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.

Comments

Interesting....how does it work?

[melquiades]

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?

Huh?

[c_monster]

"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

CD-DA disk logo compliance?

[Jburkholder]

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?