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NSync Copy Protected CD
admiral2001 writes "This article from NewScientist.com details the most mass market venture into copy protected CDs. Namely, NSync's new CD will be released in a least 3 different versions (with different copy protection techniques). Also, one of the types has (small) labelling saying that the CD cannot be played on computers."
Anything that will prevent the spread of Nsync's terrible 'music' is a good thing. ;)
------
Random, useless fact: I type in startx entirely with my left hand.
this will keep me from accidentally ripping this CD to MP3s and listening to crap at work.
wait... why would I have the CD in the first place?
--
"What do you want me to do? Whack a guy? Off a guy? Whack off a guy? Cause I'm married."
And this affects me how? . . .
davejenkins.com |
No loss to me on this one ;-)
Bye!
This will make or break the concept... Lets hope the CD bombs.
-- Argel
...and noone notices.
Who wants to listen to boy bands anyway? The girls who buy the CDs just want to look at pictures of older men who "love them."
I suppose boycotts work better if you were actually intending to make a purchase. Damn the man, foiled again!
Anyone want to take bets on how long it will take for a rip of this album to appear on the various P2P networks, and which one will get it first?
--
E_NOSIG
So N*Sync/N*Suck can't be copied. What's the problem?
Sleep is just a poor substitute for caffeine, anyway. -Bob Lehmann
nsync already has some great copy protection. There fscking music! Why on gods green earth would anyone want to listen to it, let alone copy it!
until (succeed) try { again(); }
Oh I can see it now, "Why do I care, I am a l33t d00d who only listens to great music and not N'Sync." Well, I hate to tell you, but this is only the first step. If it works and only a few people complain then they will start doing this to every CD and that is when it will cause problems for the rest of us. I won't buy this CD because I wouldn't like it but that doesn't mean I'm going to ignore the bigger problem.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Oh bother.
they can't make it so you cant record the sounds from a speaker. I'm sure there is someone out there with a very good audio system that will record the CD and upload it and you wont even be able to tell the differnce.
The 'NSync demographic is the one that is least likely to be able to employ circumvention technology. But I want this test to be a dismal failure--so someone is going to have to bite the bullet and buy the CD so the "songs" can get on the file sharing services ASAP. Unless they are already there...
And I needed my N'Sync fix...oh well. Guess I'll move to little Miss Spears.
Here I was, all set to not buy the CD because the alleged "music" was god-awful, and now I have to not buy it because it's copy-protected! What ever shall I do?
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one " -Albert Einstein
'N Sync already made their music sound bad enough without using copy protection to worsen sound quality.
So, if pirated copies do show up they can just say "Oh, the copy protection worked. This must be from the insecure UK version." Just like the Australian version of the Charley Pride CD. Clever.
"Slashdot is about legos and staplers." -Cmdr. Taco
The thing is, this is probably just a sample. The thing to look out for is all the 14 year old girls who never play their CDs in their computers but the CD player their parents bought them for their birthday.
It'll look like a tremendous success. "Oh look! No one cares that this CD came out unsupported on computers, lets mass market!".
Next, you'll have your favorite RIAA-signed musician being forced into the same distribution plan..
Now, go talk to your little sister about how she's going to have to go with out her poppy boy band shit for a while.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
We I guess morally I should feel opposed and be upset by this, but in this case I just can't work up the anger, since I feel that our community will be pretty much unaffected in any direct way.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
I think they are just ASKING for their songs to be put all over the internet. If it can be played, it can be ripped. Makes me want to download the entire CD and share it on a p2p network just so that cd will be the most copied cd ever!
Today is the closing of a parenthesis opened before this sig, before this story, before this existence that is me (as if
What a bunch of snobs. Nsync sells a ton of CDs, though not to the average slashdotter.
I'm curious to see how long this takes to get ripped and distributed.
Heh, I maybe go out and do it just to point out to these guys. They are throwing away their money on these "Copy Protection" schemes.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
Sure, anyone can do CD -> audio -> soundcard.
But if they 'standardize' on one, or even a few weak systems, isn't that better than finding a strong system and then standardizing on it?
Of course, I'm an old curmudgeon who still uses tape (reels, even) for some things.
Hey,
They are doing us all a favor. Save bandwidth.
now..
If the new Tom Petty, ZZTOP, TRAIN, Foo Fighters
or GooGoo dolls came on this new format, I would
not buy the disk.
Don't they know that there is a simple crack?
play the CD on a player, Digitize each track one
by one through line out.
We should all unite and not purchase any CD
with any protection format. If we all don't
buy it then this will stop.
not MUZAK.
...than copy a Nsync CD. :)
Few people realize it but NSYNC CDs have always been copy protected. People who know how to copy a CD wouldn't copy Nsync and people who like Nsync don't have a clue about how to copy a CD.
Oh well...
:)
Ok, tell me exactly why copy protection won't lead to more MP3 swapping. Copy protection (at least some kinds, I'm not an expert) prevents the CD from being played on a computer, so not just anyone can rip an MP3 of it, you'd have to set up a conventional CD player in to your line in, which not everyone knows how or has the motivation to do.
So I want to have MP3's of CD's I own on my computer (fair use), what am I going to do? Go looking for someone else's MP3 of it! That's what! And I thought they were trying to reduce the number of MP3's being curculated around.
Slay a dragon... over lunch!
Look, NSync is about a million times more popular than that first case that got posted here a couple of weeks back. (See? I can't even remember the name of that artist.) If this CD gets out there and there isn't alot of blowback, it will open the door for more copy protected CDs.
What can you do about it? Offer to make copies of CDs for people who already have them. Tell them, "well, you have more than one CD player, right? Like one in your car, a portable one you walk around with, and maybe even one in your bathroom. Wouldn't it be more convenient to just have multiple copies of something you already own? .... Hmmm... my computer can't read it. Must be broken or something. Take it back!"
Or... "Hey, let me try and listen to that in my computer." (since most of us must have at least decent sounding rigs) "WTF? This thing doesn't work at all! Take it back!"
This is the opportunity to let Joe (or Jane) Public learn about copy protection and how it infringes on THEIR rights.
Where the wind blows, the tumbleweed goes.
Take your CD player that WILL play the CD, take the line out from the "phones" run a male to male connecter from it to the line-in on your sound card. Use Broadcast 2000 to record an unlimited wave file. Record each song and use lame to wav -> mp3.
I'm questioning if this thing they are trying to do can EVER be done perfectly?
It just dawned on me, even tho its more than blatent: I cant make copies of these CDs! Not for pirating, not for making MP3s (for myself only), but for the sheer fact of having backups. After losing my CD collection to theft and losing some CDs to wear/tear/scratching, I started making backups of all my cds, and only playing the backups. My plan has proved itself, cause I just had all my CDs stolen once again, but this time, aside from the $5 loss of the carrying case, and the $10 pack of 50 CD-Rs, I'll be back to playin my tunes as soon as I find time to burn.
/me hops on the bandwagon to stop this movement.
N'Sync? This one's just too easy ;)
--- Sigs are dumb.
I'm just waiting for a class-action suit to pop up over this.
But if you are going to do a market study on a group, I guess you would want to test it out on one of the biggest selling groups out there.
Let's hope that it crashes and burns, and people, including parents, get up in arms about it.
Michael
Fight the Monopoly and the Evil. . More at Poundingsand.com
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I would like to know a little more about this. What versions of Windows did they try to play this under? Would it play under older versions of Windows? If so did Microsoft add something to Winodows or Media Player to prevent the playing of this type CD? There are still alot of questions that need to be answered.
I made the mistake by saying in an earlier post that teenagers would probably not notice the copy protection. As you might notice, a lot of people were quick to shoot me down on that one. I think this is going to be the first real test of the copy protection. Can't wait to see the backlash when those kids spend their hard earned allowance on a CD that they can't burn, and then promptly throw a massive fit (and we all know how teenagers can tantrum *eg*)
Electronic Frontier Foundation for online civil rights information
"...at least 3 different versions (with different copy protection techniques)."
I was able to copy the CD on my flat-bed copier without any problem and I ened up with a good color, detail, et. al. quality.
However, a friend of mine ended up damaging his copier as he was trying to squeeze the CD through the copy feeder on his non-flat-bed copier.
I don't know about the third method of copy prevention -- as I haven't figured it out yet.
Karma stuck at 50? Add 2-5 inches.. err.. 2-5x Karmas Count to your pen1es.. err.. Karma all naturally and private
LOL
NSync is bad, what a joke to protect their music.
when the horse has already run out.
I would be willing to venture that the number of people downloading music illegaly has pretty much stabalized since the demise of napster. No other network has achieved the market penetration that napster had. Now is not the time for the record labels to do things to prevent people from ripping CDs.
There was a time when I used napster etc. I can even remember hunting for ftp sites that didn't have a ratio. Anymore I just rip my own CDs so that I can leave them in my car and still listen to them at home. If anything moves like this increase the chances of me going out and hunting for songs online. If I can't rip my own CD digitally I'll either 1) Do it analog myself or 2) Find it online and while I'm at it, find several other songs too.
All that this will do is stop the most casual of copiers. The hard core rippers will find a way to force the CD-ROM drive to recognize the CD. The general public dosen't rip what they own so they won't care. So the only people that this really affects are the casual copiers, and they will just go out and find a copy that someone else has ripped.
"You can't fight in here! This is the war room" --Dr. Stra
Probably knows way more than your mom or dad about ripping and music sharing. And if "nobody likes that crap", why is so much of it copied on Nappheus?
/.er loves to be...
I think this is a pretty damn smart test.
a) It's targeted at BIG tech-savvy audience, but one that's not explicitly techy.
b) If there's anything a 16-year-old loves to be, it's against the man. Then again if there's anything a
c) 16 year-olds may get furious, but they're not nearly as likely to write letters.
Smart move by the reccos.
Isn't this disc supposed to be mixed/produced by the legendary trance master BT? I hate N'Sync as much as the next guy, but there might be a lot more musical value to this CD underneath all the superficial pretty-boy glamour.
I say we crack the CD just to prove to those motherflowers that we will ALWAYS be one step ahead of them. And just to piss them off even more, we pass the tracks through "N'Sync Filters" to remove the computer modified pretty-boy voices just so we can get some superfly BT beats.
can't sleep. clowns will eat me.
How about a new copying/listening protection scheme...One that only plays music worth listening to?
Yeah, I know, too idealistic.
What's there to stop Joe customer to buy the one with the protection mechanism he can bypass. And in any case, MP3s will always be avialable for download anyway.
Make even shorter URLs - 8LN.org
No.
This is the group whoose second album was "no strings attached". Truth in advertising?
(no one else posted this yet- it just goes to show you how low the musical taste of slashdot readers is!)
Quick.. Everybody steal a page from Scientology!
Everybody buy a copy of the CD. And then return it a few days later, complaining that it doesn't work on your computer or CD player. Go to another store, rinse, repeat.
If enough people did this a few times, all of the sudden, the return rate would be abnormally high on the CD. All of the sudden, the record industry would see this as troublesome and reconsider copy protected CDs.
Gentoo Sucks
In a great marketing move they have just captured not only the teen girl market but also the geek must see if the ripper works market.
Is seems so unlikely that somebody would actually attempt to listen to an NSync albumn. Time to fsync nsync to /dev/null.
Someone you trust is one of us.
When I buy any album, it's usually for 1 or 2 good tracks, which get copied to MD so i can listen to what i like. Does this scheme prevent me from doing that ?
I wonder... this and all other copy protected CDs will have to be somewhat backwards compatible.
if it can't be played in modern cd-rom drives, will a 4 or 5 year old drive bypass the protection?
like macrovision in vhs, which makes some assumptions about the tv and/or vcr. I had a old philips tv that could't show some rented movies (top of the screen all messed up), but a vcr I owned (an old panasonic model) could make perfect copies (at least as perfect as vhs allowed that to be) of the same movies, using another more recent vcr as a player.
instead of bypassing the cd protection in some way, which for you americans would be illegal under the DMCA, would old hardware be immune to this sort of protection and thus no bypassing needed?
any idea why mac users have been succesful in ripping the disc while windows users have not? other OS's could do it, maybe?
/adam
More troubling is that Vivendi Universal is converting ALL of their music released on CD to protected formats.
It is just a matter of time before everything you buy will not play on computers. You will have to rip a disc using the line-in on your soundcard from a regular CD player, break up the tracks and then MP3 them. It won't stop trading, it will slow it down.
I think what might turn this around is... If at least one large music publisher converts all their offerings to CD protection - suddenly that may affect a lot of people (who listen to music on computers) and the number of returns (lost sales) may sky rocket. Consumers may get upset and this will probably cause CD sales in total to tumble maybe an additional 5% or so. Remember that Vivendi et al. are upset because the market dropped 5% over the last year.
I can also see at least one lawsuit (perhaps class action) if they piss off enough people. And if they convert all their offerings - they will piss off a lot of people. Sign me up for the class action when it happens.
It is also worth noting that many people who don't read slashdot have cd burners now - even those not computer literate. This will surely piss them off too. Not to mention that the question "Why can't I make a mix cd from cds I bought?" will come up VERY often, and be difficult to answer.
There will be backlash if a critical mass of CDs are copy-protected. I'm really interested to see the fallout. Remember, the consumer is king... And this sort of copy protection is definately "pissing on the king's cornflakes".
Copy protection:
As if one needs more reason
To not buy N'Sync
I think would be good news and I hope that type of labelling becomes widespread either voluntarily or by law. They have made a concious decision that putting anti-ripping protection and keeping users informed is more worthwhile than producing copyable CD's. The free market philosophy is based on the customer having perfect information. Since the customer has been informed, we let the free market decide! Maybe they will sell more because the CD is copied less or maybe they sell less because we don't like a protected CD. But at least they aren't trying to deceive us. If you still don't like this, vote with your wallets!
CHANGELOG:
- Initial release
-- CD uncopyable
-- Band unlistenable
- 2.0 release
-- Fixed 2,144 bugs enabling people to copy CD. CD now uncopyable.
-- Changed demographic to younger audience; teens beginning to sense lack of talent. Note that this breaks backward compatibility
- 3.0 release
-- Fixed 53,944 bugs enabling people to copy CD. Gave up.
- 3.0.1 bugfix
-- Fired previous maintainer when it was discovered he had a soul.
-- Fixed another 128,535 bugs enabling people to copy CD. CD uncopyable.
-- Discovered simple cabling could be used to make a D-A-D copy. Sucessfully lobbied to illegalize cabling.
-- Hired armed enforcers to prevent people from humming songs.
-- Added technology to CDs to prevent any sort of listening to them whatsoever. Players now burn in unholy flame.
-- Band still unlistenable.
-Denor
Are these companies honestly trying to force people to bypass the CD store and steal their music online?
In the closed-plan office where I work (no cubicles, just lots of small rooms), people can play whatever music they like, and most have a stack of legitimately bought CDs next to their computer. Or if they don't want to shuffle CDs all day, rip ten of them to one ogg/mp3 CD, constituting fair use.
If this kind of scheme becomes mainstream (no big loss yet, with Michael Jackson or Lip-Sync) it suddenly becomes impossible to play/dub new music in CD ROMS, forcing people to either lug in their "defect -friendly" CD players from home or download their music online from people who have taken the time to rip the music directly from the analog or digital line out of a stereo. The latter seems much more likely.
As a consequence, CD shops will become empty ghost stores, and those big music companies will have a *real* problem on their hands.
This copy protection really solves nothing - the determined people who *really* want to rip the music will always circumvent copy protection. The only ones that are inconvenienced are us legitimate listeners.
Perhaps it really is time for upcoming musicians to forget record companies and set up studios on their home hi-fi computers. Forget CDs, just ogg the music and put it on the web under a subscription license. I think most people would happily pay the amount that an artist actually makes out of a CD sale (not much) to purchase rights to download the album.
Just my 2cents
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
So, aside from blocking playback on computers, make it impossible to play on any other equipment as well.
--- What?
i have a hard time caring about who's album they have done this to. the fact that they are doing these things, and using such a high selling group to do it is discouraging. i can see it now..."Look at these numbers, we sold more protected cd's than not this month, I guess the attention span of America has gone somewhere else..."
just wonderfull. if Metallica does this, than i will be seriously upset...
WAIT! i have the solution! boycott N'Suck!!!
"Both the UK and US versions will play on a Windows PC and both let a PC CD burner make a copy onto a blank CD."
Yeah, that "slightly weaker" US version doesn't do anything apparently. Hope they didn't invest TOO much money into this....
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
"Both the UK and US versions will play on a Windows PC and both let a PC CD burner make a copy onto a blank CD."
;)
;)
"Copying using home CD recorders is variable, with the US CD giving a "no disk" message on some recorders."
So this is lovely! The US version is still rippable. Except on the "consumer" home CD recorders that pay the royalties to the RIAA anyways because the only thing they were usable for was copying other CDs.
This is even more fscked than at first glance.
It's just the German version. German geeks: your mission is clear. Buy and return as many NSuck CD's as possible!
Gentoo Sucks
Now if they would just make Nsync CDs that you can't play on computers, CD Players, stereos, walkmen, toasters, etc.
Prevent linux based DDOS's!
http://linux.denialofservice.org/
Hey this is actually a great idea, copy protecting bad music to prevent it from spreading. This will surely make the world a better place to live ;-)
2 reptiles beneath your current threshold.
On each and every CD they're gonna start puting a big sticker that reads:
"WARNING! This CD includes N*Sync's latest hit. Not recommended for Linux users, pregnant women, MP3 rippers or anyone with an IQ over 50".
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
Learning to fly, Pink Floyd.
At the risk of being redundant, someone needs to mod up one of the mentions about the UK version not having copy protection at all. How in the blue blazes is that supposed to prove anything at all? Here's the scenario:
I live in US, and I buy the CD. *shudder...just remember it's hypothetical* I try to rip it, I fail. I go to the p2p and download the entire CD. I then promptly burn that and distribute to all my friends who want the CD to play on their computers. I also distribute the mp3's to those who want them for their MP3 players.
This experiment will only prove how far people will go to circumvent copy protection, not how well the protection works. In a worst case scenario, the artists *shudder again* lose money because people quit buying the copy protected CDs and instead get unprotected copies from their friends.
Once again, RIAA, wrong answer. To quote Anne Robinson, you are the weakest link, goodbye.
Electronic Frontier Foundation for online civil rights information
So, can CDs with this bunk ass copy protection be returned to your local retailer? I know Best Buy does not allow you to return opened CDs (they will let you do a title-for-title exchange, but NO returns unless you throw a HUGE fit), but if you bring one of these back becasue you can't use it in your computer, will they take it?
If we all went out and bought these, tried to return them, and FORCED a Retail Policy change, do you think the big Chain Stores could force the Labels to knock this shit off?
Bye, Bye, Bye
Hey, hey
Bye, bye (bye, bye)
Bye, bye (bye, bye)
RIAA I'm doing this tonight
You're probably gonna start a fight
I know this can't be right
Hey RIAA come on, I loved you endlessly
And you weren't there for me
So now it's time to leave and make it alone
I know that I can't take no more, it ain't no lie
I wanna see you out that door
RIAA bye, bye, bye
(Bye)I don't want to be a fool for you
Just another player in your game for two
You may hate me but it ain't no lie
Bye, bye, bye
(Bye)I don't really want to make it tough
I just wanna tell you that I had enough
Might sound crazy but it ain't no lie
Bye, bye, bye
Oh, oh you just hit me with the truth
Oh RIAA you're more than welcome to
So give me one good reason RIAA come on
I live for you and me
And now really come to see
That life would be much better
Once you're gone
I know that I can't take no more, it ain't no lie
I wanna see you out that door
RIAA bye, bye, bye
(Bye)I don't want to be a fool for you
Just another player in your game for two
You may hate me but it ain't no lie
Bye, bye, bye
(Bye)I don't really want to make it tough
I just wanna tell you that I had enough
Might sound crazy but it ain't no lie
Bye, bye, bye
I'm giving up I know for sure
I don't wanna be the reason for your love no more
(Bye, bye)
I'm checkin' out, I'm signin' off
I don't want to be the loser and I've had enough
I don't wanna be your fool
In this game for two
So I'm leaving you behind
Bye, bye, bye
I don't wanna make it tough
But I've had enough and it ain't no lie, bye-bye
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
So you don't like N'Synch?
/.ers) * $15 return = an assload of lost revenues.
Don't let that stop you from helping!!
Buy a copy - open it - return it, complaining that it is defective. Hey, you don't even have to listen to it. No cost to you, and they can't resell it after the packaging is open. While you're at it, do it at the most expensive record store around.
Let's see, (# of
"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."
If the publisher is releasing the CD with several
different copy protection methods, maybe they're
trying to determine which is most effective. They'd
have to have some way of differentiating the versions
that would survive MP3 compression to see which versions make it onto the various file sharing
services and which don't.
Has anyone thought about the trademark agreement? Doesn't Panasonic own the "COMPACT-DISC" trademark? I think I remember reading somewhere a long time ago that the way you are able to use this trademark is by insuring that everything with the label is playable in all players with the "COMPACT-DISC" trademark on it.
Any thoughts?
Buy these things and return them. Even if you don't plan on listening.
Pull the lever if they're counting.
How long will it be before special burners/readers are out there that defeat this stuff? Is special hardware needed, or can software/firmware hacks suffice?
Slashdot 's editors are dickheads
It's simple really. Release a rumor to the slashdot community that your latest CD has copy protection (when secretly it doesn't) so that all those quick-clickers can start a grass roots movement to buy millions of CDs and return them. Only they find out that they can't return them because there is nothing wrong with playing the CD.
Honestly, I don't know whether the CD is really copy protected or not. I just thought it was interesting to see all the slashdotters wanting to go out and buy a CD.
I know I am in the minority of pepole they are concerned with, but if I cannot listen on my computer, I cannot listen, never bothered to buy a CD player. Besdies, CDs are horribly inconveient. Whenever I get one, first thing I do is rip the tracks I like, and then store the CD never to look at it again. Don't feel like spending tons on things like 200 disc CD changers, and then have to either put up with tracks I don't like, or spend a painful amount of time programming a dinky thing to let it know what not to play.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I have yet to hear anyone say whether or not these "damaged" CD's sound any different from the originals. Do they sound the same, or does the interpolation leave something to be desired?
LOAD "SIG",8,1
LOADING...
READY.
RUN
We'd never buy the CD to begin with. THUS: 1. They are testing the more general, less technical home CD makers to see what kind of response they get
OR
2. They are trying to get us all to buy the CD out of curiosity and rake in the dough off of a new market.
Come on guys, with a topic like this it's hard *not* to some somewhat trolly. I mean it's NSync!!! Bleah!!
Hi,
Why would an opensource project start distributing its product with copy-protected CDs?
As a proof of concept? But it is silly...
I guess I would stay with my old rsync or direct CVS...
Wait a minute! Is this a software thing? or something else?
Regards
The copy protection isn't that the CD format's been modified. The copy protection is that no one wants to copy these CDs. To date they've copy protected a country "music" CD, a Michael Jackson CD and now this. And they'll probably proclaim the program a resounding success because no one's made any copies of this stuff (Ignoring the fact that these songs have already made their way onto the various file sharing services.)
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I bet I can still dub it onto cassette tape!!
Well This is probably just an attempt to keep young girls from coping the CD. Have you seen some of the HP end user style machines? They make it so any idoit can burn a CD. If you really wanted to burn it, I do not know why! I'm sure you could find a way to crack it.
Mabye when all these products are a miserable failure they'll leave it be.
"The Microsoft 'ebook', controlling when, how long, and where you can read books.... no thanks, I'll take the tree version please."
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
It's now important to legally define what constitutes fair use when one purchases a CD (which unfortunately will have to be decided in a court of law); does fair use cover personal backups? Ripping to any format? Playing in a CD? Remember, fair use only currently stands thanks to the generosity of the court in numerous cases (Sony vs Betamax, for example), but there is no legal standing for it, and it's doubtful in this climat that there will be one defined ever.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
I mean, I will never buy nsync. This is a bad thing for the industry and me indirectly, but not for me directly. or something.
This is of course a scientifically invalid study, but management types don't really care about science, or the scientific method, or any nasty side effects of this scheme. They just want to see they profit margin continue to climb upwards, and with this skewed "test of technology", that's exactly what they're going to see.
We can keep fighting the good fight, and that's honorable. But at best, we're only delaying the inevetable. The best decision is to play along, accumulate enough money and power until you can make the decisions, and then pray that you yourself haven't totally sold out your principles in the name of the golden cash cow. Then maybe you can call the shots, and Do The Right Thing...
Just imagine how many script kiddies are going to buy this CD just to rip it before his/her friends... "I've got the latest N'shrink!" "Huh, yeah! But have you listen to it?"
Lets keep the Internet faster by restricting how many little girls can download N'Sync songs!
Then again, it won't be long til they start flooding on to the Internet.
If this is what has to happen to make sure our youth aren't corrupted by stupid-ass music, I'm all for it. Praise to the record companies for making it harder to listen to Boy Band crap!
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
This strategy did several things: provided data on which bands / music were listened to by people who rip to mp3 (which when combined to the demographic info they have on the listeners of said music provides all sorts of opportunities e.g. a niche-marketing "public service" campaign against "pirating"), bolsters their demographic info on their audiences (if you posit that using mp3 describes at least a modicum of technical knowledge), increased the validity of their return-rate data for protected cd's by applying the test to varied demographics, and not of least importance, kept the protected discs out of the hands of those who want, for whatever reason, to find ways around these odious "protections".
Not terribly dumb was it?
Now they have moved on to the next phase: testing various rights management implementations (I'm going to stop calling it copy protection because that's not really the point) in large scale settings. You think that this large of a sample size isn't important to the record companies?
I would hazard a guess that the initial phase of testing noted that there was no increase in return rate of cd's among the test cd's released to the "N'Sync Demographic"--it lets them proceed with the large-scale testing with a greatly reduced risk of class-action suits.
The good thing about this is that after months of not knowing if certain cd's had copy protection, now we know of one that has 4 different protection methods. Now people with an interest in understanding these technologies can do so (which is of course a good thing).
Protege Posterioram Tuam
When this gets implemented on CDs people actually want, why is it that I forsee people breaking out the solder guns and getting personal with their stereo systems? They obviously have not thought this out very well, as stated in the article:
I also saw no mention of how rippable these CDs are once you manage to get them to play on a computer. Record companies are retarded. Why did they dump millions of dollars into MP3-based cases and choose to focus on CP copying? Ripping, not copying, is the problem.
I'm just waiting for the person with enough time on their hands to implement a way to find a cheap CD player on the market and rig it to a PC. Then all this goes out the window, and the RIAA starts all over.
Maybe if they'd quit fucking customers and artists alike over, they wouldn't have to be so protective of their stuff.
Trolls make great pets. Adopt one today!
lol
It's interesting to see what the music industry is trying. First, they try it on a pretty obscure band to see what kind of response they get. I'm assuming they got a favourable response since they're doing the same thing with this CD.
This is an important step because NSync is a very popular band. They might not be popular in this crowd, but they are pretty big. And if they're willing to take a risk doing this, it means they're pretty certain of the response. They wouldn't risk it if they thought they'd loose millions this way right?
We can bitch about RIAA but we have to look at the big picture. If it succeeds (like I think it will) what are the consequences and what can we do? Complaining to the RIAA won't work. But we can try and convince the artists themselves. Each year, a new band comes out that's pretty decent. And usually, this band wants to make good music along with big bucks. If we had a model that garuanteed them a lot of money and also made it easy to have digital music that you can take anywhere, we'd be one step closer to winning this battle.
So, who's doing this? I know of a few organizations but really are we trying our best? Coming up with a business model is an art but it's just like coming up with new algorithms except it takes into account the business world. I want to stress that the business world does have rules. Maybe we need to start thinking hard about a better proposal for upcoming artists.
For those of you who are recultant to believe me, read about "The Body Shop". The owner stood for something and look what she's built!
nsync? more like n'stink (_*_)
"I JUST GOT THE INTERNET ON MY COMPUTER"
Maybe someone can set up a simple web database so we can keep track of which CDs need to be avoided (or purchased and returned in great volume).
I just checked with NS and TheHitShitList.com is available!
-info
Broadcasting LIVE from a Bonus Room Over the Gara
to remove this 'music' from the planet once and for all.
I am completely opposed to usage of technology such as this. But, they are the ones at fault here. They are the ones who released these sounds upon us. They are the ones who acted, not us. They are the ones who seek to terrorize us through our car stereos and through the stereos of others while we walk peacefully through the park or curiously through a city street.
It will be our victory, not their's. We must go to these extreme measures, no matter how much we oppose the measures themselves. Erradication is necessary.
"There ought to be limits to freedom"
Someone will always find a way to get around any sort of copy protection.
This sig is xenon coated, and will glow red when in the presence of aliens
Cripes, grow some masculine security. What a bunch of bedwetters.
--- Linux R00lz!
So what brave slashdotter is going to step forward and demand that the copy protection be removed so they can listen to n'sync in whatever method they choose? Better yet, who's going to the store and doing that buy it, return it, then raise a stink about it stunt?
I thought n'sync music (using the term loosely) was a copy protection in and of itself.
Korn and Weezer are half-decent?! HA! HA! Korn == N'Sync targetted towards sexually-maladjusted teenage boys instead of little girls.
And the world rejoiced...
But the German version does not even play on a Windows PC meaning users cannot listen to music they have bought... [snip] However, Apple Mac users have succeeded in playing the German disc.
Eh? Wouldn't this suggest this is defeatable by software, and thus useless? (Mac, Linux, *BSD, BeOs rippers/encoders anyone?) Anyone care to comment on this?
The Free desktop that Just Works
Show the record companies we won't stand for this half-baked copy protection crap,.. and just say no. Don't buy any CD with this protection enabled. Record companies will soon get the idea when it affects the bottom line.
Flame me or mod me down if you like, but I REALLY don't understand what gets posted as an article and what doesn't. I submitted a story that is in the interest of everyone on this site. An article that is "News For Nerds" and something that REALLY MATTERS. It talks about how your rights are being violated and why that is a bad thing. There is even a petition to sign to stand up for your rights. The article I am referring to is this. Please read it and spread the word. I hope people get a chance to read it, even though slashdot won't put it on the front page. I guess NSync is more important...
mp3's are only for those with bad memories
I'll put the nsync cd right with the star office 6.0b cd.
Someone you trust is one of us.
It's a publicity stunt, I say. If the protection gets play in mainstream media, how many teen-age 1337 dewdz are going to go running out to buy the disc and try their hand at ripping? Even better, with the different versions having slightly different packaging, how many will try to buy multiple versions?
I can't think of a more deserving band to unleash this career-rupturing idea upon.
Let hope the Backspleen Boyz follow.
-= jester =-
CD Audio copy protection only really prevents direct copy of the bitstream from the CD.
:)
Anyone worth their salt with have realised by now when you stick a CD in your HiFi, The Digital output is converted to analogue for your amplifier/auxilliary output. Therefore, anyone who wants to copy their CD for backup or other purposes will be doing the following:
1) Place copy protected CD in your hifi.
2) Connect an RCA-jack lead from your AUX output on your hifi to your soundcard
3) Encode the resultant output on your PC.
You will probably find that with modern HiFi D/A Converters and modern soundcards coupled with a decent screened RCA lead, you can't actually tell any audible difference in quality. Furthermore the resultant digital copy can be duplicated at the same quality.
But you probably all already knew that
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
I happen to dislike massive commercial music, and prefer less commercial genres (King Crimson, Gentle Giant, Brand X, Spock's Beard, Steve Hackett, Camel etc. - you get the drill). Many of the artists I like have their own independent labels and issue their CDs by themselves.
I can't help but wonder what do they think about the whole issue (other than their piracy policies, which are already well known).
"Trust me - I know what I'm doing."
- Sledge Hammer
The record companies will eventually learn that Napster et al. were helping, not hurting, their sales. When they prevent people from listening to music, they're just cutting back on free marketing for their product; They'll learn eventually.
Got Rhinos?
Damnit, what is it going to take for the minions of Slashbots to quit cracking the comments about the copy protected artists not being worth copying? I was getting ready to Moderate this damned thread but I kept finding myself modding posts down so I gave up.
I do not care whether the copy protection is on an artist I like or one that I dislike. The point is that this travesty is creeping into the mainstream music industry, and if nothing is done the cost of adding this protection to future artists you might care about will be so insignificant that it won't be an issue whether they do it or not.
So get a damned clue people. This shit needs to be acted on now, either through letters to the labels involved or through active cracking of the protection schemes. The audio passthrough cables don't count here, as we need something that is so painfully easy to use (recording one long-ass wav file then editing each song out is normally fine for most studio works but try doing that on a live album with no breaks. I've done it and it sucks) that it's almost seamless in its operation.
Don't get complacent about this shit, because by the time they copy protect YOUR favorite artist it might be too late to stop them.
Often, companies will be unwilling to sell heavily copyrighted materials if they think it'll hamper sales so much.
But if they slap it on an N'Sync CD, which, whether you like it or not, is going to get a large amount of CDs bought, they can always use the CD sales and say "Hey, we had copyright protection and the consumer liked it. Lets go ahead and put it on everything."
Or are the moderators all secret N'Sync fans?
Good riddance to bad... something.
What would be interesting would be to see if the digital image on all of these were the same song, or if each were used to generate MP3 files (or ogg vorbis), they would create unique signatures which the nefarious fiends could use.
Use for what? They could count found instances on the net of the US version, UK version, and of course the German version... It would be interesting to guess that there won't be many of the German, and a healthy, proportional mix between the US and UK versions...
Just something that might be up...
I donate all spillover Karma to the charity of my choice... Ada was still a babe despite what people may say...
But honestly... why do they keep trying? Is the music industry losing that much money?
Greedy money grubbers.
Insert mind here.
The less their excuse for music proliferates, the better!
I would like to request that people stop using the phrase "copy protection" and instead use the term "copy prevention"
This has a number of advantages:
- copy protection implies that copying is bad (which it is not)
- copy prevention implies that the music industry is preventing me from making a legitimate copy. (which it is)
- copy prevention (somewhat) signifies that it is futile to prevent people to make copies. They can try and they might stop 90% of the people but it just takes 1 person to get this on MP3 and upload it to the net for the cat to be out of the bag.
Why would any one by this any way, presumably most people that would, already have at least one nsync CD and since all the songs sound pretty much the same...
morturii
Could people suggest some good indie websites where I can get MP3s at a reasonable speed?
Last post!
Future 2 Future has not played in 3 different CD drives for me. I am testing more drives.
So much for listening to music on CD at work..
the bastards...Maybe they know that their sales will go up because of geeks who are buying it and trying to get around the copy protection.
NSync is part of a grand conspiracy; let's call it "Lolita". NSync's fans are all women, right? You are thinking "no, they're girls". According to politicians, they are girls; according to scientists, they are women--fully capable of reproducing.
Whenever these cons finish a show, thousands of their fans (except the one or two who go backstage for some backdoor lovin' from A.J.) are unleashed--swollen vulvas and all--onto an unsuspecting populace. They begin to seduce men in droves. They return to Conspiracy HQ for DNA sampling. Within days, police begin mass arrests. The men are quickly found guilty and given long prison sentences--we're talking about drug-dealer sentences, not those wussy rapist/murderer sentences. WalMart and other companies reap the benefits of the conspiracy by purchasing their Cheap Plastic Shit® from prison labor camps (cheaper than overseas labor!). The number of such men in prison has far outpaced the number of incarcerated drug offenders. No mention of it in the media, tho.
The only interesting thing about N*SYNC publishing the first copy-protected CD is the total lack of irony. I don't doubt that, following this, the majority of (at least new) major label releases will carry some sort of 'digital rights management.' But copy-protection isn't the only reason to hate the record companies. They do, for the most part, make music nothing more than a commodity and will sign (or create) whatever bands they think they can market best.
But it doesn't have to be like that. Most of the good music being made right now is on independent labels. And a lot of the bands realize that the record industry sucked long before copy protection, and that this is just the latest move in a trend of suckiness. So support your local scene. Don't listen to boy bands unless they're emo-boy bands. Go to shows, and buy your CDs there, so the record stores don't get to gouge you a second time. Indie CDs are cheaper, the bands are usually better, and I doubt any indie label will ever use copy protection on a CD--many of those labels have seen sales increase after Napster hit, because a lot of people had never heard of the bands before, since they weren't backed by millions of dollars of brainwashing... er... advertising.
C'mon, if you're going to run an indie OS, don't you think your music should match?
*telekon
To understand recursion, you must first understand recursion.
Wow, good point. I hadn't thought of that.
First Charley Pride, then Michael Jackson, now N'Sync. The copy protection companies are obviously picking CDs which nobody wants to copy so they can use the lack of copies as evidence of success!
We must prove them wrong by spreading as many copies of N'Sync and Michael Jackson as possible. Play your pirated CDs everywhere you go, as loudly as possible. This may not solve the problem of demand, but there's a good chance you'll end up a martyr.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Look, you fucking wankmachines, all that it takes is an old professional-quality CD player (like my old Denon with a s/pdif out) to make a frigging copy of this here lousy CD. Plugged via s/pdif into my s/pdif capable soundcard, no resolution will be lost.
I just don't have the stomach to buy the disk.
I also don't have the stomach to feed the turds who would download the resulting MP3's.
When this copy-prevention crap starts hitting music that I would actually buy, it may be time to get that new player. Still, this is a drag, since I rip many of my disks on my PC at work, which beats shuttling disks back and forth.
Then again, by the time this technology makes it to the disks that I use, my PC will probably be illegal anyway.
so i've revised it for you:
/.ers) * (fraction of /.ers who will actually get off their asses to support any cause) * $15 = negligible to no lost revenue
(# of
I assume that this based on a in-sink album, but seriously, who here is going to read through this humming the tune? Not me?
Wow, this is long, so you did put a lot of effort into it... Maybe they aren't such a horrible band after all. Maybe I'll go buy some of their CDs!
Ugh. Somebody mod me down.
With the RIAA's latest move it has become much less clear exactly what we are purchasing from them.
If you're paying for the license to listen to the music, then you should be allowed to copy the CD, transfer to another medium, etc. As long you don't violate the license.
However, if you're paying for the media (i.e. the CD), then once it's in your possession you can do whatever you want with it - including duplication.
It's fucked up antics like this that piss me off about the RIAA. Either I'm buying the music or I'm buying the media - which is it? From now on, if I buy a CD and find out its copyprotected, I am going to assume that what I've purchased is the media, not the license to listen to the music, and should I figure out how to rip MP3s from it then I'll freely trade them with whomever I can.
AdForce shut down in June also, dumbass. You should keep FuckedCompany.com up a little bit more so you could have read it. It was fun, the last two weeks the company was in business we just played UT and AOE2.
I still find it funny you have nothing better to do than try to remain anonymous and make really stupid insults against me.
To debunk the insults.. I worked at AdForce for 1 year as a contractor, then signed on for 6 months as a full time employee because they asked nicely. They paid me really well, and I got 7 weeks severence plus 2 bonuses (excluding sign on bonus ) and cashed out vacation.
Yeah.. that sure was idiocy. Making over $100K in 6 months sure was the stupidest decision I made.. boy am I glad you were able to point it out to me.
P.S. I happen to have a job now.. shelter isn't a problem either.
Thanks.. good way to spend a few minutes chuckling at the misguided anger and delusions of my good ol' buddies.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
Can someone tell me what magic will prevent 13 year old girls everywhere from jumping on daddies PC and downloading the mp3s from Britian?
Burn Hollywood Burn
P.S. I happen to have a job now.. shelter isn't a problem either.
So you finally took his offer?
Product-labelling regulations need to be applied to this industry in a similar way to the tobacco industry. All CDs which have copy protection should be required to carry a label occupying the top 1/3 of the CD package warning the consumer that he will not be happy if he purchases the product and that his constituitional rights have been violated. Pictures of sparks flying out of a CD-ROM drive might be helpful too.
If and when this goes mainstream, I'll start purchasing Cassette tapes and copying music from 8-Track and cassette tapes, and maybe from Vinyl and burning them to CDR. If I buy CD's, it will be Used CDs. What's next, the RIAA suing the Pawn Shops for selling used CDs?
.
.
.
John Wilcox
I am bill gatus of Borg, You will be assimi....
General Protection Fault
Wow, hey that was so clever. I marvel at your intellectual superiority.. you know I always have. I always knew you were better than me. Really.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
Well i'm probably in the minority, but I listen (and buy) a lot of my music on vinyl - Now i dont wanna get into a vinyl vs cd debate - but i can make pretty good mp3 recordings from an analogue source so i'm sure that wont stop anybody else like me plugging the line out from their hi-fi amp into their sound card input and encoding that to mp3 or vorbis or whatever. So i'm sure somebody with a good sound card and other hardware could create a fairly decent quality analogue recording of a protected cd?
Not exactly the ideal solution in what is also a liberty issue, but it does make the point that encryption wont stop people making copies of their music. No doubt somebody will create an application to circumvent whatever security that is encoded into more of these "protected" cd's.
It seems to me the problem is that it won't spread the music - they're doing their first huge release on a band that they probably know is full of people who aren't going to avoid buying a CD because they can't burn it, and probably won't look at the case long enough to realize it won't play on their computer before they buy it. That way, the hit they'll take from people rejecting the product will be minimal on the first widespread attempt at using it, and they can more effectively argue that this technology will not hinder sales.
No, the best decision is to learn to play yourself. Music, I mean. Or go to places where music is played, live, in front of an audience. There's loads of bars, clubs, festivals and such out there waiting to be explored. Out there, out of the grasp of those 'management types'.
Learn to play yourself. Don't criticise the media, become the media (free after Jello Biafra).
Start a band maybe?
Just don't play along with those bozo's in their suits who think they can control your world. They'll only succeed if you let them. Don't let them in.
--frank[at]unternet.org
Wow! That copy protection works great! Look, virtually no one has downloaded any Nsync songs.
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
Even though this is horable music, I feel as if I need to by a CD like this to see if i can crack it on my own. I have a feeling that i am going to be buying a lot of copy protected CDs just for the hell of it, copying them, and returning them to the store because they "don't work in my CD player." Kind of a big F-U to the RIAA. and no... I will not be ripping these with windows media player ;)
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
One would think some enterprising fellow would make some nice labels that say "Consumer Warning: This CD Is Defective".
...
Truth in advertising
I'd buy a roll.
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
What 14 year old girl isn't using some online music source for their music needs these days?
I have not seen any at the music store in the mall lately.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I still don't see how any of this will stop me plugging the speaker output on my stearo into the analog input on my soundcard and recording it...
Because I wouldn't buy this. In fact, I'm glad it's copy protected. It should be buying-protected.
by this unfornate turn of events
Oh for moderator points....
Why doesn't the gene pool have a life guard?
is a good idea. You have the protection in the actual medium itself, and then you have N'Sync's actual music, which in its sheer nature no one would ever want to copy. Score 1 for the RIAA.
Hold on a second and think this through just a bit further...
There's a bit of legislation out there that someone will recall the details of (I can't, and I can't find a reference right now). One part of it had to do with the consideration of a computer as a "consumer audio device". Again, the details escape me, but there was a court decision against the record labels based upon the premise that a computer was not "just a consumer audio device".
Now we have these same labels pushing out CDs that will allegedly not play on a computer. Just as they can't have it both ways (heh - I *almost* typed that with a straight face), neither can the consumer.
Someone please help me out here - what is it my fragmented memory is trying to recall? Was it fees on hard drives and reusable media? Something buried in the Home Recording Act? Augh!
Now I know that all this may fail HOWEVER as a failsafe, just make sure you buy the CD using a credit card (not check card). If they refuse to give you your money back, threaten to have the bank stop the charges. That'll usually convince them to fold. If it doesn't, make good on the threat. Leave the CD in the store and walk out. Then, when you get home, call the bank that issued the credit card and ask what you need to do to block a charge. You'll probably need to write a letter explaining the charge you want blocked, and maybe attach a copy of the reciept (so make sure you have it). When you do what they bank wants, they'll stop the charge and bill the merchant. You won't be charged anything.
Believe me, it won't take a whole lot of this to put a stop to this copy protection. The mamangers of the specific stores will get all pissed off about this and raise a stink to the higher ups. It won't take too long before the root of the problem is traced back to this batch of CDs, and the recording company in question gets yelled at.
Sigh. My skin is crawling, but I sacrificed hard drive space to download this crap off LimeWire. First Michael Jackson's new album and now this. Maybe it's an RIAA plot to fill our disks with bad *cough* music.
Viva La Revoluccion and all that. Ugh.
This is how it starts .. they sneak it into places where the audience will protest the least.
hrrmmm...
With my audigy card and front plate couldnt i just use the optical in on it and attach that to the optical out on my cd player, and do a rip that way? hrmmmm...
What has 10000 legs, 3 pubic hairs and 1,000,000,000,000 pimples?
The front 10 rows at a Nsync concert.
Don't take life too seriously. It is only a temporary situation. Usual disclaimers apply.
Dammit it's *nsync not Nsync!
fear my zig!
Yes, the thrice protected CD is out there on Gnutella. Twitching in agony, I downloaded it. Now all you 'N Sync fans can grab it when you want.
Hey, ya know what this means?!?!
MORE FREE BANDWIDTH!!!
Maybe it'll slow down all the kids trading this crap. Oh, one can only hope.
-- Liberalism is a mental disorder.
The thing to look out for is all the 14 year old girls who never play their CDs in their computers but the CD player their parents bought them for their birthday
I think you don't realize how many 14 year old girls there are that use computers to listen/rip/burn cd's. My 13 year old daughter has a pretty awsome mp3 collection on her imac and ibook. Her portable cd player doesn't get half the use her computers do when it comes to music
http://Lenny.com
4 great justice!
The whole album is already on Morpheous. How is that for irony?
I think this is a good idea by sony. It's not their fault for wanting to protect thier product. After all, we are stealing when we copy CDs. Besides, if you're really determined to get an free copy of the CD, there's always shoplifting.
"fag" = informative. Where is that Cassandra that kept insisting that the 'mods were on crack?
This technique will NOT work. Most managers at stores would not even know what you are talking about. "Won't work on your computer? But it works on your CD player? duhh CDs are meant for cd players" Managers are stupid...I should know, I work with many at a store that sells cds. Andrew
- Think for yourself, question authority.-
I just bought Kosheen's CD Resist a couple weeks ago and it is an Enhanced CD (it has a video on it). One big problem, the CD doesn't mount (or list files for those windows users out there) when put into a computer. The only way to get the CD to play in a computer is to use analog.
This sounds like a copy protection thing to me. The disc isn't labeled as such and is put out by Moksha Recordings part of Arista/BMG UK. I am not the only one to have this problem either... could it be a simple mistake in the master CD... why wouldn't it have been caught... I'm leaning towrds copy protection here.
Note: Kosheen's CD probably isn't released in the States yet.
it doesn't have to anything special- a 10ns delay here, a missed beat by a drum, whatever, they could vary each cd. and only they will know which one is which...
I find this quite because my sister just ripped the Cd the other no problem. is the protection a new thing on recentlt pressed CD's seems like my sister has had the disk for a while (nsync - celebrity)
My sister ripped the CD when it came out and uploaded it to the mp3 server we setup i did not notice and sort of lose in the quality of the rip or any thing that would indicate copy protection
Darn! Now I can't play any Nsync songs on my computer. Who's next John Tesh?
offtopic... yeah fucking right
why is this a Troll?
It's a fact.. how is a fact a troll?
Moderators looove the taste of a crack hit in the morning...
That's the worst Haiku poem EVER
"Sure the geeks will still be able to obtain it, from ripping themselves or through obscure P2P clients, but the vast majority of people won't be able to get their hands on the MP3s, and that's all that really matters for the RIAA. The DMCA will take care of the misfits."
All it takes is a couple of geeks to make mp3s from the CDs, release it on IRC, and then it's available to everyone.
Witness how easily Marilyn Manson's last album was spread everywhere a month before release, or more recently Tool's Lateralus a week before release. And these were CDs not even released yet!
They can stop 99%, but all it takes is 1% to make it available for the other 99%.
In Canada, we collect a levy on CDR media, rigthly or wrongly this allows us the RIGHT as a citizen to make copies of any music CD for our own personal use.
d s
I can take YOUR NSync CD and make a copy for myself (%insert_your_own_joke_here%).
See more about this here: http://neil.eton.ca/copylevy.shtml#copy_for_frien
So, does this mean that this 'version' of the NSync CD wont be sold here in Canada? Or will I have to start buying and returning CDs and showing them that their product infringes my rights as a Canadian according to the Copyright Act...
This could be seriously fun...
True, True. In addition to that "Cannot be played on a computer" small-text warning, they should add a larger-text "Should not be played on... anything" warning, diagonal over the front cover.
"Question with boldness even the existence of a god." - Thomas Jefferson
I'm sorry. They've won. I'm giving up. Let's all give up and become cogs in the machine. Loosing a few teeth here and there won't matter anymore. I'll see you on the other side... that's all that's left.
I am pretty ignorant about the copy protection scheme being used, but my two year old sony discman has an optical output, and my sblive has an optical input....it seems to me that I could make a digital rip of the cd even with copy protection?
Am I missing something (ie the optical output stream would be messed up or something?)
But can it still be played on the radio? That's what we need protection from... But seriously, be glad this is being tried out on popular music like NStynk instead of good music like the type performed by Erin McKeown or John Lee Hooker. Maybe the kiddies will discover good music if they can't download crap anymore.
== Paul Rickard, Editor of The Microsoft Boycott Campaign ====
N'Sync is totally Owta'Sync with reality if ya ask me...
Not that I'd every buy their crap anyway - but in this case I just might - just to experiment with ripping technologies and then of course I'll have to post my results for peer (*cough* 2 peer *cough*) review...
Earth to RIAA: Wake up and smell the coffee. Your crap is overpriced. Protecting it won't work. We will always copy the tunes. Lower the price to something that's not arm-twisting extortion and we'll BUY it!
The rip of this lame NSync Celebriy CD has been out for a while now, for over 2 months. Get with it doods. Its even on KaZaa, but it's been other places for much longer.
I'm very curious to know of someone has bought one of these protected CDs and successfully returned it opened to the store with the reason being it wouldn't play in their computer. It kinda works against us if thousands of slashdot readers go out and pay $15-20 for this tripe and get stuck not being able to return it...
FUCK you, you moderating asshole.
Eat it, dick lick...
lose another moderation point here, idiot.
Censorware extrodinare...
YOU ALL SUCK
Well, if there are 3 different versions each with different copy preventing mechanism, then the CD is only as much protected as the weakest of them, no? Couldn't they just use 3 different albums so they would see on the speed/quality of mp3 appearing on net which is better?
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
Yeah it is good to stop the spread of crap music but once they start doing this to bands people actually like it will sucks. But *nothing* isn't breakable.
Why bother buying and returning when you can have much the same effect (making the CD's econmomically infeasable to sell) with a whole batch of specially printing "warning labels" you slap on the CD's by hand?
Soemthing along the lines of "Danger! This CD will not allow you to make copies for your personal use." should be about right. You might want to get a second hand printer from eBay (or a local computer show) just to make sure they can't track you from ink patterns or something equally paranoid.
Since I am one of the few people that doesn't pirate but enjoys the option of being able to rip cd's onto my hard drive for listening or making a compilation for myself, I guess this means I will no longer be buying any mainstreaming music. Come to think of it, I have never bought much mainstream music as most of the stuff I like is either free or available as streams on online radio stations. And no I would not buy the bonesmoker boy's cd.
MODS RULE!!!!
auto262814@hushmail.com
I like being able to play cd's in digital mode also.
auto262814@hushmail.com
- this kind of music is Sony's biggest seller
- that the market demographic for those likely to buy it are those likely to know relatively little about media law and fair use rights.
- that such fans generally only only use computers for email (hotmail/yahoo) and the web (nsync.com)
- that some small group of those listen to their CD on their computer at the same time
- finally that the above are roughly valid
Well then, if Sony's losses from those who don't buy the CDs is less than they assume their losses to be through casual digital copying, this stuff will stay on all CDs and be used on all CDs.It will also fuel a very biased set of figures providing statistical 'proof' that "people don't mind this kind of protection, only pirates do".
Have your younger sisters write to Sony now.
What is different between a CD-ROM and a CD Audio player that makes one able to read the CD and one not?
How hard would it be, or better yet, how long will it be before someone comes up with a way to modify current CD-ROM's (or starts producing new CD-ROM's that can read this format all together?)
Maybe we can get the RIAA to give us all a refund on our current CD-ROM's so we can go buy new ones.
Oh well, back to downloading *fires up LimeWire*
--Yahiko
Everything I say is a lie.
Except that. And that. And that. And that.
I think that might be our duty, not theirs.
I needs to hit the supply closet to snag some label sheets.
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
1 Go to Radio Shack and get a 1/8" stereo phono plug to 1/8" stereo phono plug patch cord.
2 Plug one end into the headphone jack on your computer's cd/dvd player.
3 Plug the other end into the Line in jack of your sound card.
4 Audio-rip away!
Some CDrom drives have a "play" button, which would let me play this CD with no problem.
And if I can hear it, it won't be difficult to simply pipe the audio into my in-line jack, and recored the music there, then encode into an MP3. Sure it would take a little more effort and time to do it.. but it can be done.
So don't be supprised when you see these N'suck songs on Gnutilla, or other peer-based sharing networks.
-FRAGaLOT
Errm... Ergo, /.ers are 16-year-olds?
we need a good mainstreamable term to describe this type of overly restrictive licensing. How about 'rapeware'?
I'm not sure I understand where the fuss about copy protecting audio cds.
you can still play them in your $90 portable CD and record them through your fancy sound card at high enough bit rate that you can't tell them from CDs unless you're an audiophile which most of us luckily are not.
so I ask you. What is the big deal?
Dayna.
When you say 'illegalize', the word you're looking for is 'criminalize.'
I'm not sure I understand where the fuss about copy protecting audio cds. you can still play them in your $90 portable CD and record them through your fancy sound card at high enough bit rate that you can't tell them from CDs unless you're an audiophile which most of us luckily are not. so I ask you. What is the big deal? Dayna.
Truth is for those of us few who listen to REAL music, this really isn't a concern. There is no Good music I know of that is copywrited. As far as NSync goes, yeah, they're stupid jerks, but they can't be a whole lot worse than any of the other rock/rap stars of today.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
Who buys CD's anymore anyhow? We should be supporting unsigned artists more then ever. There more of a threat in the long run to major labels then anything else.
According to allmusic.com this NSyNC album was released on July 24. There's already a million or so copies out there and they're not protected. Audiogalaxy shows hundreds of copies of the songs in their directory.
Just who is this record company trying to kid? The album's already been ripped and MP3'd to hell and back.
Even if the next group managed to get a 100% copy protected release out, human nature being what it is, ripped copies will leak out from the manufacturing plants or other industry sources - in fact, they already do. It happens all the time with software and the social pressure for free copies of popular bands will be much greater than for computer games.
Just was thinking about this and the new DMCA (SCCEA or something) law and hit on this line of reasoning:
What if they are watching the copies not to asses the 'damages' from piracy, but instead to bolster the argument that approved hardware is needed because the stuff that is out there right now is too open for any sort of real protection to work.
Combine this with some slanted reports of diminished sales (like the current world crisis has nothing to do with it!) and uninformed legislators would give the law backing.
We all know that it is simple right now. Move the content onto a free format and do what you have been the entire time. They know it too, so this makes some sort of twisted sense.
Just something to think about...
Blogging because I can...
Philips Electronics Consumer Feedback
Why not start sending emails and letters to companies which work within the home CD recording market and express to them our concern with this development? Perhaps if enough of these companies begin to realize they are wasting their development budget and advertising budget on marketing technologies to allow listeners to control how they listen to their music, they might begin to speak up and fight this CD protection as well.
Philips has started to heavily advertise on TV their newest CDR home audio recording device. I want to know what thier reaction is to this development if all of a sudden their product no longer works as advertised. This movement within the recording industry pretty much makes their product useless.
I have a CD/MP3 player, would it play on it?
Question 2, how exactly does it prevent the playability in a computer?? Both the computer and the CD Player have little CPUs that interpret 1s and 0s read from a lazer. How could they design something that would work in one and not the other??
I rarely listen to CDs as a CD. The first thing I do when I buy one is rip it and encode it on my hard drive - it's a lot easier managing a collection of music on a hard drive than it is on a CD rack - especially when I want to do a playlist.
When I go out, I take my mindisc walkman with me. Almost all my CDs have been dubbed to MD.
Now, if you can play it in a modern CD/DVD player that has digital out, what's stopping someone from duplicating it? It may be "rip-proof" but nothing's stopping you from running a digital cable from the CD/DVD player to a sound card (and what's really neat about sound cards is they have a tendency to strip the SDMS copy protect bit...).
THis will only prevent high-speed dubbing of the disc (mind you, I'd be interested to see whether Sony will jump on the bandwagon when they start releasing their NetMD products which promote the use of computers for high speed transfer via USB from CD as well as MP3/WAV/etc).
But that is not a digital copy, I can't listen to that analog crap, digital only! Only digital copies are good! Digital! Digital! DIGITAL!!!!
How is a full bitwise digital copy intrinsically better than one with an analog step in-between? Nothing matters but that you enjoy the music. The quality loss from encoding to 128 kbps MPEG layer 3 interferes more with the subjective experience than does the DAC on a good CD player or the ADC on a good sound card, especially ADCs that sit outside the noisy computer case environment and connect through SPDIF. (The analog step may be necessary in case your sound card recognizes SCMS.)
Will I retire or break 10K?
..How many accounts do you think he got? ;-)
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
No one (so far) seems to be talking about the people who actually legally purchase these CDs. What is the cost of all this technology to prevent something that they are no doing but someone else is doing (ilegally). Have they jacked up the price of these "smart" CDs more or is someone else bearing that burden. Ofcourse technology like this is certainly not free, and obviously not cheap considering the popularity of a band like Nsync (IMO, they suck, but oh well).
What do some of you have to say to this?
"A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never remembers her age." -Robert Frost
I'm just glad it's N-sync and not good bands like the aerosmith or u2. However, someone will break it, i'm sure there's some kind of crack already out there
http://www.goodtimetickets.com
http://www.vanillaafro.com - take me seriously and I will shoot you
...Do you think that the "copy protection" of mass market, highly popular CD's might begin to have the effect of bringing consciousness to the proles? If they get pissed off enough... Sure, they won't actually understand the issues in multisyllabic words, but will that prevent us from manipulating their anger and riding it to the destruction of these evils?
Don't look at me that way. Everyone manipulates people. The corporations do it with marketing and outright lies. If we want to defeat these sorts of things, we'll need popular support. And if they get Joe and Jane Sixpack mad enough, we might just GET that popular support. Or is this just wishful thinking?...
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
If the music industry prevents all queer's from ripping fag music and distributing it on the net, the world will be a better place.
I'd be happy to buy all my CD's if it meant the world no-longer had pop(in particular, those homosexual groups of 5 objects that are only popular cuz they're marketed ruthlessly). Of course that'll never happen...
First Micheal Jackson and now NSync!?!?! OH MY GOD! What am I going TO DO?!?!? What's next AIR SUPPLY?
OH GOD PLEASE NO!!!!!!!
If blowback is needed, then we should make a point of of generating the blowback for them. Make sure to mention to people around you (especially N'Sync types and their parents) that there are versions of the new album out there that may not be very usable on computer. Warn them that it's russian roulette: they may, or may not, get a usable cd; and -- besides -- there are a lot of better bands out there that are more friendly to their fans than what these people are doing.
It's incredible how powerful word of mouth is -- especially when it's backed up by the internet.
That quote has been proven many times. The fact that we're here, and I'm typing this on a wonderfully proficient, stable and usable Linux box is proof of that. This is the wedge of an issue that could seriously change our access to both art and information. The best time to hunker down is now -- before that wedge has dug in.Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Wow, hey that was so clever. I marvel at your intellectual superiority.. you know I always have. I always knew you were better than me. Really.
I take that as a yes.
My wife is really into this band.
.mp3 her favorite tracks. She likes to listen to them, jukebox style on her PC.
/bin/laden
I hate em'. Progressive rock & metal are more my style.
This is probably going to cause a problem for me though becuase my wife likes it when I
Even though, she's a non-technical person, she's going to be a little pissed (not at me, thank god), when I explain to her what the record company is doing.
pressure/grep
rm -f
Microsoft Fucking Sucks!! Up The Penguins!!
I am a 14 year old girl who loves listening to my N'Sync mp3z. Why is "the man" doing this to N'Sync fans all over the world? Why does "the man" always want to screw us young girls first!?
man if only the monkeys and archies had such technological magic at their disposal.
Not that i care about NSYNC but im tired of the trend.. We need to both boycott and send a **NICE** letter to the record companies explaning that many of us listen to our cds on pcs and NOT in the car or home stereos..
This is F*(&ing scary...
This was funny when I read it on bbspot last month, now it is even more so.
http://bbspot.com/News/2001/08/encrypt.html
So the recording industry wants to do something about piracy? Well, there are two things they could have done:
1. Easy and fairly effective. Lower the prices so that people can actually afford to buy CDs. CDs cost half what cassettes cost to make, yet cost twice as much retail. Hmm.
2. Retarded and worthless. Spend millions (billions?) developing a half-assed copy protection scheme. Raise the cost of CDs (If it hasn't happened already, it will) to pay for the stupid system. Watch hacker write about two lines of Perl that circumvents it. Rinse. Repeat.
And which one did the idiots in the recording industry choose? Duh.
Neither one will eliminate piracy altogether, but that isn't possible anyway.
Why not choose the route that will make your customers happy (and probably increase your revenue)?
SIGFEH
Maybe this will stop the spread of digital copies , but I don't think it can stop someone from making an analog copy and puting it up on the P2P servers. Come on, If you download any music off of Napster, ect.., ect.., you seldom get a near perfect copy anyway. The quality stinks on a good bit of the stuff I have seen on the peer to peer systems. It is almost easier to go out and buy the CD than hunt down all the tracks and find good copies of them. Music is great but if it is your identity you still have some growing up to do , much like Nsync's fans.
I would immagine that each version of the cd has a different watermark on it.
I had the same thought. How about we follow the lead of the Princeton Scientists that were threatenedd by the RIAA when they cracked the watermark. Rip the different versions, wipe the watermark and plaster it all over the fileshare services.
I'd love to see the look on their faces when they test the copies and they don't match any of their releases.
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
First they came for Nsync but I did not speak out because they were crap.
Then they came for P. Diddy and I remained silent because I did not like rap.
And then they came for Bob Dylan and there was no one left to speak out for me.
Play CD in stereo. Run cable from stereo OUT to computers sound card IN. Record on computer and encode as MP3.
Why the hell wouldn't this work?
In all honesty, it will be ripped probably hours after it's initial fan craze starts. Lets face it, no matter how you safe gaurd things like music or data it can still be quickly foiled if it's wanted bad enough.
What's going to happen to the "Enhanced CDs" that many artists were putting out? I'm not qute clear on whether it's just the audio that won't be playable on computers or the data portion as well. In any case, I don't really think it will be long before there exists a program to rip even these CDs.
:)
But people are not realizing that this is perhaps a blessing in disguise. Thingk about it: If people can't rip NSync CDs, that means no more NSync MP3s on the net! This is fantastic!
Bah, screw that, I'll just optical out anything into my Soundblaster Live and then convert it to MP3. I'd like to see them stop that!
OR, even better, everyone should get MD players, that way all you need is a small audiojack (or aforementioned optical out) and you've got a neato little copy that you can put in your pocket.
Neural Nets in Python
Is this just a sick way of putting out three of the same cd's hoping teenage boys and girls will buy one that plays in their car, one in their cd player in their room and a separate one for the computer that features less tracks in mp3 format. If I were a record label I would find it quite interesting to watch record sales.
I may not be a programmer but I know I can take the line level output from a good stereo system cd player and pipe it into the line input of my sound card. Using a programme such as gramofile in Linux I can both segregate the tracks and tweek a little noise reduction using the impulse algorithm to smooth over the D-A-D conversion and presto a reasonably decent .wav copy of a mediocre pop group.
Why would I do this, because I am a DCMA scofflaw who praises the good lord every day (but alas maybe not for to much longer), that he lives in Canada.
Sei Gesund ;-)
I'm just pissed about this copy protection crap as anyone else, but I don't have the time to stand on the return line at Target or J&R Music.
/bin/laden
Besides, once the box is open, I can only exchange for the same title. And at the end of the day, after going through all that trouble, I don't want to end up owning something that I can't make a copy of, even though I have the right to do so.
pressure/grep
rm -f
Microsoft Fucking Sucks!! Up The Penguins!!
Last week a major recording label released copy proctected versions of N*Sync's latest CD. Teenage fans across the nation quickly purchased the music CD making it the first ever multi-platinum sales in a single week. However, just as quickly as the sales topped over 17,000,000 units, the tides turned when almost 95% of the purchased CD's were returned.
Some customers sited faulty recording that prevented PC CD-Roms and various CD player models ranging from Sony's popular line of personal CD players, DiscMan, to the more expensive home units by Alpine, Pioneer, and Harmen-Cardon from playing the CD's. Other customers complained about the inability to copy the CD's to the massively popular digital format, mpeg layer 3, that landed Napster and MP3.com in court defending themselves against various lawsuits causing both companies to spends millions in fines, royalties to artists, and court costs (on a separate note various musical artists have filed their own lawsuits including the pop boy band N*Sync sueing for the royalties the recording labels and the RIAA have claimed they have acquired).
This comes as no surprize to online communities such as the often pro-Microsoft, pro-CorporateContentControl MSNBC news, CNet News, New York Times, and various OpenSource backers such as Slashdot.org and ZDNet, as well as consumer rights activists such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation. All of these popularly visited sites ran previous articles detailing the recording label's almost boastful press release regarding the distribution of the N*Sync copy protected CD containing three separate copy protection schemes. These same online communities provide posting forums where concerned potential cosumers and outright angered anti-copy protection activists downed the efforts claiming "if it can be played it can be copied!"
Today in a sweeping almost unanimous cry for justice, forty-two of the fifty states have filed class action lawsuits claiming the copy protection was meant to prevent the consumer from using the "fair use" clause of copyright legislation while the recording label retaliated with it's own high profile attack of consumers ability to freely copy and distribute digital music that the consumers themselves prefer over the orignal work.
While this battle ensues, the old addage "the customer is always right" has been re-coined to say "the customer wants what we tell them they want".
... there is nothing that has not already been thought
where I put that Y-cable for audio in recording I used a while back when I was converting my old cassette tapes to mp3's...errr....Well I guess I can buy a new one....
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
Does N'Sync have tunes worth listing too?
Anyone notice that the CDs with copy protection are ones that "hackers" probably wouldn't buy?
Just like the BackDoor^H^H^H^HStreet Boyz.
...that these "guys" will no longer copy made-for-Tiger-Beat bands like New Kids on the Block, the BackStreet Boys, and the other pseudo-acts they strive to replicate?
Hey, I'm all for it!!!
It seems to me, less people with the ability/skill/etc. to rip these CDs means fewer different encodings of the same mp3. In other words, a higher percentage of the available copies being identical. Think of the implications of this in today's multi-source, auto-searching, auto-resuming crop of mp3 swapping clients.
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.
You are actually right. When cds where young, there was some orders about the use of the CD mark on the discs. At the same time also the covers etc were standardized. They should not use the CD mark anymore since they don't comply their own standards.
Hello Pat Bateman.
seeing the last part of you post made me think of the disny show dinasors, the company call WESAYSO who's matto was "because we say so"
Let's hope this CD shows up disproportionately on file sharing services (it's still easy to convert it into MP3 using analog) to drive the message home to the music industry that this kind of effort is pointless. (If you like, you can also run out in protest and buy a few dozen non-copy-protected NSync CDs, but I wouldn't recommend it.)
i got the new Eels CD 'souljacker' a few days ago. there is actually a label on the back that says 'IMPORTANT This compact disc can be played on any compact disc player.'
Will we see more of this from indie type bands?
All MiniDisc recorders allow a first-generation digital copy from a CD into a MD. This behaviour is mentioned on the Sony MZ-R90 manual, and probably in every other MD recorder's manual as well. It would be nice if lots of MD recorders in Germany (especially the Sony ones, and those still in their guarantee period) were taken to a Service Dealer for not operating correctly when trying to record from this CD.
What will Sony do if one of the main features of their MD recorders (making music compilations) doesn't work with their own CDs? I don't think it would help sales...
Big deal. So they copy-protect the CD. Maybe I can't just boot up CD Duplicator Delux and make a fresh copy, but I can still rip the data. Perhaps they have barred that some way, I can nab the data stream as it leaves my soundcard, record on MD then back to the computer. OR, I can take the out from my CD player (in the case of the CD's that won't play on computers) and plug it in the in of my computer. Or if I want to be REALLY anal, I can take the digital out of my CD player (most newer ones have them) and plug it into the digital in on my Creative Live Drive (I bought one because I'm a gadget nut).
Now I just shunt the album off to a few thousand of my friends and viola! The point is that there are myriad ways to get around this. Nice try record companies, but you are about ten years behind the technology.
I didn't know that the Celebrity CD was copy protected. It plays normally on NT4SP5 at work, and ripped fine at home into OGGs using KDE's audiocd:/ filesystem thing. Compared to their previous CDs, Celebrity isn't really that good, but I listen to it sometimes at work if I get bored of listening to the Pet Shop Boys, Cher, or Priscilla - Queen of the Desert for hours on end while programming ;-).
;-). Though, my younger brother commented that, after seeing a blip on the news of them at a local performance over in Oakland, they look like the people who hang out around the north side of the Powell Street Station, and I couldn't help but agree completely ;-). Definitely lost their cuteness.. Or, perhaps more accurately, their target market has undoubtedly inane tastes (believe me, I'm not their main target market despite what XY Magazine #9 (Summer 97) says hehe ;-).
I like their No Strings Attached CD far better than Celebrity, and I like the Backstreet Boys better than any of the N'Sync songs
I thought they were just messing with the TOC. But this is stupid.
Assuming you think such a disk is worth listening to, it should be straightforward to write an application that fills in bad blocks.
Wow, Nsync actually has their own internet access service provided by MSN. What the hell is that? They call it *NSYNC@MSN, and it's advertised on www.nsync.com
-- I'll cut you up so bad, you'll wish I'd never cut you up so bad!
Now if I get a funny look from the counter guy when I go to by a shiny new Nsync cd I can just say
"Hey, don't worry.. I'm just buying it to break the copy protect. Down with the man!"
Even if you wanted to hear their terrible music, there will always be a way to circumvent this protection crap. Play the CD on a consumer CD player with a digital out (Many of the newer ones have this) plug that into your SPDIF in on your Sound card (No loss of quality), then make a damn MP3, from there you can do anything you want, play the mp3z on your 'puter, or burn a new CD to play on your computer, or other device that doesn't like the original disc. Just becuase theres no microsoft wizard or brainless way to accomplish something doesn't mean it can't be done. As for the mindless mainstream that would actually buy this crap and try to listen to it on a computer, screw um. Let me know when this starts to effect good music, but for now, unless they actually start embedding some sort of copy protection into the actual output device(read: Speakers or headphones) they will always fail at this crap.
If you rip a copy protected CD on a Linux box, or a Mac, and don't even notice that it has copy protection, are you breaking the law?
A very good (and free) solution for this would be if every reader here actually buys the cd in a store, then goes back exclaiming like hell that he couldn't play it back in the computer until he gets the money back.
If enough do it, it will work and set the right signs.
fbi$ chmod +x /bin/laden /bin/laden --notrial --with-extreme-prejudice
fbi$
Gav
"There's no such thing as data that can't be manipulated"
How many people touch paint to see if the wet paint sign is correct. How many geeks will buy the CD just to see if it can't be copied?
The truth shall set you free!
This is a weird one. Compy protection on CDs is not a new thing, games manufacturers have been doing it for years, and that doesn't seem to stop people. I don't see how N*Sync's protection will stop people copying the CD in RAW mode (with CloneCD or something similar). If its this that they're trying to prevent then they will fail miserably.
If it rippers they're worried about, then they may stop people for a few months, but sooner or later, someone will figure out a way of doing it, and in the mean time, anyone can make an MP3 by connecting the headphones out on their Discman to the line in on their sound card. Sure, the quality might not be as good as a digital rip, but it won't be bad.
I think somebody said that the technology is there for computer enthusiasts with a fair amount of knowlege to crack this already. If this is the case, it won't be long before somebody writes a user friendly UI for this and it filters down to the masses.
All in all, its just another recording industry head in the sand job.
who wants to copy NSync anyway? i doubt there are many 12 year old female slashdot/new scientist readers.
We will be protesting outside major record stores throughout the UK this Saturday against these new 'copy-protected' cds.
Details of the protest can be found here, including the leaflet we will be handing out.
The cities targeted so far are Edinburgh, Birmingham, Brighton, Cambridge, Glasgow, London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Rugby.
btw the probable reason for not releasing copy-protected cds in the UK, is that we have some of the strongest consumer protection laws in the world, including the Trading Standards Authority and the Advertising Standards Agency.
"Free software as in beer, copy protection as in racket" - Telsa Gwynne
Current copy protection methods for CD's will always be client-side.
ie. both the mechanism to "decrypt"/"decode" the copy protection and the contents are avaliable to the user.
Since the player is actually playing the CD and extracting the data and playing it this puts all the peices together for a "cracker" to be able to replicate the environment.
the only solutions for full copy protection are tamper proof CD players where algorithms/the process cannot be analysed (highly unlikely) or a distributed copy protection scheme where every machine has to communicate with a central server and establish sessions or some other similar idea (this will move the vulnerbility to this central server).
in other words, all this effort is useless...
You mean I will no longer be able to copy the garbage that these talentless twerps put out. It isn't even worth the cost of a blank disc. It's a travesty that these idiots even have a recording contract.
the copy protection is key2audio, works on 1 out of the 5 cdrom players we tried it on, where it would just not play at all. They have a website http:www.key2audio.com. The good thing is that it does not work(the protection system). The other good thing is that they advertise it on the box with a sticker and on the CDs where it's written on it that they cannot play on computers. The bad thing is that i think the band had no choice, it's just epic (sony) that started mass-producing those.
I wonder how long until labels start popping up and advertise themselves to the bands as "real copyable CD producers", if phillips would get back a music label or so.....
-- x
Actually this whole audio disc protection scheme might have a good side-effect. Now there will be more and more demand for CDR drives that let the user (application) specifiy the actual checksums, ECC, etc. for the data on the disc. This has been an unsolved problem for years already on CDR drives.
So this violated red book, yellow book, ISO or standard X? So what, user application should be able to specifiy it. This way protected audio discs will be become copyable (read: backup :) again. This would would also make it possible to make self-bootable PlayStation (2) discs.
This also applies to seeking to any section of the disc, even if the second is beyond what is specified in the TOC of the disc. This again probably violates some standard, but who cares. We need this to break lame CD-ROM (and DreamCast GD-ROM as well) protections.
Ofcourse you Americans will not be able to (legally) enjoy it because of the lame DCMA, but us Europeans should.
I make an appeal to everyone to bitch to their CDR drive manufactor for firmware that has the above functionality!
If you all go out and buy a copy then it will get to number one straight away amidst all the media attention, be it good or bad, and then we will have acheived nothing and nsync will produce more cra for us to out up with.
That's really the answer in the end. To play a given CD you should be required to buy a unique player. OK maybe that's going too far but certainly we should be required to buy another player for every BRAND of CD. You know, a Sony branded, a BMG branded and so on. That way the poor victimized record companies can be assured that not only are not avoiding our patriotic duty in peeling off every last dime to them but they can help democracy and the poor record companies the world over by generating yet more revenue from the hardware sales themselves. I think $1000 for a branded CD player is about right and $100 per CD per year renewable online but only through your $25/membership to the record companies online club. Oh and don't forget that each player must be individually keyed so that only YOUR CD's can play in the branded player insuring that no evil pirates could possibly ever play their own CDs in your player and visa versa.
Sounds reasonable to me.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
I just had to say that.
=)
Chris
Let me predict the future.
A. 14 days from receiving a new CD, the scheme will be hacked ( if not sooner )
B. Well to-do kids will download work-around solutions and make copies of their songs.
C. The poor, will keep supporting greedy music industry.
In some countries there is a surcharge on blank media capable of copying audio cassettes and CDs. This was introduced to "compensate" the artists (ha ha) for the copies made.
None of my musician friends ever got any of this money so I suppose it goes to the top selling label companies and the will just chuckle and keep taking the money.
Ever since the initial release, (any copy of Tool: Lateralus, that has the correctly spelled title track) the album has been vandalized with the new copy protection (same as the new puff daddy, M. Jackson, and i guess now N*sync). It's not just pop that has been struck with the plauge,
Taco Save us.
"It's the Law of the Universe, and I'm the sheriff." Slash-cott 2/10-2/17
According to http://www.heroinewarrior.com/bcast2000.php3, Broadcast 2000 is no longer available from the publishers. But you can still get it at Tucows.
A few people have complained that the process outlined is going to give horrible results. They'd probably be good enough for me, as I have a tin ear. Then again, it is the Backstreet Boys, so the resulting MP3s would still be painful.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Oh no! We have to stop this travesty of the modern age! CD Copy protection is evil!!!
I say we boycott N*Sync!
Oh, wait... that wouldn't have any effect...
Never mind, resume what you were doing before I barged in...
I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!
They will have the career of a mayfly with a broken wing. Their label knows that and will make every effort to capitalize on their "so long as we're cute" pursuit. There is nothing wrong with copyrighting music and then protecting it. Where people get off thinking that they should have the right to steal somebody's work is beyond me. All of the justifications made are sewage. It all boils down to wanting something for nothing and ripping people off along the way. Go out and buy some music for a change.
PegQuin--I've got a sneakin' suspicion
If it's true as reported that the disks will not copy on home CD recorders, then the consumer is being cheated of a right he has bought AND PAID FOR.
The whole CD recorder/"Music CD-R"/SCCS system promises that, in exchange for a PER-COPY FEE built into the price of the "Music CD-R," I have the right to make single-generation digital copies of CD's.
Now the music industry is saying that even after I pay that fee, I can't make the copy. They aren't even willing to live up to their own one-sided bargain.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Do you know of any Nerd that listens to N'Sync? Nope, that's left to prepubescent girls who could care less about computers. (Sorry guys, those prepubescent girls in chatrooms are really hairy, old men).
Any lawyers in the room? What are the chances that we - computer owners, not customers who buy the CD - could begin a class-action suit against the manufacturers because their product won't work on our CD drives bearing that lovely little "CD" logo?
Now, having left that flame-bait out there, it should be said that the last umpteen CDs I bought were of bands that I heard on KNAC.com, or NetRadio, or other net-enabled means. Full songs, not fragmented bits that shows up on band web sites. If the RIAA would get the message that full demos sell CDs, maybe they.... nahh, forget it, they'll never get a grip, will they?
I'd have a personalized plate on my car, but "toxic bachelor" won't fit into 7 letters.
At least this copy protection hasn't reached any CD's containing actual music yet.
SIG: TAKE OFF EVERY 'CAPTAIN'!!
I live in a college dorm and dont have room to bring a full stereo down. It is most convenient for me just to use my computer. if this becomes a major trend...I'm going to be in trouble. I think the best thing people like us can do is to boycott cds like this and show the record companies that we wont stand for this dicrimination of how we listen to our music...
not like i would ever buy an 'nsync cd anyway right?
peas
Could Jesus microwave a burrito so hot that he himself cou
Please, this is a good thing - STOP PEOPLE FROM COPYING NYSYNC.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Rip. Mix. Burn.
Bwahahaha!
...um...like...a sig...
I know that people are looking for ways to copy protect CD's, but when they get to the point where the normal Joe can't play a CD on his computer at work it's gone to far. Yes, I agree with the fact that music companies do not want to lose money, but they ahve have to look at the BIG picture. They start pulling stunts like this, they are going to get bit back by the consumer. Who knows one group of people will stop buying this company's "protected" CDs and they will go with someone who doesn't protect their CDs. It comes out to be a double edged sword in the end. BTW, how did they ever copy protect cassettes???
Who knew life could be this funny?
If people will have to run the analog output back to the input, they hopefully make one big mp3 from the whole CD. This will make easier to get the CD from the p2p network, rather than chasing individual tracks.
Rather strange if you ask me.
But this is just a test.
Unable to read configuration file '/bigassraid/htdig//conf/14229.conf'
Geocrawler error message.
The last album of Heather Nova (not yet released in the US) has the same copy protection as the german disk of N'Sync.
Well, I bought the CD (not knowing about the protection), it refused to play on the CD-Players I'm usually using (my PC and my car-radio), so I returned the CD as defective (non-red book compliant) to my shop, where I got a refund.
But before I just popped it in my macintosh and ripped it in AIFF to make a perfect (usable) copy of it
So, I definitely think this was the stupidest and lamest idea EVER. I own more than 1200 CD's and I'm all for IP rights protection, but you have to follow the business rule #1: don't try to fuck your customers!
I'm sorry, I like Heather Nova's music a lot, I bought every album and single released, but I'm not going to buy anymore anything related to her or her record company. No CD's, no concert tickets, no merchandising, nothing.
I'm pretty sure that it was not Heather's idea, that the record company did it against her will, and that she suffers from it. I hope she won't loose too much from this mess.
n.
-- p a n a p i c - panoramas des alpes: Mont-Blanc, Mont-Rose, Cervin, etc...
I use my PC as a stereo, and I don't even own a "consumer" cd player or stereo. So won't this actually force me to use mp3's as my only way to listen to music?
Protect us from that god awful Nsync music!!!
Just an everyday guy....nothing special
Nice WTC pix, by the way.
sulli
RTFJ.
No, that won't work. The problem isn't with the decoded audio not being able to get to your sound card, it's with the fact that your computer's CD/DVD player simply can't make heads or tails of the CD in the drive, gets confused and aborts. They insert data designed to confuse computer CD/DVD players, and so the drive is no more capable of playing to your earphone jack than it is to your sound card internally.
The way you'd have to do it is with a discman, or stereo which wouldn't be confused by the copy protection.
Slay a dragon... over lunch!
Hey guys. Why doesn't anyone use COMMON SENSE? For christ sake. Everyone just talks about hacking the encryption blah blah. What a waste of time. What you do, is bring your CD Player over to your computer. Hook a cable from the cd player OUTPUT, to your soundcard's INPUT. Open sound recorder and record your wav's. Convert WAV to mp3 and there ya go. It's now on the net everywhere. Pretty tough huh? Wow... how much money was spend on this encryption? ROFL what a joke.
Any music worth paying for will never be sold on these damaged discs because audiophiles just won't go for it. Two reasons: 1.) The sound degredation probably *is* discernable to the trained ear. 2.) Many high-end CD players with ultra-high quality transports expect to be able to read the disc cleanly bit-for-bit, similar to Plextor drives.
I would hardly call stringing together a few random power chords and throwing stupid, screamy, teen-angst "lyrics" on top "songwriting".