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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.
I'd like to pay for my music, but I'm not going to buy a product I can't use!
Oh well, I don't like the music industry anyway... I've been listening to more non-mainstream music...
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Stop buying new UNIVERSAL cds, that is.
This can't possibly float...too many people in too many offices around the world pop in a cd to listen while sitting in a cubicle for 8 hours.
Either that, or mp3 will become even more popular....the only way to listen to music on a computer!
El riesgo vive siempre!
Au contrare!
If anything, any time I see a post on Usenet of Mp3's from a CD that is supposedly copy protected, the poster usually takes great pains to brag discuss the fact that he was able to rip despite copy protection.
Really, I think that even the record industry didn't expect the various copy protections to really work. What they're doing is building an easily hackable content protection system so that they can prosecute MP3 traders under the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
If a CD won't play in some CD Players, then doesn't it violate the Red Book standard for CD Audio? If so, then how are they allowed to slap the Compact Disc Digital Audio logo on to them?
Sounds like ground for a class action lawsuit once they start to arrive.
-> Capt Cosmic <-
If the copy protection scheme really makes the CD impossible to play on certain players, those owners may be forced to turn to "stolen" mp3s, increasing the number of people searching for and using napster alternatives. Doh!
Better to buy them and return them as defective - that way Universal gets grief from their retail outlets as well as seeing their sales drop.
"Good things don't end with eum, they end with mania or teria." - H. Simpson
Don't by em.
Better solution: Buy them and return them.
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From the article:
Universal told retailers that it would honor refunds on all returned discs -- even for CDs that have been opened.
This is great news. If you believe copy-protected discs are wrong, just buy one, open it, and return. In fact, buy 50 of them, open them all, then return them. If enough people do this, maybe Universal will get the message.
If you want to be even more eeeeeeeeevil, you could open it, rip it via line out, post the ripped tracks to newsgroups, then return it.
They asked for it.
--
For the book says, "We may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us."
I doubt you can return the CD if it says "will not play on CD-ROM" on the cover.,
Unless you RECEIVED it as a GIFT. DUH.
.sig wanted: Must be concise, funny, and display my cleverness.
If everybody does it, they might think it's a revolution.
Right. Because of the DMCA, if you circumvent a protection mechanism in order to access a copyrighted work (i.e. ripping the CD) then you can be prosecuted under the terms of the DMCA. Unlike ripping a regular CD, which you've probably got a protected right to do, under fair use and the home videotaping decisions.
So, it now becomes worthwhile for the RIAA to make examples of a few people in an attempt to scare everyone away.
I had initially thought that this was a complete misunderstanding of what copy protection can do. Used to be copy protection was semi-effective against people who had to trade physical media (diskettes.) However, when you're talking about medialess copies (downloads) none of this applies. One technical guy makes an MP3 (which you can always do from the analog output if you have to), and everyone on Gnutella does an expotential expansion of the number of copies.
However, I now think the first scenario I mentioned is much more likely.
The difference being, back in the 80s-90s, the publishers weren't on the hunt, prosecuting the crackers and pirates. They didn't have the wonderful DMCA and SSCA backing them up. They didn't spend more money on lawyers than they did on creating good content. And they didn't see the writing on the wall.
What we're witnessing is a rat backed into a corner. RIAA recognises that its days are numbered, and it's doing every goddamn thing it can to fight its way out of the corner.
It's beyond mere music piracy. They could live with piracy: they always have.
It's to the point where they can see that artists are going to go independent. And so they're desperately trying to invent a reason for artists to stay with them. "Music protection" seems to be the salespitch they've chosen.
But they're doomed anyway.
Artists don't need the megaexpensive recording studios. These days, most anyone can set up a decent studio for a relatively small investment.
Artists don't need the megaexpensive advertising. These days, anyone can gain popularity via web media. Fansites, mailing lists, word of mouth: it's worked before, it's working now, and it's hella cheaper than MTV.
Artists don't need the distribution chain. They can post to the web. As soon as a good payment system comes along, where the artist can be paid directly and receives most of that payment, the distribution chain is toast.
And artists have recently begun to discover that they can sell out concerts via the net. There's no need to for the megapop media orgy that the old-style companies provided. Word of mouth is doing it.
The writing is on the wall: as soon as the one hiccup is removed -- paying the artists directly, cheaply -- the RIAA is dead. Their *only* hope is to convince artists that music theft is more harmful than the music mafia.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
In Germany alone, one survey by market researcher GfK found that blank CD sales jumped 129 percent this year. Purchases of pre-recorded music dropped 2.2 percent in the same period.
What a bizarre and useless statistic. What's the point? I can't even begin to comprehend. Okay, for one thing, CDRs are much cheaper than CDs. The popularity of CDRs is rising, while pre-recorded music has been around for decades. Another thing, how do they know what people record on them, or if they've recorded on them at all? I've got stacks of blank CDRs to back up files. If I make a music CD it's from music that I bought on a regular CD.
I think they ought to compare the sale of bread to the sale of pre-recorded CDs. I bet they will find a real "disturbing trend".
Donate money to the EFF. I was listening to an episode of "Off the Hook", and they had two people from the EFF speaking. They said that comsumers will see more an more of these types of resrtictions in the coming years. You're going to see a change in the culture of how we "own" CDs, DVDs and other forms of entertainment. Hollywood and the RIAA will dictate to you just how you can view/listen to their product.
This is an uphill battle, but there's no better time to start than now.
So, this could be a very effective strategy for dealing with record companies. With hundreds of lawsuits coming from different directions, they won't bother appearing in court and they will lose every case - making copy protection economically infeasible.
-sting3r
The catch is, you can't return opened CD's. Ostensibly, this is because you may have burned an illegal copy and are returning it to get the music for free. The irony, of course, is that Universal claims you can't copy the CD, because they have the big, bad, unbreakable copy protection scheme. But they still won't let you return it because they hate you.
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
Depending on the state you live in, they may have no choice but to give you your money back. In Massachusetts stores are required to give a full refund within a small time frame (something like 24 or 48 hours), period. Most will still claim they won't, but just make enough of a stink and they will. A store's policy is invalid if it conflicts with the laws of the state in which they are doing business. Actually, even if you're not covered by such a law, if you make enough of a stink you'll probably get a refund. Be loud! Be obnoxious! Make a scene in front of the paying customers!
Universal Music is the most aggressive in its anti-piracy efforts, saying that all of its CDs will be copy-protected by mid-2002. The other big labels are also experimenting with various technologies.
Any next-term strategy characterized by the word 'saying' is far from living up to the word "plans". They're announcing that they're introducing one copy protected CD into the American market, so you could legitimately claim that they plan to release one. They've announced a press release 'saying' that by 2002 all their CD's will be copy protected - though they don't specify the method, or whether it will be anything like their trial balloon. I would at best characterize that as a "trial balloon", or maybe an "announcement", maybe even a "threat". But a plan? Considering that they don't even have artists on board, characterizing that remark as corporate strategy in my mind falls way short of the mark.
Perhaps I should have rambled on more when originally posting, without assuming this was obvious. Trusting the recording industry to actually do anything but what they've announced they're doing at the moment is not a habit I've been able to form.
But that wouldn't have given you an excuse to flame me, and honestly I think we could all deal with some more of that.
--
What happens when you outlaw guns
I am not posting this for you or any of slashdot's need to see this info. This is strictly so that the Hilary Rosen RIAA-bot can see these numbers, understand why I'm so fucking upset with all this new copy-protection crap that goes completely against the consumer's wishes (the "customer is always right" no longer applies I guess), and formally state that I will not buy any Universal CD's with copy-protection on them, until it has been removed, or until an easy plugin for a computer program is made that circumvents the copy-protection completely. (I'm sure there are such plugins, I just haven't had the need to go find them for music CD's up until now).
P.S. I forgot to mention that one CD copy I have of my favorite group, the 77's, has been an out-of-print CD for some time now ("Pray Naked"). I burned a copy from a friend who still had it because my original copy was stolen from my car about 5 years ago. I would still pay upwards of $25 for a good condition original CD w/ Jewel case, but alas, it's a hard to find item, even on Ebay. Now you tell me, do I sound like I'm trying to get every CD I have for free, or maybe I just don't like paying for shitty NSync and Britney Spears drivel, and would rather try-before-I-buy?
Oh yes, and while you're at it, Hilary, why not cut out the kickback system you have in place with all the radio stations? I hear so much boring, repetitive music from uninspiring bands on the radio stations in this town that it's just silly. It's no wonder I get most of my interesting music over the internet in so-called 'pirated' mp3 form.
Did Universal, BMG, Sony, et al ever stop to wonder if part of the problem is that they're churning out bands that are carbon copies of each other? Do we really need more "boy bands" or breathy, heartbroken beauty queens? It's just like TV...as soon as Survivor became a hit, every network had to have a clone...but now that the market is saturated, ratings are terrible.
Is it jsut me, or is this in fact the networks doing precisely what they are trying to prevent -- they say loudly "your unrestrained copying will destroy quality and drive prices through the floor by saturating the market." Meanwhile, they copy each other and thereby destroy quality, drive prices through the floor, and saturate the market.
The difference is, I can actually see the deleterious effects of their piracy.
--G
That being said, I think there is also a fundamental problem with the way people tend to be exposed to music now days. Getting a fresh sound from MTV? Good luck. The vast majority of radio stations are also pushing this crap. I think we're all sort of the victim of the big corperation here. For people who don't know where to find "different" music, they're exposure/choices are rather limited.
Pretty much! Since I can no longer play legally purchased CD's, I am now FORCED to the filesharing services.
Back in July, BMG caused an uproar over the bugs in its copy-protect scheme which rendered many CDs unplayable. Even given Universal's generous promise of unquestioned returns, this latest attempt to copy-protect seems likely to generate a lot of resentment.
It would be interesting to know what kind of copy-protect they're devising that results in such profoundly "unplayable" CDs. Some of the major players attempting to win the early lead in the copy-protection tech field include TTR Technologies and Midbar Tech.
CD Media World discusses how to create a copy-protected CD. Personally I wouldn't want to, but I think it's interesting to see the business maneuverings and keep abreast of the technological tricks they're trying out on us.
ancarett, historian and zombie gamer
Because, as a previous poster mentioned, the mom and pop stores have no pull with the RIAA. If Borders gets pissed off, Universal will sit up and listen. If Jack and Jills Music Store gets pissed off, they're up the creek. Also, large stores can afford the overhead involved with returns (generally, small stores don't buy direct from the publisher - they go through a distributor, which ups the overhead another notch. Huge chains act as thier own distributors). Finally, with a mom and pop store, you can talk to them about your issues with copy protected CDs - now, if the CD is selling, don't expect them to stop carrying it. But they might certainly take your concerns to heart, and make an extra point of labelling it, or advising people who buy it. That's not gonna happen at a megastore.
Any why do mom-and-pop shops deserve anything better than the major stores?
Two reasons:
I. On principle. Because generally, the mom-and-pop shops are owned by people who are motivated by something else than pure profit. They're mostly music fans who're trying to make a living working with something they love. Ever seen the movie "High Fidelity"?
It's a lot like Wendell Berry's description of old-school farmers vs agribusiness:
"Though my father had left the farm and become a lawyer, though he had become in a sense more than a farmer, there was also a sense in which he refused to become less. In addition to, and in spite of, all else that he had become, he remained a farmer. Alongside the knowledge and abilities by which he functioned in courthouses and offices... he kept the farmer's passion that sees beyond the market values into the intricacy and beauty of the lives of things.... to him, crops and animals were not only to be sold, but to be studied, understood, and admired for their own sakes..."
II. It will be more effective if you do it with a larger chain. They can absorb more loses, but they can also complain louder than mom and pop shops.
This isn't to say you shouldn't return a CD that you bought from a mom/pop shop if it IS defective or you can't use it how you'd like. You should. Just don't go INTENDING to the that. Save that for the Media Plays, the Wherehouses, the Sam Goodys, and yes, even Tower Records.
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
It seems obvious that the CD medium is a gaping hole in the recording industry's business model.
By making CD's that don't always play, they will turn people against CDs as a whole. It's looks like a standard FUD tactic.
Soon they'll introduce a 'better' medium with more capacity, other hype, and a player that is under industry control, like DVD without the security hole.
It's all a waste, people seem to like MP3's just fine. I don't like the quality myself, but I have no problem with the quality of sampled analog. A standard quality MP3 is no worse when ripped from analog than from a cdda track, and it's just a tiny bit more work.
They can kill CD's, and they will, but they can't kill the LINE OUT jack!
I never understood why most DVD's are the same price as CD's now. I can get BASEketball from Fry's for 14 buck, but it costs me 17 bucks to get the new Rob Zombie CD that only has 11 songs on it.
Lets look at the specs.
BASEketball DVD
1) 2 hours long
2) High quality video AND audio
3) Sturdy case with brief guide to chapters etc..
4) Movies cost a hell of a lot more to make than albums
Now Rob Zombie CD
1) 60 minutes long not counting the 5 minute pause between House of 1000 Corpses and the hidden song after it
2) Very breakable case that came from amazon pre-cracked for me.
3) High quality audio NO video
4) Took Rob Zombie all of a few weeks to record in a studio
Just why do CD's cost so much anyway? I can't see any logic in it at all.
Ripping one of these new disc's is more of a nuisance than non-protected disc's, but it's still very easy.
What you'll need are the following two pieces of hardware: a stand-alone cd player with digital output (either coax or optical), and a sound card, such as the Audigy Plantinum, that supports digital input.
With those two items, it is very easy to just hit play and record to make a perfect digital copy of the CD. End of story.
by far the easiest thing in the world to do, providing you have a sound card in your pc, is to connect your cd player device's output cable into your sound cards input socket. Press play on your cd player device and record the incoming music to wav/mp3. voila, all security buypassed! This has been verified to work on 17 cds that are copy protected with the new measures. For as list of such cd's visit http://fatchucks.com/corruptcds/ Its a wonder who thinks of the security tricks for the music Industry.
I don't know who here remembers the "ban the box" movement back when cds hit the shelves in the 80's. If you remember, all cds used to come packaged in rather large wasteful boxes (about 2.5 times the size of the actual cd) someone had the bright idea of demonstrating just how much we disliked the idea, so instead of taking the cd home, you would unbox them in the store and leave the box sitting on the counter in the store..... this was to prompt the store managers to start complaining to the distributors who would in turn pass it on the line to the record companies..... you know what? it worked. I remember when I used to buy 10-15 cds per week and just leave boxes sitting there.....they eventually started leaving large boxes sitting in front of the counter and the folks who worked there would just push the boxes into the larger box and empty it eventually when it got full, but it generated enough of a statement that the record companies changed the packaging on cds.... I don't remember the last time I saw a cd packaged in that way..... leaving something physical sittong on the counter is a way to show someone what you think, and that message does sometimes get back up the chain. maybe this would work.... but it would have to get very large for it to actually have a chance at succeeding..... You would have to get several of the major news sites to carry a story talkoing about the protest for enough people to actually see it and take action.
I am in a similar situation. I used a computer to play my CDs for years, then I got a CD/Alarm Clock to play my CDs on. Now I use my DVD player. At work I still use my Mac to play CDs/MP3s. If I buy a CD that won't play in my players I'll gladly send it back to the manufacturer along with a photocopy of the recipt and ask for reimbursement of the original cost and the cost of shipping the item insured/certified.
There simply is no such "lawsuits must crawl slowly up the food chain" rule. I know it's well-meant, but I wish people would try harder to make sure they've got the law right before presenting this type of misinformation as factual dogma.
No, no, no. This is not a sig.
i have not come across any of those CDs ont he list, but at the college radio station i work at i saw a CD this weekend that said "WILL NOT PLAY IN A COMPUTER". it is the new Einsturzende Neubauten "Strategies Against Architecture III". it's a CD totally worth buying for the incredible booklet/package, but just out of curiosity i tried it and it was 100% happy in a few Macs. i have heard somewhere that some of the "junk toc files" they use to confuse some computers dont always tricks macs. tonight if i think of it there is a Dell running windows i can get to and see what happens. interesting this article specifically mentioned Macs and PS2 and DVD players. maybe the old method only fooled windows?
Buy them, rip them on some obscure device that can (like a Macintosh) and return them since they don't work in your DVD player :)
Your argument is pure crap.
You make three incorrect assumptions:
I work for Amazon.com and hurting a retailer like us does not effect higher ups like Jeff Bezos, it effects people like me, the lower level owners of the company. My stock is not worth much, so when you damage the company your not hurting someone who owns a million or so shares of stock that they bought at 25 cents or less, your hurting people like me who own a few thousand where the buying and selling price is very narrow. If I sell stock, I do not get much, or worse yet, my buying price is above the market price!
The second flaw is that everyone who works at a large company is evil does not care about customers and thus desires to be hurt. Most employees of large companies care alot about the customer and thier experiences with thier company. Alot of the large companies spend lots of money and time figuring out how to make the shopping experience better and more enjoyable.
Third, you make the assumption that Mom and Pop stores are not motivated by pure profit. Mom and Pop places are just as motivated by profit as any large company, they just do it on a smaller scale. In the free market, all persons who own a business are motivated by pure profit, if they are not, they quickly go out of business.
Linux O Muerte!
A better way to protest: go to your favorite record store, find the copy-protected CDs, and place a big red DEFECTIVE/NONSTANDARD sticker on each one. Then see how well they sell ;^)
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
all persons who own a business are motivated by pure profit
Everyone needs to turn a profit from business, but that doesn't mean they are in business only for the profit. Many people I've talked with personally (including a number of record shop owners) derive utility from the work they're doing. They do it because they derive satisfaction from doing the work or providing the service, and are content with making a living at it. Let me reiterate: they have a motive -- other than profit -- for doing what they do.
I have noticed that mom/pop/indie store owners tend to be more knowledgeable (breadth and depth) and passionate about music than their Media Play counterparts. Sure, they're there to sell something and keep the roof over their heads. But they're also there -- instead of getting their MCSE and getting paid double working in IT -- because they're doing work that's in line with their personal mission. In the process, they usually end up providing better service to customers.
I'm not saying that every small shop is that way. They seem to tend to be, though. And conversely, I'm not saying everyone who works at a large corp is evil...but, I feel like I get poorer service at Media Play and Sam Goody and the like. My theory is that once a corp becomes large and public, the obligation to the (often absentee) owners becomes almost purely that of investment. In our current system, most of the owners are simply looking for a good place to invest their money which will get a good return. They're abstracted away from the operations and mission of the company, and often don't have any interest in the product at all. Just return on investment. Those who make policy decisions high up in the company are thus only affected by financial pressures, and thus customer service and product quality only means something to them in terms of costs and returns.
My stock is not worth much, so when you damage the company your not hurting someone who owns a million or so shares of stock that they bought at 25 cents or less, your hurting people like me
First off, no one is trying to hurt amazon or the retailers, but....
Any action that people could take which would make an appreciable impact on stock prices in the way you describe would be noticed by the ceo, the board, and investors at large. Some of these people may have got in when the getting was cheap, but a lot of them didn't, and furthermore, they have large enough investments in the company that a fluctuation of a quarter can gain/lose them millions in some cases.
Anyway, back to the point. No one is trying to hurt the retailer, but rather punish the publisher. The large retailers have much more clout with the publishers. Returning lots of CDs to Amazon won't hurt them -- they have the clout and motivation to write it off to the manufacturer/publisher. Thus, returning lots of CDs to Amazon is much more likely to hurt universal than returning them to Crandall Records in Orem Utah.
Your argument is pure crap.
While I realize this is not an uncommon mode of discourse/rhetoric on slashdot, avoiding statements like this will actually give you more credibility and respect. Try actually refuting my arguments next time.
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
are part of a music industry-wide attempt to stop online music piracy.
Gotta hand it to them for defining the language in their own terms - that wins half the battle in the sea of unwashed masses. Kind of like defining your opponents as "terrorists" and your collaborators as "freedom fighters".
Imagine how this would go over if the language were altered to read:
This doublespeak is continued with phrases like "Digital Rights Management" that IMHO is more accurately depicated as "Content Use Restriction". Suffice it to say, you'll never see the daily newspapers and national media outlets use any terms except those generated by their owners.
This is all to be expected, though, as evidenced by how he term "hacker" has acquired a strange foreboding and malevolence in the popular media, whereas the technically adept, those most like to "hack", know the difference between a hacker and a cracker.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
U'd better keep that old copy of your burning software and that old CDR burner then...Because I can almost guarantee you they'll include some kind of analogue watermark as well to stop future "compliant" burners from copying protected music through an analogue source. I'd find it highly unlikely that the record company hasn't thought of that possibility.
Still, it's not as if some smart coder won't come up with a program to remove the watermark, given enough time.
...this is getting out of hand
The recording industry is using every means at its disposal to gain leverage for the SSSCA or something like it. In the current environment, I don't believe there's any way to counteract the numerous lines of attack "copy protection" afford the industry.
No, I'm convinced that we'll only truly begin to make a difference after tougher legislation goes into effect. In addition to the hurdles listed above, most people--most Slashdot readers--aren't motivated by calls to not act and to forgo listening to their favorite music. The whole reason we're angry is because we want to enjoy our music. We'll only start to shine when what's needed is positive action taken, not to attempt counter-maneuvers against the RIAA, but simply to use technology the way we want to use it and the way we know it can be used.
I say, let them copy protect all the CDs they want. It will ultimately be no protection at all.
Robert Hutchinson
Robert Hutchinson
Smash it. Smash it good.