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Still More 'Copy Protected' CDs
maniac11 writes: "This story describes new CDs planned on being released by Universal Music Group that sport anti-copying technology. Not much in the way of actual details, but a heads up on a new plan to foil." Same price, worse product -- higher sales! Universal seems to be the first company to commit to downgrading its entire lineup over the next six months or so.
BTW, SJ Mercury has a good story on this too.
sulli
RTFJ.
The only thing you can do when a vendor is providing a defective product is not purchase it. So, stop purchasing CDs, DVDs or other copy protected material. Encourage everyone you know to stop purchasing the same.
Otherwise, all you are doing is encouraging them to produce defective products.
Vinyl has always been the only choice of audiophiles. Analogue has a warmth and richness that digital recordings will never capture. The only thing CDs give you are convinience.
--
#nohup cat
Loop your line-out to your line-in, dump that all to WAV, encode to Ogg Vorbis.
Ta-da.
This sig is xenon coated, and will glow red when in the presence of aliens
Yeah. Seeing as how I play CDs through my DVD player which has a digital coax out into my receiver, I'll be in touch with my lawyer with a quickness if I run into a CD that restricts my ability to listen to music that I've bought on my home system.
Someone needs to reverse-engineer these systems and release their findings in an encrypted format. You'll have violated the DMCA, but they'll have violated the DMCA proving it.
Easy does it!
This comment has been submitted already, 276865 hours , 59 minutes ago. No need to try again.
According to this, the "Compact Disc Digital Audio" logo can only be used "on discs complying with the CD-DA specification: IEC 60908 and/or the Philips-Sony Compact Disc Digital Audio System Description) also known as the RED Book)."
Audiophile labels still produce a ton of vinyl. There are even some major artists who's records are available on vinyl; R.E.M. and Radiohead both come to mind. As a matter of fact, every single album R.E.M. has ever released is availble in vinyl from Amazon.com.
"The guide is definitive, reality is frequently inaccurate."
Interesting to see how that turns out. I mean, they're bastardizing a published standard and selling the product as compatible with that standard. Jeez, if they weren't all in the same bed, I'd expect Phillips to sue them ;)
Sure you can. The DVD-Audio standard allows for audible watermarking, which is exactly what is being done to standard CDs. SACDs are much different. They are watermarked, but the information is stored in the Text area and TOC. The audio is not affected like it is with DVD-Audio
"The guide is definitive, reality is frequently inaccurate."
BS. Vinyl is for audiophiles who have fooled themselves into thinking that vinyl's coloration of the sound is "better."
The best analog may be better than the best digital (although those differences become vanishingly slim), but vinyl is NOT good analog and isn't even better than CD (a moderately good digital format). In fact there has NEVER been a good consumer analog format.
Vinyl suffers from poor S/N ration, compression, inconsistency from the outer to inner grooves, poor dynamic range, distortion, degradation of the sound with EACH play, and fragility. A truly BAD format.
Vinyl continues to survive for self-deluding audiophiles, DJ's who like the convenience of turntables for mixing, and nostalgia buffs.
IANAL:
The point of the supposed lawsuit is that there is a 'Compact disc' logo on the disc itself. That claims compliance with the compact disc standard as developed by Phillips long ago. That standard includes specifications which allow the disc to be read in a cd-rom drive.
If this isn't supported in the crappy discs, then it isn't compliant with the compact disc standard and therefore shouldn't wear the logo.
Okay...the latest tripe gets shipped to Blockbuster, Best Buy, etc...
:)
They put it on the shelves right in alphabetical order where it should be. Do you really think the consumers will care if it says "Compact Disc Digital Audio" on it? As long as it's in a jewel case the size of a CD, it won't matter.
I'm looking at Pink Floyd's "A Momentary Lapse of Reason" right now. Nowhere on the outside, which you would see in the store, does it say anything about it being a CD. I see it in 4 places as soon as I open the case, but I also see this shiny metal disc which I assume is the CD, even if it didn't say so
Yeah...it would be a way to sue them if they marked them as such, but it's not gonna hurt them if they don't.
It sounds like you've bought too much into the Stereophile or (worse) The Absolute Sound crapola. I *used* to *really* be into the high-end audio scene, but it's such snake oil and overpriced shit nowadays. Analogue *can* sound absolutely fantastic, so can digital. It matters more on the quality of the reording and the *mastering* than the format these days. Of course having decent (does not mean expensive!) playback thoughtfully and critically set up can make a world of difference. Use your ears.
It is clearly stated in the documentation for cd players dvd players, cd-rom drives etc. that they are compatible with any disc bearing the cd digital audio logo.
And these discs still are compatible with CD-ROM players -- as long as you play audio. You only run into trouble when you try and pull digital data from them. There is no guarantee that CDs are free from digital defects. In fact, the standard specifically allows digital defects.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Let's get the nature of the enemy straight; it is one multiheaded beast. Universal, Sony, Columbia = MPAA = RIAA. What we are talking about is Intellectual Property Capitalists; people who feel that, since they currently own the distribution system throyugh which creative cultural works currently flow, they merit all the profit they can possibly squeeze from said properties, and legal protection from any perceived threat to that distribution system. It's nothing new, it's just the first real challenge to their stranglehold on the cultchah...
I survived the Dick Cheney Presidency 7 to 9 AM 7-21-07
7.5 IPS is far more common. 30 IPS players had too much trouble with Wow and Flutter. Plus the trade off between resolution and capacity is too drastic. It's like the difference between encoding at 360Kbps and 160. For reference, the average car casette is 1.875 IPS.
60 Minute tape @ 1.875 IPS =
15 Minute tape @ 7.5 IPS =
2 Minute tape @ 30 IPS.
It is far more common to improve resolution by writing fewer tracks. Also, the tape manufacturing has come a long way...
BTW, The real problem with digital is it's unnatural reaction to saturation. They try to combat this with the High and Low pass filters, but the result is not satisfactory.
The history of music signal processing is all about trying to re-create the limitations of earlier equipment. Your distortion pedal mimics an overheated tube, compressor mimics less than ideal tape media.
Digital Mixing is the most popular form of music editing. It is so much more flexible than good old analog. Even those who still use the analog processes do it either in a "studio-live" environment where no extensive editing will need to be done after, or mix the tracks digital to get a final draft, and then mix the final track from the analog.
This is why the first Kent State memorial song came out almost 2 months later, while Tom Petty's Rondney King riot song only took 9 days. On a side note, they sang about the terrible riots, but not about the savage beating he recieved at the hands of some overzealous cops.
~Hammy
What worries me most about record labels introducing non-copyable CDs etc is that they are infringing upon the rights of other users under copyright law.
I'm in Australia, but I can get in trouble for copying an American CD because the reach of the DMCA is not limited to US shores, because I could theoretically be damaging Universal etc.
However, I have rights under Australian copyright law to duplicate CDs for the purpose of broadcasting under the 'ease of use' provisions because I work in radio.
Which law overrides the other? How do I even know what rights I have?
I just find it so annoying that laws which are enacted in one country can have such an impact across the world. Think Universal will make a copyable batch of its CDs for those of us who do have duplication rights? Nope, didn't think so.
Complain. Loudly. Make it heard that you don't want to receive inferior merchandise. The more returns that the record companies receive, the less they'll be tempted to rip the consumer off this way again.
I always thought Einstürzende Neubauten were a forward thinking progressive band anyway, and wouldn't want to be associated with this kind of nonsense.
I think that there is a file system driver for linux called cdfs which may be able to help us in this cause. I have been thinking about this problem since the first reports of "protected" CDs, but haven't had the time to read the necessary standards, although I am starting right now. If someone has one of these protected CDs and a linux box they would be willing to use for some tests, they would be of great help. Go to the cdfs homepage and download the correct patch for your kernel. This file system MAY be the first step in a robust alternative to CDDA (read paranoia) which works on these "protected" CDs. Please provide feedback to this thread and to the author of cdfs if his filesystem is useful. Now I have to try to get one of these CD's myself and try this out... Stanley Pinchak
The SACD "digital" watermarking scheme is interesting in that it is the only scheme out there that appears to pose any deterrent to commercial pirates. SACD watermarks are tied to properties of the pressing plants, so the "copy all the bits with professional gear" attack that works so well against DVD fails miserably against SACD.
Unfortunately, Sony's implementation seems to rule out home recording to SACD. When a SACD player sees a watermark mismatch, it refuses to play the disc. If Sony was really interested in putting a dent in commercial piracy, without targeting the Fair Use rights of home users, they could design SACD players so that the decks would play unverified discs, and at the same time light up indicators that say in effect, "this is not a genuine prerecorded SACD". People who saw such an indicator come on when playing a store-bought disc would have a strong self-interest in returning the counterfeit, while those who were playing home-made SACD compilations or LP -> SACD recordings could exercise judgement and ignore the indicator.