Universal to Copyprotect All CDs

angkor wrote in with a link to a story about how Universal Plans to copyprotect all CDs which will render them unplayable on Macs, DVD Players, PS2s, and some CD Players. And it won't even stop people from ripping MP3s I bet.

Comments

Re:Obvious solution to this

[bricriu]

Also, keep a watch on Fatchuck's Corrupt CD list to tell you what batches to avoid and who to contact.

I've made my call to the Federal Trade Commission. Have you?

heck no

[_avs_007]

Don't settle for in-store-credit... Demand a full refund for 1 of two reasons...

1.) The thing is labeled as CD Digital Audio (CDDA), which is in violation of logo, because in order to be CDDA, it must be red-book compliant, (or whatever book it is), and this copy protected CD is most definately NOT compliant.

2.) The CD is "defective" because it is labeled as CDDA, but does not play in a CDDA compliant player, ie my DVD player, my computer, etc etc.

Re:Obvious solution to this

[Tackhead]

> But then they'll have teeth behind the SSSCA.

Funny you should mention that.

Quoth Wired: "Jack Valenti predicts that Congress will require copy-protection controls in nearly all consumer electronic devices and PCs."

Quoth Tackhead: "Jack Valenti can take a long, hard suck on my arse."

The scary part is the article's title: "A Call to End Copyright Confusion". I don't see any confusion. I'm sure Jack isn't confused either.

Right now, ripping is legal. Distributing ripped MP3s isn't. Jack wants to make sure that ripping is also illegal, so he can sell us the same movie twice - once on DVD, and once on our PC. Just like Hilary wants to sell us the same music twice - once on copy-crippled CD, and once-per-listen on our PCs.

The other scary quote from the Wired article: "'I am openly, unabashedly in support of the government stepping in to set standards,' said Preston Padden, head of government relations for Disney."

1) Head of government relations. Nice title for your business card. That's right. Walt Disney, the cute little mouse company, has a position that might as well be called "Ambassador". No fucking wonder they get the copyrights on the Rat extended on demand. They've fucking got an embassy.

2) The word "standards", and all that implies.

I think we can see the spin for SSSCA right now. Existing copyright laws are somehow confusing. Existing copy control technologies are broken because they're not standardized across all devices. We therefore resolve the "confusion" by having the government adopt Jack and Hilary and Mickey's "standard" in all devices.

If you make hardware that doesn't meet the standard, you're guilty of making things "confusing" for the consumer, and nobody will buy your product. (And men with guns, "empowered" by the new law, will "protect the consumer" by taking your hardware off the market.)

Oh yeah, for every Slashdot reader

[Myself]

there's a whole bucketload of ignoramii who won't hear about this unless we tell them.

SPREAD THE WORD. Evangelize at your local record store. Bring it up in conversation. Dangle CDs from your car mirrors and prepare a 10-second explanation that you can deliver at stoplights. Tell your aunt blabbermouth, make sure she's got the facts straight, then let gossipnet take over.

Re:Use their best weapon against them

[kreyg]

Well, since there's NO WAY you could have copied it, because it is COPY PROTECTED, there's no reason they shouldn't accept a return.

:-)

Re:Obvious solution to this

[ArtDent]

You missed the really scary quote from that article:

Disney's Padden wasn't buying it. "There is no right to fair use," Padden said at the event. "Fair use is a defense against infringement."

Need we say more?

Record Labels UNDERNEATH Universal Music Group

[AgTiger]

Okay everyone, I spent some time out at the Universal Music Group section of the Universal Music Studios website, and there's a fairly hefty list of music labels in this group.

Just saying you won't buy from Universal isn't enough. Here's the list I found:

A&M Records
Decca Record Company
Deutsche Grammophon
Geffen Records
Interscope Rercords
Island Def Jam Music Group
Jimmy and Doug's Farmclub.com
MCA Nashville
MCA Records
Mercury Records
Motown Records
Phillips
Polydor
Universal Records
Verve Music Group

I also went through their list of artists, and saw a shocking number of artists that I either currenly own CD's from, or want to purchase some or all from their discography.

My next quest is to find landmail addresses for all the record labels *and* the Universal Music Group, plus the RIAA, as well as the artists of UMG's that I listen to, and start writing a lot of letters stating my disappointment at what they're planning to do, and how it stands to completely wreck my ability to purchase and enjoy their music.

I don't have a "regular CD player". Not _one_. The CD player in my car is based on CD-Rom drive technology. I listen to my music on my computer, or I pipe the audio out straight to the stereo and listen on the big speakers. I listen to my headphones at work while I do my design documents, and that's to MP3's I ripped from CD's that I purchased.

Frankly, their decision sucks if they want me to keep purchasing music from their group. Simple as that.

Re:Obvious solution to this

[genericus]

The problem with this approach is it does just the opposite of what it appears to. Theoretically, we want our $$ to go to the artists and not the suits, and that is just the argument the suits have been using all along: that these provisions "protect the artist". Well, artists don't get paid when records get returned but record companies do. Even if Universal accepts returns from stores at full price, they are still going to make money.
Picture this scenario:

The artist is in hock to the record company for a few hundred thousand dollars. This is typical, and pretty lowball, actually. The way the artists gets out of debt to the company is through royalty rates: Out of the sale price of the CD you've bought at Tower, Tower gets a cut, the distributor (possibly a shell company owned by the record company) gets a cut, leaving the wholesale price for the record company. Let's say that's $10, just to keep the numbers easy.

The songwriter must get paid, by law. Last I checked, it was .066 dollars per song, per unit sold. Let's say there's 10 songs on the album; the songwriter gets 66 cents on the CD you bought, right? No, during contract negotiations, the songwriter probably "voluntarily" negotiated that down to 4 cents on maybe 8 of the album tracks, so $.34.

The rest of the musicians in the band get $0; they don't get paid until they are out of debt to the record company. Out of the $10 wholesale, they get say 6%, and the hundreds of thousands they owe the record company are made up out of this 6%, not the wholesale price of the CD.

The record producer gets paid by the company. He probably has a 15% cut of albums shipped. So he gets $1.50 for the CD whether you bought it or not, just because it's at the store. So the company is down $1.50 per cd for the producer, right? Nope. That expense goes to the artist to be recouped from their royalty rate.

The artist also gets to pay for packaging out of royalties. This is an absurd amount, like $1.50 - $2.00, more than I pay to do it myself in my room, and way more than an independant would pay a pressing factory. There's also a deduction for breakage that's around 1%, I believe. Also, the 6% they get is not actually 6%, since the record companies even in this day and age consider CDs to be 'expirimental media', and they pay about 1/2% less on CD sales. Let's say they bump this figure up to 1% because of this radical new anti-pirate technology.

• The score so far:
• Record company: $9.66
  
• Songwriter: $.34
  
• Producer: (100,000 units shipped, as an example) $150,000
  
• Band: 4% (6% per unit - 1% breakage - 1% new technology) = $.40 - packaging, producer's fee, manager's cut (generally 10-15%), marketing/promotion, returns, and initial advance.
  

So, along comes you, returning your shitty copy protected CD to Tower.

Scenario 1: Tower puts it in its cut bin. Record Company gets paid, producer gets paid, distributor gets paid, Tower gets paid, albeit at a lower rate than normal. Songwriter does not get paid, royalties on sale are not credited to band.

Scenario 2: Let's say Universal refunds the wholesale price to Tower and to the distributor. First, the distributor is probably Universal itself, so the difference between the wholesale and the distributor's price is still in Universal's hands, but written off as a loss to be deducted from the band's royalties. Universal is now in posession of a number of "defective" CD's. They could:

• deduct the wholesale price from the artists royalties.
  
• sell the CD's to a third party to be distributed to cut bins, used CD stores, and/or Europe, resulting in the same payment scheme as if Tower put it in their own cut bin. And deduct the wholesale price from the artists royalties. Or
  
• They could "lose" them. (to a third party to be distributed back to Tower, cut bins, used CD stores, and/or Europe). And deduct the wholesale price from the artists royalties.
  

This is the kind of creative accounting that goes on in the record industry. I guarantee that the copy protection WILL be used to justify paying artists a lower royalty rate on the front end, and to further reduce payment to them on the back end. That's just how they work...