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CD Copy Protection Head Speaks
Vonatar sent us an interview with the guy who is running the company that designed the copy protection being used in CDs that nobody really buys, and preventing people from playing CDs in their computers and DVD players. The article also mentions the first lawsuit about the record label not providing notice on the package. Anyway check it out if you're interested. There are some interesting bits.
From the article, it sounds like they do allow some ripping:
Ours is the only copy-protection scheme that doesn't violate fair-use rights...We allow (people) to make copies for their own personal use: for their computer, for their compilation disc and for their MP3 player, so they can have portable use of their music. The only fair use that's left--and it's not fair use at all--is the "fair use" of sending thousands of copies to file-sharing services to be copied hundreds of thousands or millions of times.
I'd like more detail on this. The only way I can imagine them accomplishing what they desribe is having some proprietary app "unlock" the CD. That, of course, would limit the fair use of playing the CD on your favorite non-standard OS. But I'm only guessing.
Does anybody know what their technology actually does? How does is copy protect if you can download (presumably unprotected) MP3s to your portable player?
"From our standpoint, we are designing the software for the 99 percent of the people who don't want to steal the music... not for the 1 percent who are going to take the lock cutters and cut the lock off and steal music in an unauthorized way."
If I'm hearing this right, he's basically saying, "Our product doesn't keep people from stealing the music, it just causes hassles for folks who buy music and want to listen to it on their computers."
Where's the reason in that? Who exactly is getting protected here?
~chris
Read the full text my book Perl for the Web
Still an unanswered question: do these 'copy protected' CDs still conform to IEC 908 and can they be legally marked with the compact disc digital audio emblem?
What can be heard can be recorded.
Oops.
The article talks about "circumvention" being ilegal under the DMCA. Well, that means it is now ilegal to run a cable from your cd player to your audio-in on your soundcard. Because once you're to that point, you only need to hit record!
I raised this point in an earlier artcle, and there was some speculation that the copy-protection is actually in the music; that even if I held I mic to a speaker and recorded it the copy-protection would still be there and mp3 encoders would still choke on it.
This (from the article) clears all that up:
SunnComm embeds a technology, called MediaCloq, into a CD to make the CD's directory structure invisible so it cannot be read by a personal computer. For instance, the names of the tracks do not appear on a computer's screen, and as a result, the music cannot be ripped and transferred to a desktop. The CD, however, will still play in an ordinary CD player, according to SunnComm. Jacobs said what sets his company apart from competitors is that SunnComm does not alter the music itself because the company's technology leaves the tunes untouched.
So while some copy protection technology (from other companies) modifies the music, the technology is question does not. This makes circumvention trivial.
I think it would be very difficult to embed copy-protection signals in the actual music, without causing the music to sound noticably different. But even if that was achived, I'm 100% certain that some sort of filter software to remove the protection will be written. Sure, the software will be ilegal, but if the author can make it high-profile enough maybe it will get spread around like DeCSS.
From our standpoint, we are designing the software for the 99 percent of the people who don't want to steal the music but instead (want to) use it for whatever means--for whatever personal use that's allowed by the artist and the record label. The software was designed for those people, not for the 1 percent who are going to take the lock cutters and cut the lock off and steal music in an unauthorized way
OK how are they designing it for those people? Will those people get some new enjoyment from listening to a cd that's copy protected? Or will they only be frusturated that they can't record tracks of their new cd onto the mix cd they're making with their new PC?
More and more consumers are embracing mp3's and cd-r's. It's not just 'hackers' (someone needs to have the hacker vs. cracker talk with Mr. Jacobs because he's a little confused) anymore. If copy protection becomes widespread, these companies will alienaite a much larger portion of their customer base than they realize. Think how many people own portable mp3 players! Consumers like options, and this technology only gives you less options.
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The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason. --Ben Franklin