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.

Comments

Who'da thunk it?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Who'da thunk it?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Fair use" does not include unlimited redistribution rights, which Napster and clones zealots have accepted as fact. If a "personal rights manager" allows you to listen to music that *you* purchased on devices that *you* own, what kind of "fair use" are you deprived?

Re:Who'da thunk it?

[Score Whore]

Actually the problem is that I didn't purchase my "device to play the music" that I do purchase. I just finished converting 199 CDs to mp3 for playback on a home built mp3 rack system. Of the 15 gigs (perhaps 2500 tracks) of MP3s that I have, there are a few dozen tracks that I have stolen. If the industry will cave in on their unreasonable ideas, I'll go out and buy a CD for each track that I have illegally.

Yes I do know that most people who have MP3s have collected them via the net. But that doesn't change the situation I'm in.

Re:Who'da thunk it?

[egomaniac]

Yep, my wife has something like 12GB of MP3s on her machine. 99.9% of them are ripped from CDs we own.

The remaining 0.1% she snagged from the net solely to avoid buying an entire CD for the one song she was interested in (nevermind the dozens of CDs we *did* buy for the one or two songs we care about...). And they accuse *us* of piracy. Brilliant.

Re:Who'da thunk it?

[kevinank]

When I write 'Information Wants to be Free', I'm not trying to anthropomorphise Information. What I mean is rather that information itself is intrinsically freely copyable; that efforts like laws or copyrights that restrict that copying are running against the most prominent features of the information itself.

From that the reader is meant to deduce that applications which do allow free copying of data will out-compete those applications which restrict data by virtue of their better adaptation to the real characteristics of the information.

So you write:

Information only 'wants' to be free insofar as its creator wants it to be free.

But this only sidesteps the argument, painting in a disagreement where none exists. The real argument is this: 'The creator of information who allows his work to be freely copied has information that is much more valuable than a creator offering similar information but who attempts to restrict the copying of that information.'

Re:Who'da thunk it?

[roystgnr]

So, you have illegal tracks. Please refrain from making arguments in this case.

I jaywalked from the bus stop to get home this afternoon; I guess I'd better keep my mouth shut too.

Re:Who'da thunk it?

[Chester K]

When I write 'Information Wants to be Free', I'm not trying to anthropomorphise Information. What I mean is rather that information itself is intrinsically freely copyable; that efforts like laws or copyrights that restrict that copying are running against the most prominent features of the information itself.

Information doesn't want to be free. You want information to be free. There's nothing intrinsic about information copying itself --- that requires user intervention to do.

WMA is a resource hog

[Red Aardvark House]

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.

Re:WMA is a resource hog

[spectecjr]

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 have a Nomad Jukebox (which doesn't have a fast enough CPU to update its LCD display in anything like real-time when playing back MP3s or WMAs), and both play back absolutely fine.

Certainly, the CPU requirements for both seem about equal. Probably the biggest CPU hog you've got is all of the flashy visuals from Windows Media Player being transferred across your bus - which WILL cause problems with your sound card.

Simon

Re:WMA is a resource hog

[JesseL]

That Nomad Jukebox almost certainly has hardware codecs for mp3 and wma decoding. It probably has an 8-bit microcontroller for handling the display and reading the HD. Comparing it to a PC is apples and oranges.

Re:WMA is a resource hog

[spectecjr]

That Nomad Jukebox almost certainly has hardware codecs for mp3 and wma decoding. It probably has an 8-bit microcontroller for handling the display and reading the HD. Comparing it to a PC is apples and oranges

No. I can guarantee you that it is software decoding for both; especially as it didn't originally ship with WMA support - that was a firmware add on about 6 months ago.

Simon

Re:WMA is a resource hog

[JesseL]

After some quick research, it appears that the nomad uses a programmable DSP for decoding. Wether this is hardware or software decoding is debateable. I think that my point still stands, that comparing playback on a nomad to a general purpose processor doesn't make much sense.

Re:WMA is a resource hog

[tshak]

That's because WMA has VERY TIGHT compression which requires a LOT of work to decompress. It's definatly not a "hog" in the sense that it was poorly designed.

WMA wouldn't be so bad if it was submitted to a standards body. It's NOT windows only - hence why most modern digital music players have full WMA support. The only problem is that there's nothing for Linux, or MAC AFAIK.

One solution

[SpanishInquisition]

cat /dev/random > /dev/audio

Only listen to white noise, stop enriching those pigs.

Re:One solution

[tuffy]

If I listen to /dev/random long enough, eventually some piece of copyrighted music will result.

And then I'll get arrested for violating the DMCA.

:)

Re:One solution

[dattaway]

Its been mathematically proven also if you listen to /dev/random long enough you will be able to hear the Complete Works of William Shakespere in Dolby Surround Sound Stereo, and violating Dolby's patent in the process. Enjoy!

Re:One solution

[garett_spencley]

Yeah it's pretty much equivalent to buying a Britney Spears cd, except you don't have to pay for it.

--
Garett

Re:One solution

[mansoft]

Oh, please, listen to opensource music:

cat /boot/vmlinuz > /dev/audio

WMA ....

[taniwha]

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

Re:WMA ....

[kaimiike1970]

There is nothing wrong with 'Cascading Style Sheets' I use em all the time... (Although I don't know what programmers have to do with them.)

No more epic albums

[[amorphis]]

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.

Re:No more epic albums

[Tackhead]

> How many albums you know use the full 78 (wasn't it 74?) minutes?

And hey, isn't the fun of MP3 the fact that you can get the 5-10 minutes worth of music in the 78, 74, or 55 minutes on the CD that's actually worth listening to? ;-)

Re:No more epic albums

[sulli]

Hey, there had to be some benefit!

Re:No more epic albums

[[amorphis]]

How many albums you know use the full 78 (wasn't it 74?) minutes?

I think about 10% of my collection (of 300) are longer than 75 minutes. The one I was thinking of was Tool's recent album Lateralus , which would be very different without the 5 minute outro at the end.

Re:No more epic albums

[Speare]

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.

Not many albums even approach 70min of music. Many albums by leading artists don't reach 50min of music, even with a couple years of studio time in four-year tour/release cycles.

Re:No more epic albums

[gmhowell]

When did the last epic album come out?

Honestly, they aren't concerned about those albums. Having less capacity for them is a good thing. It means less flogging of the unimaginative stooges who churn out Britney's latest hit.

(BTW, I consider Dark Side of the Moon an epic album, yet contemporary reviews complained about the short length.)

Re:No more epic albums

[[amorphis]]

The first one I remember was This Mortal Coil's Blood, circa 1991.

I'd guess that they get the extra space by using Yellow Book Mode 2 (no ECC).

Re:No more epic albums

[gorilla]

It depends on what genre you're talking about. Classical CD's are often 60 minutes, and 70 minutes aren't unusual. Note also that the listeners to classical music are the least likely to accept artifical restrictions.

Re:No more epic albums

[11223]

Try "very often".

69 Minutes: Disc 2 of Jimmy Van M's Bedrock (the other is 64)

73 Minutes *each disc* for two discs: Sasha's Global Underground San Francisco

Troll. Try listening to something other than pop-crap.

Re:No more epic albums

[Teferi]

and the price goes even higher.

Re:No more epic albums

[sydb]

...and charge twice as much!

Re:No more epic albums

[Dwonis]

Time to cough up some $ for windows license (all my machines are running Linux exclusively with the noble exception of one PalmOS machine :-))

Yep, and rip it open while running a modified version of Plex86.

Re:No more epic albums

[kubrick]

Yeah, because sasha is an underground artist, like Moby.

I've certainly seen a lot of marketing over the last decade for these two "underground" artists.

It's just a label. Most people making electronic music are just as greedy, money-hungry and prepared to sell out as people in the musical "mainstream". Deal with it.

Re:No more epic albums

[Phroggy]

And you won't be able to do this on Linux because you can't have trusted (from the content provider) environment in open system.

You can run a closed-source binary on an open OS, which could play a closed audio format. However, all Linux users are evil hackers, so if such a binary were made available, it would obviously be compromised within days. Never mind that the people truly interested in reverse-engineering the format won't be hindered by the lack of a Linux binary.

Oh yeah, and nobody uses anything but Windows anyway, so it's not worth their time to write a Linux player, or even to grant a license to a more interested third party.

High Speed Analog Dubbing

[ers81239]

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!

Deal with it.

[akgoel]

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.

Re:Deal with it.

[nanojath]

Garbage. He's not asserting some right, he's simply pointing out the facts: that this format is tied to a proprietary operating system and that means it doesn't play on his equipment. Explain to me why you think this is a good thing.

DRM= Digital Rights Missing

[dafoomie]

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.

Re:DRM= Digital Rights Missing

[Flower]

To play Devil's Advocate here....

What rights are you losing? We're talking distribution of a copyrighted work here and those rights belong to the copyright owner - not the consumer.

Go back and reread the Copyright Office's latest report on the DMCA. Forget about being offended and closely examine their reasoning for why many fair-use arguements aren't applicable when dealing with a digital medium. All of this stuff is fair because bits and electronic signals down a wire constitute distribution. The contract between publishers and society is that publishers have the right to distribute their works as they see fit and then the consumer can do whatever they want with the physical copy of the work they have purchased.

Are you beginning to see the picture?

Re:DRM= Digital Rights Missing

[SubtleNuance]

The contract between publishers and society is that publishers have the right to distribute their works as they see fit and then the consumer can do whatever they want with the physical copy of the work they have purchased.

Backup a moment, part of this 'deal' is that we allow them to abridge freedoms because it encourages them to create. To clarify, we volunteer to *not* do something that is very easy and honest in every sense, that is create a simple copy of some information. we do this because it seems reasonable considering a free-market is supposed to be involved and balance this by dropping prices, increasing features and encouraging innovation (the real kind, not the MS kind).

Now, today, we have the RIAA, a collusive group of plutocrats, buying legislation and agreeing to not compete. They dont innovate: they dont embrace new technologies like the internet to lower costs and lower prices. They dont increase features: instant-cheap-streaming music. What the RIAA dosnt do is provide the balancing act that an agreement like copyright relies on to achieve some sense.

The RIAA acts in concert to control the music industry. It acts in concert to control prices (already found guilty). It acts in concert to not compete on price, technology or distribution methods. It acts in concert to wrangle artists into a do-or-die (see this salon article) contracts. It acts in concert to exclude others from the industry in any way: mp3.com, napster (after it promised to reform).

The RIAA is a syndicate amounting to an effective monopoly. This is also illegal.

So, again, to the issue of what 'rights' the publishers are entitled to... if they were willing to behave as honest business people, and not like a mafia, I might be willing to entertain the idea that we should continue to extend them the privilege of copyright. As it stands today, Id say that the detriment is BY FAR outweighing the benefit people used to find acceptable in exchange for a breach of basic freedom.

cp my.mp3|wav formyfriend.mp3|wav Makes me a manufacturer, the historical role of a 'publisher'.
mail -s Enjoy this great new music &#60 formyfriend.mp3|wav makes me a promoter and a distributor, the historical role of a 'publisher'

In light of our new reality, both the state of the industry and the reality of the digital world, I believe, we should simply abolish copyright.

Simple, easy, honest and very reasonable act on the part of a free and conscience person. (that is cp and mail)

Are you beginning to see the big picture?

Re:DRM= Digital Rights Missing

[Trekologer]

The contract between publishers and society is that publishers have the right to distribute their works as they see fit and then the consumer can do whatever they want with the physical copy of the work they have purchased.

WRONG. The contract is that we, as a society, give the publishers a limited time monopoly over distribution of their works that, upon the expiration of the copyright, becomes part of the public domain. Digital rights systems prevent those works from becoming part of the public domain. They give publishers an excuse to prohibit breaking the DRM system for works in the public domain because there are other works still under copyright. Therefore, even works not protected by copyright anymore will never be part of the public domain.

Toilets marketing

[Alien54]

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."

Sums it up pretty good for me.

These guys are simply criminal. send them to afghanistan for re-education

Already noted:

[ethereal]

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=22063&cid=2364 556

Thank you, and please read the article before posting duplicates next time :)

Monopoly? Not on talent

[idiot900]

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.

Re:Monopoly? Not on talent

[idiot900]

Are you sure that you just don't play the mainstream artists because the station and school doesn't want to pay ASCAP/BMI?

Nope. We play what we please. It's our decision entirely, as students, and we consciously chose to try and support the underground music scene, because our mission is to educate our listeners. If you're interested, we're KWUR 90.3FM in Clayton, MO (a few hundred feet from the St. Louis city limits). Website: http://kwur.wustl.edu

why not a standard??

[turbine216]

why not use a NON-proprietary standard instead of MP3 or WMA???? Why does everything have to be so controlled and so restrictive? They've obviously got a decent idea here (putting compressed digital copies of the CDDA tracks on the same disc as the music), but they've got their heads up their asses in the implementation.

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...)

Re:why not a standard??

[hoggoth]

> why can't they just create another OPEN standard for digital music for use on PC's and portables?

Because the problem of making un-hackable music formats is so far unsolvable. So when they ask 'open standards groups' and their own programmers to do it the answer they get is 'We can't figure out how to do it.' Then Microsoft tells them 'we have a solution to all your problems. Just sign here...'

They are desperate to maintain tight control over every bit of content, and they see in Microsoft a similar philosophy and desire. So they sign...
While the technical community says 'but it doesn't work right... it stinks... it introduces more problems...'. But as I said, they are desperate and Microsoft is promising.

Re:why not a standard??

[turbine216]

that's absolutely right...but i just cannot fathom WHY the RIAA would think that restrictive practices like this would actually INCREASE their profits. Proprietary standards might be "where the money is" in their eyes, but it seems like they don't even realize that the CUSTOMERS are where the money is REALLY at. They push bullshit measures over on the unsuspecting public, and just expect them to eat it up.

I've seen some really STUPID business practices during the past ten years, but i SWEAR TO GOD there have been none more idiotic than those of the RIAA. They are literally shooting themselves in their feet OVER and OVER AGAIN, and they act like they don't even realize it!!!

Re:why not a standard??

[Alan]

The other reason of course is that as soon as a "encrypted CD -> mp3 ripper" is created (and you know it will) they can prosecute users of this under the DCMA. The RIAA of course, having their own herd of lawyers, can afford to do this, while most users don't have gobs of money and will simply buckle. You'll note that the User is not who the RIAA cares about. They are basically saying 'fuck the user, let him lick our nut-sweat' or something similar. They only care about profit and control.

Linus Torvalds actually has great commentary on this whole state of things in his book just for fun, and he talks about how the RIAA and their predessesors have been doing this since cassette tapes were invented, and before. Hey, why let the user get the music that THEY WANT when we can force them to buy the albums we want them to buy and not give them the choice.

</rant>
Sorry, I'm a little steamed at this whole thing.

Re:why not a standard??

[Tackhead]

> 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?

Because they figured that with 650M of data on a CD, that CDs would never by "copyable".

Because when CD-ROM drives came out, hard drives that could hold 650M cost thousands of dollars.

Because when CD-R came out, it cost thousands of dollars, and they figured we'd continue to listen (or dub) music on shiny black boxes with twirly knobs on 'em called "audio equipment", not PCs.

Because when MP3 came out, it took all night to encode a CD-ROM at 128. And most hard drives were only a couple of gigs. And CD-R discs still cost a few bucks apiece, so it was still usually cheaper to buy the album at the store.

Because they never imagined that we'd do anything with MP3s other than burn them to CD-DA. The notion of an MP3 "player" (whether based on CD-R, flash ROM, or hard drive) was just preposterous.

Because when people started trading MP3s, it was over 56K modem links, and it took all night to download an album.

Because SDMI always was, currently is, and will forever be, a WOMBAT - Waste Of Money Brains And Time.

Because they view us as nothing more than sheep for the shearing.

Because open formats like Red Book allowed the sheep to escape the fold.

Because they're damned if they'll ever make that mistake again.

Re:why not a standard??

[Tackhead]

> > why can't they just create another OPEN standard for digital music for use on PC's and portables?
> Because the problem of making un-hackable music formats is so far unsolvable.

And last, but not least, because when it's all in a proprietary format, reverse-engineering of which is illegal under DMCA, and SSSCA becomes law and makes the construction of devices that don't use DMCA-protected propretary technology, they won't care whether it's crackable or not.

If you crack it, you go to jail under DMCA.

If you don't have to crack it because you don't use it, you go to jail under SSSCA.

"How do you want to be arrested today?"

Re:why not a standard??

[garett_spencley]

but i SWEAR TO GOD there have been none more idiotic than those of the RIAA. They are literally shooting themselves in their feet OVER and OVER AGAIN, and they act like they don't even realize it!!!

I just heard on the news last week that record sales were down quite drastically in the last couple months. I find this hilarious considering that they went after napster because it was supposedly hurting sales, when really sales were up during the whole napster craze.

Well they get what they deserve. Napster is gone and record sales are down, just like the their own statistics told them were going to happen.

I don't understand this phenomenon relating to human stupidity any more than you do.

--
Garett

Re:why not a standard??

[why-is-it]

I've seen some really STUPID business practices during the past ten years, but i SWEAR TO GOD there have been none more idiotic than those of the RIAA. They are literally shooting themselves in their feet OVER and OVER AGAIN, and they act like they don't even realize it!!!

Yes, but are you still putting money into their pockets? More to the point, has their over-all profitability been decreased as a result of these "stupid" decisions?

Hey, nobody here likes them, but clearly they know how to run their business to maximize the returns. They have the ear (and probably other body parts) of the politicians, and can get laws passed to reinforce their business model...

Re:why not a standard??

[garett_spencley]

Yes, but are you still putting money into their pockets?

The day that new cd's contain wma encoded song formats I will no longer put money into their pocket.

More to the point, has their over-all profitability been decreased as a result of these "stupid" decisions?

I think so. During the whole napster craze I bought a whole shit load of new cds. For example: Esthero. I liked one of her songs so I downloaded it using napster and then decided I wanted to hear some of her other stuff. I found out that I liked her so much that I went out and bought her album. The same thing happened with Rage Against the Machine. I went out and bought every single one of their albums because I found out that liked them so much.

I would not have done this without napster.

Well, napster is gone for the most part. I still go on openNap servers but all I can find are hits. No more "other stuff". So I don't buy as many cds as I did before the RIAA went after napster.

So I agree with the original poster. The RIAA is shooting themselves in the foot and they are being ignorant about it. The worst part is that because of their ignorance they are going to keep losing more and more money and they will keep blaming it on piracy when that's really not the issue.

--
Garett

Re:why not a standard??

[kindbud]

They've obviously got a decent idea here (putting compressed digital copies of the CDDA tracks on the same disc as the music), ...

Really? How is this a decent idea? There's already perfectly good high-quality digital audio tracks on the disk. So how is it a good idea, to reduce the number of minutes of music on a CD, so as to place redundant, lower quality computer-playable (but not copyable) tracks of the same stuff on the disk as well?

...but they've got their heads up their asses in the implementation.

No, dear. They have their heads up their asses. End of sentence. That the implementation is fucked is just a symptom of how fucked the creator of this scheme is. For the same price, you will get two or three fewer songs per disk, which can only increase margins for the labels. Such a deal.

Re:why not a standard??

[barneyfoo]

No. It's not that we want free candy, it's that we want GOOD CANDY. THAT THAT FUCKING MOLLASSES AND FAKE CARAMEL WITH SHITTY PEANUTS THAT PASSES FOR A SNICKERS BAR. I want quality ingredients, good chocolate, good peanuts. Good nougut..

Same way I dont want fucking BRITNEY SPEARS OR N'SYNC. I WANT FUCKING QUALITY. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?

I DONT WANT CORN SYRUP IN MY VENDING MACHINE DRINK. I HATE CORN SYRUP. GODDAMNIT, GIVE ME SOME FUCKING CANE SUGAR WITH REAL FRUIT JUICES THAT TASTES GOOD. I"LL FUCKING PAY 50% MORE..

But oh that's right, Nabisco, Coca Cola and Snickers and Pepsi have a monopoly on vending machine distribution. Fuck em. In my mind they are worse than the RIAA. Food is the most enjoyable thing in life. We should eat corresponding to our standards of living. And that means good vending machines goodamnit!.

Yes I am insane. F- you.

Re:why not a standard??

[Alan]

Interesting analogy, but not quite. Probably a troll too, but I'll bite.

Lets say I like 8 of the 40 songs on my favorite artist's latest 4 CDs. I, as a consumer would like to listen to just those songs. Seems reasonable enough right? 5 years ago I would have just set up my CD/Tape player and "ripped" those songs onto a tape. Nowadays I rip to MP3 and burn onto my own CD and play that.

Unfortunately the music industry says I don't have the right to do that, nor rip all my music to mp3 to listen to at work, or in my MP3-CD car stereo.

Perhaps a better analogy would be if the vending machines would sell you your snickers bar, but only if you bought the "candy bar pack #3" for $18. "But I don't want all those other candy bars! I just want snickers!" you say. "Sorry, the snickers back is ONLY available in the candy bar pack #3... oh, and removing that bar from the pack and giving it to your friend there to see how good snickers bars are isn't allowed either, he has to buy the candy bar pack #3 for $18 as well."

Re:why not a standard??

[bfree]

Good luck to them prosecuting me, I'm not American and will happily never visit ANY country which would extradite me to the US for breaching the DMCA by playing my music on my Linux supported mp3 player/USB hard disk.

In case you hadn't noticed...

[Snootch]

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.

Just use Clone Cd

[cheekymonkey_68]

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

Buy only indie and bootleg music. Boycott the crap

[aphor]

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.

WMA is crap

[sulli]

Guess it's time to hit the used CD stores again. Will these idiots EVER learn?

Unrippable == Unlistenable

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

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[DickPhallus]

Advert free story:
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-202-7320279-0.htm l

What about CSS?

[Macint0sh]

What about CSS? Are you calling CSS a bad idea? You little...!

What makes these unrippable?

[actappan]

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.

So sick of the attitude

[nanojath]

I am getting so sick of the attitude being expressed regarding pieces like this that this is just some grave injustice being handed down by the Music Gods. BMG, Warner and Sony are not the beginning and the end of music (well they might be the end...)

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.

Could someone at the DOJ please look at this?

[M_Talon]

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.

Re:Could someone at the DOJ please look at this?

[garcia]

I don't even know what to say about all of this. I am so annoyed at the fact that the RIAA seems to think that this is a Good Thing.

It isn't a Good Thing, it is a Bad Thing (obviously).

They have eliminated the free use clause here by saying you can only do it on MS computers. This is a violation of my right as a consumer to do what the fuck I wish w/a product.

I have said it before, and I will say it again. Do NOT take away my rights as a consumer to do w/a product as I please. I bought the CD, I am allowed to make backup copies, resell it, or use it as a frisbee.

Who the fuck is the RIAA to decide that the Free Use clause is a bunch of shit? Who the fuck are they to decide that MS is the one that is going to have exclusive rights to distribute music on the computer? And who the fuck isn't going to buy this shit when it comes out?

In the past several weeks we have seen plenty of proprietary systems for blocking people from copying demo CDs. We get pissed about it but it is their right to block that (as they are promos). No one really cared b/c it was a small group of companies, poor choices of music, etc. Now they want to do this to all of us.

I seriously think that we are going to get screwed over here. If you are going to want music, you aren't going to have a choice but to buy this crap .

I am glad I listen to music that is freely distributable but I do enjoy some music that isn't. I rarely buy CDs now b/c of the insanely high cost but I am seriously reconsidering not buying them at all.

Fuck the RIAA, fuck MS, and fuck whoever is going to let this happen.

-end of rant-

Re:Could someone at the DOJ please look at this?

[theancient1]

I wouldn't be blaming Microsoft here. They're not forcing their technology on anoyone. It's the music industry who went out looking for ways to deal with their "napster problem," and decided the best solution would be to 1) make the CDs uncopyable, 2) include "pre-ripped" music on the CD to satisfy those who have a legitimate need for ripping music. Obviously they're not going to use MP3 or OGG. They'll want to use something that is full of locks and keys, but will work on as much existing MP3 hardware and software as possible, so people don't have as much of an incentive to break the protection. That's WMA. Every software MP3 player I can think of supports it (except RealPlayer, I assume.) And it's the second-most popular format on portable devices. There is no other choice.

No, it doesn't satisfy Linux users, but the RIAA couldn't care less about that. Do you expect them to come up with their own secure cross-platform restriction scheme, wait for it to be implemented on hardware devices, wait for those devices to become popular, and then start restricting their music? They tried that. It was called SDMI. It failed miserably. So now they're trying the next best thing.

Microsoft thought ahead and created a product they knew there would be a demand for. How they got it supported on everything from Winamp to the Rio on up, I have no idea, but I might assume that everyone else saw a potential for a restricted music format as well, and wanted to make sure it would work on their equipment. You cannot fault them for creating a product they knew there would be a demand for. Unless Microsoft was holding a gun to someone's head saying, "you'll implement WMA in your MP3 player or we won't sign your driver," it's simply smart business.

There is a monopoly issue in this story, but I would look in the other direction. The music industry is trying to force restricted digital music on the market in order to preserve their stranglehold on music distrubution. If you want digital music, you're going to get it in a format that is provided by the RIAA, with the permissions set in whatever manner the RIAA sees fit. If any company other than Microsoft had a restricted music technology that was available on the vast majority of heardware devices, I'm sure the RIAA would have gone with it.

Re:Could someone at the DOJ please look at this?

[M_Talon]

Unless Microsoft was holding a gun to someone's head saying, "you'll implement WMA in your MP3 player or we won't sign your driver," it's simply smart business

Heh...you wanna bet that won't happened or hasn't already happened? That's the MS way. Look at their latest licensing agreements.

However, you're right about the distribution monopoly as well. The industry is desparately fighting to maintain its monopoly and extend it into the digital world. Should music be free with no compensation to the artists? No, but on the other hand I want that $20 a CD I spend to go primarily to the artists and second to the industry, not the other way around. Until that day happens, I won't buy CDs except for the rare occassion when I want to support a band. Now, if they go with uncopyable CDs, I won't buy them at all. WMA be damned, I won't support an extension of MS's illegal monopoly and RIAA's unethical one.

Re:Could someone at the DOJ please look at this?

[sulli]

You really think John "You Have No Rights, Get Over It" Ashcroft will do anything to promote consumer choice?

In my view, this boils down to "PR"

[garoush]

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.

Re:In my view, this boils down to "PR"

[Zathrus]

No, they're doing it because with an analog copy (read: tape) you degrade the copy everytime you make a downstream copy. The copy of the original is not as high quality as the original. The copy of the copy is less so. And it doesn't take many generations of copying before it really starts sounding crappy.

Digital copying is perfect though. It doesn't matter if the copy is 1st generation or 100th generation - it sounds EXACTLY the same. So as far as the music and film execs are concerned this is a FAR, FAR bigger threat.

This is why Disney didn't release on DVD at first (and instead tried to support DivX). This is part of the reason that HDTV is going nowhere fast. It's why talks of HD DVD are going nowhere and why DVD-Audio and SACD only have analog outputs on the players. The RIAA and MPAA are all totally and utterly freaked by the idea that they will lose control of distribution. And distribution is something the two groups have a pretty ironclad grasp over right now.

Funny though... most of the artists don't seem quite so freaked. At least for musicians. Actors, directors, etc. seem more concerned though, but they generally make more money off films than musicians do off albums.

Re:In my view, this boils down to "PR"

[isomeme]

Tape copiers are less dangerous for two reasons:

1. Tape copies are analog, so they degrade with each copy. Chains of three or more copies on standard consumer equipment result in sound quality poor enough that most people consider it unacceptable.
   
2. Sharing tape copies requires transfer of physical media. A single non-rights-managed digital file can be distributed to thousands of people in a matter of minutes, limited only by bandwidth. Tape copies, even with high-speed dupe decks and the like, take much longer to create -- and distribution is at the speed of face-to-face meetings or postal mail.
   

That's why tape copying is no longer seen as a threat, relative to the dangers of digital media copying.

Re:In my view, this boils down to "PR"

[NutscrapeSucks]

The RIAA went on a huge anti-dubbing campaign in the 1980s. They didn't stop unti Congress passed a law that mandated that all music-quality audio tape include an "RIAA tax" to cover losses from dubbing.

Will this severely weaken the industry?

[sulli]

Okay, we all hate the RIAA and their stooges in the copy-protection business. Still, here they are, and this is their latest salvo in their war against fair use.

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.

Re:Will this severely weaken the industry?

[Maigus]

The Sony product failed because it was a high tech toy which didn't do what the people who would or could buy it wanted. The problem is that the majority of the Backstreet Boys CD buyers aren't concerned with being able to use a PC or rip the tunes, they're going to buy anyway.

Slashdot may be an informed group by and large, but our refusal to buy RIAA CDs won't cost them 1 cent in share price. They are going to continue with this idiocy until on of their "copy protection" schemes really keeps the disc from working on more than just a few car stereos.

How do we fight it? I'm guessing finding each of the component CD player units which fail to play the protected discs and call the news media each time it happens. If we can keep the 13 and 14 year olds from buying Discs because their mainstream player won't work due to safeguards which are easily circumvented - then we will have a real argument.

WMA playable under Linux

[DennisZeMenace]

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

EULA for MediaPlayer

[dackroyd]

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.

Re:EULA for MediaPlayer

[Malcontent]

" Every C.T.O. in the world should be alarmed at Microsoft being able to download and run any code they feel like"

Your typical CTO can not pick his nose and watch TV at the same time let alone read and understand a EULA.

Re:EULA for MediaPlayer

[OmegaDan]

updates may disable your ability to copy and/or play Secure Content and use other software on your computer

hmmm ... disable ... ability to ... use ... software on your computer.

Sounds like normal operating procedure for MS products :)

Sure they can do that

[Greyfox]

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.

Re:Sure they can do that

[Greyfox]

That's true, but anyone who could afford a modem and a computer could run a W4R3Z BBS back in the '90s. Most people back then didn't write their own software; the level of ability it takes to actually reverse engineer a piece of hardware and write a driver for it is fairly high. Those are the people the industry is going to target this time around. It's much easier to discouarge a population that small than it is to discourage all the people actually using that software.

Re:Sure they can do that

[Greyfox]

They do the same thing they do with wossisname who came up with the decss process; sue him in California where it doesn't matter what the juristiction is. Or wait until he comes into the country to do a talk and them arrest him and hold him indefinitely without bail for being a terrorist. Don't you keep up with the news?

Re:Sure they can do that

[Malcontent]

We (the americans) recognize no differences in countries. You (the rest of the world) do not have the means nor the desire to resist us. We will go into any country we want and take by force if neccasary any person who we deem to be a criminal. We did it with noriega and we will do it with Bin Laden. Once you are labeled a terrorist or whatever there is nothing you can do to stop us from coming into tyour country and getting who we want. We are not above killing anybody who stands in our way either. So unless you have some serious weaponry or are a citizen of Israel (who are untouchable) then you better heed.

Re:Sure they can do that

[bfree]

Hmmm, I guess all the hackers will be Chinese in the near future cause we know the American bullies are not going to try and touch them! In fact, I can't imagine the US declaring an EU citizen a terrorist for the like of this either so yet again I think it is simply the States shafting themselves with their own stupidity.

The world has written off Pentium owners, deal

[Ars-Fartsica]

Its called planned obsolesence.

Re:The world has written off Pentium owners, deal

[SCHecklerX]

I dunno.

The machines I have that do *real* work (web hosting, mail, squid proxy, mp3 jukebox, dhcp, dns, etc) are a pentium 233(hacked to be that way by adding a resistor to the motherboard) and a Pentium 133. The former has 128MB of ram, the latter a mere 48 (and he's doing a lot of embedded perl stuff along with running an IRC server and mail server, and is also an IPChains firewall)

Re:This looks familar

[sulli]

the story wasn't copy-protected, so it was copied and replayed

WARNING: Blatant Karma Whoring Post

[Amazing Quantum Man]

The bank robber was Willie Sutton.

Why can't they just make their product desirable?

[hirschma]

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

*Ahem* that is MRWMTMA, not WMA.

[gosand]

Dear pawns,

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

Re:*Ahem* that is MRWMTMA, not WMA.

[fobbman]

"Thank you. All your base are belong to us."

...not to mention the midrange and whatever is left of the highs after compression hacks the hell out of them.

Do they know about MS DRM patent infringement?

[Allen Akin]

Going with WMA is a risky move at the moment, given that Microsoft is being sued for infringement of DRM patents.

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.)

Re:Do they know about MS DRM patent infringement?

[kindbud]

InterTrust Technologies Corporation (NASDAQ: ITRU), the leading inventor of Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology, announced today that its second amended complaint in its lawsuit against Microsoft will add claims that Microsoft's "product activation"/anti-piracy technology infringes InterTrust patent claims.

This company's market cap is $97.8M (share price just above $1). MSFT can just buy them out and settle the case that way. Hell, AOL could buy them and use the patents and licensing as leverage to keep MSFT from doing to them what they did to CPQ and DELL.

I see little risk to anyone, except for InterTrust, of course. But then, they probably did this so someone would buy them out.

Re:Do they know about MS DRM patent infringement?

[blowdart]

I've dealt with both Intertrust, Microsoft and Real for DRM solutions for clients.

Intertrust's solution doesn't work. At all. Killed off Windows 98 machines, needed a permanent TCP/IP connection when I looked at it, didn't run on Win2k and don't even think about Mac versions.

Real's protection code is floating around on the net somewhere.

MS stuff is easy to implement, but using Version 7 licenses, which are more secure, means ruling out playback on the Mac. Also due to weirdness in Mozilla's DOM support, license predelivery (pushing a license from a web page, not when the file is played) doesn't work. Works under IE, and Netscape 4. Intertrust's lawsuit is a last ditch attempt of a dying company whose technolody no-one uses.

MP3 is Proprietary

[Greyfox]

The MP3 format is proprietary, it's just that the patent holder hasn't yet managed to extort money out of too many people for witing encoders for it. Kind of like everyone shoots the bird at Unisys and continues to use GIF images on their web pages despite Unisys demanding royalties for them. You don't have to go any farther than the top of this page to find a GIF image on the net.

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.

Competing standard

[briggsb]

I think the competing NoAudio standard well be more effective in controlling pirates than this scheme.

Some sound cards come with...

[Mandelbrot-5]

... 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.

Re:Some sound cards come with...

[ruebarb]

The Soundblaster Live Value does this...use it with a wave encoder...like even free Goldwave, and you're in business.

I use it on streaming broadcasts....a good way to get a copy.

RB

RE: Music Industry Forcing WMA standard?

[carpart]

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.

Is it just me...

[FooDog]

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. :)

Re:Is it just me...

[double_h]

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!!

That's a pretty accurate assessment of how things stand. The Home Recording Act of (I think) 1994 states that you are legally allowed to make personal copies of recordings you've purchased. That is to say, if you copy a CD to listen to at work or in the car, the record companies do not have the right to sue you or have you arrested. It doesn't say the record companies are REQUIRED to give you this right, merely that you haven't broken the law if you do it.

A couple years later, the DMCA comes along, which DOES make it a crime to circumvent copy-control mechanisms. If the door is open, you're free to use it; if the door is locked, you're not allowed to pick the lock.

This is further muddied by the fact that the Home Recording Act specifically mentions "recording devices", and the jury is still out over whether a computer is legally classified as a recording device or not. Therefore, as I understand the HRA, ripping a CD you own onto your computer is still a legal grey area in any circumstance.

Been Screwed

[virg_mattes]

> 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

Re:Been Screwed

[PerfectWorld]

Your analogy is not quite correct. Of course I need a CD player, but there is no specification of who I must buy that CD player from. Pick your vendor ... build your own if you want and have the means.

To play WMA files, I must be using M$ Windows, or at least an M$ licensed WMA player (are there any WMA players for other platforms?). We have here a 3rd party (the music makers) dictating which computer OS I must use. We have a 3rd party that is dictating which software vendor I must deal with. _That_ is the problem.

My car dealer does not stipulate which mechanic I must got to, my barber does not stipulate which shampoo I must use, my dentist (ignoring the ORAL-B/Crest monopoly) does not dictate which toothpaste or toothbrush I must use, and my herbalist does not specify where I must buy my weed ...

I don't use illegal MP3s, or go beyond my 'fair use' rights, but preventing me from exercising my fair use rights via such controls is in direct contrevention of copyright laws.

Go ahead and introduce copyright protection mechanisms, but those controls must function entirely within the realm of copyright law, and they must be cross platform and based on open standards that everyone has free and unrestricted access to.

- Mark

Once again, a little late to stop the leading edge

[Toodles]

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

Maybe that's o.k.?

[Isldeur]

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.

Re:Maybe that's o.k.?

[gorilla]

You can get standard 12cm CD MP3 players, same size as any other CD walkman, which play 12 hours or so on a disk.

Re:Much better than the legal enforcement.

[why-is-it]

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.

But the DMCA has already been passed, and is not going away. And under that statute, it is a criminal offense to circumvent / reverse engineer any copy protection scheme...

Record companies will regret this

[Blue Neon Head]

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.

How to make CD's worth it - but why they won't...

[Bonker]

* 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.

What if people dont buy it?

[Zo0ok]

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.

Tip of the iceberg

[nanojath]

This is just the tip of the iceberg - and demonstrates, among more positive things, that one thing all the little guys need is better methods of cataloguing and connecting music lovers to music they'll love. Nonetheless, if you're in the mood for a bit of an oddessy...

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.

Let's get something straight.

[mindstrm]

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.

They think they "get it" but they don't

[kindbud]

"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.

I'll respect IP when IP holders respect me

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:I'll respect IP when IP holders respect me

[junkpunch]

This IS a blatant misuse of Microsofts monopoly

No it isn't. Not in any way, shape, or form.

If MS was the publisher of the music, then maybe. But in this case, all they are doing is selling their technology to music publishers. The publishers are deciding what technology to use, and they are choosing WMP. The publishers are choosing MS because they have the greatest market share. MS has done nothing wrong here.

I know you want to blame Microsoft for everything, but it's just not the case here. If you want to fault the publishers for choosing a technology that only runs on one platform, then do so. Again, not Microsoft.

Re:I'll respect IP when IP holders respect me

[ink]

We are a capitalist society, that is how it works. If people stop paying 15.00 dollars (18.00 in Oregon), they will drop their prices.

No, your brain is still in "old economony" mode. This is a new economony now. If people stop buying CDs at $18, the media companies will (and have) complain to Congress to pass more laws mandating control. Capitalism doesn't work when the money flows to the government and creates non-free markets (like the music industry, for example)

Case in point, GM is now offering 0% financing on all the autos for a month. That includes Cadillac and SAAB... Why? Because NOBODY is buying new cars.

Imagine that. GM actually has competition; the media monopolies do not.

Not true. Americans are notoriously cheap and self minded (Yes I am an American). If I can get the tracks from a friend, I would get high quality MP3's and rip them to CD using free music match.

Please spare me the sob story. If it were more convenient (to use your logic) to get a CD, we wouldn't need to do this, now would we? Personally, I never do this (and I am an American--- so much for your generalizations) but it is such a pain in the ass to have to drive to the store, buy the CD, take it home, rip it and then file it away to possibly never be used again. If the music industry would just sell to us directly over the web, it'd be mighty convenient...

Again, capitalism. If you don't like it, don't buy it. In fact more importantly -- join the fan list for your favorite bands. If 1000 people all tell a band that they won't buy their music, you "may" have a chance.

Again, for capitalism to work there must be a free market. I don't understand your point.

America is a nation of excess. We live and breath for every new toy. It is that way of life that causes corporations to have power. WE HAVE TO HAVE IT, GIMME GIMME GIMME

Fuck you too. I'm not standing in the corporate welfare line like a good boy to patiently wait for them to notice my lack of purchase. I'm going to be vocal about it and rant and rave like an American lunatic. I'm sick of sitting down and pretending that monopolies are free markets that will eventually correct themselves. You, well, you are a huge part of the problem. Get off your ass and start complaining; we need the government to break these monopolies up. We need to elect officals that are not beholden to them and that aren't afraid of "hurting the economy". We need to yank the soapboxes out from under folks like you that preach the same, tired old lies disguised as facts.

GIMMIE GIMME GIMME, after all, makes the world go 'round.

Nice Try

[virg_mattes]

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

Re:How to make CD's worth it - but why they won't.

[dougmc]

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.

You know, I've heard this before, but I've never seen any such `promise' in writing anywhere. Do you have any references for this?

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 ...

Let 'em use whatever they like

[Syberghost]

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.

More talk

[VEGETA_GT]

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

If LAME doesn't work for you, use FLAC

[yerricde]

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.

Re:130 albums over 70 minutes...

[NMerriam]

curious -- how did you pull this info out? Got a DB running on your MP3 machine?

i may never buy a cd again

[virulent-333]

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.

man these guys just don't learn.

[Telek]

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...

A call to arms

[eldurbarn]

The pivot of this whole thing, from the article:

Those moves have provoked bitter criticism from consumers fearful of losing their ability to make digital record collections on their computers, a right they believe should accompany their purchase of the music. (bold mine)

The solution is obvious, also from the article:

Federal law allows people to make personal copies of songs but does not require record companies to stand aside so consumers can do so.

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!

Re:Unrippable != Unlistenable

[Snowfox]

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

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.

Another Nice Try

[virg_mattes]

> 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

Re:Another Nice Try

[clare-ents]

"
You bought it. You broke it. Buy another one. That's hwo the world works
"

I bought it. It doesn't play. You give me a refund. Thats how the world works...

....unless you're a record company and you believe people aren't allowed to return faulty merchandise.

Yet another reason I buy my music from the NPG

[supabeast!]

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.

Re:Unrippable != Unlistenable

[ConceptJunkie]

...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...

Re:To sum the story up:

[Lumpy]

you forgot a HUGE section of the music listening population.

Mp3 player owners, Diamond RIO, AUDIOTRON, and every other device out there that plays back mp3's and WMA's in hardware. you cant play protected WMA's with a hardware playback unit as they are encrypted without re-writing the entire playback software system. and then at this point you will have no horsepower left or no memory left in the embedded systems to play the music.

I for one hope they do what they are saying. The best way to kill a giant is to let them slit their own throats, and their entire idea is nothing more than suicide. They wont stop me from ripping, they wont stop me from making mp3's of the music, and if they cant stop me, they cant stop someone that would gladly publish it on the internet.

You can't play it back?

[Trepidity]

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.

Re:OH, come on.

[jonathan_ingram]

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.

Re:You can put the store out of business

[aardvarkjoe]

That's what the "boss's boss ... boss's boss ..." thing was about. Thay say it works ... but it doesn't. Their claim of it working is only relevant if you give up.

Implied license to pirate?

[Gorak]

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...

Re:Maybe that's o.k.? [OT]

[soulsteal]

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 a reminder...

[mindriot]

Just to remind you of this project...

OpenMusic

Minidisc==suck

[ukyoCE]

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.

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 .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.

Re:Gee... could there be another reason?

[PerfectWorld]

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?

This is probably just what Billy G told them. Of course the Real Plan is to ensure that the defacto digital media standard is owned by Microsoft so they can:

• use their control of the format to force software upgrades by introducing new features onto the music industries CDs (which won't work with your now 2 weeks out of date WMA player)
  
• start renting your music to you for an annual fee (.Net). Microsoft has realised that they cannot live on licensing renewals alone so by eliminating all sense of ownership they can now rent your files and applications to you for a regular monthly/annual fee ... this means continuous revenue for Bill.
  
• ... I am sure other inventive /.ers can come up with more ... I must go home, for the life of me I cannot get gnutella to work through my firewall.
  

Can I still burn a CD? Artists take control!!!

[greyfeld]

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 :)

Yeah, but will it work?

[einhverfr]

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!

Re:You can put the store out of business

[A coward on a mouse]

hThe argument that these discs are defective goes like this:

The CD-Digital Audio logo is put on the product package to indicate that the CD enclosed is encoded using the Red Book standard. Drives that carry this logo are capable of reading CDs encoded using the Red Book standard. Unless and until they remove the CD-Digital Audio logo from the disc's packaging, they are claiming that the disc was encoded using the Red Book standard and that the disc will play in *any* player that is capable of reading discs encoded using that standard. The CD-ROM drive on my computer carries the CD-DA logo. Which of the two products is lying about its compatibility with the Red Book standard?

By your logic, they could put *only* WMA on the disc, so that it would only play in a CD player that had the WMA codecs built-in. Then the record store buys one of these CD players, and tells the irate customers that they are out of luck unless they too buy one of these CD players.

The thing that's got people so upset is that the designation that implies adherence to a standard is now appearing on products that are do not adhere to the standard. If the record companies would remove the CD-DA logo from discs that cannot be played in *any* CD-DA capable player, most of the people in this forum would gladly leave those CDs on the shelf and not buy them. It's the duplicity of these companies and their cynical attempts to redefine an existing standard to fit their own needs and give unsuspecting customers the shaft that is enraging to most on this forum.

article inaccuracies

[bad-badtz-maru]

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

Next, they will control the speakers?!

[einhverfr]

...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!

Re:Next, they will control the speakers?!

[ConceptJunkie]

That's the way I heard it. I don't think it will ever happen, but I do believe it reflects the lengths to which the music industry is willing to go to compensate for its increasing lack of relevance or of providing any value.

The genie is out of the bottle and the corporate executives don't want to move with the times, but rather design more complex and more improbable edifices to shore up their justification for existance.

As soon as they stop acting like the enemy of the consumer, consumers will stop treating them like enemies. I personally am willing to buy product for a reasonable price, even when I can get it illegally free, but by the same token, if I do so, I expect to maintain the same rights of use I have enjoyed with similar purchases in the past.

Not just America?

[einhverfr]

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

Re:You can put the store out of business

[einhverfr]

man, try eturning a cd some time. I have, hey try it out, they say it works, no return. They by law don't have to return working products.

If it does not play in a standard CD player, and that is not advertized, then you threaten to go to the BBB and FTC on claims of false advertising and fraud-- basically, they are claming that it is a CD format that it is not. You also threaten to write your congressman who will forward the request on to the FTC with much more clout.

You can win these arguments, if you want. But you have to know what your real consumer rights are.

Re:You can put the store out of business

[einhverfr]

No it isn't. It does work. Not their fault you didn't want to spring for a proper player.

Not if it has the CD logo on it ;)

That is when you write the Better Business Bureau and your congressman after they refuse to take it back! You congressman will forward your complaint to the FTC and it will have more clout than it would if you sent it directly.

Most modern music players?

[Svartalf]

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.

Now go back to playing games, yourself...

[Svartalf]

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...

Never even heard of?

[Svartalf]

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.

Oh, by the way...

[Svartalf]

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.

That would still be circumvention...

[Svartalf]

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.

Distortions on top of distortions...

[Svartalf]

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.

Consider this.

[Malcontent]

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.

Not True

[RatFink100]

I don't use illegal MP3s, or go beyond my 'fair use' rights, but preventing me from exercising my fair use rights via such controls is in direct contrevention of copyright laws.

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

You're right, but

[Baki]

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.

Has less to do with being hip...

[Svartalf]

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...))

Missed on Both Points

[virg_mattes]

> 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