More Copy Protected CDs?

Mahonrimoriancumer writes "There are a lot of CDs that have been released recently which can't be played on the computer or *laugh* ripped. Apparently only a few markets have the 'copy protected' CDs while the rest don't. Here is a list of some that are 'protected.' Does anyone know of other CDs with this problem?" I own at least one CD on that list and it ripped just fine, so perhaps that are different versions of the CDs on the market

Comments

I heard of Sting

[Zeinfeld]

The rest of the bands might as well be enciphered for all I care. Probably just means that I am old.

The 'anti-rip' technologies all work by exploiting bugs in the CDROM drivers that cause the ripping software to break. If the CDROM drivers start to break on large numbers of CDs then the manufacturers will be forced to fix them.

I suspect that Amazon and the like will find these CDs unecconomic to sell as the number of returns is going to be high. The CDROM driver bugs are not going to be unique to CDROMs. Expect Amazon to start pro-actively warning customers that certain CDs have a very high rate of return.

Re:I heard of Sting

[rosewood]

I dont think it really matters. The radio station I work at gets the CDs weeks (if not months) before the release date. We also receive a single of what we are forced to play, of course. The CDs we normally get (with some exceptions) are not the same you buy in the store. The ones we get to give away are, but not the first sample we get in. Since we may need to copy all of the tracks for an album show (every saturday at 1am we play through a new cd) to our system, if it was copy-protected, we couldn't do dick with it. That also means that I get a copy for myself, and then soon so does the world.

CD rips

[Anarchos]

The System of a Down cd ripped fine for me, although I have Jimmy Eat World: Bleed American and I can't rip it. Musicmatch Jukebox gives an error of "buffer too large, switch to analog mode" when using DAE and in analog mode it just crashes.

Re:CD rips

[EvlPenguin]

System of a Down worked fine for me too.

Somehow, a SoaD CD with copy protection just seems a little oxymoronic. "They're trying to build a prison for you and me....."

Interesting article

[Burritos]

Here is an interesting article about Copy Protected CDs..

I remember reading somewhere that there was a copy protected cd released, that you could play on your computer, it had propeitary software and 128 kbps mp3s.

Re:Interesting article

[InShadows]

It might have been this article on theregister about Natlie Imbruglia's cd.

The cd contains a Windows only application that will allow the user to listen to all the songs on their computer in an mp3 format without them able to rip the cd. Therefore computers with anything but Windows will not be able to run the program.

How's that for being able to choose the medium you wish to listen to music?

InShadows

Unbreakable copy protection!

[tonyc.com]

I got a CD the other day with the only truly unbreakable copy protection I've seen. They did it by leaving out the metal layer and, apparrently, the pits which seem so easily copyable. The result is a disc which is almost completely transparent.

Sadly, the disc is unplayable on any of my equipment. Perhaps the publisher anticipated that kind of problem, and that's why they didn't label it, and included it for free on the top of a spindle of CD-R's I bought.

Hopefully, someday all copy-protected CD's will be distributed that way.

Re:Unbreakable copy protection!

[neema]

""this page intentionally left blank"

Isn't it impossible for that to be written on a blank page?

Re:Unbreakable copy protection!

[Mike Schiraldi]

Actually, i've written a script that will let you copy it.

#! /bin/sh

if [ x$1 = x ]; then
echo usage: $0 \<destination\> &gt&2
exit 1
fi

dd -if=/dev/zero -of=$1

Re:Unbreakable copy protection!

[Marcus Brody]

Now if we could only convince the record companies to release Michael Jackson, Natalie Imbruglia & N'Sync on these "transparant" disks, the world would be a much, much better place...

How does that help?

[hatchet]

The funniest thing is, that most cds are being ripped months before offical release... probably from a source that does not have such protection. And I bet all those albums on protected list are already ripped and availbile on internet.
As far as i'm concerned... such protection just lowers overall quality of CD.

Stop using the phrase Copy Protection...

[Kiro]

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

.

Re:Stop using the phrase Copy Protection...

[Dr. Awktagon]

Amen, amen to that, try also "copy interference". Because they're not preventing any copying, they just make you do it differently.

Or heck just "intentionally damaged" or whatever, anything to get away from their terminology.

Re:Stop using the phrase Copy Protection...

[Webmonger]

I think better terms are "copy control" or "usage restriction". The point is that they want to control how you use what you buy.

Re:Stop using the phrase Copy Protection...

[ichimunki]

I don't like the idea of leaving the word "copy" in there. The public is already used to hearing that word in the context of "piracy" and "theft". Why don't we call it what it is, "fucking up the CD to prevent ethical reuse?".

RIAA, you can kiss my behind, I have started my boycott of your CDs. Total loss so far? $20. Since I have purchased, on average, 75-100 musical releases a year for the past several years, consider your potential annual "loss" to be anywhere from $1000-$2000. To the artists: this also means I won't be going to your shows, since I probably won't have heard your latest album enough to care.

Re:sooner or later..

[jeffy124]

ah shit, that worked well. I put in some angle brackets that got misinterpreted as html

what I meant to say was:
sooner o^&%$r later )(^the p@#$%rogrammer@$#%s of the w#$%#$orld wi@$#%ll find@#$% a wa%^&@#y past (*&^:the ju"%@#$nk data~!$ in thos^$@e CD's, mu}_(ch how hu:_^mans %*%will fin":?+d our w#@%!%^ay throug_){"h this (fi%$#rst?) po#$st

Another one to the list

[Cheesy_Poof_Man]

I can't get Bush's new cd "Golden State" to play in Winamp. It only works when i press play on my cd-rom drive. Hum, wierd.

Re:Another one to the list

[DeadMeat (TM)]

That's because Golden State is an Enhanced CD. Normally Windows shows audio tracks as .CDA files; Winamp registers itself to open these files. Since Enhanced CDs have actual data files in addition to audio tracks, the .CDA virtual files don't show up, and so you can't tell Winamp to open them. It's a problem with Winamp and all Enhanced CDs. Most CD players get around this by not relying on the .CDA filetype and instead reading the table-of-contents directly from the start of the disc, but Winamp unfortunately doesn't. If you manually start the Windows CD player (*shudder*) it should play fine; try it.

Copy-protection shouldn't affect Winamp anyhow since it only affects digital playback, and Winamp uses analog playback (unless you swap out the CD player plugin with one that uses digital ripping).

Re:Another one to the list

[mini me]

In Winamp, in the CD properties, uncheck the "Sample input from soundcard". This feature on some sound cards makes the CD not play any sound.

Since the CD will play in CD drive it likely isn't protected.

Re:Another one to the list

[yawble]

You can usually get around this by going into the Winamp "Options" by clicking in the top left, and going to Play: then "Audio CD $CDROM" where $CDROM is the correct drive letter. This lets me play 99% of the Enhanced cds i have.

get a mac!

[Anonymous Coward]

They can rip these CDs. They don't use the CD drive's analog playback function. Their drivers were designed to play CDs digitally all the way drom disc to speaker, and are not vulnerable to this copy protection thru intentional corruption scheme.

Now I wonder how long it'll be until someone sues Apple for making too good a CD player. Or forces them to downgrade their drivers.

Re:get a mac!

[Incongruity]

This might be one of those times where being a smaller fish in the big computing pond will actually help...apparently the AC who posted the previous comment is right, Macintosh and Linux machines are in fact immune to these problems. Follow this link, read more, and love your non-MS OS.

Re:running list

[jeffy124]

Take your pick of acronym:

• FTFL (follow the f____ link)
  
• RTFA (read the f____ article)
  

Music industry wants to have its cake and eat it.

[Anton Anatopopov]

They want to sell you a 'license' to listen to the music, but then when you try and make a legitimate copy to protect your investment, they get all legalistic and accuse you of a crime.

The music industry needs to take a look at its model of doing business. The current model is fundamentally flawed.

How to copy a MediaCloq protected CD

[unformed]

[This is directly copied from: http://cdprot.cjb.net/ ... I'm copying it here so it doesn't get /.'ed]

Let me start off by saying that I don't even know for sure if the protection I am talking about is indeed MediaCloQ(TM)....... The symptoms look like it, but I read that MediaCloQ(TM) protected CD's would transfer you to the MediaCloQ(TM) website automatically (as soon as you insert the CD into a CD-ROM drive) where you can download music files.

I recently wanted to make a personal backup of my own CD called "The Loveparade Compilation 2001". CD2 copied fine, but CD1 could not be read by any CD-ROM player or CD burner. It would however play in any normal audio CD player. Now as a decent reverser you must understand my frustration ;-) A friend tried copying this CD with a custom audio CD copier (Philips CDR 765) which actually worked. But if you haven't patched yours to be able to write low-cost non-copyrighted CD-R's with it this is quite expensive. This copy will be able to be grabbed on a normal way.

So, next evenings I spend trying to understand what was going on here. I found out that after insertion the laser first goes to the center of the CD (the TOC or Table Of Contents where the index of the CD is stored). After this the laser went to somewhere on the outer side of the disc and started to try to read there. This is where the reader would never stop doing this and some players will hang forever in this phase.....

So what idea could be easier than to prevent the reader from reading this outer part? I made 3 paper stickers of about 25 x 20 mm and placed them on the outer side of the CD. Now the reader would read the inner TOC, then go to the outside again and after not being able to read anything there because of the stickers, the reader would be 'smart' enough to decide to stick with the inner TOC, go back to the center and read this TOC as the one and only TOC :-)

I am certainly not an expert on CD readers but I think this is what is going on here. If anyone has better ideas, let me know. This protected CD has a so called Multi Session TOC. This is the same when you burn a CD-R and set it to MODE2 / Multi Session when you burn an empty CD-R for the first time. After this a MODE2 CD-R can have multi sessions appended afterwards. For every new session a new TOC is written (with the old data about the files already on the CD-R included). My theory is that this protected CD has also a MODE2 / Multi Session TOC which makes a CD-ROM player and burner decide to search for the latest TOC from the outside to the inner side. With the placed stickers it will not be able to and most CD-ROM players will decide to stick with the center TOC.

So now the CD-ROM player will read the CD but unfortunately it will not be able to read the last tracks because my stickers are placed there. So now a second trick is needed. I used a paperclip to push into the little hole on the front of my CD-ROM player to open the door manually. The reader has no idea at all I was doing this so it came out spinning :-) Then I removed the stickers and pushed the CD back in. The last part I had to push a bit harder to make sure the CD would be totally inserted and fit on the spindle again.

Guess what? I could now play and grab all tracks as I would do with any non-protected CD! I must say that on one CD-ROM player (TEAC) I had to skip the first block (or 0.01 seconds) in Easy CD-DA Extractor for the first track only (still have no clue why). My Plextor 16/10/40A burner and another CD-ROM player had no problem with this first track.

I did try to move the stickers to the outside of the CD until my audio CD player would just be able to play the last track until the last second but the CD-ROM player would not read it anymore. In fact, I would have to move the stickers a whole lot more to the center of the CD before it would be able to read it again. It might be possible that there is no TOC at all on the outside; the inner TOC just points to some music track which will of course not be understood by the CD-ROM player as a valid MODE2 TOC...... The reason why this CD does not automatically transfer you to the MediaCloQ(TM) website like a MediaCloQ(TM) protected CD would do could be that the protection I discuss here isn't MediaCloQ(TM) at all. But it could also be due to the fact that this CD was almost full and that there was simply no space left for a real TOC and a valid data section where an autorun.inf file could be stored which transfers you to their website.

Now to summarize this little trick:

Place 3 (or maybe more on better CD-ROM players / burners) non-transparent stickers of about 25 x 20 mm on the outside of your CD along the edge. Make sure that they wont stick outside of the CD and press them well, otherwise your CD-ROM player will start making funny noises ;-)

Insert the CD into your CD-ROM player and see if the CD-ROM player accepts it (you can see the tracks in your Explorer). If not you can try to move the stickers a bit to the center or place more stickers. Note that my laptop CD-ROM player and one burner I've seen would not be able to read it at all so no guarantees are given here......

Now we have to wait until we are sure that the CD is not spinning anymore. After the CD-ROM player accepted the CD it can still be spinning for a few minutes (my TEAC stopped after more than 3 minutes). I guess to be sure, wait about 5 minutes. If you are impatient here you risk to eject it while it is still spinning and this could damage your CD and who knows the laser of your CD-ROM player, so be warned!

Now using a fine screw driver or a paper clip push into the little hole in the door of your CD-ROM player. The trays of some CD-ROM players can be opened totally without the CD-ROM player noticing but I saw one that would re-read the CD after closing the tray again so I would have to open it until halfway, until I was just able to get the CD out. Push your paper clip into the hole until the tray opens. Then pull it out manually (be careful and do it slowly!).

Now remove the CD, remove the stickers and place it back.

Now push the tray to close it again. Do it carefully. At the end you have to push a little faster to make sure the CD will be inserted entirely. If not, take it out again and try again.

Now you can play it and grab it like you would normally do :-) If the first track will play but not grab skip the first 0.01 seconds or the first block. I use Easy CD-DA Extractor which offers this option (at the bottom of the extract window).

Enjoy and be happy !

Re:How to copy a MediaCloq protected CD

[FredGray]

Congratulations: sticker stock and paperclips
just became "circumvention devices" under the
Digital Millenium Copyright Act. Expect the
management of your local Office Depot to be hauled in by the FBI next week....

Re:How to copy a MediaCloq protected CD

[Lumpy]

I'm probably going to be marked troll for this but it is an idea that might work and solve this nonsense.

It is imperative now to rip and place on the internet EVERY track from EVERY protected CD. I dont care if it's crapola music, it has to be done. The only statment that these morons that run the record companies can understand is a marketing trick (and that is all that this is) is a miserable and complete failure.

The ripping ratio of these "protected" CD's must massively exceed that of normal CD's. It needs to get the attention of major media, and needs to make the idea of audio CD protection look like a really really stupid idea to the general brain dead american. (97.6% of the population)

Re:How to copy a MediaCloq protected CD

[GISboy]

... paperclips just became "circumvention devices"...

Does this mean that that we can finally get rid of "Clippy" and end the Microsoft trial for good?

Re:How to copy a MediaCloq protected CD

[Sentry21]

So what you suggest is that to allow us to excercise our 'fair use' rights, we should break the law on a massive scale as yet unseen by this generation, and illegally share this music with everyone?

Look, I agree that we should be able to fairly use music we pay for, but putting music on the internet IS illegal, by any stretch of the law, DCMA or no.

What you suggest is akin to bars having rules against shouting (because that often leads to fighting), and fighting that by starting brawls in every bar that has that kind of rule.

What you suggest will not show 'this is stupid', it will show 'this is necessary'. Think about things beforehand. You cannot fight a stupid law by breaking a good one.

--Dan

Re:How to copy a MediaCloq protected CD

[wakebrdr]

Right, and those crazy blokes who threw all that tea into Boston Harbor were way out of line as well!!!

Re:How to copy a MediaCloq protected CD

[Sentry21]

Right, and those crazy blokes who threw all that tea into Boston Harbor were way out of line as well!!!

Someone dumps my tea into the harbour, I'd kick their ass personally, but that's just me.

As for your tea party, I do think it's incredibly silly, but that's just me.

You yankees have the oddest ways of rebelling against your governments. Didn't seem to do very well the first time, better luck on the second run. =;>

--Dan

Re:How to copy a MediaCloq protected CD

[Lumpy]

Well then what do you prepose be done to make protected CD's and the record companies look foolish or downright stupid? Something needs to be done that is basically a nationwide full-on smear campain. Something that makes CEO's scared to go to that shareholders meeting, scared to take any calls from those that can fire him/her.

Public embarassment is the only solution to this. and the only solution I can see so far is what I suggested, Yes it's wrong, yes it's not the best idea, but we need to start thinking of solutions like this.

WE need to attack the CEO's directly, smear the name of the companies hard, They need to be labeled as un-american (espically in today's "patriotic atmosphere") and an enemy of what the "american freedom" stands for.

I know this is a bit silly, but the average american is blindly waving the flag in a patriotic way, if we take advantage of that and label these record companies and CEO's directly as as anti-american as our current enemy it might get som attention..

Yes it's using the propaganda machinre, but if we dont use their weapons in this war then we will all become casualties.

so anyone have any better ideas?

Re:How to copy a MediaCloq protected CD

[Sentry21]

You believe that this is a violation of your rights. I believe that it's a violation of copyright law, or at least, a violation of the principles behind copyright law, which are fair and just principles.

What you need to do is challenge this in court. Get rid of the DCMA, and the problem is over. Treat the disease, not the symptoms.

The problem is not CDs that can't be played/copied properly, the problem is laws that remove people's fair use rights, and the result is CDs that can't be played/copied properly.

Yes it's using the propaganda machinre, but if we dont use their weapons in this war then we will all become casualties.

That's not true. You don't fight fire with fire, you fight fire with water. You don't right injustice with injustice, or terror with terror, or lies with lies. You fight injustice with justice, terror with reassurance, and lies with truth.

--Dan

Re:How to copy a MediaCloq protected CD

[Lumpy]

So how exactly do we level thie playingfield then? you suggest fight it in courts, How? when the RIAA can come in with thousands of lawyers and grease the judicial system while the grass-roots citizens cannot compete with money or resources?

the DCMA is a purchased law, nobody in their right mind can honestly say that it is for the protection of the United States Citizens. Noone can say that it is a law that helps all the US citizens... the way it was lobbied and passed is a great example that it was purchased, just like most laws are purchased. Nothing has been passed in the past 20 years that is in the best interests of the people. So how do you fight a corrupt law on the corrupt playground? It's not possible without generating public outcry or tarnishing an opponent (tarnishing them with the truth is great, but using creative marketing as they do is fair game.)

The "proper" way is not working.. and it will never work. Until you get a think tank and thousands of lawyers to eork for it pro-bono you cant play by their rules.

one more thing to do

[Dr. Awktagon]

That page offers a list of things you can do, like not supporting the labels or buying and returning the CDs, etc. If you're the amoral type, here's something else you can do with a "factory-damaged" CD:

Rip the CD, analog style or with a Mac or whatever, and put some or all of the tracks on your web site. Blatantly label them and submit the page to search engines. Put a note there saying something like "these tracks came from a copy-prevention enabled CD, so if you see any MP3's here, you're imagining things!"

Then when the lawyerbots come by, take it down, and reply to them apologizing profusely and saying how important you think copyright is and all that jazz. I think if the labels see all these tracks traded on the internet exactly the same as all the other CDs, they'll start knocking on the door of the CD-protection company asking, what the hell did we just pay you 50million$ for??

Of course, I prefer just avoiding the labels and their music completely. Here's my rule of thumb: if you think you could send an email to both the head of the label and the artist, and get a personal reply within a few days, that CD is probably not going to be crippled. In fact after getting the CD be sure to email both with your compliments. And some of the bigger indie labels have also taken a anti-anti-copying stand too, like Projekt.

Re:one more thing to do

[MAXOMENOS]

Then when the lawyerbots come by, take it down, and reply to them apologizing profusely and saying how important you think copyright is and all that jazz. I think if the labels see all these tracks traded on the internet exactly the same as all the other CDs, they'll start knocking on the door of the CD-protection company asking, what the hell did we just pay you 50million$ for??

More likely, the lawyerbots will work as hard as they can to prevent the sale of "circumvention devices" such as software that can circumvent copy protetion. Look for them to go after open source projects such as cdparanoia in the near future.

Re:one more thing to do

[uchian]

Hmmm....

Household CD Player +
pair of phono to quarter inch jack +
Decent soundcard +
Computer +
WAV Recorder +
WAV -> MP3 converter

= circumvention device.

How about :

Radio + Cassette tape + a bit of patience = circumvention device.

How about :

Sky Satellite dish + Digital box + The Box (music channel) + Decent TV Card + computer

= circumvention device letting you get music videos as a bonus

Think that the computer is the common denominator? How about:

Home CD PLayer +
Phono leads +
mp3 recorder

= circumvention device

Hmm... maybe ban phono -> jack leads?

finally:

Home CD player +
Speakers +
Microphone +
Computer +
WAV Recorder +
WAV -> MP3 convertor

So it looks like the only way to get rid of all circumvention devices is, in fact, to ban computers, leads, speakers, microphones, mp3's, wavs, and, just to be on the safe side, let's lock up anyone who happens to hum whilst walking down the street, just in case they are humming copy-protected material.

Re:one more thing to do

[Anonymous DWord]

...and, just to be on the safe side, let's lock up anyone who happens to hum whilst walking down the street, just in case they are humming copy-protected material.

I know that's humour and all, but it's actually illegal to drive down the street with your windows open and your stereo playing if people can here it. Likewise, it's also illegal to bring your ghettoblaster into the back yard and play music loud enough that your neighbours can hear it. Copyright law is pretty messed up.

Class Action Suit

[CMiYC]

So I am starting to wonder. If it hasn't begun to occur already, what has to be done to bring a class action suit to the offending record companies? There are three things I see as a defense on our side.

1. It seems to me that someone would be able to find equipment that the CDs actually sound worse in.

2. Prove the lost ability to make a backup copy.

3. Show how you are suddenly limited to where you can play the $20 cd at.

Without a warning, I just can't believe its possible for them to do this. However, at the same time, I'm uncertain what law says "this cd must play in all cd players." I understand it isn't our right to play the cd anywhere, but at the same time, it is also our consumer right to know what we are buying can and can not do.

Re:Class Action Suit

[garett_spencley]

I understand it isn't our right to play the cd anywhere

Wha??!!!?? One of the reasons that I am completely against closed source software, cd copy "protection" , and the whole anti-DeCSS thing is because I believe that when I shell out my hard earned cash for something that means that I have the right to do whatever the hell I want with it because IT'S MINE!!!!!!

That's why whenever I am presented with a EULA I respectfully click "I do not agree". I will not enter into any "user agreement" with any company. If I buy something I reserve the right to do whatever the hell I want with it plain and simple...

With one minor exception: taking credit for the work.

I can not copy a book and say I wrote it. That's playgarism and is not fair to the author. But I can give that book to a friend when I'm done reading it because it's mine, I payed for it and I can do whatever I want with it.

--
Garett

Re:Class Action Suit

[chromatic]

I understand it isn't our right to play the cd anywhere.

Nuts to that. Apologies to Dr. Seuss.

RIAA guy

RIAA guy
Guy RIAA

That RIAA guy
That RIAA guy!
I do not like that RIAA guy.

Can you play CDs you buy?

I cannot play them,
RIAA guy.
I cannot play CDs I buy.

Can you play them
Here or there?

I cannot play them here or there.
I cannot play them anywhere.
I cannot play CDs I buy.
I cannot play them,
RIAA guy.

Can you play them in a house?
Can you play them with a mouse?

I cannot play them in a house.
I cannot play them with a mouse.
I cannot play them here or there.
I cannot play them anywhere.
I cannot play CDs I buy.
I cannot play them, RIAA guy.

Can you play them in a box?
Can you play them with a fox?

Not in a box.
Not with a fox.
Not in a house.
Not with a mouse.
I cannot play them here or there.
I cannot play them anywhere.
I cannot play CDs I buy.
I cannot play them, RIAA guy.

Would you? Could you?
in a car?
Rent them! Lease them!
Here they are.

I would not, could not,
in a car.

You may rent them.
You will see.
You may lease them week by week.

I would not lease them week by week.
Nor year by year! Please let me be.

I cannot play them in a box.
I cannot play them with a fox.
I cannot play them in a house.
I cannot play them with a mouse.
I cannot play them here or there.
I cannot play them anywhere.
I cannot play CDs I buy.
I cannot play them, RIAA guy.

A train! A train!
A train! A train!
Could you, would you on a train?

Not on a train! Not week by week!
Not year by year! RIAA! Let me be!
I should not, could not, in a box.
I could not, should not, with a fox.
I cannot play them with a mouse.
I cannot play them in a house.
I cannot play them here or there.
I cannot play them anywhere.
I cannot play them, RIAA guy.

Say!
In the dark?
Here in the dark!
Should I keep you in the dark?

You should not keep me in the dark.

Would you, could you, in the rain?

I would not, could not, in the rain.
Not in the dark. Not on a train,
Not in a car, Not in a tree.
I cannot play them, RIAA, you see.
Not in a house. Not in a box.
Not with a mouse. Not with a fox.
I cannot play them here or there.
I cannot play them anywhere!

You cannot play CDs you buy?

I cannot play them, RIAA guy.

Could you, would you, with a goat?

I would not, could not with Hilary Rosen!

Would you, could you, on a boat?

I could not, would not, on a boat.
I will not, will not, with that goat.
I cannot play them in the rain.
I cannot play them on a train.
Not in the dark! Not week by week!
Not in a car! You let me be!
I cannot play them in a box.
I cannot play them with a fox. I cannot play them in a house.
I cannot play them with a mouse.
I cannot play them here or there.
I cannot play them ANYWHERE!

I cannot play CDs I buy!

I cannot play them, RIAA guy.

You cannot play them.

SO you say.
Rent them! Lease them!
And you may.
Pay up and you may I say.
RIAA!
If you will let me be,
I will rip them.
You will see.

Say!
I like CDs I buy!
I do!! I OWN them, RIAA guy!
And I would play them in a boat!
And I would play them despite your goat...
And I will play them in the rain.
And in the dark. And on a train.
And in a car. And in a tree.
Fair use is good so good you see!

So I will play them in a box.
And I will play them with a fox.
And I will play them in a house.
And I will play them with a mouse.
And I will play them here and there.
Say! I will play them ANYWHERE!

I do so like CDs I buy!
Screw you!
Screw you, RIAA guy!

(feel free to spread that around... just link back to my website, if you do)

Re:Class Action Suit

[IronChef]

2. Prove the lost ability to make a backup copy.

But this doesn't matter anymore, right? The DMCA allows the publisher to interfere with this right. That's why it was passed. Their rights trump ours now, that's the whole point of the law.

The DMCA will need to be attacked directly, and I am not sure how since 'backup copies' may not even be a Constitutional issue. Of course, IANAL.

Re:Class Action Suit

[cpt kangarooski]

While you are correct in that the story is not owned by the posessor of a copy of a work, that's very nearly about all that you're correct about.

No one owns creative works. Their very nature causes them to be intrinsically unownable. Hence the need for a special set of doctrines and laws collectively known as copyright, when notions of property date back to time immemorable.

Like a lot of people you're confusing the copyright -- which is an optional, owned, temporary, limited, grant of monopoly to an author by the government if it desires to so make a grant -- and the work -- which is the actual story, or whatnot -- and the fixation -- which is the medium within which a work is carried, and which is ordinary property.

It's really a bad idea to even imagine for a moment that artists (I'm an artist, btw) are entitled to squat. Copyrights are gifts. They are in fact, very, very conditional gifts, and the practice of giving them really is in order to satisfy interests that don't necessarily coincide with our own at all.

For example, you mention Fair Use, (but not very accurately -- what's this "loan" B.S.?) but wrongly think that it is an agreement between authors and readers. In fact, it is a condition of the gift imposed by the government. Authors can rant and rail against fair use and be squarely opposed to it all they like -- but they have no say in the matter. (aside from ordinary democratic processes, natch) Copyright is simply limited from the get go, and it is the government, not any private parties, that makes the rules, and even decides whether or not copyright will exist, and if so, whether or not it will exist for certain things. (e.g. go back to ~1950 and discover that software is uncopyrightable; go back to ~1800 and discover that paintings and songs are uncopyrightable)

Simply buying a copy of a work doesn't necessarily mean that you can do whatever you want with it, provided that it is still copyrighted (public domain works are wide open of course) BUT it is not the author's place to make that decision, unless it was required prior, and as a condition of receiving, the copy of the work.

(e.g. publishers cannot require that used books be sold for a particular price, or not sold at all, unless that was a condition of getting the books in the first place.)

Re:Class Action Suit

[lazytiger]

As I understand it, these CDs potentially won't play on CD-ROM equipment, whether it's in a computer or ultra-expensive stereo gear. Who owns ultra-expensive stereo gear? People with money. People with sufficient amounts of money typically have power. What can people with power do? Influence others - like record company execs. This whole thing seems so stupid. If George Lucas goes home with his new Michael Jackson CD and can't play the damn thing on his $100,000 THX Ultra-certified home theater system, you think he's gonna say "Oh well." Hell no! He's gonna be making some calls over to Sony music (or whoever) asking "Why the hell can't I play your stupid CD on the best equipment money can buy?!"

Nevermind computers... this scenario is why I cannot comprehend why record companies would risk implementing such a stupid and inferior copy prevention scheme.

Re:Class Action Suit

[ca1v1n]

If it says "Compact Disc Digital Audio" on it, then it must conform to the standard, and thus play in my CD-ROM drive. If they make copy-impaired CDs and label them as regular ones, they are committing fraud.

Re:Class Action Suit

[cpt kangarooski]

Sigh.

Okay --
Let us imagine that there is an author, Alice. She writes a book, and holds the copyright to it.

Let us further imagine that there is a reader, Bob. He wants to get a copy of Alice's book.

If Bob goes to the store and buys Alice's book, this is an ordinary commercial transaction. Bob must comply with copyright law, and so cannot, for example, copy the entire book and resell it, while a) the copyright is in force, b) copyright law as set forth by the government prohibits it, and c) if prohibited by copyright law, is also prohibited by Alice. If any one of these elements is missing, Bob _can_ copy the book and resell it.

In fact, if, for example, Congress modified copyright law (b) so that authors did not have the exclusive right to copy their works while they wished to and the copyright was in effect, Alice's wishes would be entirely moot. Her abilities to exert control over Bob are limited by Congress. She can only choose to exercise or refrain from exercising the powers she's granted.

If Bob, under the normal copyright scheme, wants to quote part of Alice's book in a book review without Alice's permission, assuming that the book satisfies a, b, and c, he may. This is because b, the law, which grants Alice certain powers also limits those powers in certain respects. Among these limitations, are that Alice has no authority to refuse to allow her book to be quoted in such a case, even if she wanted to.

Similarly, if Alice wrote a computer program, and sold it to Bob, Bob can use it and back it up, regardless of what Alice wants. Alice cannot tell him not to back up his software -- she has no legal authority to do so.

Now see, here's the thing you're not getting:
When Alice sells Bob the copy of the book, Alice is NOT GRANTING HIM A LICENSE THAT RESTRICTS BOB'S USAGE OF THE BOOK.

That _is not_ happening. There is no "loan" of copyright, you're speaking out of your ass.

When Alice sells that book, the BOOK is Bob's. He owns it. He cannot exercise certain natural rights that are precluded by copyright, and no one owns the work itself, but he _really_ owns that book. If Alice sold him the book, and then told him after the transaction, that he was not allowed to read it, Bob can not only read it, he can tell her to go to Hell. Unless the government tells Bob he cannot do something, Bob _CAN_.

You are laboring under the misconception that copyright law is the same as contract law. It is not.

Now, had Alice said "No, you cannot buy this book until you sign this contract" you might have a point. Oddly enough, this doesn't seem to be happening in most music stores I've been to.

Perhaps you think that psudolegal notices have weight? Or EULAs? Well, the last time I checked, IANAL, the weight of opinion was against you. Some EULAs may be enforcable, but there's a good argument to be made as well -- one that has been more successful -- that they are not, as a rule.

Nor are they common anywhere but software.

Now of course, if Alice wants to sit her butt down at the store, and require people to sign contracts before she'll sell them a copy of her book, she's free to do so. But this is by far the exception rather than the rule. (and the power to do this has nothing to do with copyright, once again, but in that Alice can set the terms under which she'll sell anything, with some restrictions)

Does this perhaps clear up some of your misconceptions?

Re:Class Action Suit

[garett_spencley]

Evidentally everyone on Slashdot makes "hard earned cash" without creating anything they value.

I'm actually a musician. And a free software developer. I would like to think that what I create is "of value".

I agree with you that the words of the author are the property of the author. But the book as a whole that I payed for is mine and no one is going to tell me what I can and can not do with that book.

Similarly, the same applies to a cd. If I want to rip a cd that I own I have every right to do so. I may not have the right to re-distribute the songs that I ripped since I don't own the songs themselves - just the cd. But I can do whatever I want with the cd. I can give it to a friend; I can make copies of it; I can play it in my computer, car sterio, dvd player, mp3 player, toilet, microwave, vacuum or whatever else I may want to try and play a cd in etc. No one will take that right away from me because I payed for the damn thing.

...They will try though. I just hope for everyone's sake that they stop before they run out of money.

--
Garett

Re:Class Action Suit

[Trekologer]

I think that the point that the author was trying to make is this:

If the CD says "Compact Disc Digital Audio" (in that little logo thing), there is a certain expectation of the product (called "fitness") that it will play *correctly* in a device that also has that little logo.

Re:Class Action Suit

[hearingaid]

That's true, but most RIAA discs no longer include that little logo.

Re:Class Action Suit

[cduffy]

Because giving away the new CD (which he owns) also implies giving a second person a copy of the music (which he does not own), thus violating copyright.

However, so long as he does not violate copyright law by distributing the content without license, he may (or, at least, could prior to the DMCA) do whatever he damn well wants with that which he owns (ie, the CD).

The rub, thus, is that the only thing the author should be able to prevent the user from doing by force of law is unauthorized distribution, which is what copyright covers. In anything other than distribution, copyright {used to,should} have no force.

Re:Class Action Suit

[cduffy]

If the seller gives the buyer reason to believe that an item is fit for an individual purpose (ie. playing in a CD player), then the seller is indeed liable if the item doesn't do that. It's called an implied warranty. Go look it up.

Re:Class Action Suit

[cduffy]

Not if the buyer already purchased the content. If the transaction already occured, and the "you agree to X" clause wasn't explicitly a condition of it, the extra terms are moot.

Why? Because of the concept of "consideration". A contract isn't binding unless there's something in it for both parties that they didn't have before. This hypothetical contract inside the cover of the book implies new responsabilities on the buyer, supposedly in return for their ability to read the rest of the text. But wait! The buyer already got the ability to read the rest of the text (or do *anything* with it except for redistributing copies) when they bought the book, so they're given nothing by this contract. Hence, any judge would throw it out in a heartbeat.

If the contract offered the buyer something they didn't already have (ie. the right to print their own copy of the book if they pay the author $50 each), *then* it might be binding.

Copy Protectoin only affect windows?

[Tachys]

I own at least one CD on that list and it ripped just fine, so perhaps that are different versions of the CDs on the market

Hmmm, what OS did you copy the CD under? In the link they mention that "Copy Protection" doesn't affect Macs and Linux.

Re:Copy Protectoin only affect windows?

[DeadMeat (TM)]

If that's what the link says, they're mistaken. The copy protection is embedded on the CD itself (it involved screwing with the audio and expecting the CD player to fix it using the error correction data, but that digital rips won't), so it's OS-independent.

I am told however that cdparanoia (which is *nix-only and very popular on Linux) can properly rip copy-protected CDs (I assume by using the error-correction data) so it's very possible that CmdrTaco had a copy protected CD but cdparanoia took care of it for him. It's much more likely though that whoever reported the CD as copy protected just didn't know what they were doing -- cheap CD-ROM drives in tandem with MusicMatch or RealJukebox will barf on some CDs that good CD/DVD-ROM drives coupled with cdparanoia or Exact Audio Copy will happily rip.

Re:Copy Protectoin only affect windows?

[stripes]

The copy protection is embedded on the CD itself (it involved screwing with the audio and expecting the CD player to fix it using the error correction data, but that digital rips won't), so it's OS-independent

That depends on the type of factory damage (er, copy "protection"), and how the reading is done. An OS may have a driver that causes samples with damaged ECC to be interprloated, or just repeat previous samples. That would fix one kind of factory damage. Some CD reading code may ignore damaged parts of a TOC if it finds them...

Re:Copy Protectoin only affect windows?

[TWR]

No, you're wrong. The problem is how does the CD-ROM's device drivers respond to the errors put on the disc by the "copy protection." Mac and Linux device drivers seem to handle these errors without a problem. Windows drivers don't.

-jon

This is the way to go..

[O2n]

Quote from the aricle:
2. Don't buy the music. Remember, while we may be able to vote in elections every 2-4 years, we vote daily with our money. If they don't have your money, the labels will (probably) be smart enough to stop pulling this kind of stunt.

This is the way to go. This is "speaking the right language". Don't whine about this - do something about it.
Don't buy Sony electronics for example; it's wrong to think "what difference can I make" - you really make the difference.

All Universal CDs?

[Tim Macinta]

I'm curious about the statement that on that page that all Universal CDs will have copy protection as of this month. Are they not bothering to list individual Universal CDs because of this blanket statement? Does this include CDs produced under another label and distributed by Universal?

I ask because I don't see the new Garbage on the list and this CD is distributed by Universal even though the label it's produced under is something different. I walked into the store last week with the intention to buy it until I saw "Universal" on the back, which lost them a sale. I'd still like to buy it if the CD isn't actually corrupted, so does anybody out there have this CD? Does it have the intentional corruption on it?

Re:All Universal CDs?

[stripes]

That CD was released last month, not this month. My Mac (iTunes) read it just fine, and CD Paranoia on Linux also read it.

However I'll warn you it isn't much like the other Garbage disks. You may not like it a whole lot.

Plus I think the best thing to do with factory damaged disks is to buy and return them. It may work better if you have a laptop so you can take it to the store and show it not playing. Even better if they only want to swap you for another of the same disk, play the next one before you leave the store. Insist they refund your money or change it for the next one. It might be worth $20 to run through their whole stock. Definitely worth it if you can run through the whole stock and get the money back.

Re:All Universal CDs?

[stripes]

Oh sure, bring in another CD that plays fine, if they can whip out a player that works with the "defective" CD you've lost. (sorta, you'll probly be able to go through a few CDs)

Well, probbably. Depends on the mood of the sales critter, after all most folks working at Walmart, or Tower don't care that much....

Plus good chance you can get the money back if you feel up to arguing that the UCC demands that you be able to test the item before final purchase (which means any sealed item buy isn't binding until after you have a reasonable time to check the item, no matter what the store policy says). Better of corse if you happen to put a copy on the laptop and point out the relivent sections...

Still that requires a lot of arguing...

Re:All Universal CDs?

[Sodium Attack]

I'll add my voice to those who are suggesting beautifulgarbage isn't copy-protected at all, it's just the Enhanced CD that's causing problems.

I had no problems either ripping or playing the CD under Win98. However, I've changed my Windows settings so it does not automatically run whatever software is on a CD as soon as you insert the CD. (I don't recall where that setting is at the moment, or else I'd describe it.)

I ripped Slomotion

[kypper]

The new Watchmen CD... ripped it the day I got it home... anyone want an mp3? :op

This copy protection is bullshit.

Hmm...

[Greyfox]

Lets see... when was the last time I bought a CD... can't recall...

I seem to be getting less and less tolerant to commercials too. The radio in my car is tuned to NPR, which is commercial free 50 weeks out of the year. Even if it is the all Afghanistan all the time network these days. I'm about 99% RIAA free these days, I think. They'll probably get that declared an act of treason soon... feh... bastards.

Speaking of which, how much did they give your guys this year? We should get a petition going for a constitutional ammendment forbiding any incorporated entity from giving money to any politician.

Re:Hmm...

[jandrese]

This post brought to you by ADM, Supermaket to the World.

Re:Hmm...

[fishbowl]

>Why do we need a law/amendment? They have the
>right to lobby, and now that your "guys" are
>whores for money, dont vote for them. Pretty
>simple.

They already don't vote. They also don't
actually foster relationships with their
representatives at State or Federal levels, much
less actively participate in the political parties.

Re:What about digital out?

[tempfile]

Yes, unless you got a CD player that sets a copy protection bit in the stream and a sound card that won't record if that bit is set.

hmmm... guess

[Ender Ryan]

Well, I guess I'll be "pirating" System of Down's new CD since I won't be able to listen to it. My stereo at home is actually a Linux box connected to my TV and stereo receiver that I use for playing music, video and old arcade games.

Unfortuneately that makes it impossible for me to "legally" listen to their new CD and being a fan I'll have to download it from somewhere.

I'd even be perfectly happy to buy a "copy protected" CD and just through hoops to convert it to MP3, but sadly that's a federal offense because of the DMCA.

I don't understand why the music industry is so hostil towards their good customers...

Re:hmmm... guess

[Phexro]

don't believe the hype. i bought toxicity (ltd edition w/ the bonus disc) a few days after it was released, and i was able to rip it just fine. i also made a copy for my car.

i think the person who reported it as uncopyable just had no clue or was using crappy software.

Re:what is wrong with copy protection?

[fmaxwell]

yea, but if a company makes it hard or near imposssible to copy it, there's nothing illegal or wrong with that.

They are selling the items as "Compact Discs." My computers, JVC MP3/CD car stereo, and Riovolt portable MP3/CD player all play Compact Discs. So if I buy a disc and it does not play in them, it is not a Compact Disc. The companies producing the disc in question will have wasted my time -- with is worth far more than the $19 price of the CD.

There is a standard for audio CDs and it is well documented. If these companies are going to sell something that does not meet the standard, then they should not be advertising them as being "Compact Discs."

What we need to do

[dapcook]

Is go out to kazaa and to Morpheous and download all the music we want, then write a check and mail it directly to the artist themselves! This RIAA and DCMA stuff is getting so out of line it's not funny! How can a industry get away with isolating millions and millions of their customers??? I say go out and buy everything from 2nd hand music stores! Isn't it our legal rights to use a CD as we want? I can make copies for my use, I should be allowed to play this music on any CD player I have? So how about a class action lawsuit for depriving us of our rights??

widespread?

[archen]

is this "protection" going to become mainstream? I don't even own a CD player, but I use my computer all the time. Truthfully, I could care less about the stuff on that list since I mainly listen to metal (the more obscure stuff). But if this becomes standard practice I think they'll probably lose my business entirely. Get a CD player? I don't think so. If they adopt this scheme, how long will it be before they say "oh, looks like they figured out how to bypass the last scheme, so lets make a new one that isn't playable on the newer CD players". Like I want to be stuck on a perpetual hardware upgrade cycle just to play a freaking CD. If most of the smaller labels don't adopt this, I actually think it will help. These big corporations will only shoot themselves in the foot since people will HAVE to get the ripped version to listen to it on their computer.

I wish I was a fly on the wall...

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

... of the Software Publisher's Association meeting room. How many times do you think some marketing guy has asked why they can't do the same thing for CD-ROM's?

If it's happened less than 3 dozen times, I'm utterly shocked.

Those CD's are crap anyway.

[bdevlin]

I wouldn't download a rip of those CD's anyway. Let alone buy them.

Re:Those CD's are crap anyway.

[JWhiton]

The problem is, one of these labels probably have some band signed that you actually do like. If there isn't much of a public outcry about this whole copy prevention scheme, the labels will happily stick the technology on every CD they release. If you check out the list at Fat Chuck's, Universal is doing this already.

Don't have any favorite bands on big labels? This may not even matter after a while, either, because (as I understand it) there are a lot of smaller labels that are members of the RIAA as well. They might get bullied into copy preventing their CDs too.

I sure hope this doesn't happen. It would render my Nomad near useless. :(

flawed list

[rlwhite]

I don't think the list is very trust-worthy. DCTalk's Supernatural has been out for 3 years, and I have copies, both legally bought and ripped. Maybe they added protection on a recent production run, but that seems unlikely because any "piracy" damage is already done. Not to mention DCTalk is a Christian band; they want their message spread as wide as possible, even if it means losing some money.

I think some people are just reporting any disc they have trouble with, without investigating things like bad hardware or scratched discs. Just spreading paranoia.

This will only mobilize people

[YouAreFatMan]

This seems like a foolish move to do. It seems safe to say that it has been established that it is legal to rip CDs. Also, MP3s are more widespread than, say, DVDs ripped to DivX. Therefore it will be much harder to demonize people who break the copy prevention measures (or make tools to do so) on these CDs. With DVDs, it requires that I assert a new right never granted me by the MPAA (not that I really need them to grant me that right). However, with CDs, the RIAA is taking away a right I have been enjoying. A much harder thing to do.

I have a feeling this will backfire in one of two ways: 1) they will drop the copy prevention after a public outcry, or 2) there will be new drivers or tools published that make it possible to rip/play these CDs, and they become common enough to make the copy prevention irrelevant. This will mean that the only people truly affected will be innocent people with limited technical expertise (mom goes and buys a PC, puts her new CD in the tray, and it doesn't play; mom gets mad and calls you). This will only further giving a black eye to the RIAA.

A third possibility is the nightmare of DeCSS -- that someone publishes a method to defeat this copy prevention, gets sued, goes to court, etc. But as we've seen with DeCSS, it's pretty hard to stop it once it's out.

Re:This will only mobilize people

[Cow4263]

I whole heartly agree. You could argue that the mp3 rage these days is all because of the media attention Napster was getting during its trial. Every night on the evening news, Napster was the main story, so some guy says "that sounds cool" and downloads the client and leeches the night away. And now that napster is all but completely useless, most people have moved onto other p2p communities (probably Morpheus \KaZaA).

Even in a post napster world, the media likes publicizing(sp?) alternate ways of getting stuff. For example, I was watching CNBC of all channels and they were discussing napster, and one anchor said "nah, napster is dead. Mourpeus is the good one now."

Once you educate the masses, its impossible to unlearn them.

*yawn*

[huphtur]

2Pac-Until_The_End_Of_Time-2CD-2001-RNS
Aerosmith-Just_Push_Play-2001-KSi
Tori_Amos-Strange_Little_Girls-2001-EGO
Dc_Talk-Supernatural-RNS
Nsync-Celebrity(Real_CD_Retail)-2001-RNS
System_Of_A_Down-Toxicity-Retail-2001-STA
The_Watchmen-Slomotion-2001-EGO

A question

[famazza]

I question follows me everytime I hear anything about copy protected CDs.:

• Are these CDs compatible with Compact Disc Digital Audio? (that small trade marked logo that must appear in all CD players and Audio CDs

Does the owner of this technology (AFAIK Philips owns the patent) have any kind of official opinion about this? Is it allowed to modify the technology and keep using the compatible logo?

Can anybody help me with this question? (thanks in advance)

Re:A question

[Biedermann]

According to this recent comment (by me), the answer is no. The logo is owned by Sony and Philips (inventors/promotors of CD audio). According to a recent article in German c't magazine, Philips is looking into the violation of the Red Book / IEC 908 standard.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:What about digital out?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's just the problem. Your digital out IS affected. I personally own one of the CDs on that list, and when you play it and for example let a Minidisc unit record it through a digital out, it totally fails. Every single bit missing is interpreted as a stream interruption and causes a track mark, thereby flooding the disc with 254 tracks in the first few minutes.

Now this may seem MD-only, but the fact remains that these are errors deliberatly put on that disc, and nothing less, which are propagated through a digital out as well, thereby providing you with what is, in essence, a faulty low-quality product.

The hilarious part is that the solution to the MD problem is ripping the track to your computer using cdparanoia (works fine) or a similar ripper, and play back the WAVs through a digital out on your soundcard. Resulting in uninterrupted WAV data (the ripper fills in the blanks) which can be played back perfectly. In essence, in order to make a perfectly legal recording on MD for yourself, they are in fact forcing you to rip it to your computer, which is what I s'pose they are trying to prevent.

Another thing that bothers me is that when I put that particular disc in a drive on a Win box, it fires up a proprietary binary cd player which plays back the disc. I do suspect it doesn't play back the data but some highly-compressed version of the music stored in a relatively large data file on the data part of the disc (haven't checked the quality, was too pissed at that moment). So they are also forcing you to use Windows if you want to hear it play. Forget Macs, forget other OSes.

And for those interested, the disc in question (Natalie Imbruglia's White Lilies Island) was proteced with the Cactus Data Shield 200, which is noted in small print on the booklet.

I'm surprised that retailers...

[borkus]

... aren't complaining about this.

A lot of the big retailers for music - Best Buy and the Wiz come to mind - are also electronics retailers. Besides selling conventional CD players that may not be able to handle the "protected" CD's, they sell PC's with CDR's, CDRW upgrade drives and digital music players. In fact, with conventional CD players having become a commodity, digital music is probably an important source of profits for retailers and manufacturers. If enough of these "protected" CD's get out there, it's going to start spooking consumers; how can a retailer convince customer to buy a CDRW drive or a dashboard CD player that will read CDR's if half of that customer's music collection won't work on one of those. No customer wants to get "betamaxed" again. Instead of being able to profit by selling both the software (the music) and the hardware (playback devices), retailers are going to find out that spooked customers aren't buying either.

Worse still, a lot of digital music hardware may become the target for false advertising lawsuits. While retailers may not lobby the record companies on behalf of consumers, I'll bet you they will on behalf of their own profits.

Re:I'm surprised that retailers...

[kindbud]

...how can a retailer convince customer to buy a CDRW drive or a dashboard CD player that will read CDR's if half of that customer's music collection won't work on one of those.

Not sure how best to respond to this, except to say Well, DUH!. Sowing confusion among enemy is in that Art of War book by that Hung Sue guy, or whatever. Get with the program.

A working system?

[rockwood]

I have thought about this and believe that this would allow for both sides to get want they want. No distribution of music while allowing the consumer to play anywhere and back up as much as they wish.

The recording companies will sell high capacity memory cards @ the cost of manufacturing them. Each card has a random identification number embedded in it which will also be 'salt' for the encryption.

Any location re/selling music will be equipped with a digital recorder. When you purchase music you take your high capacity card with you. (You don't actually purchase tangible media). You give them your memory card and they load your purchased music on it, whish is also being encrypted while being stored (using the embedded ID#). The music store then stores your ID# and the music selection to their database.

You take your memory card home to your home stereo system and upload the music from the card to the radio's internal drives. You can also upload the music to your computer, car radio (also equipped with an internal drive) etc... And in order to play the music stored on ANY of these items, all you need to do is pop in your memory card.. the id number on the memory card is used to decode the stored music and then played if it decodes correctly.

Optionally if you want to play music on a system that does not have your music in it, simple copy the music selection(s) you wish to here to you memory card before leaving your home and play it anywhere right from the memory card. If you copy the music from the card to someone elses drives... their card won't decode your music because the ID that is read from their card is different from the the code used to encrypt the your music.

In the event of a total loss of music, you can go back to the store where you purchased the music from and tell them you need the selections again.. and give them your card.. (Remember earlier I mentioned they stored your ID number and music selection) and then they could give you back ALL of your music at not cost to you - Providing the card you give them has the same ID number that they have in their system.

I am not saying this is fool proof, as nothing is! But I believe this would satisfy everyone and put music distribution back to what it was in the days of cassettes.

This concept could also be used for dvd and game purchases also.

Any thoughts?

Oh and btw.. IF this would be used.. I hereby announce this MY idea on this day 11/11/2001 ;)
Hey! - You never know!

Re:A working system?

[Reality Master 101]

The biggest problem is that it would require mandatory registration, which the paranoids would never go for (what if I lose my card? To get a replacement, I would have to identify myself).

There are also other problems: everthing would have to have a card reader, suddenly making all your stereo equipment obsolete. You can't sell your music media like you can with CDs. You can't mail-order music.

The biggest problem, though, is who wants to carry around a freaking key? If I leave it at home when I go to work, I can't listen. If my wife wants to listen to music while I'm at work, we have to buy two different copies? I don't think that's going to fly.

Re:A working system?

[issachar]

Equipment becoming obsolete? Like the VHS's in Blockbuster that are disappearing and being replaced by DVD's?

That's different. People don't object to that because they're getting a higher quality product. You're not going to get people to ditch their old equipment simply to prevent something that most people don't want to prevent. The only purpose of which is to enrich the RIAA.

If anyone actually believed that the RIAA would lower the price of CD's if piracy was eliminated, they might go for it. But no one believes it.

Pricing of CD's and DVD's has almost nothing to do with cost, and almost everything to do with what the market will bear. In other words, we'll charge as much as we can get away with. That's not evil, it's standard economics when competition is removed from the equation. And there isn't competition. If you want a particular song, there's only one company to get it from.

Also, look at the price of DVD's vs. the price of tapes. Tapes cost more to manufacture, and yet DVD's cost more. Why? Because people are willing to pay more.

Aphex Twin's Drukqs

[niklaus]

I could read CD 1 on my computer, although the whole CD appears as one 51 minute track. CD 2 it can't read at all. cdparanoia says "Unable to open disc". My portable CD player and even my very cheap stereo sometimes have trouble reading the discs, though stopping and restarting them fixes the problem.
I would never have thought that Aphex Twin would do such a thing, even though he says the only reason he releases his music is to make money (he only releases what he thinks his fans expect from him and he keeps the really innovative stuff for himself, because he doesn't want to be copied by everybody.

There are two versions to collect statistics

[jeffmock]

It's pretty clear to me why records companies are distributing both clean and copy protected versions of the same CD. They are collecting statistics on consumer acceptance for the copy protection scheme. They release two versions and then look at the return rates for the two versions to figure out how many people have CD players that reject the copy protection scheme.

jeff

Re:what is wrong with copy protection?

[fmaxwell]

Except, the requirement to use the little CD icon is paying money, not meeting the standard. They never claim to meet the standard anywhere.

If you sell something as a Compact Disc, you are advertising that it meets the standards for a Compact Disc. Philips/Sony licenses the logo, but they do not verify conformity with specs for each item that bears that logo. It is the responsibility of the manufacturers using the logo to assure that the products that they sell meet the specification for audio Compact Discs.

Licensing issues have nothing to do with false advertisement claims. Suppose I license the USB logo and then produce a "USB mouse" that doesn't work with the USB ports on most computers. I would still be guilty of false advertisement even though I licensed the USB logo.

Limited Run Batches

[Krimsen]

I own at least one CD on that list and it ripped just fine, so perhaps that are different versions of the CDs on the market

Yes correct. There are limited batches

As a side note related to this

[trilucid]

I've heard a lot of folks complaining on other boards about downloading MP3s that are "bad rips" from "protected" CDs.

Now, my personal opinion is simple here. I don't believe the protection method is AT ALL fair, since it has the potential to prevent paying customers from making fair use of their media. However, I can't stand hearing people complain about "wasting time downloading useless MP3s", since that's not fair use in my book.

Some people say sharing files with others is fair use. Legally, this may actually be so, but it doesn't sound fair ethically to me (with respect to the artist and the people behind the album production). On the other hand, the ability to copy my CD for my own personal use, or to rip it to a series of MP3 files is critical to me. It's also nice to know my PC CD player won't barf on a CD (since I almost never use "standalone" audio equipment anymore, all linked into my PC).

Any thoughts on that? Anyone heard of similar complaints or "issues" with bad MP3 rips to due this?

Re:As a side note related to this

[stripes]

Some people say sharing files with others is fair use. Legally, this may actually be so, but it doesn't sound fair ethically to me (with respect to the artist and the people behind the album production).

If you are sharing the files with someone you know will buy the disc if they like it and delete it if they don't then it seems fair, but that may or may not be legal.

Re:As a side note related to this

[fishbowl]

>If you are sharing the files with someone you
>know will buy the disc if they like it and
>delete it if they don't then it seems fair, but
>that may or may not be legal.

If you are sharing the files with someone you know who already OWNS the disc but does not
have the resources to encode an MP3 themselves,
are you obeying or violating the law?

If I defeat the SCMS copy protection on my minidisc or my DAT recorder, in order to make copies of my own music that I compose and perform,
should I go to prison under the DMCA? (This is not a rhetorical question, mind you, I'm actually trying to understand the approximate $10,000 barrier between an amateur and professional recording capability).

Re:As a side note related to this

[trilucid]

First and foremost, everyone please observe: someone has posted a very thoughtful reply as Anonymous Coward. To all the trolls out there, please observe and attempt to act in the same manner.

Here's my take on the opinions expressed:

"One must be able to justify their own actions within their heart and mind. Otherwise, what sort of life are you living?"

Here I've got to wholeheartedly agree with you. We all have to choose our own path.

"As many musicians have pointed out themselves, downloading an MP3 and listening to it isn't much different than turning on your radio and listening to a song. Either way, you enjoyed the music without personally paying a dime for it. Even if you tape the music off the radio so you can listen to it again and again at will, who would really find fault with that action?"

I can't agree with this. Even in the case of radio distribution of music, mechanisms are in place to channel money back to those who are entitled to it. With the sharing of copyrighted MP3s, no such mechanism is inherently in place. Now, I for one would love to see this change. If the music industry would just pull its head out of its ass, it might see the enourmous potential for giving consumers what they want: convenience at a fair price point.

"Once an artist puts his/her work out in the open, I feel it becomes fair game for people to copy and redistribute. You can either choose to pay to get one that's distributed by the official record company and be guaranteed it's of a certain quality with nice liner notes, album cover art, etc. etc. -- or you can grab a free or counterfeit copy and take your chances."

YOU don't have the right to tell anyone (artist) how they can and can't define the rules governing use of their material. Only they can do that. To give you an analogy, let's say I write a piece of software (likely, these days). I have the option of choosing any license I like to define how people may use my code and/or binaries. Why? The material is, plainly, owned by me. The same condition exists for music, period, just as with any other copyrighted works. Now, I don't like the fact that the majority of the money for music goes to the fat cats at the recording companies, but the way to fight the status quo is rarely by patently breaking the law.

"The fact remains that the work is still a creation of the original artist, no matter how many copies get passed around on the Internet. That's what can't ever be taken away from them."

I agree that this can't ever be taken away from them, but why should their right to fair compensation be taken as well? As a matter of fact, under the law, it isn't taken if they don't want to allow it to be. If an artist wants to allow people to trade their files to anyone who asks, fine. However, if they want to be more restrictive, that IS their right as well.

I don't have any issue whatsoever with true fair use. If you want to make a copy of a CD (or a few copies for that matter) for you own use in the car (or wherever) go right ahead. If you want to rip your entire collection to MP3 or OGG and stream it over 802.11b througout your house, be my guest. But don't try to justify tossing it into your Shared Files directory in LimeWire. That boat don't float.

Again, thank you for the thoughtful reply. People should use your post as an example of HOW NOT TO ABUSE AC POSTING. Replies are welcome!

Re:As a side note related to this

[stripes]

If you are sharing the files with someone you know who already OWNS the disc but does not have the resources to encode an MP3 themselves, are you obeying or violating the law?

Depends on the court. One upheld this right (using the term space shifting), I think during a Rio lawsuit. One didn't (MP3.com lawsuit), or maybe that was a plea, but I thought it was a judge.

If I defeat the SCMS copy protection on my minidisc or my DAT recorder, in order to make copies of my own music that I compose and perform, should I go to prison under the DMCA? (This is not a rhetorical question, mind you, I'm actually trying to understand the approximate $10,000 barrier between an amateur and professional recording capability).

Should? Morally? Hell no. Legally? I have no idea.

What about a canary trap?

[issachar]

Interesting thought, but what would stop the RIAA from putting some sort of canary trap in place on randomly selected discs?

If you don't know, the paper version of the canary trap is the idea of altering the punctuation, but not the text of a document in a certain way uniquely for each copy of the document you give out, and keeping track of who gets what. Then, if a copy of your document is leaked to the media, and they show text from the document, you can find the snitch in your organisation.

Couldn't something similar be done with music? Not that it wouldn't be possible to undo, but if you don't know exactly what's been done, it's difficult to be 100% sure that you've undone the trap. Then the RIAA couldn't threaten very serious penalties. First off, you'd be certain to lose your job, but they couldn't also conceivably go after you for lost revenue for every copy of the song derived from the copy you originally made. And they'd have a method to prove that they came from your copy too. That'd be enough to bankrupt anyone.

Re:What about a canary trap?

[rosewood]

Its possible they could do that, say change the intro ever so slightly. However, I am a pretty lowly possistion at this station and I have access to it. Even the janitor could make a copy. We are in a Level 4 market, but lets say the RIAA uses one of those watermarks we have heard so much about and then goes onto audiognome and picks up the latest Britney Spears song and it happens to be one someone here ripped and encoded. Then they go back and match it to us, etc. Well, at that point the RIAA comes to us and we just say oh, it must of been (someone we just fired). Sorry, but hey, which artist do you want us to put in heavy rotation?

Yes they could do it ... but do I worry? Nah. After reading your post I gave a friend of mine a call up at a different radio station here in town and he brought me over their copy of an issued cd (both of our stations are owned by the same local company and we have a slight programing overlap). I slapped them in the machine and ran through a dupe check. Sure enough his CD matched ours bit for bit (acording to this program). So, at least for this cd in this one instance, no such thing I can see is in use.

Also - to get to your first question, what would stop them? We have a contract that says basically we get these 'raw' coppies so we can air and play them. For example, they would be in violation if they sent us a remix of a song that edits something out when we requested it w/o. If they watermarked our music and then tried to bust our station, they too would be in breech of contract. Thus, it would turn to be a bunch of lawcrap where in the end nothing happens and both groups end up jerking eachother off...

Welcome to radio

Re:What about a canary trap?

[innocent_white_lamb]

the paper version of the canary trap is the idea of altering the punctuation, but not the text of a document in a certain way uniquely for each copy of the document you give out, and keeping track of who gets what. Then, if a copy of your document is leaked to the media, and they show text from the document, you can find the snitch in your organisation.

As a point of interest, it is my understanding that film studios already do this with movies. Each theatrical print (35mm film) has an individual serial number and each print is somehow slightly different than any of the others. Therefore, when a print gets hijacked and pirated, the studio can tell which print serial number it is, and can then trace that print back through all of the theatres where it has been played, theoretically being able to isolate the "culprit" who leaked that print.

On the other hand, prints have been flat-out STOLEN from theatres or from shipping depots (bus stations, airports, warehouses) on occasion. Some prints of high-profile movies are even deliberately mis-labelled on the outside of the shipping cans. For example, Godzilla was "The Big One" according to the sticker on the can as I recall.

Re:What about a canary trap?

[Sentry21]

Interesting thought, but what would stop the RIAA from putting some sort of canary trap in place on randomly selected discs?

It's an interesting idea, but the problem lies thusly:

CDs are pressed, not burned. The manufacturing plants get a master, press x thousand discs, and ship them all. Each unique copy of a disc would need a separate master, which would be a pain in the ass (I would imagine), considering how many copies they sell.

If they did two masters and sold 80,000 copies, then they would be able to limit the search to 40,000 of those users.

Now, if they, say, did this in two ways - one for radio stations, music videos (with the advent of MTV being broadcast digitally in Canada, we can record CD-quality audio from MTV now), etc, and one for 'the rest of us', they'd be able to find out if it was ripped by end-listeners or radio stations.

Of course, lots of people rip CDs as soon as they get home - I know I do, iTunes makes my life easier, since I have one playlist with all Garbage songs (even the B-Sides! mwaha!) - and the majority of people who use napter/aimster/gnutella/wangshare/whatever share the dir they rip their MP3s to, so the point becomes moot as the signal-to-noise ratio goes all to hell as soon as the CD is released.

Oh well. Still, a neat idea.

--Dan

Re:What about a canary trap?

[Cramer]

First, watermarks don't work. They are worse than worthless. The theory goes you're not supposed to be able to hear it. But for it to work and not be simple to remove, it has to make significant changes -- either insert "noise" blocks or scatter bit flips throughout the track. Noise is easy to find and remove (and audible.) An embeding carrier can be completely destroyed with simple format changes (mp3 encoding, resampling, etc.)

Of course, to place a "serial number" in all the audio sent to radio stations would require every station to get a completely different CD. How long would it take to burn one CD for each radio station in a given area? It's far too much hassle. Plus, there's a chance the watermark would survive FM transmission (which is perfectly legal to record.)

Watermarked CDs are useless and infeasable.

Re:What about a canary trap?

[swb]

It's a mixed bag, but the folks over at AFU claim that this is an old mapmaker's trick. Put nonexistant roads or other geographical features into the map so that if it gets duplicated you know its your map.

I've never found anything like this specifically, although I've gotten plenty lost before (specifically in Louisiana) when the map's idea of the road and the road's idea of the road differed.

I always presumed that this was something of an unintentional trap -- in order to make the map more quickly and easily, Big Name Map Company used a government provided map as a basis for their map and the government map was either wrong or woefully outdated. It usually hapens with county roads or other more rural throughfares.

Re:What about a canary trap?

[Zeinfeld]

I've NEVER seen a film with "mis-labelled" leaders. And no projectionist worth his rate-of-pay would put a movie together without reading the leader (and tail) on each and every reel

You obviously haven't shown many re-run films then. First thing I would do as a projectionist is to cut off the leaders and trailers of every reel (except perhaps the last). Then I would spool them all onto a couple of 6000's and put the whole film onto the cake stand.

Almost all modern projection equipment is continuous loop these days. Where on earth would you be using a twin projector set up (especially when projectors and lenses cost more than a cake stand)?

It is far from unusual to get a film where the last projectionist switched the leaders on a couple of reels. On occasion you get a film with the headers from an entirely different film altogether.

Re:What about a canary trap?

[Zeinfeld]

Why not save a step and put the whole thing onto a PLATTER!

Because I don't want the audience to hear every pop crackle and whiz on the soundtrack when a bad splice goes through the projector.

Unless you are showing an absolutely new print the chances are that there will be splices that should be repaired. If you just dump the thing on a platter you are hoping that the last projectionist was competent.

In that case it's easy to discover and fix because the last guy who had the film supposedly left a frame on the head and the tail for the specific purpose of matching it up to the reel when that happens, right?

If the film still has its original headers...

I stand by my original statement. It is IMPOSSIBLE for any projectionist worth his rate of pay to show a movie where he doesn't know the film title before the picture is on the screen if he has set up the movie himself.

I don't think that that anyone was suggesting that. They were saying that the cans were sometimes mislabelled.

Want to stop this? Here is what to do

[Brijam]

The best suggestion is on fatchuck's site:
Every time you go to a CD store, buy one of those broken CDs. Take it home, open it, play it, return it as defective and demand your money back. Just be sure you go to a large outlet, not an indie shop.

No lawsuit is needed, just simple economics.

-B

It's already on Morpheus...

[Robber Baron]

So my answer would have to be: Yes, it can be copied.

CD corruption

[neurojab]

The article uses the phrase CD corruption. I'd rather see THAT come into common use than "copy prevention". It's more meaningful to consumers who might not realize that "copy prevention" is bad or what it might mean to them. Do you think they're going to knowingly buy a "corrupted" CD? No way. When the answer as to why it won't play on their equipment is "the CD is corrupted", they're not going to stand for it. No one cares WHY it's corrupted. If the term "corrupted tape" had come into common usage during the height of the VHS Macrovision fiasco, it's quite possible that your DVD player today might send a proper signal to your TV instead of a corrupted Macrovision signal. Then you'd see the same clear, steady picture I do with my hacked Apex 600A ;)

More importantly...

[TheMCP]

More importantly, return the darned unrippable CD's ! I was horrified to see people on here saying "yeah, I have this CD and I can't rip it..."

If you can't rip it, it's defective and you should have the store replace it. If the repalcement can't be ripped there's something wrong with the production run and you should demand a refund.

If every slashdot user stopped buying CD's today, the industry would note a certain percentage downturn in sales and mark it up to the economy.

However, if every slashdot user returned every unrippable CD we get to the store/vendor, the stores would start wondering why the hell certain CDs are getting returned all the time and start complaining to the labels. Then the labels would have their sales channel angry with them and would be more likely to have to do something about it. A returned CD is an expense to the store: they have to store it until they have a batch to go back, and then return it to the label and wait for a refund or credit. If they start getting a lot of returns on one album they'll pull it from the shelves. (Hasn't that already happened once with Tower Records?) The stores will put up with much less nonsense than the labels are willing to either deal with or create.

And, of course, we could have the correctly mastered CDs which give us no problems, which really we have no gripe with in the first place.

I do, however, also recommend learning about your local musicians and independent musicians who may pass through your area. In the last year I've bought maybe a dozen CDs, just about all of which were purchased directly from independent musicians, and I must say I'm much happier with that music than with any of the commercially produced garbage they play on the radio these days.

Re:More importantly...

[Lysander Luddite]

So what do you do when the only option is to receive another copy of the CD in question? That's the return policy in 99% of the stores I have bought CDs from.

Re:More importantly...

[eclectro]

If every slashdot user stopped buying CD's today, the industry would note a certain percentage downturn in sales and mark it up to the economy.

No, they won't. They're too arrogant for an admission like this. Instead, they will hang a downturn in sales on so called pirates and say it's because the cds were copied illegally, thus affecting sales. Then they can justify more copy prevention schemes.

Re:More importantly...

[kscd]

Pay with a credit card. If they don't want to give you a refund, call the card company up and let them know to stop payment. This will cost the merchant about $20. Which means that for the most part, just saying that you will do this will cause them to give you the refund (and dirty looks).

Re:More importantly...

[TheMCP]

Well, I should say that I deeply respect your ideas in this matter, and if we could get *everyone* to just stop buying CDs for a while that would be the thing to do. The truth is, I just don't see the number of people we're going to get enthused about the idea of a boycott as being very big. As some of the other responses on this thread indicate, even slashdotters seem to be unable to resist buying RIAA-endorsed (for lack of a better description) CDs.

And I'll admit to buying DVDs... but only after I got a player with selectable regions and no Macrovision (I hate Macrovision because my engineer tells me it could make my TV wear out quicker) and got a copy of DeCSS so I can do a format conversion on the data should I ever need to.

I think, however, the idea of "If it doesn't work, return it" is one that most Americans can live with.

I know what you mean about keeping receipts though: I used to toss the bag, plastic wrap, and receipt in the trash barrel outside Tower Records. Not any more, I had to exchange a defective disk once and ended up only getting it because the cashier who sold it to me was still there and remembered me. (It was like an hour later.) These days I keep the bag, receipt, and plastic wrap until I get it home and try it in my Mac.

Re:More importantly...

[Lysander Luddite]

I don' tsee this as a realistic option.

1. I don't have a CD shop anywhere near my work path. (I tend to buy imports and specialty indie stuff)
2. If I go into Best Buy or someplace similiar chances are I could go in every day for a year and they would never know I was returning the CD in the fashion you state.

The other reply about the credit card sounds like the best option. But again, I would have to do that really quickly (payment is usually PDQ) and still return the CD, which in all likelihood would mean get the same CD again.

Re:More importantly...

[Sodium Attack]

They might not know it was you, depending on how much information they store in their computers. But I'd bet you dollars to donuts they do track returns, so they'd record 365 (OK, minus days they were closed) returns of that CD in a year.

And if you think about it, it's even better if they don't know it's you. One person returning 365 copies of a CD could be dismissed as just a nut. If they think it's 365 people returning the same CD, they'll pay more attention.

Re:Why Would you buy cds?

[Robber Baron]

Also, mp3's are really nifty, until your harddrive dies. It's nice to have actual cds.

That's why I've got lots of songs on CDs. Yep...several CD-R's that are chock-full of MP3's just in case!

Ripped tracks already available.

[ErfC]

I see that The Tea Party's new CD is listed among the broken ones. I've seen tracks from it available on filesharing networks for a couple of weeks, at least. Obviously it isn't terribly effective.

On the other hand, spotting those tracks is the reason I know they've got a new disk out. Because somebody ripped the tracks and distributed them, The Tea Party has made a new sale. :)

CD "Protection" possibly a felony in Germany

[parabyte]

According to the german magazine telepolis a music fan charged Bertelsmann with fraud and intentationally causing malfunction of a data processing device, which is a felony under German law.

From the artical (my Translation:)

"Possibly soon German judges will have to deal with the question whether intentional violation of the Red Book Standard by manipulating the TOC is a criminal use of 'incorrect or incomplete data'. It will be also important wether digitally reading an Audio CD into computer memory is considered as data processing."

The German Criminal Law has in the section "fraud" a the special Paragraph 263a about "computer fraud", which I translate as follows(IANAL, but I am married to one):

263a StGB Computer fraud

(1) Who damages the assets of another person with the intention of providing himself or a third person an illegal pecuniary advantage by the fact that he affects the result of a data processing procedure by incorrect design of the program, by use of incorrect or incomplete data, by unauthorized use of data or otherwise by unauthorized interference with the process is punished with imprisonment up to five years or with fine.

This paragraph is usually used against people tampering with ATMs or a company's computer systems, but I see no reason why my personal computer should not be protected by this law, and for me it is unquestionable that all these CD copy prevention systems are feeding incomplete an incorrect data to my computer, and reading a CD into the memory of my computer is definitely a data processing procedure.

As I know the courts, proving damage is often the crucial point. I think that a clear label stating "This CD is intentionally damaged so that it does not play on most computers and some CD players." would probably save the publisher, but anything short of this IMO constitutes fraud.

In this case there was no warning sign on the CD, so when I buy such a CD I do not get what I pay for. If I bought the CD just to listen to it on my MP3 Player or use a duplicate in my car stereo (my CDs do not last very long when using them in the car), then the value of the CD is zero. And even if I get a refund, it probably takes more than an hour to manage it all, which is a significant amount that easily surmounts the value of the CD: I am tricked, my assets are damaged. This is even simple fraud under 263 StGB, and even a particularly serious case under subsection 3 (repeatedly defrauding a large number of people), which is punished with imprisonement up to ten years.

I am very curious about the outcome of this case, but I would be happy if courts would stop greedy corporations trying to screw me with intentionally damaged products.

If not, I will react like many people: I will stop to buy any music at all; I will fill up a terabyte disk with enough music for the rest of my life in one afternoon, and those record companies can fuck themself.

p.

In related news...

[kindbud]

The RIAA and MPAA announced today that a deal has been reached with manufacturers of consumer audio and video equipment. Beginning next year, new CD and DVD players will drop the letter "L" from the Play button, which will be linked to the consumer's credit card at the time of purchase.

It is NOT legal to rip CDs, but not illegal...

[rebelcool]

There are only certain instances where making a copy of a CD is legal (such as if the original one was about to bite the dust) and a few others explicitly given in the copyright laws. What most people fail to understand about copyright law is that if the legal right is not expressly given, then its illegal. Nowhere has CD ripping been legalized.

It is a gray area, however as factors like "affecting the market" come into play. Ripping a CD for distribution as MP3s 'affects the market' but ripping a CD to put it in your car probably wouldnt.

Re:It is NOT legal to rip CDs, but not illegal...

[YouAreFatMan]

What you are saying is contrary to the nature of a free society and to the constitutional intent of copyright law (but is consistent with the current view of copyright as a form of property). The way freedom works is this: you have the right to do anything not expressly prohibited by law. This goes especially with copyright law, where transfer of information can be considered protected speech. The police cannot say to you, "the law doesn't say you can do that, so it is illegal." That is why America has so many laws -- everything illegal must be explicity stated as illegal. Everything else is implicitly legal.

Your argument runs along the opposite line, that if copyright law doesn't say you can, then you cannot. Again, if you believe the rhetoric of the "intellectual property" cartels, sure. But if you believe the people who founded this nation and the ideals embodied in the U.S. Constitution, then that view is clearly incompatible with freedom.

This is the insidious nature of the re-education effort being undertaken by media publishers, the BSA, etc.. The criminalization of copyright infringement (before it was a civil matter), the outlandish extension of copyrights, the aggressive litigation, the shift from sale of a product to a license, and the broad use of terms such as "stealing", "piracy", "protection" are all part of this effort. And people have integrated these ideas into their worldview. People are shifting to a "it's only legal if the shrink-wrap license says it's legal" mindset.

Re:It is NOT legal to rip CDs, but not illegal...

[rebelcool]

I'll need to look up that case. I've been doing alot of research on this subject for a paper... its a nightmare trying to track down whats legal and whats not given that much of it is defined in court decisions and as amendments to unrelated bills.

And the law is fairly explicit..only the artist has the rights to distribute (or give permission to) as well as other things. Effectively, its blanketed enough to outlaw everything else, except that which is granted in future legislation (or court decisions...)

It is vague and subjective, yet in legalize of course, that means it covers everything thats not explicitly defined...

Very telling

[kindbud]

[Aphex Twin] only releases what he thinks his fans expect from him and he keeps the really innovative stuff for himself, because he doesn't want to be copied by everybody.

Well the solution is obvious. Aphex Twin needs to patent his innovations. Why, I bet the USPTO would be happy to open up a new market of intellectual property customers. Just think how much money you could make if you've got a patent on Salsa, or Grunge.

Re:.sig

[mgkimsal2]

Gotta agree on AHDN. Leave all the philosophy and all that behind (other post re: DSOTM). That first AHDN chord is just so FULL of anticipation/life/energy/whatever!

But... you're wrong

[kindbud]

Fair use is the boundary that a copyright holder may not cross when spelling out the restrictions on how copies of his work may be used. Regardless of whether or not he explicitly grants you the right to make copies for personal use, you have that right. Fair use assures it. Or rather, fair use is supposed to assure it.

Organize a one-day boycott/protest?

[mgkimsal2]

Would it useful to try to organize a one-day protest/boycott of the major stores selling this stuff? Or perhaps of one label?

If enough people could purposefully NOT buy any Sony music for one day in even just one geographic region (midwest, for example) would that not send enough of a message? I worked in a medium-sized music store in a mall years ago - we'd take $5000 on busy days (xmas season, etc). That was just one location - there would easily be 100 or so medium to large music shops in just SE michigan (where I'm located). If you took away $500/store x 100 stores just in Detroit area, that's $50k in 'lost' sales. Would that impact be big enough to get a point across?

Just wonderin'...

Re:.sig

[rnturn]

Oddly enough, Dark Side of the Moon is one of their LPs that I like the least. (Go figure, eh?) As far as Floyd chords, I'll take the first one from Fearless over Time. Takes all kinds I guess.

``...except the song "Money". Maybe it's just been overplayed...''

Yah, you got that right. Maybe that's why I don't like the rest of the LP as much. Damned radio stations...

2-Pac?

[RESPAWN]

The Americas
2-Pac: Until the End of Time (USA, Universal/Interscope)

I think the fact that they are still coming out with 2-Pac CD's is ever scarier than the fact that they are coming out with Copy Protected CD's. Hey guys, HE'S DEAD. Stop putting out the albums already.

Sony

[Pengo]

Hehe,

I am very disapointed that the Sony MP3 players are protected. The player locks the MP3 on your machine so you can't use it until the music is checked back in to the computer from the player.

I had bought one, 1 day later I took it back to Dixons (Uk) and demanded a refund which they gave me, one of the sales clerks said that he had many people do the same thing.

The sad thing is, I bought it because I like Sony equipment. I have a Sony stereo, a VIAO laptop, etc. They have lost me as customer for any portable stereo electronics until I am sure that this won't happen again. Even their stupid memory sticks are now having the secure music as a feature.

I just bought a Intel Pocket Concert and love it. Sounds great, easy, sexy and no hassle. Didn't look as nice as Sony's, but at least intel isn't jerking me around as a customer.

Just from talking with the retailer I bought it from, it sounds like sony's mp3 player sales are not very exciting at all.

Sorrow

[andy@petdance.com]

Words cannot effectively express the sorrow I feel at not being able to rip my new Right Said Fred album.

Been doing it..

[einTier]

You act like this is hard. I haven't bought a CD in over year, but in the past, I averaged over 60 purchases a year. I figure that's about $1200/year right back into my own pocket, or about $100/month. Better yet, it's money NOT going to the RIAA.

Is it hard? Yeah, at first. It's real hard knowing you're not going to be buying the latest CD by your favorite artist, and you won't be the first on your street to have it - but really, what is it worth? I still listen to music, I still listen to all my old CDs, and my vast collection of MP3s, which I might add, grows larger every day. I'm not buying the CD, so I'm downloading mp3s wherever I can find them. If I enjoy the music enough, I'll start looking for it at the local used CD store. If I find it, I'll buy it, if not, I'll do without. If I can't find the CD in a reasonable amount of time, I'll send a couple of dollars to the artist or delete the mp3s completely.

It's just a different way of looking at things. Speaking of, if the MPAA keeps insisting on following the "progress" of the RIAA, they'll be next on my shitlist. All I need is one more arrogant action or a decent distribution system for movies.

One example of ripped at the source

[xixax]

A concrete example of ths, where the artist doesn't even have a CD yet (let alone Joe Public) and you can download it.

Xix.

CT: Did you read the submission you put up?

[bigfatlamer]

For fuck's sake Taco, read the submission before you spout off...

Apparently only a few markets have the 'copy protected' CDs while the rest don't. Here is a list of some that are 'protected.' Does anyone know of other CDs with this problem?" I own at least one CD on that list and it ripped just fine, so perhaps that are different versions of the CDs on the market

It's right there...in the original post. There are different versions in different markets. You guys aren't that busy, pay attention.
--

Re:I got your copy protection right here....

[fishbowl]

>RCA to stero microplug.

Your solution is to go back to the sound quality of the 1970's then?

The difference between analog and digital sound is far too significant to dismiss that way.

Re:If it is devised...

[fishbowl]

>go out of a device with an S/PDIF output, into
>the S/PDIF input on your Sound Blaster Live.

You're getting there with this suggestion, but not quite; the EMU10K1 on the SBLive is locked at 48Khz, which will give you dithering error copying
a 44.1Khz signal. However, if you substitute something like a MOTU, Layla/Darla/Gina, or an
M-Audio card, you've got it.

The challenge of course, is to find a CD Player that has SP/DIF output which hasn't been crippled by Sony's SCMS protocol. Let me know when you find such a device (DVD, CD, Minidisc, or DAT).

Re:Copying the old-fashioned way

[fishbowl]

>many of the MP3s I created that way had OK >quality.

That is a matter of opinion. Your analog copies sound like crap compared to the digital originals.
Getting anything decent out of the consumer analog circuits is impossible, compared to the
digital quality you get from DAE or from a clocked sp/dif copy. Just because it's better than nothing, doesn't mean it's a solution.

Make The Public Campaign Contributors

[Self Bias Resistor]

After checking the website, I found that the largest contributor was the National Association of Broadcasters with total lobbying expenditures of $5,200,000 and $657,892 in campagin contributions. Now, as far as I know (which isn't that much since I'm not actually a US citizen) there are about 300 million people in the US. If just one person in three hundred decided to give their relevant congressman or woman just five dollars, you'd easily match if not exceed the contributions of these corporations. So instead of complaining about evil, multinational corporations with seemingly bottomless pockets, why don't you dig deep and contribute something yourself? If more people did this, chances are your congressmen and women would not so readily accept money from people like the National Assoication of Broadcasters because they wouldn't need to. True, the big corporations could easily up the contributions more, but there's one thing the big multinationals don't have that we do - numbers. And if enough people contribute to campaigns, return defective CDs (which violate the Red Book standard and hence cannot carrry the Compact Disc Digital Audio logo) and write letters to the RIAA and politicians and anyone who'll listen then something just might be done about it. Hey, it's a better option sitting on your ass and complaining about it.

don't buy the music?

[mach-5]

Don't buy the music. Remember, while we may be able to vote in elections every 2-4 years, we vote daily with our money. If they don't have your money, the labels will (probably) be smart enough to stop pulling this kind of stunt.

I love this quote from the page that lists the broken CD's. If everyone would just stop purchasing RIAA backed music, then the RIAA would blame their loss of revenues on mp3's and the internet, giving them a bigger reason to create "better" encryption schemes and create a larger MONOPOLY on the music business.

Re:don't buy the music?

[kindbud]

But I bet we can do without buying music longer than they can do without the revenue.

No revenue, no lobbying, no special laws.

Re:what is wrong with copy protection?

[fmaxwell]

I don't know which is worse, not being able to copy cds, a relatively new problem, and the fact that people are willing to pay 19 dollars or more for any cd.

That's a great philosophy if you want the latest Backstreet Boys, Goo Goo Dolls, or Mariah Carey CD, but purchasing rare import CDs, doubles, etc. means that you aren't going to find them for $13.

There's a place down the road from campus here with just about anything you want for cheap, and if they don't have it, they'll actually offer to order it for you

I often buy CDs at lunch and whatever store is the closest to my work is the cheapest. As the old adage goes, time is money and if I spend an extra 15 minutes buying a CD for $6 off, I'll have lost a lot more in billable time than I could possibly save on the CD. I don't mean to sound like a snob and I remember when I used to have to save up to buy LPs that I wanted (yes, I'm probably a bit older than you). Back then, I'd drive all over town looking for the best prices. Now I pay for convenience. I go to the mall or shopping center near my work, grab lunch, drop by the CD store, and go back to work. Boy oh boy, my life sounds boring!

Re:what is wrong with copy protection?

[fmaxwell]

Ok, if fmaxwells' time is so valuable, what's he doing pissing it-away on Slashdot?

I participate on Slashdot for relaxation and entertainment. Trudging all over town to buy a CD is neither relaxing nor entertaining. Any decent contract software engineer -- even those just out of school -- make enough that saving $6 on a CD is not worth 15 minutes of their time.

Do you think that Steve Case's and Bill Gates' time is worthless because they occasionally go to a movie or take a vacation? Your lack of logic makes me think that the computer industry may not be the ideal career path for you.

Correct.

[rebelcool]

The copies by Phillips meet the AHRA specs. They pay royalties, market it for musical copying ONLY and implement a type of copy protection in it to not allow copies from a copy. I believe the protection may only work on other copiers of the same nature however...

Your average CDROM, burner and computer however, do not meet any of these.

Not my argument...

[rebelcool]

I'm am simply stating thats the way the current copyright law works. And yes, I think it runs contrary to democratic means.

However, look at it from an artists perspective as well. One can somewhat see why the law is that way... if you own something, and someone else wants to do something with it, there shouldnt be new laws to make it illegal to do something with it if its use is generic. Follow?