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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.
What it's meant to do is provide a speed bump to people who don't steal things, and wish to use them in the parameters that are suggested by the artists
But what about the average Joe who want's to rip the CD for use on the computer, or a portable MP3 player? These are fair-use protected, as long as you do not distribute.
And most average Joes lack the technical know-how to circumvent the protection, and even that is illegal under the DMCA.
Copy protection is stripping away the last bits of fair use left. They're punishing all users for the actions of some.
Most people do not like to lose their rights, even something as small as fair use.
I like fire ants. They are very spicy!
It makes no sense - they guy SAYS that it can be broken - but it is meant to deter "casual copying". A bit like wrapping a chain around a bike without really locking it - to deter the "casual bike thief". But they bring up the DMCA - so until that gets thrown out, they have a good legal loophole with which they can go after anyone who manages to rip their CD's.
And their big explanation is that the song title and artist don't show up, so therefore people can't copy them? Hell, I was copying CD's long before programs had internet lookup of CD's - I would rip the track - then label it...what a novel concept...
I think the people above me are having sex - or they're sleeping restlessly and agreeing with each other a lot.
Your records will still be playable long after your CD's have become obsolete.
What it's meant to do is provide a speed bump to people who don't steal things, and wish to use them in the parameters that are suggested by the artists
Hands up those who believe the artist gets a say in whether their CDs are rendered unusable or not?
Their whole "we are designing the software for the 99 percent of the people who don't want to steal the music" argument is nonsense; it doesn't benefit them.
... if it doesn't work on your computer, can't you just take it back to the store and say "it doesn't work, I want to exchange it"?
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
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, consumers have not warmed up to the idea of copy-protected CDs."
Hmmmm. I thought we were flaming this idea pretty heavy. Need to switch to Thermite.
I used to wonder what was so holy about a silent night, now I have a child.
Hes fucking kidding, right? The manner suggested by the artist? So when we listen to a Prince CD we have to wear womens clothing?
What, me worry?
...that this guy has fallen into the same trap that most of the media has recently. They believe that the standard model of CD, hard-copy distribution is the ONLY model, and the model that artists want. He seems to take it as given that CDs are the divinely-ordained format for music, that the evolution of players has come to an end.
I hope he goes bankrupt, but not necessarily because he's trying to protect music. It's because he's protecting CDs.
I, of course, used a few p2p music sharers in my day, but you know what? I've filled out everything I want on my playlist, and aside from must-have stuff like the new Cake album, it doesn't change much anymore. On top of that, I bought more CDs after getting Napster than before...it's not a matter of already having the album for me, it's a matter of finding an ENTIRE ALBUM OF GOOD SONGS. If the record labels didn't rush out half-finished crap and charge almost $20 for it, I'd buy lots more CDs...
Co-founder of GerbilMechs
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?
Don't let this lull you into a false sense of complacency. It's just being beta tested right now (except for Universal Music). When not enough people complain anymore about not being able to play CDs on their computers (and they will give up soon), some sort of copy protection will show up on every CD ever manufactured.
On the plus side, copy protection is always an arms race and the hackers have the upper hand. Remember when Copy II Plus came out for the Apple II and it could break every single media-based copyprotect scheme that existed at the time? There is still hope.
-sting3r
From the interview -
"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."
So this software is designed to reign in the people who do not "steal" the music anyway? Does that not make this method of "cooy protection" pointless? It seems to me that this guy just admitted his company is ripping off record companies by selling them copy protection schemes that are really no good.
A: The technology that we sell is a padlock to music. If you have a lock cutter, a bolt cutter, you can cut that padlock off. If you're determined to steal the music, the music can be stolen. Our technology is not thief proof.
Umm... so let me get this straight. Those who want fair use (downloading it to their Rio, whatever) can't have it. Those are determined to pirate the music pull out their bit cutters and rip the CD. So basically, you've accomplished the exact opposite.. fair use is discouraged, but piracy is still possible. I think somebody missed the point.
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
I love the quote from the article:
So this guy is selling a technology that won't stop thieves, but it will stop users from legitimately copying music from their CDs to their computer hard drives? It sounds like they're tacitly admitting that they're using the guise of "piracy protection" to do what they really want. That is to make music more like software -- eventually if you want to play it in your car and your home stereo, buy two copies of the CD!
There are plenty of legitimate reasons to be able to load software onto your computer:
* I have a FireWire hard drive that I use to store all my music, and it's available to all my computers (including across my AirPort wireless network)
* Even within my house, having a hard drive with random access to my entire collection is better than some slow CD jukebox with a crappy UI
* I've had CDs go bad that can't be read (older ones with a lot of paint on them) or have gotten scratched. A copy of the songs on a hard drive provide protection against that degradation
* When I'm travelling, I don't want to bring audio CDs with me. It's easier just have songs on the hard drive
Simply put, I will not buy any CDs that can't be read on my computer -- normally. Some silly copy protection scheme that calls up Microsoft to confirm my credit card receipt every time I want listen to a song doesn't count.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
REUTERS - In a landmark case, Sony Corporation (SONY) won a USD $50M lawsuit against Sony Corporation (SONY) for violations of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.
The lawsuit accused SONY of producing hardward and software, including but not limited to CD-ROM, Hi Fidelity car and home stereo equipment, and DVD players capable of being used to play standard CDs, thus allowing hackers to rob SONY of billions in CD sales by buying their CDs and then playing them in their computers or car stereos.
"Those stupid bastards," said Sony VP of CD-ROM and HiFi Audio equiment John Smith. "What were they thinking?"
"This will teach hardware and software makers that they will be held responsible if their products are being used illegally," said Sony VP of Music and Movies Fred Barber. "This sends a clear message: break your hardware before shipping or we're gonna get you. If you ship a functional product, you're going to pay!"
-samThe REAL sam_at_caveman_dot_org is user ID 13833.
The copy protection does make things harder, but one of its crucial features is the fact it makes fair use activities ILLEGAL.
From the article: "Peter Jacobs faces a daunting challenge: convincing millions of music fans that he's not a policeman."
And when asked about if someone bypasses the "protection" scheme:
"The Digital Millennium Copyright Act prohibits users from circumventing copy protection. It's now a crime in America to do that."
And he says he's not a cop, but his technology now means the cops and courts can come after you for doing what used to be legal. They take away our rights using technology, we try to take them back, again using technology, and we are punished by the gov't! If they are allowed to use technology to stop us, we should be allowed to use technology to protect our rights.
Remember, connecting an digital out to a digital in will circumvent the protection, but it won't circumvent the statuatory damages ($250 - $2000, no proof of you profiting or them being harmed is required - they ask for it and the court grants it), it won't circumvent "actual damages" (whatever Judge Kaplan and similar thinking judges want to steal from you and give to the RIAA) and it won't circumvent you being locked in a cage for 5 years of your life.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
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.
:-P
I'm at a loss for words. Never before have I read such an elegant and technically accurate description of the ripping process.
I'm still waiting for the RIAA and MPAA to go after the software and hardware makers next... I mean, they must know that their products are being used for illegal purposes, so they must be at fault too...
They already have. It is called the SSSCA
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
I find the speed bump analogy in the interview interesting, because speed bumps are also devices that punish the legitimate users. Doesn't matter how slowly you drive over them, you're still being punished. Sure, they might discourage someone from driving like crazy, but the people that we going to are probably just going to drive really fast between bumps and slow down at the last minute.
Only hackers will attempt to circumvent the technology in order to prove that it can be done.
Those nefarious, evil bastards.
We're not designing the technology for them.
Oh, good. So I guess it's ok if we break it then. Yoink!
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act prohibits users from circumventing copy protection. It's now a crime in America to do that. Having said that, it's certainly up to the record companies to decide how they're going to manage hackers that circumvent the technology in the future.
And all this time I thought that it was the legal system's job to deal with law-breakers. I stand corrected: I guess the record companies are now charged with handling our laws.
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.
Oh, so the law no longer governs the fair use of a purchased item, now the record companies have that power. Hm. This must be an extension of the fact that the record companies are now making and enforcing our laws. I guess this also means that a person no longer owns the items they buy. So what is the law now? Do we just pay for the privilege of using said items?
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.
Hey! You mean there's an authorized way of stealing music?
How many copies do you allow people to make?
It's up to the record company, but six is the standard right now.
Right, cause if I'm making more than six copies, I must be pirating it. And the record companies are really trustworthy, so we should let them decide.
Perhaps this is the source of the mental blocks people have when they stand against fair-use and creating technologies like this. They seem to think the record labels should have absolute power over what the user does with an item they purchased and now own.
Why are you in this business? It's not a market that would make someone rich,
Oh no, of course not. How many billions of dollars a year are music sales? How much would the music companies pay to ensure that they couldn't be copied? How many protection schemes have already been tried? How many have already failed? Do you notice how they keep trying? Uh-huh, this is definitely a losing market, no money here.
The problem is, if digital property just becomes public domain the minute it's released, then the whole incentive model for distributing that property goes away.
It doesn't become public domain, it's still protected by law and owned by the creator. If I create a machine and start selling it, is the design now public domain? No, of course not. Where is this guy from? Mars?
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
Why don't we take that as a point in fact? The deluge of digital music available on the internet has not been followed by the collapse of the record industry. We do not see top 40 artists hanging out on the street pushing shopping carts full of pop cans. What we're seeing is a previously invisible economy of traded and shared music. Fifteen years ago, I did this with cassette tapes. Now it's done with mp3's. But the phenomenon remains the same. "Hey, check this tape out." If I like the tape, I go and make a conscious decision to buy into what the artist is selling. If not, I don't.
Now that the economy of music-sharing is no longer invisible, record companies want a cut of the game. They don't yet understand that without the game of music sharing, there is likely no game of music buying. I get introduced to most of my music, most of my die-hard, must-buy-all-imports-and-special-prints artists because someone gave me a tape or (these days) an Mp3 of the music. I would not have even known most of these artists existed, or were worth checking out, if I hadn't had the "pirated" copy of their one of their seminal recordings given to me.
They can't cut open the goose that lays the golden eggs without killing her. Culture exists as a free exchange of ideas. Putting gates at every point of exchange with the idea of collecting tolls is simply a guarantee that people will find other roads to travel. I don't understand why a multibillion dollar industry can't get enough, but I don't have any sympathy for them. They will soon find out how lucky they are to get any. I will not buy copy-protected CD's. I will take them back to the store and I will take my money elsewhere.
What annoys me the most about these kinds of copy protection schemes is how they limit me, the average consumer who does buy my music. I spend 9 months out of the year away at college. Frankly, I don't want to take apart my entire stereo and cart it back and forth every year. It's a pain in the ass, and I just know that something would sooner or later get broken. My solution? Play all my CD's in my computer. I paid $2000 for this thing, I damn well better be able to do more than type papers on it.
Furthermore, I like to rip a lot of my lesser used CD's to .mp3 so that I don't also have to bring my entire collection of >200 CD's to school each year. That is just another invitation for something to get lost or broken. Not to mention, I don't have enough room in the car for all that crap.
Oh yeah. I also like to run. (Yes, I am a geek who likes to get exercise.) But you know what I like to do when I run? Listen to music. Music on my solid state mp3 player that will not skip as I run. Let me rephrase that: I like to listen to my legally purchased music on my mp3 player while I run.
I'm not going to lie and say that I've never used Napster. I have, and I probably do have a few mp3's for which I do not own the CD. But for the vast majority of my mp3 collection I also have the CD's to accompany them. All the record companies are doing is serving to piss off people like me. People who do buy their music, but who wish to listen to it in a device other than a standard CD player. In fact, if I ever purchase a CD that I cannot play in my computer, I will return it. And then do you know what I will do? I will turn around and download the mp3's off my favorite p2p file sharing utility, because I have every confidence that despite whatever copy protection methods the record companies try to use, the mp3's will always be out there. After all, if I can't listen to my legally purchased music in the device of my choice, why should I pay to listen to that CD at all. If you're going to treat me like a criminal, then I may as well act like one.
Although, I must say that I am certainly glad that I am not a Michael Jackson or Charley Pride fan, because I loath the day when the record companies force me to actively pirate music just to listen to it on my preferred listening devices.
If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.
So, they're designing it to annoy the 99% of people who want to legitimately purchase the music and make a legal fair-use backup copy or who want to copy it to their computer for use while storing the CD as the backup archive?
So, they admit that the people who will make an active effort to steal the music will hardly be hampered by this at all.
What a sales pitch! We'll stop the people who don't steal, and we won't stop the people who do. Now, could someone explain just why anyone is paying them for this technology?
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
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.
___
The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason. --Ben Franklin
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.
So what is the authorized way to steal music?
Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but copyright will always protect me.
If the disc is labeled with the compact disc logo, it's supposed to be compliant with the specification. If it is not compliant (and NONE of the copy protected stuff is...), it's either fraudulently labeled or the disc is defective.
Run this one past them- do they willingly sell defective products? If they don't make the above point to them and see how fast they give your money back to you. They NEVER want the impression of knowingly selling fraudulent or defective products to the consumers. Bad for business and could bring on lawsuits like the one against these people on them.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
See this article: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-201-7320279-0.htm l
At least in some cases, the tracks are WMA. So even this level of so-called fair use is not available for non-Windows users. I don't know if the guy being interviewed above is part of the WMA-using company or not.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
This guy goes on about how only 1% of the people out there are hard core music pirates that will have the diligence and know-how to defeat the protection schemes, but what happens when these skilled CD ripping individuals put the ripped tracks on Morpheus/Gnutella/(insert favorite P2P file sharing app here)? Then the 40% of us who are the casual pirates have the music just like before.
Most of us never rip our own tracks. We get them over the net and share them over the net. It only takes one person to rip a song to get the song beyond the copy-protected barrier for everyone.
The ultimate plays for Madden 2006
It's called misrepresentation of a product, otherwise known as fraud. In this case, the product was labeled with a specific logo, indicating that the contents of the disc in question could be played on a digital audio disc player (The Philips CD-DA logo...)- when, in fact, it couldn't properly be played under those conditions.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Right here, in this very real dimention, illegally distributed music isn't a problem for the music industry.
At least that's what their bottom line says... they're making more money than ever. CD prices have remained high, despite the recently anti-trust investigations. Their one bogus study during the Napster hearings showed that sales were down, but only near colleges where internet-based ordering was significantly up. Other more indepentent studies, at least so far, have generally found that CD sales are increasing.
Perhaps the "problem" is fear that future sales might be impacted, or some other non-profit definition of problem (like pride, control over the market, having new musicians by-the-balls, etc)
Perhaps the "problem" is all those "lost sales" from people who heard the music without paying, but the truth is that this is nothing new... they had this "problem" when radio began, they had this "problem" when recordable cassette tapes appeared, etc.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
Yup. And most people want the music they copy to be either a direct CD copy of the music, or rip it in a standard MP3 format. So... if his technology allows that then how exactly is it protecting anything?
For their MP3 player? Hmm... now I notice he didn't say in standard MP3 format. Maybe he means "for their MP3 player as long as it uses the special no-copy technology XXX and plays WMA format music". I would bet that his technology would prevent it from working on my MP3 player. Since I'm just doing what I want in a way I think is reasonable he wouldn't want to stop me right?
Yeah, that's great. Thanks for treating customers with such respect.
So he's saying you know that the technological solution you've created is weak, and you intend to use the DMCA to enforce it? If the gov't were't owned by big coprorations like the record companies, I'd expect they'd complain. If I protected my house with a flimsy screen-door lock then expected the police to do everything they could whenever someone broke in, I think they'd get pissed at me pretty soon.
No Britney Spears, no *NSync, only people who are into music for the sake of music. Man, would that ever be a great world!
Ok buddy. So you think you're going to be in a lucrative business. You think you're gonna make loads of money when your goal is: "Make it easier for the record companies to squeeze me and prevent me from doing what I want with the CD[*] I bought". Guess what. I (and a few other people) want to convince you that it's *not* lucrative.
Any takers?
[*] Note, the product bought, whie a shiny disk in a silver case is not actually a CD, sorry for any inconvenience.
In exchange for the essential monopoly on the distribution of Copyrighted works, the public as a whole have been given certain rights with regards to the disposition and use of those works once we have recieved them. These are called "Fair Use" rights.
Under Fair Use, I may make as many copies of a covered work for my own personal use after I have purchased the rights to use this work. Personal is defined as for your and only your use- as in you can make backup copies of just about anything in question, just in case the original gets destroyed.
Under Fair Use, I may sell any primary copies I have to another individual, so long as I destroy all copies I have that were not licensed to be copied by myself. In other words, if you have a license to make copies (such as the GPL) you may give the primaries or the backups to another individual, but if you do not, you must destroy all backups you have upon the giving of the primary copy to another individual.
Under Fair Use, I may copy non-substantial portions (and in some cases, even substantial ones...) of a covered work for the purposes of the discussion of the covered work, parody, etc.
This is NOT a classic geek view, but rather what the laws have been worded- DMCA and SSSCA seem to be conflicting laws that don't remove the "rights" (as that would draw an outcry real quick) but make them effectively withdrawn.
Right now, there's some substantial discussion that the laws that extend the durations of the Copyright and Patent grants violate the bounds Congress has with respects to this that has been laid out by the Constitution (This is not the Bill of Rights- this is what the Constitution has to say about what Congress can and can't do, and that hasn't been ammended either.). Also of note is that there is substantial discussion as to whether or not the DMCA or the SSSCA, as they currently are written, are legit within the Constitutional boundaries set up by either the Constitution itself or the Bill of Rights.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
a few things in the article don't seem to add up.
but six is the standard right now. So they can make six copies; as long as their disc is in the tray of their computer, they can make those copies...
ok, so they can make 6 copies, i would assume to a proprietary format so you can't make a copy from a copy (surely not mp3 format), but then he goes on to say,
We allow (people) to make copies for their own personal use: for their computer, for their compilation disc and for their MP3 player.
huh? you can make a copy for use in your mp3 player? then what's to stop you from copying the song as many times as you want?!?
here's the other part i don't get:
I hope to see a file-sharing service in the near future that will allow people the same effortless ability to download music even if it's of lesser quality, like MP3 quality, for a very small amount of money a month.
huh?? lesser quality? i think our boy Peter Jacobs is jumping on the MS bandwagen trying to make the mp3 format sound like it sucks (no pun intended).
The MP3 players will need special software to read the new CD's... in which case, someone will write a program to read those CD's... and convert them into MP3's on your HD.
Someone transfers a track from thier CD to their MP3 player... then, they transfer the MP3 from their MP3 player to their HD... now whats stopping them from connected to a peer to peer network and sharing this?
And what about DJ's who mix their own songs? Is swiping part of the song now going to mean breaking the DMCA?