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Universal Music Prepares for Copy-Protection Complaints
tregoweth writes: "Universal Music Group is preparing for the onslaught of complaints about their copy-protected CDs. They've launched a customer support site,
which includes a FAQ ("Can I get a copy of this CD without the copy protection?"), tech support ("Why can't I copy the disc to my hard drive?", which they don't actually answer), a description of the reasons that you can get a refund (including some playback "issues" I hadn't heard about), and the fearsome legalese covering the audio player and compressed audio files included on the CD." Our previous story has more information.
...or at least your immediate needs. Phillips seems a logical choice to back at this point as a hardware vendor that can profit from the lack of copy protection. They are a company like any other and $$$ are the only language. Phillips could provide actual muscle in the corporate arena that people jumping up and down protesting could never provide. Let companies that back your "ideals" do the legwork for you, BUT, always keeps one eye one the people your fighting and the other on the people fighting for you, because umltimately, they are out for themselves too and wouldn't hesitate to throw you to the wolves too if it made them a buck.
Don't bother complaining, they've already answered you and you DON'T MATTER to them.
At the risk of stating the obvious; the only way to make an impact on them is NOT BUY their product. Otherwise, get used to it.
Sad but true.
A common ploy. Go ahead and capitalize on how
lazy people are for the most part by making your
refund/replacement process the biggest pain in the
ass possible so people are discouraged from dealing with it. Flood the market with a substandard copyright protected product, then make refunds a pain in the butt. That's not what I call putting the customer first.
The most important thing any republican needs to know.
So what happens 5 years from now when you can't find a machine running XP to save your life, and the newest version of Microsoft's OS is incompatible with my cd's player. Universal says they won't be providing updates so I've just got a coaster? Thats dissapointing...
Depends on how you define "cracked." I could take the CD, put it in my CD player, connect the optical out from that to my soundblaster card (with Optical In) and rip away. Nice digital copy. Sure, not as fast or as easy, but doable nevertheless.
As Lessig said, "just a speedbump"
Boycott these CDs.
Seriously. Don't buy them. Tell your friends not to buy them, and tell them to tell their friends, and so on. They will have to stop making them if they are not getting their returns - and the power is in your hands to do it, consumer...
"So there he is, risen from the dead. Like that fella, E. T." - Father Ted Crilly
Even worse, this leaves Mac folks in the dust. I can almost understand the "hacker" OS Linux (yes, that's sarcasm, folks) out of the dust - but what did Steve Jobs do to get excluded from the list? (Oh, yes - he supported iTunes, which *likes* MP3s).
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
No they are not. This is a blatant lie. If they didn't put messed up data on the CDs in the first place then all of these problems would go away*.
On a clear disk you can seek forever
Now, if we want to buy a Universal music CD, we have to agree to a license agreement comparable to the average MS EULA.
Many of us probably feared that the customer backlash will be softened by some heavily encrypted files and a proprietary player on each CD. For all too many people, that functionality will be good enough.
Here's to hoping that the general public will still be pissed about:
1.) Not being able to use their favorite music software
2.) Not being able to transfer to mp3 players
Of course, in a few years, we may be in the horrible situation of having the RIAA agree on a new encryption standard, and all major music players and devices will read it. However, those music devices could be forced to tie in with just one computer, or something stupid like that.
I don't share my music, but I listen to all high-bitrate mp3s and use my mp3 player often. I have already decided against purchasing a CD I would almost certainly own by now if it weren't for Universal's copy protection. Let's hope Universal's sales suffer dearly for this.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
PC with at least Pentium® 133mHz or compatible processor, 32 MB RAM, CD-ROM drive, soundcard and speakers, Microsoft ®Windows95®, Windows98®, Windows2000®, Windows ME®, Windows XP® or Windows NT 4 ® with Service Pack 4
the word was carefully chosen to be PC, not computer , which would enrage Mac users at large.
This is a bad sign that real soon now CDs may come with "Designed for Windows" or "Requires Windows" banners on the covers.
Needless to say, 3 days after the first CD is out with the scheme, an open source decoder/ripper for it will be out on freshmeat. And it probably wil compile on Mac OS X out of the box. :)
Wouldn't it be misleading to present an audio disc in the standard jewel case, even if the CDDA sticker was not present? If trademarks and domain names can be found confusingly similar, then can the shape of a product also be found confusingly similar? UMG should be required to sell these cds in different jewel cases that make them EASILY distinguishable from the standard jewel case. The lack of sticker won't catch the attention of 99% of the buyers. There should be some other reason that the buyers will not associate this product with a real CDDA compliant cd.
UMG is committed to protecting the rights of its artists and copyright holders.
That speaks volumes.
Wow. what a world it would be if they had said "UMG is commited to the satisfaction of our customers and that they enjoy our product (music)"
They are commited to their pocketbooks. Not to anyone else.
The (Hopefully) Great Slashdot Blackout
Corporations don't. That's why DivX was launched. We all knew it was a very bad idea, we just didn't know if Joe Consumer would think so too. Thank goodness he did.
:)
Let's just hope the same Joe Consumer will think Universal's idea is a bad one too. Then we can watch this idea die the same death of DivX. It will take a bit of time perhaps, but when a mass amount of people are inconvenienced, corporations should see the proper monetary repsonse.
I hope
Praying for the end of your wide-awake nightmare.
You don't now, but certainly if this becomes an issue, people WILL look for that "COMPACT DISC - CD AUDIO" logo. Lack of it will begin to mean "Hey... this might not play in my car CD player... or on my DVD player... and I won't be able to rip tracks to put on my RIO".
I may take time, but word will get around and Joe Consumer will start to look for the logo before buying.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
I thought so too. For one day. Then Philips revealed that they had their own plans for a user submission policy (more accurate than copy protection plan).
Philips appears no better, and perhaps worse, then the rest of them. OTOH, it's useful that they are protecting their trademark. At least it should be POSSIBLE to avoid buying junk.
.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Here is their email address: umg@umusic.com
And here is what I wrote them:
Hello,
I am the happy owner of many of UMG cds and I purchase a cd almost every month. I also enjoy listening to cds on my computer which runs linux. I will never purchase a cd that is copy protected since I believe it is wrong for you to decide how I am going to listen to the music that I have purchased. I really hope you rethink this problem and come to the understanding that copy protected cds are a bad thing.
Please do not add my email address to any list that you might keep.
Thanks.
Simple and to the point. If even one person reads this it is worth it.
How soon before people figure out that they can buy a CD, take it home and simply *tape* it, (Yes, people still do this, believe it or not,) then return it saying that it wouldn't play in their 'computer'?
Me, I'd probably make a perfectly acceptable analog MP3 or Minidisc copy of it - I don't have a tape deck anymore.
This is pathetic and it will undoubtedly bite them on the tail...
Good luck to them...
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
-- My Weblog.
The company's failure to provide a Linux compatible player is going to be the demise of the copyright protection. This is what started DeCSS, some kid who wanted to play a DVD on his Linux computer, because there was no commercial (read:legal) software available to play it.
Of course, they would never provide an open sourced solution, as it would be against the DMCA. Providing a binary only solution for Linux users may not prevent users from defeating the protection scheme, but it will certainly buy the company some time.
The problem that they face with Linux users is that Joe Windows doesn't care about the protection scheme, because he has a player that will work for his PC, no questions asked. However, the Linux community, and correct me if I am wrong, is generally more technical than the Windows community, and therefore, we have the ability to defeat this mechanism, even if our intentions are legitimate.
Since when did consumers lose all of their rights as a result of buying a product?
But we still have the biggest right of choosing not to buy the product.
That is how the capitalist system works. They have every right to put out a crappy product and we have the right to choose whether we buy it our not. If few people buy it (i.e. Company doesn't make MONEY), then they will stop producing the crap product.
Moral of the Story: If you think it's crap, don't buy it!
-- Find the Truth...
This seems to be the type of story that "investigative reporters" love - warning consumers that a product might not work on all of their fancy electronics and describing work-arounds and ways to avoid the problem.
It may even be worth it to send it in as a "tip" to one of those news stations that allows them to be sent in...
One of those would get the word out fairly quickly and probably cause Universal to find some way around the potential problems quickly. Especially if the discs don't work in Macintosh computers at the time...
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Not buying the CD at all doesn't help the problem - they'll just see low sales, and attribute it to "piracy", or blame it on the artist, rather than the public not agreeing with their copy-protection.
Buying it, and returning it as defective at least gets a reason in there. You should, of course, also contact them directly to express your concern over their copy-protection interfering with your right ot listen to the music that you have purchased, and tell them that your experience will influence your future buying decisions.
That way, they'll get it from both you, and from the stores that their CDs are being returned because they are defective. THey will know that the copy-protection is the problem, and they will hear it, not just from a "consumer" (note that they never refer to their customers as "customers" - it's always "consumers"), who they don't generally listen to, but from the stores selling their products, who they just might.
Perhaps the best place for people to do their buy and return activism would be at Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is one of the biggest sellers of music in America. If we can get Wal-Mart to notice that a signifigant amount of Universal's CD's are being returned, then they might raise some hell with Universal. Universal is much more likely to pay attention to complaints from a huge corporation like Wal-Mart than they are individuals.
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
why do you people all seem to be worrying? how long do you really think before this will be cracked and everyone will have downloaded it? as it is, you can probably just use the old audio out on your soundcard trick. (but someone will probably come up with a software hack involving virtual directsound drivers...)
However, there's no way that the tech can be used (At least, as I understand the tech) to limit the cd to playing on only one computer, as it doesn't contact homebase to say "I'm playing on Bob's Computer, so never let me play on anything but Bob's Computer."
Therefore the disc is a unit, complete with ECC mangled tracks, computer data, etc.
It's in a re-sellable form, so to speak, however, the license is saying that the rights to the computer portion are non-transferrable.
What it all means in the world (aka court-system), I have no idea, as IANAL.
provided that Joe Consumer uses Windows.
Joe Consumer does use Windows. At least, the average teenybopper purchasing the new Nsync or Britney Spears or whatever.
Sad but true. And unfortunately, this playback ability will likely take a lot of the wind out of the mass-protest that would otherwise occur.
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
Since LAME is GPL'd has anyone tried getting all of universal's source code modifications yet? Worth a try I suppose.
With 8-Track there was nothing specifically stopping me from making an archival copy in any format I wanted. With copy protected CD's it has specific mechanisms to prevent me from making copies in a prefered medium for my own use.
Unless the new copy protected discs (that is, discs produced after Compact Disc Digital Audio has been declared obsolete) require encryption all the way to the speaker cone, the players will provide a line-level analog output on either an RCA, 1/4", or 1/8" plug. You can record through analog to a CD recorder, to a computer, to a cassette deck, or even to an 8-track deck. No 8-track deck recognizes SDMI watermarks.
Unlike motion picture audio, pop music is typically listened to in a noisy environment, and you won't lose too much from one generation of D/A/D conversion.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Hello?
Linux users don't believe in paying for software; that is why nobody bothers making a Linux compatible player.
And if you look at 90% of the posts regarding this story, you see the open advocacy of piracy. This is why Linux users will always have poorman's imitations of commercial products (or likely, no imitations at all).
This seemed like a good idea to me, too, until I started to think about the idea that in the end, they just up the price of CD's, and we end up paying for it.
No, because at the moment this is only Universal Vivendi--only one of the big 5 record labels. Thus all the returns will only hurt Universal. This leaves three possibilities:
1) Universal does not raise prices to cover the cost of returns; Universal loses lots of money
2) Universal does raise prices to cover the cost of returns; now they are charging $2 more than the competition for people to buy defective "CDs"! Universal loses even more sales
3) Universal rasises prices to cover costs and the other labels raise prices to match; the other labels make make larger profits (assuming consumers don't stop buying) while Universal just breaks even; other labels steal away all of Universal's artists.
We still have a choice in this. Universal has specifically said that they will be looking at the return rates to decide whether they move all their music onto this new format. Yes, the music industry has been too dumb to realize that the reason music sales are down is because they shut off Napster. But they are not too dumb to realize that when people return their new format as defective that it isn't smart to move their entire line over to that format.
I can see where this might be effective if enought people do it, but PLEASE don't do this to the small mom and pop record stores that are struggling to stay open in the wake of (name your favorite box store).
Competition Good, Monopoly Bad.
Reproduced here for grins. I couldn't help but notice that their FAQ provides an email address, so I emailed them.
---
Just a data point: I buy a fair number of CD's (I probably own two or three
hundred, but I have long since lost count). I have not used a non-computer
CD player to listen to a CD in probably a year and a half, maybe two years.
Probably 90% of the time, I listen to music in my car - using my MP3 player.
There is absolutely no way I will buy any music if I can't convert it into
a format that my car can play.
Furthermore, I don't run Windows. Plain old CD's work fine for me; the things
you sell, which superficially resemble CD's, don't. Given that, all I can do
for now is be very careful to make sure that, if I'm buying CD's, they don't
have your logo on them, because I don't want to get stuck with a CD I can't
use, and which no store in town will take as a return.
Even beyond that, I don't see how this helps you; MP3's are pretty low
quality, and if I desperately needed to make an MP3 of a CD, and I had an
analog CD player, I could just record the output of the CD player and encode
that - and probably never know the difference. (For that matter, what about
my nice expensive component CD player with the digital outs?)
I work as a programmer, and I share your concerns about piracy. What I don't
share is your belief that it's okay to f*ck millions of consumers up the ass
with rusty tent spikes to try to get at a few pirates. There are lots of
legitimate ways to get people to pay for your products; intentionally making
the products defective is not one of them.
---
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
[Letter sent to the comment EMail]
I am a member of a organization of Audiophiles here in Dallas. We purchase on average a total of around $10-11,000 worth of audio CD's and equipment a year.
My personal stereo system is compased of several Macintosh and Linux-based systems, as well as very high end audio components.
I see that your new protection scheme is designed to destroy fair use rights as given to the citizens of the United States, under the guise of copyright protection. Becuase of this, I will not be able to play any of your new discs, and refuse to spend my money to take the chance that it may work.
Reading over your new copyright protection scheme, I will make sure that none of us ever purchase another "CD" released by Universal.
These discs violate the CD-DA standard, as they are not playable in every device bearing the same emblem. I will push all retailers I do business with to stop carrying your products, or at the very least, inform customers that these discs may not play in ANY device they own.
This is a very slippery slope you have started down. We deal with other audiophile organizations across the US, and we will see fit that these discs are never purchased by any person with any common sense.
Respectfully..
Mike The Mac Geek
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