Slashdot Mirror
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.
Is Philips still planning on not letting Universal us the standard audio CD logos on their CDs because of the Red Book compliance issues? To me that's a very strong statement.
Buy as many CD's as you can afford at the time, open ALL of them, and take them back immediately. Retailers don't like to take back opened merchandise, and will quite often (from what I understand) charge back a small amount the the distributor, which will then pass the cost upwards. While some may consider this approach stupid/ineffective, think about this: enough people buy these "CDs" and return them, and retailers will think twice about buying them or moving them into the retail chain.
Doesn't the bit about the license for the player being non-transferable violate the doctrine of first sale?
I can sell my regular CD's to the guy next door, and they can't do a thing about it. Now, if I sell these silvery things to the guy next door, he can't listen to the stuff on his computer???
Or does doctrine of first sale trump such restrictions?
If they're are working to make it possible to rip the songs to MP3 to be copied onto an MP3 player, what's the point of the copy-protection in the first place? First, they add copy-protection, then they plan to add even more features to work around the copy-protection.
Of course, their answer didn't really say this is what they are working toward, but it sure seems to be trying to imply it.
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
You understand and agree that any unauthorized use of the Player or Content would result in irreparable injury to us and/or our affiliates or licensors for which money damages would be inadequate, and in such event we and/or licensors, as applicable, shall have the right, in addition to other remedies available at law and in equity, to immediate injunctive relief against you. Nothing contained in this paragraph or elsewhere in this document shall be construed to limit remedies or relief available pursuant to statutory or other claims that we, our affiliates and/or licensors may have under separate legal authority, including but not limited to, any claim for intellectual property infringement
Irreparable?? That's quite a strong term to use in this case. Especially if they don't know you did it it doesn't hurt them at all. That pretty much rules out irreparable in my book. Also I'm not sure how they can be damaged so that monetery reparations would be inadequate. They are a corporation, they are only there to make money, I don't think they can take you to court on the basis of emotional damage for non-compliance. Just what do they expect to do to you for copying this cd?
You agree to indemnify and hold harmless us and our agents, employees, representatives, licensors, affiliates, parents and subsidiaries from and against any and all claims, losses, demands, causes of action and judgments (including attorneys' fees and court costs) (collectively "Claims") arising from or concerning your use of the Player or Content and to reimburse them on demand for any losses, costs or expenses they incur as a result of any Claims.
Ok so not only can I not sue you for any reason whatsoever, but you can charge me money if I try anyway. Basically this whole thing says if you buy this cd you are fucked, we can do whatever we want to you and you can't do a thing, but if you have the audacity to listen to this product in a way we don't approve of, we can sue you file injunctions take away your dog, or whatever we feel like.
Since when did consumers lose all of their rights as a result of buying a product?
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
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.
CD's are extremely costly, in my opinion. And why are they still more expensive than cassettes, when cassettes are apparently more difficult to manufacture?
I'm thinking that contacting my state's attorney general and complaining MAY get a response, if enough people do it. Hey, the states went after Microsoft, after all! When you see commercials (Philips, I believe) where the guy is mixing his own CD's, at that point it should be considered a general expectation of purchasing a CD. If you purchase a CD, you have a reasonable expectation that you'll be able to mix the songs with other songs of your choosing, and put them onto a newly mixed CD. They are taking that away. Something about harming the consumer comes to my mind, and believe it or not, state attorney generals like to get involved in that sort of a thing.
-Slashdolt
Go in and buy one cd, take it home. Next time you come back complain that the cd is defective and ask for an exchange. Do this often and regularly at store X when different people are working. Again telling them they are defective.
The point is, "returned" merchandise might just get re-shrink wrapped and thrown back on the shelf, where as you state it is "defective" it will more then likely be returned back to Universial or whereever.
-- Knowing too much can get you killed, but knowing who knows too much can make you rich.
To: umg@umusic.com
To: webmaster@friendsoflive.com
To Whom It May Concern,
Hoping that you are motivated by more than sheer greed, I'd like to
voice a complaint regarding the Live - V CD that I received as gift
at Christmas this year.
I work as a computer programmer, and as such spend a lot of time at
work, using a computer. I have a collection of about 300 CD's at my
desk at work, that I listen using the CD-ROM drive of one of my computers.
I run several operating systems, including Linux, Solaris,
FreeBSD on my Intel PC's. I also have several Sun SPARC workstations.
When trying to play the Live - V CD, I receive an error message upon
inserting the CD that says 'Cannot run 16-bit application'. I have
serveral other 'media players' including WinAMP, Musicmatch Jukebox,
etc. These attempt to play the CD, and do play the first half of the
CD fairly well. However, the latter tracks on the CD hiss, pop, and
crackle to point that the music is no longer enjoyable.
I've been a fan of Live for many years now ( since Mental Jewelry
came out ), and have purchased all of the other albums, as well as
gone to several concerts featuring Live.
As a consumer who pays for his music, I feely completely shafted and
disenfranchised by Universal's decisions to "Copy Protect" their CD's.
I do not know for certain whether any copy protection was used on the
Live - V albumn, as there is nothing on the CD artwork, jewel-case,
or packaging to indicate such.
I do know that I will be throwing away the albumn as useless, and
will no longer purchase any further Live cd's that come out on the
Universal label.
So, you win. I can't copy the CD so that I can listen to it in my
car on the way to and from work. I can't "burn" it to MP3 format
to listen to on my MP3 player. Nor can I listen to it on my preferred
CD-Player ( which happens to be a PC ).
I will be fucked if I'm going to go buy a standalone CD-Player for
my office, just to listen to music.
You choose to cripple your CD's. I choose not to buy them.
Reference the Universal Music website regarding this at:
http://www.musichelponline.com/TechSupport.asp
I will still pay money to see Live in concert, but I will no longer
pay for Live CD's published under the Universal label. ( Or any
other music I like that comes our on Universal ).
Sorry guys from the band. It's nothing personal against you, and I
am not trying to "steal" your work from you without compensation.
Universal has chosen to make it personal against me.
I wish you all the best of luck. Keep making great music, and visit
Chicago on tour often so I can hear your new stuff ( since I cannot
listen to it on CD ).
Respectfully,
---
Segmentation Fault ( core dumped )
...is provide a powerful enticement for consumers to purchase their music from "real" pirates. Why buy that copy-protected crap at full price when your Uncle Toby knows this guy that can get you a real CD of anything for a fraction of that?
IMO one of the most important reasons that Napster didn't obliterate the music industry overnight is that CDs are basically Good Enough. CDs provide an entire album in a nice (erm) compact package, with high fidelity to boot. This is *STILL* impressive, folks. Who cares if you can save twenty bucks by spending a couple of hours hunting down the dozen new songs by your favourite artist? Many people are simply too lazy and too rich; they just buy the goddamned CD and get it over with. (Besides, it comes in a pretty box.)
However, if commercial CDs suddenly become a big pain in the arse, you can bet your booty that alternatives will spring up.
Although consumers won't find it convenient to pirate stuff all by themselves, I imagine a full-scale bootleg distribution system will spring up fairly quickly. Although compared to Napster this structure has the disadvantage of reducing the number of actual pirates to prosecutable levels, basic economics tell us that so long as the demand is there, the supply WILL try to meet it. As with the 'war' on drugs, once can therefore expect many police hours (and therefore, tax dollars) to be spent finding and squishing a never-ending procession of infinitely-replaceable suppliers. What a pain! What an expense!
- undoware.ca
I have posted my correspondence with UMG on the topic - I'm awaiting a further reply.
I wrote to Universal's new address asking why they were going to stop making CDs I could play on my Mac. Here's the response I got, annotated:
On Wednesday, January 9, 2002, at 12:51 PM, MusicHelpOnline.com Support wrote:
Thank you for your feedback regarding copy protected CDs. We
appreciate your opinion, as the consumer experience with the music we all
love has always been a priority at the Universal Music Group.
I don't 'consume' music. I listen to it. It's still there afterwards (though I get the impression that you'd like it if it wasn't).
Unfortunately, over the last few years, the music industry has been faced
with a growing problem of unauthorized CD "ripping" leading to illegal
Internet distribution of music - a practice that is hurting everyone from
recording artists to songwriters to record stores. This illegal copying is
taking place on a massive scale, with literally millions of copies being
made without any compensation to the creators of the music.
Interesting progression of words here. The ripping is 'unauthorised'. Who needs to authorise it? Some ripped files have been illegally distributed, I'll grant you that, but then you say that 'copying' is illegal.
Under the Audio Home Recording Act, ripping and copying are not illegal at all; they are expressly permitted. You are confounding the legal acts of copying and ripping with the illegal one of distributing your copyright content without your permission. You are applying technology to attempt to prevent the former, instead of legal prosecution to prevent the latter. This is your mistake.
Your second mistake is take the word of someone that they can stop CDs from being copied. If someone can play your CD, they can redigitise the output, and rip that, and distribute it online. Its not worth my time and effort to fiddle around to rip the CDs in this way, so I won't buy them, but I'm sure the illegal distributors will work this out.
Net result: you have a lot of fed up former customers, and your music is still distributed online without your permission. Fewer people pay to listen to it, you get less money, and the illegal distribution goes on unchecked.
If a way is not found to protect the music from these abuses, recording artists,
songwriters and many others will be deprived of their livelihoods. The
changing economics could cause fewer new artists to get a chance to find
their audience.
The music is not being abused. It is being listened to. It doesn't need protection.
Or do you mean 'protection' in the sense of 'protection racket'?
Courtney Love wrote a very well-reasoned essay on who is abusing whom in the record industry.
Universal Music Group is committed to protecting the rights of our artists,
songwriters, and copyright holders, and, like the rest of the entertainment
industry, is evaluating emerging technologies to assess their viability while
also attempting to maximize the consumer experience. In addition,
Universal is exploring new ways to make music available in a variety of
online formats. We are also working with technology companies on new
offline formats that appeal to consumers.
Uh huh. Let me explain again. I have an iPod. (125,000 other people do too, and its only been on sale two months). It lets me carry around about 120 CDs worth of music at a time, in a package about the size of one CD box. I like this. I'm listening to more music than I was before because of it, and I will continue to buy CDs to rip and put into my iPod. If that isn't an offline format that appeals to consumers, I don't know what is.
However, you are explicitly working to stop me doing this. When I buy CDs at the moment, I look at the artists name, not the record label. Now I'll need to check that its not a Universal CD, in case you have 'protected' me from listening to it. This is one way of building awareness of the Universal brand, but probably not a useful one.
We have licensed copy protection technologies developed by others and
are experimenting with the integration of those technologies into some of
our CDs as a first step in measuring their effectiveness in an evolving
marketplace. While the CDs with copy protection may not be playable in a
limited number of CD players, UMG is currently working with our
technology providers to achieve 100% playability. We also hope to
include Macintosh-based playability on copy-protected discs in the future.
We have not finalized our plans for 2002 nor have we made a commitment
to put copy protection on all of our CD releases.
You hope. I'm supposed to buy your CDs on the basis of a hope that you can kludge something together? Let me make it clear. I want Red Book Audio CDs, the gold standard for Audio Quality. I don't want CDs that break this spec, with an extra data track that includes some ghastly software player with a clickthrough licence you have bought from some software snake-oil salesman.
I have some very nice software to play CDs, thanks. It also helps me organise my collection, and move it to my iPod. I don't want to run your software.
I trust that these corrupt, Red Book violating CDs will be clearly labelled as such, so I can tell not to buy them? Otherwise, I'll just have to avoid all Universal CDs until you commit to shipping Red Book ones again.
UMG has also established www.musichelponline.com to provide
consumers with support and to answer any questions you may have
concerning copy protected CDs.
We appreciate your business, and your support for the musicians who
bring so much to all of our lives.
You evidently don't appreciate my business, as you have gone out of your way to stop me playing your CDs. I'm sure your support for musicians is just as sincere.