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Philips Says Compact Discs Can't be Copyprotected
Tomcat666 writes "tecChannel has a story about Philips, the holder of the most CD digital audio (CD-DA) patents. Apparently, they don't like the audio CD copy protection many record companies want to enforce in the future. They break the CD-DA standard and therefore are not allowed to use the logo. As a conclusion, Philips' next audio CD copier will be able to detect and probably circumvent the copy protection of audio CDs."
This article is Auf Deutsch but the fish does a tolerable job of
making it sane for those who can't remember the proper gender of all
their nouns.
This is exactly what we need. Someone to stand up to the new practice of wrecking the CDs so they can't be played on certain players. I never actually pictured one of the larger companies doing that, but Phillips is apparently in a perfect position to do it.
Phillips is doing practically everything I would have wanted a hardware manufacturer (and holder of the CD Rom license) to do!
So, mmm, what's the giant conspiracy? Why is this happening?
big business supporting the little guys.
Regardless of copyright, would they not be in violation of copyright for producing a device that bypasses a circumvention method?
DMCA seems to be more important then other laws, such as fair use lately.
I wonder if Phillips is prepared to fight against the DMCA, that would be a huge boost in the fight.
If they do, my next cd-rom will be phillips.
Phillips will probably just create their own copy protection standard, incorporate that into CD-DA, and force other companies to pay for the privilege of using this new standard if they want to call themselves CD-DA compatible. No way Phillips is doing this out of the goodness of their collective hearts.
I'm the stranger...posting to
I'm impressed that a large corporation is acctually taking a sane stance. But, I'm wonder just how long they'll be able to maintain this position. Surely even their large pockets can't beat the endless pockets of all the other large corporations who are developing these copyprotection schemes. And what about the DMCA?
Dozings.com -- Its kinda funny... If you're as crazy as me.
Since Hemos is the only one that realizes that the fish isn't the only translator...
Google now has language tools, translates pages, AND will let you link to the translated page (that link is to the article in question). And, actually, google's translators are really good. Maybe even better than altavistas...
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
NewScientist.com is carrying the same story in english
In roughly 85% of all the countries Aucio CD's are being sold, there are Fi Use laws in place that do no allow for manufacturers to circumvent copy ability.
Im glad to see Phillips is at least protecting their
property and not allowing it to be emblazoned on a CD that does not conform to those standards, would MS allow their logo to be pasted on a S/390 and say built for windows 98 ?? No dont think so.....
I hope all this copy circumvention leads to more piracy than ever before. JUST piracy of the stuff that was to be protected, maybe then theyll think twice....
Sig went tro...aahemmm.....fishing........
There's an enlish-language article on the subject at New Scientist:9 91783
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns999 91783
Honestly, Philips only has there self interest at stake here. I'm sure it's just posturing to get there own CD copy protection scheme in place. Hopefully they will do as bad a job as the DVD people did. The one thing we can all be sure of is that they don't care about you, me or the CD consumer -- these are the same people who try to sell "audio" CD-R's for $20!
I recall someone who worked at Philips telling me -- "How was copper wire invented? Philips management squeezing a penny".
I am not a number! I am a man! And don't you
Unfortuneatly according to the article, Philip's patent runs out in 2002/3 (hitting that 20yr mark).
So, they won't be able to enforce it soon anyway.
This is the argument I've made for a long time, and I think it's a strong one. The Red Book standards lay out what a cd is, and the CD mark you see on the back of any disc you buy is supposed to be a guarantee that the enclosed software will play on all compatible hardware. Any copy-protected cd fails this test, and should not legally be sold as a compact audio disc.
This is great news, because it will take Phillips to enforce the standards
ceci n'est pas un 'sig'
It looked like good news on the surface, but I've got mixed feelings about that one...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I'm happy to see that Slashdot changes is rhetorics from "copyright protection" to the somewhat preferable "copy protection." However, that term is still completely inaccurate. "Copy protection" does not protect copies. It does not protect your right to make a copy. It does, in fact, not protect anything at all (except the greed of the media industry).
Some of the more accurate terms that you might prefer to use are "copy prevention" (that's what those technologies actually try to do) or "usage control" (that's the effect of copy prevention, e.g. your choice of playback devices is limited). To describe a media that is crippled by usage control technology, you can use something like "restricted use media."
If you think these terms are too political, think about how political the terminology used by the media industry is. The only reason why "copyright protection" doesn't sound completely laughable to you is that you've heard it so often.
Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
OK,
- B
http://www.bradheintz.com/
- updated
As a conclusion, Philips' next audio CD copier will be able to detect and probably circumvent the copy protection of audio CDs.
"I've got to admit, it's getting better... it's getting better all the time..."
:-)
If it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.
I would love to see Philips sue record companies for deceptively using their certification logo!
.de branch? Howabout the CCC? I'll send them a couple hunnert marks towards legal fees!
Can't anyone bring trademark infringement charges in Germany? Wasn't that the gist of the whole Killustrator flap? Does the EFF or EPIC or CDT or have a
If it's in a jewel case that looks like a CD, and is on the shelf in HMV, and costs the same as other CDs, and is on the shelf beside other CDs, do you think that most consumers would stop to look if it has the Philips CD logo on it?
- In Capitalist America, law violates YOU!
Even though I'm not the hugest fan of government intervention in everything, Philips does raise a legitimate issue (one that we probably should have noticed first, but oh well) - that the copy protected CDs are being labelled and sold with the "Compact Disc - Digital Audio" logos even though they do not comply with the standards.
Even in Philips doesn't pursue litigation, the US Gov't could certainly prosecute the record labels for defrauding consumers. It would be interesting to see if a class-action lawsuit could be filed under similar reasoning (although a class of N'Sync fans is probably something the world is better off without).
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
If you read the article you will discover that:
I. Phillip's patents expire in 2002 and 2003. So even if Phillips goes hog wild, the issue in court will be over before it goes to trial. So Phillips is not going to try to stop the copy protected CD's in court
II. Sony is also a major CD patent holder, and is quite happily pressing massive numbers of CD's that don't even work with some of their equipment.
III. The head of Phillips made the comment that consumer activism is the means to stop CD copy protection.
IV. The Phillips CD copier hardware will probably not disable the copy protection, but just ignore it.
If I wasn't so cynical I might see this as a corporation doing the "right thing," but I cannot see this as anything but a PR sound byte. Phillips is going to sit around for the last year of its patent and collect royalties like nothing was going on. The discussion with the exec. was purely technical.
"Philips indicted for violating DMCA, initiated by complaint from RIAA and MPAA"
Recently law makers have been showing resistance to industry execs who are pushing cd copy-protection. Here is a recent story on this. The recording industry according to this article is rethinking copy protection all together.
Yes but every time I try to see it your way, I get a headache.
Philips tried to release a DVD-R last year too, I think. At least they demo'ed it at some expo. They are a hardware company and want to sell hardware. Think of competitors like Sony, whose vested interest is in the Movies/Music/Software instead of the products that play them. That is the sort of thing anti-trust legislation is meant to stop.
Philips says copy-protected CDs have no future at New Scientist. As an aside, I find New Scientist to be one of the best all-around sources for sci/tech news.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Several years ago, not long before they started producing audio CD copiers.
They must have previewed the conflict due to arise between hardware and software (audio) companies.
I don't think they really support the little guys, but mainly their own business (and rightly so).
There is an interesting court case against BMG that is linked to the violations of the CD-DA standard all current cd copyproctions use. In germany it is a punishable act to use false or incomplete data to affect the result of data processing in a way that someone loses property. This offence is called "computer fraud" and is punishable with up to 5 years jail. ,disk space or your time while you try to make a legal copy as it is allowed by fair use rules. It doesn't matter how much money or property you lose.
It is easy to see that these copyprotections use false data. They all contain the CD-DA logo but contain data that isn't valid in the current standard. That there is a lose of property is also easy to show. You could easily waste a cd-r
Read all about it in a real nice article by telepolis. The article is in german, but google produces a readable version.
Jan
That's okay, just losing the right to the logo is a Good Thing. For one, it could mean an injunction against distribution of any existing copy-protected discs mislabeled with that logo -- which hurts the recording/distribution companies responsible.
:-) which silvery discs are the copy-protected ones -- namely the ones without the CD logo. We can just avoid buying those. (And encourage others likewise).
For another, it makes it obvious (well, in a subtle way
-- Alastair
I link that translation link. I found this quote to be a great summary of the whole CD copy protection issue:
said Philips speaker Klaus Petri: "those are silberscheiben with music drauf, which CDs resemble, but none are."
Damn straight, those new copy protected CD's really are a bunch of silberscheiben with music drauf.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Philips, the inventor of the Compact Disc, does not expect controversial attempts by the music industry to introduce CD "copy protection" technologies to last very long, because of consumer complaints. Philips is opposed to the use of copy protection systems. ... Philips could refuse to license such copy protected discs as genuine CDs, or pursue some other legal obstruction to the practice. But Gary Wirtz, general manager of the Philips Copyright Office at its headquarters in the Netherlands, believes that copy protection technology will fail all by itself.
These are good guys, just like SonicBlue, Archos, and Apple. They need our support.sulli
RTFJ.
...is really easy to break. It's a simple integer underrun error that is placed on the first track of the disc (in the LBA field of the TOC). Simple sanity checking in future cd rippers will easily circumvent this. In fact, the latest beta of CoolEdit is able to rip these discs by accident (they do the sanity checking, I think).
If anyone that writes CD rippers wants a more in depth description of how to circumvent this, just email me (m-i-k-e-f-e-l-d@engin.umich.edu without the dashes). It's really simple.
Anyhow, I only know of one disc that has this "protection" from universal on it... "The Fast and the Furious Vol. 2". I was trying to run some audio analysis algorithms on its tracks, and couldn't rip the audio... which is why I investigated. Once more discs with this "protection" come out, it will just be a matter of patching existing mp3 rippers.
mike
Since Slashdot rejected this story, I will post it here.
There is a related item reported in the LA Times about a bill being introduced to amend the DMCA - which will allow for consumers to copy digital works without running afoul of the law.
LA Times Story
No. You are wrong. Fair use, backup copies, etc. are all spelled out in the US Code. Most of the /. crowed doesn't want to know about it however, because it kills most of their arguments.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
US Code: TITLE 17, CHAPTER 1, Sec. 107.
Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use
Sec. 108 covers copies made by libraries and archives.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/108.html
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
You see those Phillips commercials on the music and 'techy' shows? The commercial goes something like this:
,from his collection, a mix cd for listening with dates.
"1- Guy with date plays cd and has crummy music on it. Date winces.
2- Guy goes home and 'mixes'
3- Guy then plays music with date. Date is happy."
If anything, Phillips will NOT change the standard, since all cd players operate by it. Nobody would buy thier product if it was incapible of playing other media. They cut thier own throats.
If you put this all together it makes tremendous sense.
1: Congressman makes statement questioning legality of 'Blank CD' tax (authorizing fair use in copying) and the Copy-Protection by Universal and other companies.
2: Copy-Protected CD's are not compatible with the Red Book Standard (therefore will not play in some players). In other words, Stay with Red Book, people stay happy.
3: There is a large amount of capital involved in copy protection, and Phillips doesn't want to waste money on a scheam that may flop and may be illegal (possible law suits may pursue).
And past that, more games are being copy-protected by brain dead scheams. If I could buy a decently priced, self contained unit with a reader and a writer and make perfect copies, I'd buy 1, maybe 2.
Josh Crawley
ps: About pirating, stopping making cd burners wont stop pirating. It's like saying, "The internet has caused evil stuff to spread, let's shut it down". Both are infeasible, one much more than the other.
OK, can anyone in Germany tell us if "copy protected" CD's are being sold there?
Since the "CD Audio" logo is a Trademark, and Phillips has said that "copy protected" CD's do not qualify, can't a private individual (like that ambulance chaser from the Suse and Killustrator stories) start a lawsuit against the media companies?
From the sound of the Suse case, you could even get Universal shut down even if they're not doing it yet (since they're the principal backers of this..)
Anyone from Germany care to comment?
The logo is a trademark indicating certain specifications and recognition. The patent is different from the logo.
Fight Spammers!
It's Philips, not "Phillips".
Philips, Eindhoven
They are already 100% safe from me even *thinking* about copying their stuff.
BTW, I haven't been keeping score. NSync is which rev of Menudo, exactly?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Hmm, that's very interesting, I doubt it is the sole legal text that applies, but let's look at it a little mor closely.
Number one, section 108 does provide for making a copy for archival purposes. I remember reading somewhere that precedent was established that a consumer IS allowed to make a copy as a backup of their digital media, in fact in every PC game I've bought I've seen that in the EULA.
This text however, says that the collections of the library or archive MUST be open to the public. And that up to three copies may be made assuming that the original is still in possesion of the copier. Let me preface this with the fact that I know it's not that simple, but this almost gauruntees the right to rip your cd's and make them streamable in such a way that you are never transferring a whole copy of the media to the remote computer, as long as you aren't making money off of it of course. I know this is a simplistic scenario and there's a lot more that goes into it, but I am also sure that there are loopholes in the laws that protect copyright holders that are ripe for taking advantage of.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
In turn, Philips attempts to dictate how the record labels may use their CD format: It's our standard, so you can only use it the way we want you to.
Can't patents be renewed
Patents last three and a half years after being granted but can renewed to 7 1/2 after grant, 11 1/2 after grant, and 20 after filing by paying maintenance fees.
Copyrights last 95 years unless you're a freelancer creating works on or after 1 Jan 1978, in which case they last life plus 70. (To renew a copyright for 20 years, simply stuff millions of dollars into the pockets of both parties in the United States and all major parties in the European Union.) Either way, they last additionally until December 31.
A registered trademark lasts five years. After that, the owner files an affidavit of continued use, which buys another five years; then the trademark can be renewed for ten years at a time until a court decides that the trademark has become too generic to maintain.
Will I retire or break 10K?
You mean like this
-no broken link
The only thing Phillips could do is demand that the copyprotected CD's not carry the "CD" label.
And run smear ads against the RIAA labels accusing them of not producing CDs. (RIAA will attempt to sue Philips for libel, but in the US, the truth cannot constitute libel.) Make like the dairy industry: "If you want real CDs, look for the logo."
RIAA is an association of music distrubuters et al, they don't sell CDs.
Common Slashdot practice accepts "RIAA" as shorthand for "RIAA member labels" in appropriate contexts.
The irony of that would be that there'd be no new music left to trade since the over produced modern pop crap is always the most popular.
*NSHIT fans will just have to find new music such as independent punk or electro.
Will I retire or break 10K?
The solution for RIAA and major music labels is to push for another "standard" rather than CD (or CDDA). Simply create Extended Disc (ED) and market it it as such. Make this standard work just like the CDDA standard, but allow for copy protection-style errors. Big marketing campaign to support ED as being "better" than CD. Done!
You need to install an RTFM interface.
S/PDIF is also capable of carring datastreams containing multichannel sound in MPEG2, AC3 and DTS formats. S/PDIF has a bit which indicates whether the payload is digital audio, or something else. This is how your receiver knows not to try to play back that audio feed from your DVD player without decoding it.
There actually is a S/PDIF format which is identical to AES/EBU other than the media, but this is not what is included with consumer equipment.
Additionally, the professional format of AES/EBU and S/PDIF does not carry track marks, which consumer S/PDIF does.
Not many people realize that this is actually a Phillips, not Sony who has invented CD-DA. Sony did come up with a number of substantial enhancements. If I remember correctly, the whole error-correction scheme belongs to Sony. Yet the main inventor is Phillips. Now Sony's position regarding the whole issue is completely schizoid. Parts of Sony which are involved in music business fight the parts of Sony involved in A/V equipment. A good example is Minidisc vs MP3. In case you are not familiar with technology, Minidisc is heavily copy-protected, extremely unflexible, this is its major limitation as a coding scheme, yet Sony doesn't want to open it up. For instance, you cannot digitally copy one MD to another - unless you have a high-end expensive professional MD mastering equipment. From what I've head there was a big conflict inside Sony between those who wanted to release Sony CD/MP3 player, and those against MP3 (for obvious reasons). (the 'good guys' won, btw)
Well, apparently Phillips doesn't have such type of mentality and this is nice. I'm not sure if they are involved into recording business (I vaguelly remember seeing LPs with 'Phillips' label, but that was many years ago). Probably it is mostly company specializing on A/V equipment
Now this is what I've been saying all along. So-called 'copy-protected' CDs are nothing else but the violation of Red Book standard. I'm glad to hear it from Phillips.
Incidently, there is a good article on copyrighted CDs by Steve Rochlin, at http://www.enjoythemusic.com. It also contains some good URLs.
I'm not so certain that Philips will fall in line, but a different scenario occurred to me. Perhaps the RIAA will simply dump the "CD Compact Disc" logo and put a disclaimer on that says something to the effect of "may not work in all CD(tm) players" and then Philips wouldn't have any leverage against them.
Virg
this almost gauruntees the right to rip your cd's and make them streamable in such a way that you are never transferring a whole copy of the media to the remote computer, as long as you aren't making money off of it of course.
A library may make 1 copy of a copyrighted work if it has the original in its possestion. A library may make 3 copies of an unpublished work for the purpose of preservation, but any digital copies may not be made available outside of the library. Legality of ripping CD's aside, a *library* could do this if they had someway of "loaning" the stream, and 2 patrons could not have it at once. And it never left the building. It also is not as simple as you not making money off of the use. If the use *deprives* the copyright holder of value (even if it would otherwise be Fair-Use) the use will be deemed infringing.
Backups of software is specifically covered in section 117.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/117.html
You are specifically granted the right (or more correctly the copyright holder cannot deny you license) to copy a software program if it is necessary for the use of the program (installing it to your harddrive, copying into RAM, etc.) or to protect angainst damage to the original media. Note that this section *only* applies to computer software, not CDs, DVD, etc.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
It's definitely not a non-event, quite the opposite actually.
Stated more simply:
It's an event.
The RIAA is already looking for another format. DVD-Audio or something. They know they can't pull the switcheroo quite yet -- not enough DVD players in homes. But at some point, they'll settle on something like that, and then do what they did to kill vinyl: tell distributors/retailers they won't accept their unsold copies of albums back.
Anyone know who holds the DVD standard? Not that it matters, plenty of provision for copy protection in that....
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
>Just because the head-in-the-sand US market has never been very enthusiastic about them doesn't mean they have failed.
No, the US market simply decided not to waste money on a half-baked idea like MiniDisc. Now that there is a solution which does everything that Minidisc can do, except 10-50x faster, and with over 50% market penetration; America has decided the time is right for a portable solution. They just let you be the guinea pigs with MiniDisc.
So what is the solution that bests MiniDisc in every single way known?
8 cm Re-Writeable CDs and MP3 encoders/players designed for these. Expect this open format to become HOT as more people realize MiniCD lets them put multiple albums on a disc of similar size to MD, of similar quality to MD, and allows them to play it in well over half the locations they might travel. And don't forget the ace-in-the-hole of most any format over MD, ease of copying. Not to mention the full data compatibility of the disc, allowing people to store interesting tidbits like music videos, album art, and other things MiniDisc either wasn't designed to handle, or which Sony forced format incompatibility with. Let me repeat the most important point: Philips, a very large investor in the CD format, actually wants you to be able to use these CDs to copy as much music as you like, unlike Sony and their proprietary MiniDisc format.
If you ask me, MD needs to rest with Sony's many other stillborn consumer formats, such as Beta and MemoryStick.
>They are extremely popular in Asia,
That's great, but virtually no music that appeals to the American market is produced in Asia. This makes the format further unappealing to us.
What's good for Asia isn't always good for us. If MiniDisc has worked out for them, good for them. It didn't here simply because people here want easy to use, unemcumbered music formats.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC