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Music Industry Forcing WMA standard?
CtrlPhreak writes "Cnet news.com has a story up stating that the music industry is considering having cds that contain the un-rippable tracks as well as the windows media formatted files with limited uses ala Microsoft's digital rights management. Just one more brick in Microsoft's continuing monopoly..." And another format that I can't play back. Hope this one dies fast.
Computer users show themselves unwilling and unable to comply with existing copyright laws, is it really any big surprise that the copyright holders would find a surer method of protecting their IP?
Information only 'wants' to be free insofar as its creator wants it to be free.
Gee, wasn't this part of a story yesterday????
The Blaster Master Fighting for Truth, Justice, and Evil Pie since 1979
I have a somewhat old computer (Pentium, 233MHz) running with 256 MB of RAM. WMA lags, skips and generally does not sound good.
MP3, on the other hand, plays back clearly.
I like fire ants. They are very spicy!
cat
Only listen to white noise, stop enriching those pigs.
Je t'aime Stéphanie
And another format that I can't play back. Hope this one dies fast.
Time and time again, you have said that you have a window's partition, Taco (playing Black&White, and lots of other times). Admit to having it, say "Its an inconvience to play" instead of "I can't play". You won't be condemned here for being honest(besides the trolls, which is unavoidable).
A little honesty here would really go a long way.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Leaving a large bunch of pissed but brilliant programmers out in the cold just has to be a bad idea (just look at CSS) don't these music industry bozos ever learn ... if they choose a DRM system that's supported everywhere far fewer people will have the incentive to break their encryption - and it's not like they're in the music player software biz
Putting monopoly/copyright issues aside for a moment, requiring a WMA version means you lose at least 10% (at 128Kbit), which means that the maximal length would be more like 70min instead of 78min.
This would change the artists presentation of the music itself.
I have a 386SX/25MHz/2MBRAM with a 20MB Winchester HD. I keep running out of disk space when I try to install Windows 2000. Those MS products really suck. I never had this trouble when installing RedHat 1.1 - clearly a superior product.
I think that most of us understand the concept that anything that is playable is copyable. I first don't really understand how they can write the disc in such a way that a CD player from 1995 can play it, but that the cracker community can't write a device driver for.
Aside from that, you know how your old tape player had High Speed dubbing? I wonder if someone could rig a CD player to play that way, and then capture the sound digitally and slow it back down. That way you don't have to wait the full length of the CD. Its not so easy as ripping is right now, but I'll bet it wouldn't be too bad. It could probably even figure out where songs started and stopped just like old tape players!
there are 2 kinds of people. those who divide people into 2 kinds, and those who don't.
If Microsoft wasnt so gay and supported other Operating Systems with Windows Media I would tend to follow the drift it would be better.. but when they are closed standard bastards and wont support nothing out side of Windows... how can people suport WMP... It may have its advantages but if your not running windows your support kinda lacks due to microsoft's unwilling to share...
And another format that I can't play back.
By using Linux, you are exercising you're right to choose. And apparently, you choose not to want to play WMA. If it's that big a deal for you, you always have the right to choose again. Freedom does not mean that your "choice" has all the pros and none of the cons.
I'm developing a special addative for the eggo waffle folks which make the waffles resistant to heat unless you use a GTE toaster.
Dozings.com -- Its kinda funny... If you're as crazy as me.
Every day we lose more and more rights... A little here, a little there. Though, I doubt if they can stop me from taking my audio out and recording that... Oh wait, they'll just make sure new sound cards and stereos no longer have audio out, and the ones that do, cd's wont play on.
Is this rely hard? Has it already been done?
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
Sums it up pretty good for me.
These guys are simply criminal. send them to afghanistan for re-education
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=22063&cid=2364 556
Thank you, and please read the article before posting duplicates next time :)
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
I'm a DJ at my university's radio station. It is de facto station policy to not play anything by really well-known artists - i.e. Britney Spears will never come out of our transmitter. And there is no lack of "underground" music for us to play - music published by labels that aren't part of the RIAA juggernaut and aren't implementing these ridiculous copy controls. And a decent amount of it is of higher quality than anything I've heard from the major labels. Point is, there is plenty of good music out there if you don't want to be screwed over every time you buy a CD.
WMA isn't that much different than mp3s. Just find a player that doesn't have that digital copyrights blah thing on it. Besides, when's the last time you bought cds?.. I know i haven't in a while.
The RIAA managed to accept and OPEN standard known as Red Book for production of CD's...why can't they just create another OPEN standard for digital music for use on PC's and portables?
(All rhetorical questions, naturally...everyone knows why they aren't doing it...)
WMA has been out there for a while... like years
;-)
Perhaps you should wake up. This story ain't about this tech, it's about the industry considering putting WMA on the CD and then saying that it's "computer-compatible" (read: "Windows-compatible"), thus preventing CDs from working with free/open source software. That's news. And if it ain't, it sure is Stuff that Matters
Oh, and a couple more things:
If you don't use Windows at all, how the hell can you make such broad statements against it all the time??
He's not. He's criticising a company's monopolistic practices - and he, along with the rest of the Free Software crowd, has been victim enough of it to write freely about it.
Use a bit by bit copier such as Clone CD if you use Windows.....
Anything burning software that copies the cd bit by bit should be safe untill they build copy protection into the cd burners. (a la macrovision on VCR's and even thats useless if you get a signal booster)
Anyone having problems doing backups should visit game copy world
If you buy music to listen to on your computer, and that requires ripping to mp3 or Ogg/Vorbis, then these new fangled MS crippled CD's are worthless to you. Don't trade your $15.00 for a worthless CD. Buy bootlegs instead. Buy old (used) CDs where you can.
If you think about it, how much archive quality music does the RIAA membership put out in a year? Most of it is one-hit-wonders and teeny-bopper crap. Hip-hop, electronic, and rock music all have big underground and indie (non-corporate) scenes. Musicians should all be producing their own discs for sale via pay-pal anyway.
--- Nothing clever here: move along now...
Hmmm. Weirdly honest coming from MS.
"Slashdot is about legos and staplers." -Cmdr. Taco
Guess it's time to hit the used CD stores again. Will these idiots EVER learn?
sulli
RTFJ.
Ok.
Am I not the only one who thinks that, if you can get a signal out of a CD (be it digital or analog), that the music is therefore RIPPABLE. The ONLY way to make it impossible for me to copy a song is to make it impossible for me to listen to the damn thing.
If I can hear it (copying to my brain) then I can copy anywhere else. If they want to make it impossible to play on my computer... oooh ahhh I'll plug it into my non-computer CD player and pipe it into my computer.
Come on, this repeated topic is getting old and pointless.
Advert free story:m l
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-202-7320279-0.ht
--
Some weasel took the cork out of my lunch.
"I think this is a glimpse of the future," said P.J. McNealy, a digital-entertainment analyst with GartnerG2, a division of research company Gartner. "This meets both sides' needs. It gives people the compressed audio (to play on computers), and it protects copyrights."
Obviously not meeting everyone's needs. MP3 is the current standard, and by which, means EVERYONE can listen to it. WMA, or wimpy music audio does nothing for ppl on older PCs, Linux boxes, and most likely even older Macs
"I think the reality here is that none of these (CD copy-protection) techniques is going to be successful in the long term," said Jupiter Research analyst Aram Sinnreich. "They're fraught with technical difficulties, and if they did surmount those, they would meet with a severe consumer backlash."
No protection scheme is 100% Everything can and will be cracked, given enough time and will power.
"I have a right to make personal copies and refuse to buy protected CDs," reader Steve Groen wrote in an e-mail to CNET News.com. "If Hollywood had invented the toilet, it would be five times as expensive and you'd pay $1 every time you flush."
Obviously, the best (!!) and wide-spread opinion around.
screw em... Purchased 2 ACDC CDs and one Megadeth CD from the Pawnshop for 9.00, and downloaded bootleg concerts from Eric Johnson and Led Zepplin from alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.bootlegs over the weekend, ever since clsoing up Napster I went from purchasing 50 NEW CDs last year to one this year (not counting those I purchased directly from the artist at the concert)
I now have 8 gigs worth of bootleg material that cant be purchased anywhere
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
"This CD features Anti-Terrorist Protection" :P
[pink beam of light]
BAH! Your pathetic attempts were foiled again by, not one, but TWO! of my loyal AC minions. Go back to that Yahoo! "B4ck57r337 B0yz" chatroom you've got bookmarked until you're ready to play in the big leagues.
-The AC Avenger
What about CSS? Are you calling CSS a bad idea? You little...!
"putting WMA on the CD and then saying that it's "computer-compatible" (read: "Windows-compatible")"
What about Apple? I keep seeming them used in movies and on TV, they must be in wide use. Are you saying that the RIAA is going to let M$ pull a fast one like that?
...that it "can't be cracked", the harder people are going to try to crack it. If, for nothing else, simply to prove them wrong.
http://pebkac.net
I know this will get modded down to -1 and i might as well grab my asbestos suit.... but how hard is it to just take the line out from a 'compatible' cd player and put it into the line in of your sound card , and rip to mp3... ?
... it'll be about as good as a medium/high quality mp3....
.... just rip it anyway with this method
Sure, you might have some lossy sound, but if you use quality cables and maybe clean it up with some noise reducing s/w
Sure, we should keep fighting these fools , but in the mean time
I lost my concept of community when my community lost all concept of me.
Sorry for saying it again. But I think it's pertinent yet.
my opinion
Money rules the world, and we must work all together so it won't happen never more. :o/
-=-=-=-=
I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
The music industry wants to maintain it's profits. It has two avenues it can pursue. It can try to put everyone in jail by paying for horrible legislation, or it can try to find some technological solution. It's fairly obvious that the first solution is a bad one and must be fought tooth and nail. But why does everyone on slashdot demonize the RIAA for choosing the second option. I am more than happy for them to choose that one, especially if it keeps them from pursuing the first further than they have already pursued.
IMHO, the record industry should be free to choose whatever crappy standard that they want, and I should be free to try to hack it. So long as I don't distribute their content, I shouldn't be breaking the law.
If you object to measures such as these, you lose credibility in the fight against unfair legislation and simply show that you don't want to pay for the content that you use.
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
Can't you still use analog rips?
Sure - it'll sound like crap - but how can they really make them unripable? Like most IP schemes, this won't stop actual piracy - just casual copying. While I'm certain that this casual copying is the vast majority of the violation - isn't a lot of it covered under fair use? I mean if I rip all my old cd's onto my nomad - Then stow them all in the basement - isn't that still legal?
I would be pretty pissed if I then had to use a restricted format to play them back. I generally don't use windows. Rebooting my system to play back a single song is not an acceptable solution. If you had to unplug your CD player and make a handful of software changes in order to play a single track wouldn't you complain?
I think we should all insist that they prominently print notice of the IP scheme on the cover (Warning: Contains IP Scheme that may be offensive to anyone with half a brain) Then simply refuse to buy anything that has that scheme. There may be more Brittany fans out there than there are geeks - but we've got more money.
\Drew National Data Director, John Edwards for President
Or try running *efficient*, well written software, like QNX... Hey! It works!
;)
Maybe modern software ain't all it's cracked up to be?
'sides, you can easily get better compression out of mp3, just lower the quality
I am soooo tired of the presumption that the only reason I want to rip something to mp3 is to illegally trade it. I just purchased a couple cds in the past week (one of them a Blackalicious cd that is incredible, hip-hop fans, check out this great underground artist), and I ripped them so I could listen to them at the office without carting the cds back and forth every day.
"The purpose of these releases is to test consumer satisfaction," said Macrovision President Bill Krepick. The labels "obviously don't want to do anything to turn off consumers...There's a lot of risk aversion right now."
Hmmm... Seems like this protection serves only to turn off consumers (I hope they don't place this protection on any Barry White albums). Those who don't rip don't notice a difference, and those who do have this annoying crap to deal with.
Also, I work in linux, and I don't know of a way to play WMA files in linux, although I've never tried to (never had a reason to...).
"Now gluttony and exploitation serves eight!" - TV's Frank
What new technologies (and the constantly increasing accessibility at any scale of technologies like burning CDs) present musicians and consumers alike with is the possibility of ditching the fat cat middlemen entirely, which would be fine since they do nothing for music but try to make everything a hit which turns 99.9% of everything they sell into indistinguishable, homogenized crap.
When you consider the global marketing potential that a little fearlessness when it comes to digital audio files and the internet presents the individual artist or band with, and the enormity of the cut that the parasitic media distribution conglomerates suck up between artists and consumers, it becomes clear that for artists and consumers alike copy protection is irrelevant.
All the industry frenzy over this issue has nothing to do with lost sales (which have been negligible) and everything to do with preventing independent concerns from commercializing and popularizing effective digital music distribution tools. Don't like this copy-impaired, we'll pick your compression format (and quality, natch) garbage? Write to your favorite INDIE record label or better yet your favorite unsigned, self- distributing or about-to-be-released-from-contract artists and tell THEM how you feel. They might actually give a rats ass and do something about it.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
Go see live music.
If you must have music, there's always midi!
what about me?
If this isn't a clear cut case of Microsoft using its monopoly power to cut into and eliminate competition from other markets, I don't know what is. We're not talking software anymore, we're talking the future of music distribution. This should not and could not happen if our antitrust laws have any power. Allowing WMA to be used here is definitely the wrong answer, as it allows Microsoft to say "Oh look, now you need a Windows machine with our Media Player to listen to tracks on your computer". If it was a general standard, this wouldn't be so bad. However, M$ is not known for general standards. They're known for embrace, extend, extinguish.
Electronic Frontier Foundation for online civil rights information
It's amazing to see how those "big" companies (MS included with there "activation tech.") put a lot of energy and resources to go after such a small percentage of the market segment.
Yes, I can copy a CD for a friend of mine as I have the tools and the means to do it with my PC (not that I will), but hey, for every one CD-copier out there are over 100s tape-copiers. And those tape-copiers do it more often than CD-copiers -- its far more easier. So why aren't those music industry clones going after the tape-media rather than the CD?
My answer to my own question is simple: CD is high tech, while tap is not. Thus, doing it in the CD market, creates more "noise" in the media which leads to more reorganization.
Karma stuck at 50? Add 2-5 inches.. err.. 2-5x Karmas Count to your pen1es.. err.. Karma all naturally and private
However, it may be a huge double-barreled shot at their feet. Here's why: Ripping MP3s is already mainstream. When they ship these crippled CDs, and the word gets out that you can't rip them or you have to go through some user-hostile WMA download every time you want to add tunes to your jukebox, sales will drop.
And, as others have noted here, indie bands won't behave this way (why should they? MP3 trading will help spread the word about their tunes). So they will get a sales boost from users who may not give a shit about IP and fair use but certainly care about ease of use.
Don't believe me? Look at the commercial failure of Sony's Music Clip. It fell flat on its face because customers wanted the standard (MP3) not something else that required many extra steps to use it.
So, as for the music industry: fuck 'em. If they want to sell useless drink coasters for $15, and wonder where a big segment the buyers went, let them take the financial hit. Just don't invest in any of the big five, and you won't personally pay the price. Maybe now is the time to short Vivendi-Universal, for example.
sulli
RTFJ.
Thats a fucking scary thought.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
dear record company,
give it up. i will do whatever i damn well please with the music i buy. if you keep trying to restrict me from doing this, i will discontinue buying your products.
sincerely,
your customer
And another format that I can't play back
Actually, you can play wma files under Linux using the avifile tool. avifile is a brilliant piece of software engineering that works directly with the Windows DLL (a-la-Wine). It will play back DivX avi and most Windows Media Player formats.
Having said this, it will only work for x86 Linux, and still leaves a lot of people stranded with their systems. It's definitely another way to strengthen Microsoft's monopoly. Really disgusting.
DZM
for me to poop on! I'm just waiting for someone to write new CD drivers to play these CD's that won't play on a computer. Not only that, but there is technology such as having optical outputs and inputs on CD and computers that will allow someone to simply playback the CD and record it on a computer with almost no loss in quality. No microphone and speaker necessary. And that will surely be better than the WMA tracks that they'll put on the computer. I highly doubt the quality on the tracks will be anything above 64kbps.
Please, there is no "right" to a rippable CD. At a time when real rights are under attack (e.g. Ashcroft wants to detain immigrants indefinitely without trial) I think it's important to keep a sense of perspective.
To use the 'secure' version of MediaPlayer you have to agree to Microsoft being able to install any software they like, and disable any other programs.
From the EULA agreement for MediaPlayer 7.1:
Digital Rights Management (Security). You agree that in order to protect the integrity of content and software protected by digital rights management ("Secure Content"), Microsoft may provide security related updates to the OS Components that will be automatically downloaded onto your computer. These security related updates may disable your ability to copy and/or play Secure Content and use other software on your computer. If we provide such a security update, we will use reasonable efforts to post notices on a web site explaining the update.
Does anyone else have a problem with this ? Every C.T.O. in the world should be alarmed at Microsoft being able to download and run any code they feel like, as well as switching any other programs off that they don't like.
"Free software as in beer, copy protection as in racket" - Telsa Gwynne
The thing that really just pisses me off is that it IS "another fine M$ product".
Why couldn't they use a third party vendor. If M$ keeps it up, they will be a monopoly! HAR!
They just label the cracker who writes the driver a terrorist (Legislation's in the works, don't say it can't happen) and hold him indefinitely without bail. Do a couple of people that way and the rest of the community will shut down so fast it'll make your head spin.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Its called planned obsolesence.
Totally... mp3 or anything else in that category, is lossy compression. If you're willing to live with lossy compression, making it analog rather than digital won't really kill you. It's just the time factor (5 minutes to rip digital vs. 45 minutes analog), which the poster was commenting on.
Not only is it old and pointless, it's ignorant. Of course, all they care about is making it sufficiently inconvenient that most people will stop doing it. My contention, and probably yours, is that it is a battle that is already lost, unless they get rid of analog inputs on PC's.
Agreed. Whether you're for or against MS, Taco is a fucking biggot for bashing what he knows nothing about.
I know there are maybe 10 different types of WMA, all of which are based on Microsoft's original AVI video format... Why is everyone adopting WMA when it is known to be one of the worst formats in existance?
1) Nobody has technical knowledge on how to implement it
2) It is slower than other technologies
3)It is not available on platforms outside of Mac OS9, MS Windows *fuckin'whateverthey'recallingitnow*
3 again)It doesn't scale to other platforms because nobody accepts its security risks
4)It is being used in an anti-competitive way to other computer platfroms, ie "flood the market with crap to drown out the competition"
But I'm sure you already Gnu that.
The bank robber was Willie Sutton.
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
This is getting totally out of hand. I want to be able to re-use my music, in the formats I want, at the encoding standards I want. This is like telling me I can't copy it to Minidisc.
The bottom line is that the current product is so undesirable that people will waste their time trying to find pirate versions with questionable encoding quality rather than buy it.
They should be putting their efforts into:
* Making the packaging worth owning
* Making the music worth buying
* Adding other features that are worth owning
Anyone with an ounce of business sense would realize that its cheaper to simply provide enough value to make piracy a non-issue.
jonathan
You are hereby requested to cease and desist using the acronym WMA, as it is not compliant with Microsoft® Corporation's current legal trademark notation. The new acronym shall henceforth be referred to as MRWMTMA, for Microsoft® Windows Media(TM) Audio format.
Thank you. All your base are belong to us.
Microsoft=Monopoly
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
A press release discussing most recent additions to the suit can be found here. (This is an extension of a previous suit which covers Windows Media, Microsoft Reader, and many other MS products, which are mentioned in the last paragraph of the press release. Unfortunately, I can't find a description of the original suit at the moment.)
sound compression wasn't invented so people could play mp3s or whatever direct from their computers; it was done to facilitate transferring files over slow links.
;)
nice of the industry to provide already compressed sound files, though, so we can all skip that step
Why is it that many people who claim to support standards have such atrocious spelling and grammar?
The sheep will use whatever encoder comes installed with their operating system and whatever format that encoder happens to encode to, as long as it's fairly small. We will eventually hit the point where .WMA is all you can find and so few MP3s or OGGs will be available that the music industry can easily suppress them.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
*WMA is dying
Yet another crippling bombshell hit the beleaguered *WMA community when last month IDC confirmed that *WMA accounts for less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of the latest Netcraft survey which plainly states that *WMA has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *WMA is collapsing in complete disarray, as further exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *WMA's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *WMA faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *WMA because *WMA is dying. Things are looking very bad for *WMA. As many of us are already aware, *WMA continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood. FreeWMA is the most endangered of them all.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeWMA went out of business and was taken over by APPLE who sell another troubled OS. Now APPLE is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *WMA has steadily declined in market share. *WMA is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *WMA is to survive at all it will be among OS hobbyist dabblers. *WMA continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *WMA is dead.
*WMA is dying
I think the competing NoAudio standard well be more effective in controlling pirates than this scheme.
... a great feature in the software. You can play a cd, tape, etc. and 'record what you hear'. So you can hook up your cd player to your line in and record it just like you did with tapes. Then you have an unencoded wave file that you can convert to .mp3 or .ogg ( you DID keep an old copy of your .mp3/.ogg player/recorder right? ). I know that its a pain in the ass, but its a way around the crap that the industry is handing out. I just hope that someone takes the industry to court because you can still make a backup COPY of you music/games/programs. The industry will only step on us as long as we let them, bitchin will not change anything, action can.
Math is like sex. People who get it are popular in class, people who don't are not.
for that particular tune ? No, well I am afraid sir that we are going to have to bill you for the joint listening option. If this kind of thing happens again sir we will have to bring the IP Police in, now we don't want that do we ?
Unless the Mu$ic Indu$try(TM) strong-arms the electronics manufacturers, the WMA standard will face a difficult time gaining market share. There is already a large variety of consumer electronics that play the MP3 format. (think portable boom-boxes with CD players...) Yes, many of the portable memory-card based MP3 players support the WMA format, but many of the other consumer devices do not. (please forgive my lack of extensive research... I'm sure some of them support WMA as well...)
I think the Mu$ic Indu$try(TM) is already sunk... MP3 has taken a stong hold on the consumer market. I myself have several gigs of MP3 content (most of it hard to find where I live), and I'm considering purchasing some sort of MP3 compatable CD player... hours and hours of commercial free music that's easily portable and not broadcast dependant... and with more and more MP3 compatable options available to the consumer, the Mu$ic Indu$try(TM) faces a steeper and steeper climb to the top.
Doesn't this all really come down to distribution channels anyway? The Mu$ic Indu$try(TM) has lost grips on it's distribution monopoly, (thanks Internet!!!) and is only now starting to show it's knee-jerk reaction to digital technology.
... And it does not force the WMA standard. Mod Taco down for trolling.
The music industry cannot force the adoption of any standard--only the government can try to do that, and it is doubtfull if they could actually do so. Consumers determine what standards are adopted by spending their money.
This proposal doesn't hurt anyone any more than the already bashed-to-death, non-standard CDs, that don't play in standards compliant CD players.
I personally would love it if the music industry would provide high-quality, pre-ripped versions of CDs that I purchase. That way I wouldn't have to take the time to rip them myself, and I wouldn't have to take special measures to backup the 30+ gigs of music that I own. It is well within their rights to do this in any format that they want.
Now, I personally don't use WMP files because I am cross-platform (W2K, WXP, MacOS X.I, SuSe Linux), but this proposal doesn't hurt me. I am against any scheme to limit what devices that I can use to read the files, but THEY CANNOT STOP ME FROM DOING THIS. I just won't use their files, and will continue to make an analog recording to MP3 when I buy a CD. Besides, I often find that analog copies sound at least as good as the digitally ripped versions. It just takes longer.
I loved the idea of MP3.COM of providing MP3s of songs that I could demonstrate that I owned by inserting a CD. I think that the record industry made a big mistake when they killed it. I have never traded or downloaded MP3s of songs where I do not already own the CD.
Since I started using MP3s my music buying has increased form about 3 CDs a year to 40+ a year. All because I can rip the CD to my server, stuff the CD in a crate and never look at it again. I hate carying arroung CDs because the break and get scratched. Now I don't have to. I just need to get that new 48gig laptop HD so I can take my whole
Oops. Yeah, I accidentally replicated her vocal frequency screwing around with the WMA. Then I did a few more tweaks just for the hell of it and I figured out how to make it generate endless songs about her ex-boyfriends. It was pretty weird.
The proper utilization of current technology would be a DVD walkman with compressed music. By my math I come up with over 60 hours of music per disk.
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
or is the following quote from the story just a CLASSIC example of Lawyer Double Speak:
:)
"Federal law allows people to make personal copies of songs but does not require record companies to stand aside so consumers can do so."
Now, IANAL and all, but it seems to me that if there is a Federal law allowing me to make a personal copy of a song, and the Record companies do something to prevent me from doing that, that they are breaking the law. I mean, that's like saying "You have the right to walk through this door, but we don't require the doorman to actually unlock it for you." And THEN, if you pick the lock (because the doorman is being obstinate) they throw you in jail for violating the DMCA!! Boy, I sure love living in a country owned by corporations. You always have something to talk about on a weekday.
where's your sense of patriotism??
What about an Internet Radio station, for instance, that whishes to conform to the RIAA rules and pay the licensing fees for the music played?
If CD's can't be ripped, where will the source music come from. Are there digital versions of the songs that can be purchased from the record companies for "legitimate" purposes?
"The world is a construct of forceful imagination. Those who don't know walk around in the reailties of those who do"
> Screw your fair use. It's only fair of you pay for it.
I buy a CD, and I like to use my PC to listen to it. Because of SunComm or Macrovision, it won't play in my CD-ROM drive, so I need a digital copy of the songs. They provide WMA files right on the CD for me, so all's well.
Oops. I don't run Windows.
Now, what were you saying about paying for it?
Virg
Cd's are well entrenched into our society right now, but the fun stuff is at the edge. Namely, DVDA (That's Digital Versatile Disc Audio, you perv) and Audiophile (A refreshing look at old technology. LP style records using a very high tech manufacturing process and extremely tough vinyl. No digital->analog conversions here, baby. Very limited manufacturing runs due to the expense and low market appeal. Remember the /. acrticle about the guys spending $150k+ for a true 'audiophile' listening experience. This is what he had.) You can see many new albums being released with the DVDA style, which makes life a dream for people who want a highest quality possible rip. Dvda uses the same mpeg 2 compression that DVD's use. So, whip out your handy-dandy DeCCS software, and rip the audio straight off the disc. Since you are reading the data off of a the DVD, including checksums, you will get a flawless rip. Current rippers use a sector-by-sector read to try and get a good read, and they often fail since Redbook audio doesn't have checksums for each sector. But DVDA does. DVDA is also recording at a digital quality higher than cd's, and maybe DAT tapes (DVDA is 192kbit/s @ 48khz; cd's are 128kbit/s @ 44.1Khz)
THe moral of the story is, if you're an MP3 collector who is just interested in proclaiming to your IRC friends "WH00T! I got 2 petabytes of Tori Amos!", they want to slow you down. For real audiophiles, we've moved to the next best thing (tm) already.
Toodles
Toodles D. Clown
You know, I'm also against this whole non-rippable CD thing as well as MS's monopolies but I've recently gotten away from mp3's somewhat.
:)
That's because a few months ago I got a Sony MZ-R700 (about $200 then) minidisc player. (I have no affiliation with any electronics company). It is about 1/4 the area/size of a CD player so it is completely portable. The minidiscs cost about $2 each and they can hold up to 300 minutes per disk. The battery life is more than 40 hours (rechargable in the unit) and I can use a USB-to-optical connection for a straight digial rip. All I need to be able to do is play the thing. I know I can't transfer the files off the minidisc, but we're really not supposed to be doing that too much anyhow, right?
I had been waiting for mp3 players with > 64 megs to come down in price but this seems to make much more sense. Once I heard that minidiscs can hold so much, I completely swapped and haven't looked back. Also, I can just pull out one disc and put in another! I don't need to reload the unit with other music and erase what's already on there. You just can't do that with the solid-state players...
Just something I thought you'd all be interested in. Best wishes.
The music industry wants to maintain it's profits. It has two avenues it can pursue. It can try to put everyone in jail by paying for horrible legislation, or it can try to find some technological solution. It's fairly obvious that the first solution is a bad one and must be fought tooth and nail. But why does everyone on slashdot demonize the RIAA for choosing the second option. I am more than happy for them to choose that one, especially if it keeps them from pursuing the first further than they have already pursued.
The Problem is the the RIAA and MPAA want BOTH options.. They want to lock down the media and and then Stuff you in jail under the DMCA if you dare to break their copy protection.
Loose my credibility or loose me LEGAL rights to make personal copys... I'll give you 3 guesses what I'd rather do..
If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur. --Red Adair
muahahahahaha. Oh yeah, the lameness filter. La di da di da di dum de dum de dum dum dum de doo dee daa.
Someday Microsoft will use this power to push around the record companies, just as PC manufacturers were bullied through oppressive contracts. Someone needs to teach them some history.
Suck it up if YOU do
What's to stop a user from using a regular component cd player with digital outs to record near perfect digital copies?
Besides being *very* annoying this copy protection doesn't achieve anything....right?
There\'s no place like ~
* Making the packaging worth owning
* Making the music worth buying
* Adding other features that are worth owning
1. Add image galleries to CD's in the manner of quite a few Anime DVD's. Everyone wants to see images of their favorite rock stars, especially if they are attractive pop idols. I know that I would much rather stare at Britney's pom-poms than listen to her music.
This won't work because these images would be 'copyrighted' and the first one that made its way to alt.fan.(starofyourchoice).binaries would invalidate the whole scheme in the eyes of the industry.
2. Include animated, musical screen savers featuring the rock star who's CD is being produced.
Again, if these were any good at all, they'd end up on Usenet and Gnutella faster than you can blink. The RIAA would balk at that point.
3. CD Media has never been cheaper, especially in large, bulk quantities. Start including 'extras' discs in all CD distros. Include things like interview tracks, Music Video mpegs. Tabulated sheet music, etc...
The Industry has repeated promised to 'lower' the price of CD's once they became cheap and easy to produce. I think that we can all see that this was a load of unmitigated bullshit, since it should have happened around '85 or '86. They wouldn't *dream* of including an extra CD in any package without charging more for it... probably enough to make it not worth it again.
4. Include 'Approved' logos and images for fan use. When Neon Genesis Evangelion anime was released in Japan, Gainax Co published a website that contained several web-targeted (ie: Low resolution) graphics that could be freely used in fan websites. Fans could and still do use these graphics, most of them keeping in mind the rules that Gainax asked them to follow when downloading them. NGE is one of the most popular anime ever. A lot of that has to do with how well Gainax treated its fanbase.
This won't work because American executives are ignorant and uncaring. Saying that a logo would look like crap on a t-shirt or poster because it was low resolution would never be understood. It looks great on the screen, therefore, it will look good on anything else, at least in the mind of a coked-up record executive. Even if said executive did understand that, he's much more concerned with the bottom-line that customer loyalty.
5. Put music on discs worth listening to.
Seriously, when did record executives know what sounds good or is fun to listen to. All they care about is what sells.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
I bought an mp3/cd player today and it supports WMA... the instructions are hilarious... it says 'if a wma file is copy protected, then "PROTECTED" will be displayed and the player will skip to the next song'... hmmm, to use free mp3 or restricted wma, damn thats a tough choice :)
Just for curiosity's sake, here are the albums I have in my collection that are over 70 minutes long.
Sepultura - Chaos A.D. - 01:10:02Bruce Cockburn - Live - 01:10:07
Nick Warren Amsterdam CD 2 Of 2 - Global Underground: 018 - 01:10:26
Pearl Jam - 15.06.2000 Katowice - Disc 1 - 01:10:29
Ozzy Osbourne - Speak of the Devil - 01:10:32
Ramones - All The Stuff (And More) Volume One - 01:10:34
AC/DC - Live - 01:10:36
Soundgarden - Superunknown - 01:10:36
Iron Maiden - Live After Death - 01:10:49
Roger Daltrey - A Celebration The Music of Pete Townshend and The Who - 01:10:53
The Tragically Hip - Live Between Us - 01:10:57
Tori Amos - Boys For Pele - 01:10:57
Nine Inch Nails - Children Of The Night - 01:11:04
Metallica - Garage Inc. - Disc 2 - 01:11:12
Iron Maiden - The X Factor - 01:11:21
Tool - Undertow - 01:11:22
Madonna - Something to Remenber - 01:11:26
Henry Rollins - Human Butt - Disc 1 - 01:11:33
Pearl Jam - Live On Two Legs - 01:11:40
Beethoven - The Complete Symphonies - Vol 1 - 01:11:40
ZZ Top - The ZZ Top SixPack - Disc 1 - 01:11:42
Various Artists - Sub Pop 200 - 01:11:43
Alice In Chains - MTV Unplugged - 01:11:50
Jr. Gone Wild - Simple Little Wish - 01:12:02
Chatterbox - Despite - 01:12:02
Iggy Pop - American Caesar - 01:12:02
Metallica - Wherever We May Roam - Disc 2 - 01:12:05
Dio - Magica - 01:12:09
KYUSS - And The Circus Leaves Town - 01:12:16
Metallica - Live Long Island 20/12/91 - 01:12:17
Ottmar Liebert + Luna Negra - The Hours Between Night + Day - 01:12:25
Metallica - Metallica Latino `93 - Disc 2 - 01:12:35
Rage Against The Machine - Revolution - 01:12:35
Talking Heads - Sand in the Vaseline - Disc 1 - 01:12:38
Sepultura - Roots - 01:12:38
Pearl Jam - Katowice, Poland 06.16.00 - 01:12:40
ZZ Top - Tejas / El Loco - 01:12:48
Hawkwind - Spirit Of The Age - 01:12:48
Various Artists - The Saint - Motion Picture Soundtrack - 01:12:49
U2 - Rattle And Hum - 01:12:51
Various Artists - Atlantic Blues - 01:12:55
Roger Waters - Amused To Death - 01:12:57
Philip Glass - Einstein On The Beach - Disc 3 - 01:13:02
U2 - Rubber Ball And Liquor - 01:13:05
Pearl Jam - Katowice, Poland 06.16.00 - 01:13:10
Bob Marley - Songs of Freedom - 01:13:13
Ozzy Osbourne - TRIBUTE - 01:13:14
Wynton Marsalis Septet - Citi Movement (Griot New York) - Disc 1 - 01:13:14
Underworld - Second Toughest In The Infants - 01:13:15
Nick Warren in Amsterdam Disc 1 of 2 - Global Underground 018 - 01:13:18
Type O Negative - October Rust - 01:13:19
Rainbow - Finyl Vinyl - 01:13:22
Oingo Boingo - Boingo - 01:13:24
DJ Nemesis - Album Title - 01:13:24
ICE T - O.G. - Original Gangster - 01:13:25
Guns N' Roses - Live Era '87-'93 - Disc 2 - 01:13:29
Metallica - Dying Time is Here [Live in San Francisco] CD1 - 01:13:30
Judas Priest - Metal Works '73-'93 - Disc 2 - 01:13:32
Metallica - Roaring Through Europe - Disc 1 - 01:13:34
Smashing Pumpkins - Adore - 01:13:46
Metallica - Wherever We May Roam - Disc 1 - 01:13:46
Paul Oakenfold - Global Underground 007 - Paul Oakenfold - New York (Disc 1) - 01:13:47
Henry Rollins - Human Butt - Disc 2 - 01:13:48
ICE T - VI: Return Of The Real - 01:13:51
Madonna - The Immaculate Collection - 01:13:58
Van Halen - Live: Right Here, Right Now - Disc 1 - 01:13:58
Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses - 01:13:59
Sasha - Global Underground 009 - San Francisco - 01:14:03
Various Artists - Greenpeace Rainbow Warriors - Disc 2 - 01:14:05
Various Artists - Slinky Tech-nique - Disk 2 - 01:14:05
Various Artists - Plastic Compilation Volume 2 - 01:14:08
Sasha - Global Underground 009 - San Francisco - 01:14:09
U2 - Salome - The Axtung Beibi Outtakes - 01:14:11
Judas Priest - Metal Works '73-'93 - Disc 1 - 01:14:11
Tool - Salival - 01:14:12
Iron Maiden - Live At Donington - Disc 1 - 01:14:13
Various Artists - Slinky Tech-nique - Disk 1 - 01:14:15
Black Sabbath - We Sold Our Soul For Rock'n'Roll - 01:14:18
Red Hot Chili Peppers - blood sugar sex magik - 01:14:20
Type O Negative - World Coming Down - 01:14:22
Judas Priest - Priest - Live! - 01:14:23
GWAR - Carnival Of Chaos - 01:14:24
Soulfly - Primitive (Digi-Pak) - 01:14:24
Metallica - Infernal Gods - Disc 2 - 01:14:26
Brian Eno - The Drop - 01:14:30
Dvorak - Basic Dvorak - 01:14:32
Dvorak - Slavonic Dances - 01:14:43
Various Artists - Greenpeace Rainbow Warriors - Disc 1 - 01:15:05
Dream Theater - Awake - 01:15:16
Dvorak - Complete Music for Violin and Piano - 01:15:18
The Who - Tommy - 01:15:24
Bob Marley - Songs of Freedom - 01:15:24
Adam Sandler - What The Hell Happened To Me? - 01:15:30
Madonna - Erotica - 01:15:42
The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Electric Ladyland - 01:15:49
ICE T - Home Invasion - 01:15:55
Jimmy Page & Robert Plant - No Quarter - 01:15:56
Blue Oyster Cult - Career Of Evil - The Metal Years - 01:15:57
Guns N' Roses - Use Your Illusion II - 01:16:18
Metallica - Re-Load - 01:16:24
Guns N' Roses - Use Your Illusion I - 01:16:27
Beethoven - The Complete Symphonies - Vol 1 - 01:16:43
Metallica - Live Shit: Binge & Purge - Disc 1 - 01:16:53
Metallica - All Hell Breaks Loose - Disc 1 - 01:16:58
Pantera - Official Live:101 Proof - 01:17:02
Deep Purple - Made In Japan - 01:17:12
Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson & Steve Vai - G3 Live In Concert - 01:17:14
Dvorak - Basic Dvorak - 01:17:19
Michael Jackson - Dangerous - 01:17:27
Scorpions - Hurricane Rock - 01:17:28
eurythmics - GREATEST HITS - 01:17:32
Various Artists - Platipus Records Volume One - 01:17:36
Delerium - Semantic Spaces - 01:17:41
Ozzy Osbourne - The Ozzman Cometh - Disk 1 - 01:17:43
Tool - Aenima - 01:17:46
Various Artists - Masters Of Misery (Black Sabbath Tribute) - 01:17:47
The Cult - Pure Cult - For Rockers, Ravers, Lovers & Sinners - 01:17:55
Metallica - Infernal Gods - Disc 1 - 01:18:07
Franz Schubert - String Quintet and Quartets - Disc 2 - 01:18:08
Various Artists - South Park - Chef Aid - 01:18:08
Bob Marley - Songs of Freedom - 01:18:08
King Diamond/Mercyful Fate - A Dangerous Meeting - 01:18:12
Iron Maiden - Best Of The Beast - 01:18:25
Judas Priest - Rocka Rolla/Sad Wings Of Destiny - 01:18:32
Various Artists - Platipus - Volume 1 - 01:18:34
Franz Schubert - String Quintet and Quartets - Disc 1 - 01:18:56
Tool - Lateralus - 01:19:17
Metallica - Load - 01:19:18
Scorpions - World Wide Live - 01:19:43
The Sisters of Mercy - Some Girls Wander By Mistake - 01:19:58
"If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he's sorely mistaken." Bush on bin Laden
I was merely demonstrating that WMA uses more system resources and is less efficient than MP3.
.wav files.
In what way? You get superior sound quality at a lower bitrate. It is not less efficient because it takes more horsepower to decompress - you get smaller file size and higher compression, which requires more computation power - as much as anyone who's purchased a PC in the last 5 years has. Did you actually do anything to measure the efficiency? Or did you just play an MP3 and then play a WMA file, and note which worked and which didn't?
If your only concern is use of CPU time (and clearly not efficiency), then use
One must remember that the RIAA and other big music define piracy as not paying EVERY time a piece of music is played or heard. I'm sure that if they could, these people in their unbridled greed would attach a device to everyone and send people a bill for hearing a song, whistling a tune or otherwise pirating THEIR(?) music. So this is all part of that.
BTW, I just sit around and see all of the money that is lost because people steal everything including air.
So lets see here, somebody writes a WMA->MP3 or similar conversion program, and tada, look, they've pre-ripped all the tracks.
And boo-hoo to the DMCA. It's done such a good job of preventing the distribution of DeCSS...
WMP has been ported to the Mac. M$ thought of this..
I listen to music, and normally I buy about one full price CD a month. I never download MP3s, and I have just a few CD copies.
If I can not be sure that a CD I buy works as it is supposed to (that is, being playable at every CD player I will ever own) I will not buy it!
The reason I use CDs is that I find it the most convenient way to listen to music, and to store music, right now. I know that when I no longer wants to listen to my CDs, I can convert them to any other format I like.
If I no longer will be able to convert the CDs, I probably wont buy them in the first place!
If CDs wont be playable at all in an ordinary CD player, ripping and copying music will suddenly be worth the effort even more than it is today.
The music industry just tells everybody that it is doomed by proposing these rotten changes to CDs.
And by the way, I have bought quite few CDs this year - not because I have copied them, but because little good music has been produced this year.
Seems that the last time I looked at this that it only supported one or two video cards - Nvidia, and something else. Also it required XFree 4.x, and a few other things. Also minimum CPU had to be a 400 MHz pentium II. Don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but this solution has a few limitations.
Australia: http://www.air.org.au/
New Zealand: http://unearthing.net/
European: http://www.shef.ac.uk/misc/rec/ps/efi/elabels.html
US: http://www.musicisland.com/home.htm
World, Roots, Folk, Blues: http://www.newpages.com/npguides/music.htm
A mixed bag with a little bit of everything: http://www.music.indiana.edu/music_resources/recin d.html
Just a whole big bunch of labels: http://www.insounds.freeuk.com/links.htm
A catalogue system for finding specific artists: http://www.pan.com/indie/
An independent media portal: http://www.digitalindependence.org/
Google's record label information directory: http://directory.google.com/Top/Arts/Music/Record_ Labels/
Labels of all shapes and sizes: http://www.bandguru.com/labels.htm
There's a book called The Ultimate Guide to Independent Record Labels and Artists : An A-To-Z Source of Great Music by Norman Schreiber
Otherwise, entering a favorite style along with the words independent record label is bound to get you somewhere. Or research who favorite major label artists were with before they got signed - a lot of musicians start with indies before they hit a big contract. Indies that distributed one artist you like may very well handle more.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
If they want to use 'wma' as a technology, licensed from Microsoft, on their CD's.. more power to them. IT's not up to ME to dictate what format they use for CDs.
What did you think they would use.. mp3?
What I can do... is fight things like the DMCA that make it illegal to rip tracks to my computer for my own convenience.
"I think this is a glimpse of the future," said P.J. McNealy, a digital-entertainment analyst with GartnerG2, a division of research company Gartner. "This meets both sides' needs. It gives people the compressed audio (to play on computers), and it protects copyrights."
It does not meet both sides' needs. People don't want to play compressed audio on their computers, specifically. They want to listen to the music they buy at their convenience, in whatever format that entails. Right now, MP3 is popular, and home computers are a prevalent playback platform. Next year, it might be Ogg Vorbis, or something that hasn't yet been invented. People most decidedly do NOT want to be told how and when they may listen to music they have bought. They just want to listen. The details of formats and platforms are unimportant in the long run. If the music can be coded into any digital format, then it can and will be transcoded into whatever format the listener needs at the moment for his convenience, either by resampling from the analog signal jack, or directly transcoding a digital music file.
Edith Keeler Must Die
I have been using Shuffler (forget what it is currently called) and have had no problems ripping any downloaded WMA files to WAV (doesn't work well if it's straight WMA -> MP3), then just use another app to convert WAV -> OGG/MP3, any files I have ripped to MP3 using the WMA->WAV->MP3
sound just as good as the original WMA (and the MP3s work after the WMA file crapped out)
Hello there?... anybody???
Seams that the mic is broken... ho well... nobody would listen anyway...
If i can play the CD's on my Linux box why should i ever consider buy another CD???
Good luck everyone!
I think it's that simple.
I can go to my local music store and pick up a tape for $9.00, but I have to pay $15.00 if I want it on a CD, why?
I can go to the video store and pick up a movie for $13.00, but I have to pay $20-35 for the DVD, why?
So we all know that CD's are better than tapes, but we don't want to pay an extra six bucks to listen to music on a medium that is actually cheaper to produce. So what do we do? We push back. We make MP3's, we share them on Napster, Gnutella, Audio Galaxy, etc. We screw them back.
If you could get that brand new CD you wanted for $9.00 you'd be less likely to rip it from a friend. But you can't. So you push back.
As for the WMP format being used as the "standard" on new CDs, that is just bullshit. MS and the recording industry are just scratching each others backs on this one.
This IS a blatant misuse of Microsofts monopoly. Oh but they will get away w/it. If lawsuits are filed, MS will just release WMP for Mac and everyone will just look the other way. I for one will not. I don't have a problem w/IP, be it Microsoft's or the recording industry's. But I am sick and tired of hearing the word "standard" thrown around as if it actually meant something. Something that only works on Windows is not a "Standard" -- it is a lock-in mechanism. MS wants to lock us into windows.
I think companies should be required to implement new technology on all platforms -- or if they claim that is too difficult -- open up the specs so that it can be implemented by others. That can be a "Standard". And if they refuse to, they should lose their right to bitch and moan when someone circumvents it.
Very good work, but you ignore most of the meaning in the post to make your point. Refute these:
1.) Unprotected CDs play in my CD-ROM drive without difficulty.
2.) They don't label which CDs are protected and which aren't, so I have no way of knowing whether the CD will play of not, and by the time I find out, I've opened it so I can't return it.
3.) They provide data files, but in a format that I can't change and can't use, and say that this protects my right to fair use.
Sorry, but the "gotta buy a CD player" argument doesn't fly, since their effort to prevent piracy has also stepped on my ability to use the CD in a legal fashion, and they didn't (and won't) tell me which of the CDs will or won't work as advertised. Something as simple as a warning label would validate your argument, but until you can point out such a label your argument is meaningless. And before you go down the whole "CD-ROM isn't a CD player" road, the CD player in my car, which is just a player, and which uses data-style caching for skip prevention, won't play them either. What can you say to that?
Virg
I have a rio800 with 64 megs and I tried to pack as much songs as I can by using a lower bit rate like 64 or 96.
The problem is that mp3 sucks at these bit rates. I found wma to be pretty good at those low rates.
So far I've been using wma format to pack as much songs in and feel very guilty.
I don't like wma format because of its silly restrictions. Is there a better mp3 encoder or anything that would give me good quality at lower bit rates?
"If a show of teeth is not enough, bite
I didn't really have the attention span for that much music anyhow. If you could just give me a disc with like three or four three minute songs that'd be best because honestly I can't keep focussed long enough to listen to more. Also, I'd prefer if the songs were very predictable and uninteresting so that when I do lose focus I won't be missing much.
Just because YOU want to listen to thought provoking extended albums doesn't mean the rest of us do. Now I'm going to go buy myself a Starbuck's coffee and see if the newest Britney Spears album is in yet at Virgin.
Obviously anyone who ambushes people with goatse man is a incorrigible cyber-terrorist and should be locked in an iron box with spikes on the inside.
I recall seeing somewhere that some RIAA or MPAA executive was asked about this (about CD costing more than Cassette/Vinyl or DVD costing more than VHS, even though CD and DVD cost much less to make) and his answer was that the customer was getting more (better quality, more convenience) and so that's why they pay more. Perhaps the story just slowly morphed over the years ...
More power to 'em.
If they want to use a format I can't play, I'll just have a great reason not to pay them for music.
Since I already stopped paying them when they sued Napster, and haven't looked back, this affects me not.
Well I am not scared. As soon as the cd's are released with this nw format that can't be riped, someone will just make a program to rip them. And If I go to buy a cd and it has the new formats, I don't buy. Why give cash to people who want to take away the rights of people. Personaly, I have 2 copys of every cd I buy. One for the car and one for my cd changer in my room.
my 2 cents plus 2 more
In the rare event that I buy big-label stuff, I only buy via secondspin.com. I may need to wait a few months, but I've always been able to find what I wanted eventually.
The only exceptions I've made to this policy in the past 4 years have been buying my wife a CD or two, and the latest Enya album (I simply couldn't wait).
I do stream a lot more off of MP3.com these days, too.
Method of processing duck feet
I think they are working on a way to exploit the lossy compression of mp3 to make music extremely less enjoyable to the person listening to the MP3 version
Which would be nearly trivial for encoders to filter around. If (for example) they are exploiting peculiarities of the current version and last few versions of the Fraunhofer, Xing, or bladeenc engine, that won't hurt LAME or Ogg.
I think that the next version of CD Ripping software should read the bits from the CD, and then use a non-lossy compression to compress it down.
cdparanoia + gzip will work, as gzip compresses a .wav file (whose format is nearly identical to a Red Book track) to a lossless format. FLAC performs lossless compression optimized for audio signals.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Tool.
the music industry blamed napster for it's stale selection and dismal sales. now that napster is gone, they blame gnutella (and others). i blame poor promotion, shitty bands, and the industry changing from music-based to money-based. selling cookie cutter bands that imitate another successful band. this is what i believe caused the music world to suffer the past 5 years.
i legitamately own about 500 CDs. you can imagine what a pain it is to organize, find, and play my music. i bought an mp3 player (neo 20gb), encoded all my cds and take them everywhere. now the music industry wants to limit how & where i can transfer my music. if i can't take it with me along with everything else i own, i dont' want it.
with these restrictions in place, i may never buy a cd again until they remove these weak copy protection schemes which affect the fidelity of the music anyway.
I love how they admit that it's an imperfect solution, but in fact isn't this just what you guys have been asking for?
It allows you to exercise your fair rights to make a backup copy of your audio, and hinders the attempt to pirate the tracks.
"MP3's lead could change quickly, however, if CDs are routinely released with easily accessible Windows Media versions of songs onboard"
Oh, right, because now that we want to pirate we can't, because we can't rip the tracks, and it surely isn't possible to convert WMA into MP3 and distribute that. Or to just strip the WMA of the protection mechanism. Nope, can't do that.
Oh wait...
If God gave us curiosity
So they screw me out of cash (cd opened, can'r return)
Then return it, telling whomever you meet that the CD doesn't play on your equipment and (if necessary) asking to speak to the boss, the boss's boss, on up to the person who sets the return policy. In the United States and many other countries, most products by default have an implied warranty of merchantability, i.e. fitness for the purpose for which it is sold.
And then thew wil use a windows only format wich is again useless to me.
So run the Windows operating system in a PC emulator such as Bochs or Virtual PC.
Will I retire or break 10K?
The solution is obvious, also from the article:
If this is the case, perhaps a bill needs to be introduced so that, "no private or corporate person shall take steps that interfere with the fair use provision of the copyright law."
IANAL, but it seems that a law that protects the individual from prosecution (in this case, for fair use) doesn't go far enough in protecting his right to have access to that fair use.
Let's get pro-active, here!
-Eldurbarn
For those that do mind the longer rip - what they're doing is ineffective. Basically, they're stepping on the heads of people (like myself) who buy CDs and rip them for their own use.
Here's the brilliant bit - if I expect that I can't buy CDs and store the tunes on my home and work boxen without much work, my path of least resistance becomes to just start downloading tunes instead.
> You will need to get the new players and you will not be able
> to listen to the CDs wherever you want.
I have two new CD players which will only play some CDs. The old single player works, but the new car CD player (and my 100-CD changer which is a stereo component, by the way, not a computer component) won't play them, the file type of the digital files they provide is useless to me, and not being able to listen to CDs I paid for because the companies don't want to tell me whether they're protected is unacceptable recourse. Since the original discussion involves fair use rights, I can still say that the record companies are screwing me. I frankly don't care why, and neither does the copyright law whose fair use clauses they're violating. The nature of the law is such that they are not allowed to forbid me fair use to protect against violators. If they want me to play by the copyright laws, then why are they so quick to violate them? That qualifies as an ethical violation, and hopefully that woman in California will win her case against Charley Pride's label, thereby proving that it's also a legal violation.
Virg
Think about it: The record labels make more on the "old stuff" (the guy who posted about going out and buying every CD from Rage Against the Machine) than they do from selling new albums (with some minor exception).
So by eliminating the ability to explore new artists cheaply (pay only for bandwidth) they eliminate tons of catalog sales, which are really their bread and butter.
Who did what now?
+6 bitchin
Who cares who courted whom? The fact that Microsoft offers the recording industry what they want does not make it right for them to force my choice of digital music vendor. To go back to the original example, if Bridgestone offered the auto industry tires that mounted easier than other brands, it would still be wrong to insist that I use Bridgestone (perhaps by voiding my warranty for using a different brand). Moreover, since Microsoft does not offer a WMA player for Linux, the recording industry is attempting to force my choice of operating system by forbidding me digital music unless I run Windows, because Microsoft is making their lives easier. That's way, way out of line.
Virg
Rather than whine and bitch about this stuff, I put my money where my mouth is. In February, Prince and the NPG launched http://www.npgmusicclub.com, a website that sells music and videos from Prince, the NPG, and other artists, for $7.77 a month or $100 a year (The $100 version also provides special concert seating, CDs, more music, and other stuff.). I can download and play it all with a proprietary player, or I can download it all from just about any web-browser (The site uses flash, but it can be navigated without flash.) and play the mp3 files on an OS of my choice. This month Prince will be posting his new album in entirety for memebers, before it ever hits stores.
Of course, Slashdot rejects all my submissions about this. The truth is, Slashdot does not want you to know about alternative music sources and support them, as that does not generate the massive amounts of postings and ad-viewings that people ranting about Microsoft, the government, and the RIAA do.
"Just one more brick in Microsoft's continuing monopoly..."
Really? So it hasn't anything to do with doing something about the widespread crimes that are taking place on the internet?
The Primary reason people rip/download music is because CD's are too expensive. $20 for a CD! Plus most of the marketing for a lot of the music is marketed at the younger/more tech savy/poorer population. I would guess if they sold CD's less then $4 a pop. then a lot of the sharing of music would go down. And if they start complaining about the loss. Have them cut their marketing department. Mabey just mabey there will be more good music coming out into main stream, because they will become popular because of maret and not corprate brain washing. Supply and Demand. If the Price is to high Damand goes down and Supply rises. That means make it cheaper. Not yell at the population for not daminging their products.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I'm building a beowulf cluster with an infinite number of nodes for this express purpose.
Your mind is squeezed by a blast of pain!
The music industry gloats as people rush to buy the last "real" CD's before they all become "copy protected," only the discs never seem to become copy protected. But we keep hearing about it how it's coming.
Want to make something copy protected? I have a microphone and a tape recorder right here that says you can't.
...or ananlog outputs on CD players.
From what I've read, that's the music industry's plan. After all TV's going completely digital in 2006 or so whether we want it or not...
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
I've got one of those on my 286. XP puked on that too. Piece of crap.
Sounds suspiciously encrypted...better not use any DMCA-violating software that would bypass that encryption...
You say you can't play the format back, yet you also claim that you play Diablo II a lot. Since Diablo II only runs on Windows, and Windows comes with support for WMA built-in, I think it's pretty clear that you *can* in fact play it back.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Fine inasmuch as MP3s do under WinAmp, which is to say running on an idle box, both play back just fine, but if I try to do anything else, they'll skip uncontrollably.
Of course I'll be modded down for going against what you want to hear...
Easy does it!
This comment has been submitted already, 276865 hours , 59 minutes ago. No need to try again.
Now go back to playing Tempest and Battlezone.
And actually, probably still true in your example, unless you're modifying the hardware. What exactly are you going to do with all those vectors with a bitmapped display?
Ogg will compare very well to WMA all the way down to 64 Kbps.
Generally, tests done with WMA have shown that, although it's better than MP3 at low bitrates, it's still not particularly good.
And Vorbis decoding isn't much more stressful than MP3 decoding, so his computer will decode Vorbis encoded files fine.
-- Help Digitise the Public Domain at DP.
Looks like we need some kind of media file translator for Linux.
This could read files of various types and either play them or can save as various other types for which there are already players.
It could be written as a skeleton at first, with options for 'cartridges' to be added that support various translations or other operations. These could be developed by anyone, under open source.
The main application and future cartridges (modules, objects whatever) could be relayed on the same networks that share the files?
Ahem, Us audiophiles have embraced mp3 quite well.
I define audiophile as the type that spend several thousand building their own speakers because most everything out there is either overpriced junk or just plain insanely overpriced. We use normal wire instead of %23.00 a foot no-OX ribbon cable that supposedly sounds better. (12 gague lamp cord sounds as good as anything you can buy at any "audiophile" shop.
most of the time audiophiles are just jerks with way too much money that know very little about audio and audio electronics.
OK this is what i forsee happening with all these playback formats that the music industry is forcing on its buyers. People are going to eventually get fed up and quit buig their cd's, bands will go to other record labels (or start their own.. its cheap enough to stamp out your own cd's) and sell them online, DIRECT, without the publishers taking 50% (or more) of the profits and to get their album made without these restrictions. I for one wont by something to listen to, that potentially wont allow me to listen to it (eg. those protected cd's that wont play in cd players).... kindof defeats the purpose of buying it in the first place dont you think ;9
I will bend your mind with my spoon
These sound amazing considering the bitrates. I have a very hard time telling the difference from 128 Kbs MP3s, and MP3s at a comparable bitrate sound like utter garbage.
Not that I want WMA to be a standard, but it's a damn good codec for small files."War is God's way of teaching Americans geography." -- Ambrose Bierce
When I buy blank media, I'm not just paying for the media itself -- I'm also paying a "piracy tax" on top of it, because a percentage of the media is used for piracy, and this is how the RIAA (and MPAA) try to make sure they don't miss out on any of that loverly money.
So, given that I've bought my blank media, I've paid my piracy tax -- isn't this an implicit license to copy the material? After all, I've paid for the rights to do so...
I had one, but the wheel fell off.
Could it, just possibly, that the reason the music industry is pushing WMA is because it allows them to protect copyrighted material and is widely available?
Why does everything you people don't like have to be attributed to the Evil Empire?
WMA offers the same, if not better quality than mp3s. It allows relative security of copyrighted material. And, most importantly, it plays on 90%+ of all desktops out there.
THAT is why the music industry is pushing it.
how are you getting 300 minutes per disc? I know you can record in Mono to double the capacity, but that still leaves me with 148 minutes. I'm just curious where you got 300 minutes from.
Just to remind you of this project...
OpenMusic
Minidiscs are not cool. They are not versatile, and I wouldn't even consider them portable compared to what I use. I much prefer the option of having all of my music on my hard drive(80gigs of storage) with the ability to burn any 700mb of that to a CD-RW to be played in my portable-digital-music-player.
:)"
.ogg to hit 1.0 so I can re-rip my cds, get a Riovolt(once they have an ogg codec), and never use propriatary media formats ever again.
Right now I do this with MP3s. I have 7gigs of MY personal cds ripped to my home computer. I *never* have to dig through 100+ CDs to switch albums, and I can mix songs and albums in Winamp as quick as I can think of the the song I added to the playlist. Currently I also have my entire cd collection burned to cds in mp3 format. Down from 120-some cds to 11 cds. ALL of my 120+ albums of music, a mp3-cd player, AC adapter, car-adapters, and extra batteriess, all fit in one easily-portable cd carrier.
Minidisc makes a lot of this impossible.
" I know I can't transfer the files off the minidisc, but we're really not supposed to be doing that too much anyhow, right?
The fuck with what we're "supposed" to be doing. I have fair use rights to do whatever I want with the things I buy. I'll never buy music I can't store on my hard drive and make unlimited copies of for my own un-corporate-regulated purpose. You may say that's irrelevent since you're putting music onto your minidisc off of rippable cds, but if minidisc caught on, you'd be buying albums on minidiscs, and BAM, suddenly you can't do a thing with it. (besides analog ripping, which is unsatisfactory)
CDs aren't just more useful, they're a hell of a lot cheaper to use for digital audio than Sony's proprietary minidisc BS.
"minidiscs cost about $2 each"
Why the hell would anyone pay 2$ for 300minutes of storage, when you can get CDs that hold more than twice that for 33 cents each and cheaper?
And then be forced to only use it with Sony's proprietary players, and barred from doing anything with that music that Sony doesn't want you to?
Right now I'm just waiting for
about two years ago, this "amazingly uncrackable digital format of video disc" became popular. Aboout a year and 9 mos ago, DVD ripping and writing became pretty popular as well. Seeing as how basic security models state that systems with security built in will be inherently more secure than those with security as an afterthought, and given MSFT's track record on building security enhanced products, I suppose i'll wait to laugh about all this when a 9 yr old living in the Florida swamp lands cracks whatever "protection" is implemented with the use of an abacus and some toothpaste.
-- http://www.criticalassets.com
'Cause you download 'em, and they say "you don't have a license to listen to this" error message. So I find IP address of moron sharing WMA files and call FBI from payphone leave anonymous tip say WMA files is kiddie porn encoded jpeg* available from this address. ha ha ha hacked by chinese, bitch email copy of ReB!rth ORIOW ! 0wnz J00 13370 Maxx Out gr337z 2 NV4DR Pachinko Boy V!z4rd XTZnU7Z3
/dev/urandom long enough eventually all the works of Shakespeare will fly by the screen, some algorithm somewhere will turn any file of any arbitrary length into kiddie porn
* because just as if you cat
AC's cheerfully ignored
So are we not supporting the rights of musicians to make a living. It seems the issue here to me is the high sales cost when they can be made for a dollar or less each. Most of that money is going to the label. Musicians need to make a living too.
Where do you want to be, What are you doing to get there.
before posting.
Maybe the music industry doesn't know that but WMP8 in my experience asks the user if they want to enable digital rights managment or not.
Fair use says you should be able to copy it to other mediums as long as it is for your own personal use. A CD with pre-licensed WMA files will give you just that.
I use encrypted WMA files for a simple reason. It allows me to have a few gigs worth of music that I paid for and nobody can sue my company for me hosting a "pirated music server." See, all the music is encrypted and tied to that machine. Nobody can download the music since to them it will be useless. WMA doesn't sound worse than MP3 when you have shitty $20 headphones. And the size of the files is no worse either.
Also, if the CD comes with the music pre-ripped I can just copy the WMA files and turn on the license, I don't have to go thru the process of ripping the CD.
What I don't want is the kind of copy protection that renders the CD useless in a CDROM drive. That is desperate on their part. If the CD is still usable in the PC then I am all for it.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
Britney Spears generated more revenue last year than all of Microsoft. Who is using who?
Now that's the real question. If I burn a copy of the CD, will I be able to play it? MP3 is just a transitional phase as other formats are coming (OGG and MP3Pro) that will change the way we are doing things now. To make matters worse, I just bought a new Kenwood CD/MP3 player for my car (kicks serious ass btw). Realistically, what's to keep you from using something like Soundforge, CoolEdit, etc to record a wav and turn it into an MP3 just like I do with my old LP's. We will always find a way to bypass copy protection and if we ALL share it and don't buckle into the pressure what are they going to do, take us all off to jail. I say buy all their damn copy-protected CD's and rip the hell out of them until they have to give in! I will buy CD's from people who put out a good package with good music. It just doesn't happen to often. Go buy Einsturzende Neubauten's "Silence is Sexy" to get a great package and awesome music with a bonus CD. That's what people need to be doing. Here's another thing the artists should do. Put out a few MP3's or whatever from their latest recording, but don't sell it in stores. If the consumers want it, they have to come to the concert and buy a copy there for 20 bucks. Put copy protection on the discs. After 6 months, release all the songs to the net on MP3. Lather, rinse and repeat every 9 months for mucho dinero. Then they sell the live CD's from the previous tour along with their latest offering. It can't be too hard to create a following that would soon have people trading all their stuff online and having them go to the shows regularly to get the latest stuff. God knows, I should have been a rock group manager :)
The Music Industry and Microsoft can do and say and rattle whatever they want. Water always follows the path of least resistance, and they are pissing uphill. Consumers vote with dollars, and the product that they have been selling lately is mediocre at best. Now they want adults to jump through flaming loops to enjoy the music they bought (since most sheeple are still grabbing shrinkwrapped plastic) and they expect savvy kids to roll over and except SDMI?
This is so doomed to fail that i liken it to the music industry sawing off thier own legs. Bravo RIAA! Well Done MPAA! Your marketing weasles have convinced you that the impossible is possible and that you are of course much smarter then we are. Then you expect the high courts to defend the fact that anyone that doesn't fall in line is a criminal. yeah sure, that will last you... morons.
I am less afraid of the scary orwellian music industry as i am kind of delighted to watch it self-distruct. It won't be quick, but it will be painful.
They're buying the Backstreet Boys, aren't they?
...Retard.
This year's models have ATRAC3 which allows
2 and 4x compression with none and minimal loss of quality.
WMA? So what? This is even better than ripping the "un-rippable" tracks through a cinch cable and a second machine.
.WAV data that would have sent to the audio mixer to disk. You end up with a old-school WAV file that can be easily encoded.
This will allow to playback the WMA files with WinAmp (WA has an WMA input plugin). Also, WinAmp sports an "direct hard disk" output, effectively saving the
+++ath0
You obviously have no clue how much music equipment and recording studio time cost, and you obviously refuse to pay for music. You will continue to steal it until your means of theft are taken away.
I can understand those who want to preserve their right to make backup copies or mixes of music they already paid for. But nothing gives you the right to illegally reproduce copyrighted music. Especially a producers decision to charge more for it. Thats his decision.
What a cop-out. You might as well be saying "I'll continue to shoplift at the Gap until their clothes are as cheap as Wal-Marts". U=THIEF!
A P266 with 64MB of RAM can do software DVD playback flawlessly...RUNNING WINDOWS 2000...whats the deal with WMA? (I've watched videos this way)
...that all standalone computers, legacy computers, etc, will be outlawed. You'll only be legally permitted to own and operate a computer that is equipped with a permanent internet connection and loaded with an approved, spy-ware type of operating system and approved software apps that will allow the both the software vendor and the govt to surveil everything you do with your computer. This draconian scene will be accomplished by giving very low cost or perhaps even free broadband / high bandwidth network connections to everybody who wishes to buy a new 'conformist' computer. Your old, existing computers will not be grandfathered and possesion of them will become a terrorist felony crime.
In Canada, it IS fair use to lend a music CD to a friend.
I have been using the minidisc format for over 5 years now. The RIAA can have its way with MP3s, WMA, or whatever else for all I care. As long as I have Optical Line Out (via my unofficial sound blaster add-on card or my portable cd player), I can make DIGITAL copies of music, regardless of the musical format.
You're going to put your business model up against the collective intellect of every computer programmer who likes music...
(Apologies to Scott Adams)
They don't get it, do they ? Its almost like a physical law that governs the universe. .mp3, .ogg or whatever.
There aint nothing that they can do to stop some bored teenager being able to turn the format back into
It's one of those "best kept secrets" that indeed, minidisc is one powerful format. The media is cheap, the players last forever. With it, you can pretty much blow off MP3, WMA, etc.
Computer users show themselves unwilling and unable to comply with existing copyright laws, is it really any big surprise that the copyright holders would find a surer method of protecting their IP?
Will I buy a CD if I have to buy a new CD player to play it? I don't think so!
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
For the life of me, never will music industry
schemes make any sense to me as long as peer to
peer software and sound cards that let you
record onto your computer exist.
1) I take the speaker output from my sound card (or my cd player) and route it into the input of an external recorder (that sits next to my computer in my studio).
2) Play my "Oh No! It's protected" song and record however many tunes I want.
3) Route the Output of my external recorder back
into the input of my soundcard.
4) Re-record onto the computer as a wave file using easily available recording software.
5)Convert the wave file back into a MP3.
6) Upload it to a peer to peer network. Heck I can even do a search on the artist and message the resulting users that might be interested in what I have to speed up the propagations.
7) The music industry has pissed off enough people like me, that there will be enough people doing this simple little business for their favorite tunes. It only takes a few to people to do this and the copyprotection is moot.
Why do we even bother even giving any attention to
the stupid music companies and their silly plans?
What are you talking about? The music industry has eaten essentially every internet-related music distrubution channel over the last year. They haven't lost grips at all. You act as if the MP3 format is alien to the music industry, did you forget who just shelled out the bucks for mp3.com (and its underlying my.mp3 technology)?
maru
www.mp3.com/pixal
This article completely ignores musicnet, which is BMG, EMI, Warner Music Group and Zomba using Real's format and DRM technology... it's weird to see "music industry" this and "music industry" that in the article without any mention of the musicnet versus pressplay battle that is pending... and the fact that a noteable portion of the music industry is in bed with Real...
maru
www.mp3.com/pixal
"Meef mt muh Mprmmghmnt mmf Mksmsst..."
(spits out Gates' cock)
"We at the Department of Justice fail to see how the RIAA using WMA to protect artists from those evil nasty pirates is illegal in any way.
And damn, Bill, you need to wash this thing."
-Kasreyn
We hear two (mainly) viewpoints in this debate: the RIAA (and their Evil Empire compatriots, evidently) and the linux-loving open source who want free information for everyone (ok... at least there are people who want to have the rights to their property maintained, which I agree with. However, what about the musicians? Do they care whether their music is being copied from a legally owned CD to a legally owned computer? Do they care what format it is in? Do they care how people manage to get it onto their computers and portable MP3 players?
/. posts) have pointed out, music retail sales were up during this period. The musicians were more popular. Any ten year old kid would listen to Bye, Bye, Bye and go buy the N'Sync CD. (Unless that ten year old had good taste.) Despite efforts by Metallica etc. this music sharing continued, until the RIAA and the courts stepped in. And then music sales went down. (Maybe because there is no good music out these days, but who knows.)
Probably not.
Music sharing has been around since tape recorders. It was simple enough (heck, I did it when I was 8). We'd copy songs off CDs or the radio, and share them with our friends. It was harmless, and only helped to exted people's interest in many different bands. This type of thing continued through Napster and all the rest, namely that people would put their favourite songs online and others would grab them and try them out. As many studies (and
All this, however, is immaterial. The musicians probably are not even aware that all these steps are taken so that there is no way for their music to be spread except through radio (sadly, often narrow-minded). Heck, it's probably illegal to lend a CD to your friend... why I don't know.
Bah. Big rant. Probably incoherent. Whatever.
I just hope either a) this doesn't happen or b) this does happen, people realize how stupid it is, sales go down, and the RIAA backs down.
Oh well...
Sig: Where I'd put something witty if I could think of it.
My Eastsidaz CD "Dueces N' Trayz" features copy protection. Every time I put the CD into my player, a different track comes up in the CD player - perhaps some anti-rip measure?
More significantly, my MSMedia player will not play the CD back at full resolution, but instead filters the audio (compresses the hell out of it, distorting the low end).
Experiments using the scientific method have lead me to believe that this is the only CD in my collection with this problem - SO FAR.
But... guess what? The CD plays perfectly on my G4 - which is quickly becoming my nexus for Media, as my PC fades into becoming strictly a business machine.
...or ananlog outputs on CD players.
From what I've read, that's the music industry's plan. After all TV's going completely digital in 2006 or so whether we want it or not...
But all sound MUST have an analog audio out, unless they have a better speaker technology. Otherwise, at least the wires leading to the electromagnets must be carrying the analog sound. So you could take apart your speakers and splice the wires to input wires from a mic and there you have it. (This is assuming that the d to a conversion is done in the speakers, because otherwise, it would be even easier...)
But then, they would say, that the speakers are an anti-circumvention device and taking them apart would be a violation of the DMCA!
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Crackers do exist outside the territory of the United States of America... How are your friends at RIAA going to put say Romanian cracker in jail if he/she breaks the copy protection?
Hmmm. Ever heard of a little-known Russian programmer who worked for Elcomsoft? Hint: His name is Demitri Sklyarov
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
How in the world is this a misuse of Microsoft's monopoly? I think it's a very well executed business strategy. The RIAA wants a technology that enforces their IP and Microsoft is providing it. The fact that it isn't supported on your platform doesn't make it a monopoly issue.
And of course Microsoft wants to lock you into Windows, it's their business. But this is neither underhanded nor illegal. They are providing a genuine service that millions of people want. If this went through, it would be a great feature for them.
I don't think they're in any position to make decisions, let alone important decisions.
Uh, I don't think so... The Rio, Nomad, HipZip, Pocket Concert, and iPaq players support WMA- there's some others...
The Yepp, Digisette, Expanium, Memorex MP3 CD, Archos, MPzip, TDK Mojo, and literally hundreds of OTHER units don't seem to support WMA files right at the moment. It's more of an unsupported format than you'd think and the secure, DRM controlled, format version is currently pretty much Windows-only.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Not to mention that MDs can be rewritten to (erased etc) millions of times. You don't need a computer to record music to them. You can erase tracks wherever you are. You can record using a microphone (eg. conferences, lectures, live concerts etc). In these ways MDs are far superior to your set up.
Not to mention the cost of the unit! Your setup (including CDwriter and Mp3player) would cost several times more than an MD set up .
So before you go around saying Minidisc = SuCK, you should possibly consider the whole argument.
Vector Quantization, also known as "VQ" is used for things like encoding video and has NOTHING to do with vector or line based displays and everything to do with raster images.
Next time, read up a little before commenting...
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Well, Target doesn't carry the Nomad and neither does Wal-Mart. But those stores DO carry some of the mentioned MP3 players. Just because Best Buy, CompUSA, CircuitCity, etc. has it doesn't mean that Joe Sixpack has one near him- or that everyone's buying the stuff that you think they are. Don't assume either way, save by what one can actually buy off the shelf and for reasonable prices ($150 or less...)- and most of the WMA players don't fit that bill.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
You might want to read the post next time...
"The Rio, Nomad, HipZip, Pocket Concert, and iPaq players support WMA- there's some others... "
That was IN the post I made that you replied to.
Note that "Nomad" IS mentioned.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
"if you're an MP3 collector who is just interested in proclaiming to your IRC friends "WH00T! I got 2 petabytes of Tori Amos"
If they are like this, I hope they are not only prevented from copying Tori, but also flayed alive, and beaten with large bats.
Since that pathway has an effective copy control/protection system in place, anything that strips that out would be a circumvention device.
As long as the DMCA is in place and they're working to get SSSCA in place, you're at risk of being hauled off.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
The fact that WMA is a lossy format is lost on you isn't it?
This means that it inserts artifacts into the sound when it's reproducing it.
MP3 is also a lossy algorithm- different in nature to WMA's algorithm. This means different artifacts.
That means you're better off "ripping" the track with an analog patch cable because the scheme you're suggesting will produce less than ideal sound files in most cases.
In any case, this is a circumvention technique- actionable under the DMCA. You take your chances with this and I'll bet money future versions of WinAmp (if there are any) won't have that feature for that reason.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I sincerely doubt the EU and other countries will welcome the WMA format unless it is made public and patent/copyright free. Other countries will likely follow suit. Next the RIAA will follow MPAA's lead and start region encoding CDs. Wait, aren't they planning on dumping CDs in favour of the DVD-Audio standard? Boy the RIAA and MPAA sure are great when it comes to America's public image. Apple pie and all the copyrights to choke on.
Thats what scares me. This isn't the first music venture Microsoft has. About 3 years ago, a technology called HDCD was introduced to me. It used to be owned by some company Pacific Sound or something. I checked the HDCD website the other day, and now Microsoft is the proud owner of this format. Can't they at least stay in the computer business and leave music alone?
When the terrorists hit the US they went after symbols. They attacked the WTC and the pentagon because they represent the power of the US. The WTC represents our economic power and the pentagon represents our military power.
Now ask yourself this. Can you think of a couple of other things that represent pervasive influence of the United States? Here I'll name two.
Microsoft and Hollywood.
The entire world uses windows and Bill Gates is the richest man in the universe. This makes Microsoft a primary target of attack for anyone wanting to put a dent into the technological edge the US has over the rest of the world. If I were a MS employee I would take a hard look at where I work and just how much those options are worth.
Hollywood also represents the pervasive influence of American Culture. American TV and Movies are shown all over the world and are seen as disruptive and ungodly influences in other cultures. If I lived in LA I would take a hard look at other places that might be pleasant to live in.
Now I am not saying that this *should* happen or that it would be good thing if it did happen. To me they just seem like logical targets for any zealots wanting to "punish" America.
My point is this. Nobody in the US is able or willing to "teach them some history.". Certainly not our govt nor the sheeple consumers. If a lesson is to be delivered it will most likely come from foreign agents.
I repeat. If I was an MS employee right now I would be shitting bricks.
War is necrophilia.
IANAL, but this sounds very dubious. If a law upholds my right to perform an action, surely a record company (or anyone) must stand aside to let me do so. Failing to comply is deliberately obstructing the law and infringing my rights. What am I missing here?
CNET also says "Label executives note that music CDs are the only mainstream entertainment medium that does not have some kind of copy protection built in."
They have to be kidding. What copyright protection is built into audio tapes? TV? VHS? None that I know of, or at least, none that isn't trivial to bypass and probably is bypassed by every copying consumer without them even knowing it. For all I know, VCD may have anti-piracy mechanisms on the disc, but they sure as hell copy easily enough. I'm told. Last time I checked, the video out on my VCR worked pretty good on the video in on another too, for all CNET mentions VHS protection.
This is such an utterly pointless fight. If I can see it, I can copy it. The only way to prevent this is to ensure that I am seeing it at reduced quality, which is a step I doubt consumers will leap to embrace.
Spending millions on pointless technology protecting an indefensible model or spending millions reinventing the business model to find new revenue sources that accomodate a changing market. Why is this such a hard choice?
Uhmm, they are the electronics manufacturers. Most all large music firms are tied to an audio manufacturer. Example: Sony. Why do you think that with all the demand and a glut of inexpensive base components, the big audio manufacturers haven't flooded the market with mp3 compatible CD portables and car decks? Could it be because Bob across the hall works for the Mu$ic Indu$try?.
This shouldnt be that much of an issue, look at all of micro$ofts other amazing plans. This should just be another reason for systems to start crashing on them. But then to take the heat off of yet another failure they will take to the standard cowards route and start bad mouthing other products to take the focus off of their own faults.
My sausage tree didn't grow, does that make me a bad mommy?
Actually that's not true. Fair use is not a right. Copyright law does not require that copyright holders make content copyable in order to guarantee fair use, it only stipulates that copying within certain limitations and for certain purposes is not copyright infringement.
Of course for digital content you have the extra hurdle of the DMCA. If a copyright holder chooses to encrypt their content and you break that in order to make a 'fair use' copy then you haven't infringed copyright but you've broken the DMCA.
Of course IANAL
Ok, you are too cool to broadcast Top 40 music. What has that got to do with the issue at hand? So if the album by the artist that I like is copy protected, I should be just as satisfied with another artist music? This is not how music buyers reason. They buy discs by artists, not by record labels.
The problem here is that the doesnt have a choice. Since a record company has exclusive deals for the albums artists and groups make, there is no alternative than to buy the music in whatever package the company choose.
A better wayt would be to let the record companies sign individual nonexclusive deals with the artist to distribute and market the same album. The one who makes the best artwork, gives the pest price of throw in the best extras will sell the most. If I can get my album from two different record labels, only then can I choose the label that I prefer.
Big, profitable artists would have no trouble making deals like that, since they could finance the recording of their music themselves. For smaller bands, who rely on the big co. for production costs, it could be trickier. Here exclusives are brobably nessecary to get a label to support new artists. But someone (some union maybe?) should really look into the kind of sell-my-whole-career contracts that artists are signing.
...um...like...a sig...
Not that I consider piracy a crime...
AFAIK there is no DRM system that is supported everywhere. And I think that for DRM to work it must be closed source.
At one stage the DRM 'decoder' must decrypt the stream into plain WAV or whatever. At that point having sourcecode you can divert the audiostream and thus circumvent the DRM.
And as long as it is closed source, it won't be supported everywhere.
My ways of getting around copy protection.
:oP)
1) Listen to the radio...it's free
2) Go to live music events (they are free if you sneek in or know the promoter
3) Make your own music.
Simple effective and whats more those stinking middle men are not getting one cent of my money.
The article starts out with "The Record Industry," in reality they refer to themselves as the "record industry." Music created by talented and untalented alike is basically a cog in the industry's machine. If the cog doesn't fit the industry model it will be modified to fit or tossed aside. NO ONE signed with a major record label doesn't have to compromise their art on behalf of the label. If you make music and have the desire to become sucessful do everything you possibly can to maintain the ownership of your work--then you can give it to or sell it to whoever you please. Be careful, if you're really good the "industry" will watch you do all the work and then sleaze in offering to make your life easier. They will compromise your work and not only steal it from you--they will take a part of you along the way. They they will decide for you who should be permitted to listen to it. I'd much rather have whomever, wherever, ripping my music and enjoying my work then to have a bunch of arrogant, ignorant, brown-nosed weasels ripping my flesh (thanks, FZ.)
PegQuin--I've got a sneakin' suspicion
Has more to do with me choosing an OS I can control. And being "mainstream" has less to do with Windows PC's (Realize that Windows only has 200 million or so- Televisions have several BILLION installed. At least 100 times more machines. I'll believe that it's "mainstream" when that happens (which isn't likely...))
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
It wouldn't have anything to do with the 16 MB of RAM and tired old IDE interface in the P/100, would it? See also: only so much bandwidth to use.
I can play NetHack skip-free but using the web or anything more CPU-(or disk-)intensive means skips ahoy. Buffer's maxed, block sizes and polling I've tried and no change.
By the way, Frau AC, it's "incompetent". Or perhaps "incontinent" in your case?
Easy does it!
This comment has been submitted already, 276865 hours , 59 minutes ago. No need to try again.
> And your 8-track player can't play CDs. So?
Miss number one. The old CD player works, but the new CD players don't. 8-track players don't figure in at all.
> It *still* doesn't mean that you can steal music.
Miss number two. I'd be satisfied if I could play the CD I bought on the player installed in my car. Despite the whole argument about personal copies being irrelevant (I'm trying to play the original CD, dammit!), I'd have been satisfied if they used the protection technology and simply put a warning label on the case so I knew it would be a problem. As it stands, I paid good money for a CD that won't play anywhere except the old CD player in my parent's house, three states away. Not only am I not stealing their music, they stole my money, because I paid for a CD and they gave me a coaster.
Virg
...Because eventually bands fade.
But look at this:
For example, Metallica. On CDNOW, their older records like Ride the Lightning are $15. Their newest effort is $10. A 33% increase is enormous. Any album that sells strong enough to stay in the catalog (until they fade away) becomes a cash cow for the label.
Who did what now?