'll change my tune as soon as someone identifies a CD that this has been done to.

Every single time this has come up on /. I've asked if anyone has a title... just one. NO ONE HAS ANY IDEA what titles this was used on. The people here have an incredible ability to dig up bits of relevant data on a variety of subjects. But not this one. Not a single title verified. Without that data, I'm highly skeptical that the copy protection, if there is any, has been broken.

Has anyone considered the possibility that these news stories are just being floated to gauge public response?

-S