Anatomy of Cactus Data Shield

meehawl writes: "This is a good analysis by CDRInfo on the current version of Midbar's Cactus Data Shield. This is the format Universal will use to protect its new audio CDs. It's been reported here already that some DVDs effectively bypass this protection, but this article addresses the specific concerns of how best to backup these protected CDs, and how to extract the music data at high quality for download to a personal MP3 listening device."

Comments

Whats the Point?

[sargon666777]

This is really getting old it seems to be a constant battle. They come up with some new means of protection, and we devise a way around it (we as a collective of consumers). They discontinue it, and release a new one, and we work around it again. Besides no matter what they do you can always play it and pipe the sound back in and record it *shrug*. They should just give up and allow people to buy and play the music normally. In the end although there will be some theft they will increase profits becuase I can't imagine anyone will buy these once the word gets out to the general public a bit more. After all who wants a CD you have to fight to play or use in a manner which you have been accustomed when you can jsut buy a good old normal CD. When will they ever learn :-)

Re:Whats the Point?

[arkanes]

Car CD players are also (often) affected by this, because of the skip protection they use.

scratch those cd's!

[Restil]

Although this doesn't really do justice to the situation.. does anyone think that crippling cds in this matter is similiarly effective to irradiating mail to kill the anthrax? Sure.. I might be safe from the evil of the world afterwards, but I'll end up with something thats charred and melted.

-Restil

Re:scratch those cd's!

[eclectro]

You can read the mail after it's been irradiated - but forget listening to these CDs in your computer unless you happen to have the right CD ROM in your computer.

I suspect that computer CDROM players will become "smart" and eventually this copy protection will be thwarted. Expect to see some DMCA lawsuits against the manufacturers that make them though.

Meanwhile, all computer users who want to play music on their computer get burned.

One can only hope that there is enough backlash from consumers that raises awarenes to the issues at stake here. The thing that we have to worry about most is consumer apathy.

If consuners don't take a stand on this crap before long their going to have deposit quarters into their computer every time they want to listen to a song.

Re:scratch those cd's!

[stripes]

You can read the mail after it's been irradiated - but forget listening to these CDs in your computer unless you happen to have the right CD ROM in your computer.

Depends on what the mail was, if it use to be unprocessed negatives you sent to A&I because they do a better job then your local photofinisher, well, let's just say you aren't getting your pictures back. Or if it was Kodachrome you sent to Kodak because you don't live close to the few places that still process it you won't get back nice subtle tones, but blank frames.

Oh, and if you send Compact Flash not only do you get no data, you may never be able to use those cards again...(this may also hit normal FLASH, so don't let 'em anthrax process your next motherboard!)

Is not a CD.

[Anonymous Coward]

Phillips - why have not placed an injunction on people devaluing and harming your interests, with huge red warning stickers, and an injunction against cactus restraining and preventing them from using the word 'CD' in any dealings they have?.

Actually its a good idea for the EEC - no need to pay VAT and media taxes, as it is not a CD, and the royalties, channel through tax havens.. the british tax commissioner does not know what he is missing - see us export subsidies.

You've got three choices:

[seanadams.com]

• Buy more CDs
  
• Steal music online
  
• Enjoy the albums you already own
  

I'm sticking with #3 until the RIAA gets a fucking clue.

How can they be so stupid as to think that ANY kind of copy protection will ever prevent their music from getting onto the net? Clearly, they think that someone is sitting there repeatedly dubbing a CD again and again every time something is downloaded. Don't they realize that no matter how difficult they make the initial ripping, it only has to be done ONCE to make a billion copies?

The only people they're inconveniencing with these tactics are guys like me who would otherwise have paid for the material. It doesn't make it any harder to download the file off gnutella.

Re:You've got three choices:

[Lumpy]

you're wrong....

They are making their own customers mad and pissed. If I buy a CD and cant rip it's contents to mp3, I n longer can use it with most of my audio systems.. my car has a empeg, and i have a portable mp3 player, and my audiotrons in he house... at the rate the mp3 player hardware is selling, they are pissing off a large number of customers that are not happily sharing the mp3 files on the internet.

It just proves that record company executives are and always have been dumb as a box of rocks.

Re:You've got three choices:

[captaineo]

I agree... The content companies need to realize that it is now impossible to regulate access to copyrighted works. No matter how hard they try, they will not be able to prevent people from giving unauthorized access to others.

But here is the key - access is only part of the value the content companies provide - there are also things like convenience (how easy is it to download one particular song or episode of a TV show?), quality (how good is the download bandwidth?), and atmosphere (you can't download the experience of watching a movie in a theatre, or attending a live concert!). Unlike access, these things can't be transmitted across a P2P network...

Only once companies wake up to the fact that preventing unlicensed access is a lost game, and start focusing on non-replicable sources of value, will they be able to accept and profit from the internet.

thinking ahead

[athagon]

One would wonder if the record industries/other persons responsible for greater "security" on CDs/DVDs had thought of this:

With the current system, the following can be done:

Person A buys CD1. Person A rips CD1 to disk, and distributes MP3s to Person B. Person B likes said MP3s, and buys CD1 for his/herself.

With "rip proof" technology (at least, until its cracked), however:

Person A buys CD1. Person A tries to rip CD1, and fails. Person A tells Person B that CD1 sucks because you can't rip it. OR: Person B can't hear MP3s from CD1, so Person B doesn't know whether or not (s)he should buy it, and possibly decides not to.

With the current system, yes, the industries stand a greater chance of losing money: but they also stand a greater chance (and, as some statistics have shown, this is the case) of gaining more money; given that the majority of Napster users (apparently, and as I did) used Napster to download a few random MP3s to decide whether (s)he should/should not buy CD1. With rip-proof CDs, however, Person A, B, C... won't be able to listen to MP3s from CD1, and thusly won't know whether or not they want to buy it.

Synopsis:

It would not seem wise, at least to me, for the industries to err on the side of greater control, and away from the potential for greater sales. Penny wise and dollar foolish, they say...

Re:thinking ahead

[swb]

It would not seem wise, at least to me, for the industries to err on the side of greater control, and away from the potential for greater sales. Penny wise and dollar foolish, they say...

You're right in suggesting that they want enhanced control. But remember, when you listen to your friend's MP3, decide you like and go out and buy it you're making a purchasing decision about whether or not you like the music based upon your friend's opinion and your personal preferences.

You're not making it based upon the music industry's marketing campaign. The industry pushes select artists that they have an investment in and want to succeed, and they would rather that you made your decisions on what to buy based upon they're selling, not upon what your friends like or what you find appealing.

The record companies, as subsidieries of media conglomerates, already have influence over TV, magazines, record stores, and radio stations (through direct ownership or payola). What they don't control is whether your friend tells you about a new disc he got and the music on it.

I'd agree that it may hurt sales, since a lot of records that have become popular have become popular because of word-of-mouth but I think more and more people are such slaves of the media anyway (radio in shower, in the car, in the office, MTV at home, etc) that many people by and large have lost their ability to generate an opinion of their own anyway.

Re:thinking ahead

[jonathan_ingram]

Do you REALLY go and buy a CD after having the MP3's in your hand ?
Yes.
Even if the MP3's have been ripped and encoded decently (which is rare), they are still not as good as the original CD.

Here are some albums I bought recently that I would not have bought had I not heard them on MP3/Ogg first:
Lamb - Fear Of Fours (I then bought their other two)
Autechre - Amber
Fridge - Happiness (and then Semaphore)
Aphex Twin - Classics (and then two more)
Plaid - Rest Proof Clockwork (and then Not For Threes)
Leftfield - Leftism
Dave Matthews Band - Under The Table And Dreaming.
4 Hero - Creating Patterns (and then Two Pages)

In every single one of these cases, I would never have bought their music if I hadn't listened to it first - and MP3 is my only way, as none of these people are particularly mainstream here in the UK.

Re:thinking ahead

[Ian Bicking]

You're not making it based upon the music industry's marketing campaign. The industry pushes select artists that they have an investment in and want to succeed, and they would rather that you made your decisions on what to buy based upon they're selling, not upon what your friends like or what you find appealing.

I also have a theory that there's a direct conflict there -- labels have a tremendous amount of power over the artist when they are unknown. However, once an artist becomes known the power shifts dramatically -- contracts help keep artists from reaping those benefits, but all contracts run out eventually.

I've personally noticed that pop music has hitten a real low in the last few years -- and I really think I'm being somewhat objective in this, not just square and living in the past. Pop music is being recycled longer, and bands aren't being cycled in as fast. Even three or four years ago it seemed considerably better than now.

Many of those long-lived groups are really just corporate machines. No single part of the group has enough talent to go on their own. You can't be successful based on your singing talent and dancing alone -- someone has to write the songs, someone has to play the instruments behind them, and in the case of so much boring music lately, there has to be a lot of marketing to get people to think they like the music at all.

As a result the Backstreet Boys are never going to assert their independance, or Christina Agilera, and I think a surprising number of the "Alternative" bands are in the same boat -- they are really so boring, their lyrics are so pat, their voices so cliche, that they'd go nowhere on their own. Metal is growing into a pretty boring field as well.

Given this, there's much more incentive for the labels to make sure that people don't buy according to their informed preference. If it was really just straight free market capitalism, and the labels just wanted to sell as much music as possible, then a well-informed listening audience would be great. But that well-informed listening audience would, I think, be very likely to buy from a lot of independent labels.

Re:thinking ahead

[swb]

I've personally noticed that pop music has hitten a real low in the last few years -- and I really think I'm being somewhat objective in this, not just square and living in the past. Pop music is being recycled longer, and bands aren't being cycled in as fast. Even three or four years ago it seemed considerably better than now.

I'd agree completely, but I wonder if its a function of the music industry per se or a function of the lack of a "new thing" generally in popular music. One of the last great upswings in popular music was "alternative"* and that phenomenon seems to have been completely played out -- there's nothing left there that doesn't feel like its been done before by someone else. There's still good bands, but the overall feeling is that they've been there, done that and they aren't charting new areas anymore.

It took the record companies *years* to realize that the "classic rock" trend of the late 60s and early 70s was dead and that "new" artists of the alternative vein should be picked up on. How long were radio stations in many places only playing 70s hard rock? Until the late 80s/early 90s?

I think we're at that same point with alternative -- the record companies don't have an idea what the next big thing is, and I don't think the new zeitgeist has been found yet. The question is, is it because the Media Machine, in coopting alternative scenes so quickly, has squelched them to the point they can incubate anything new? Or are we just in the end days of the alternative scenes and they have to die completely before we can find anything new?

(* Yes, I realize that anal-retentive music categorization goes far beyond that label, but for my purposes its a broad category.)

Re:thinking ahead

[Ian Bicking]

Well, one "new" trend might be metal. Really it's just another form of recycling -- but perhaps there's something new about it since it incorporates rap.

I suspect that most truly new music is now hip-hop inspired, which is a bit alien to me -- and probably many of us here :) So there is the chance that things have shifted enough that we just don't see what's really happening -- maybe we're like some guy in the 60's complaining that there's no good jazz anymore, there's barely any big bands left and they just play the same old songs.

And sure, even I can tell that a lot of mainstream hip-hop is just plain bad. But pop has always been saturated with bad music, which we later forget about. I think I need to go listen to something new before I feel too old... (and I'm not old, dammit!)

Re:thinking ahead

[Flower]

What makes you think this business model you suggest works? If I buy a copy of RedHat 7.2 and show it off to a friend. He likes it, I burn him a couple of cds and he shows it off to his friend. Does this mean our third party will buy another copy of Red Hat? Let me propose another scenerio which I have seen at work with unprotected CDs.

When the latest Santana cd came out, one co-worker brought it in and played it on his PC. More than one co-worker liked the CD. By the end of the day, 14 cds were burned and no one bought an additional copy of Santana's CD. I've seen this happen for two more CDs.

This is the type of stuff that gives the music industry a credible arguement about loss of potential sales. Everybody says "Well just because they stole^H^H^H^H^Hcopied it doesn't mean they would have bought it." entirely misses the point. It's more than reasonable to expect someone in that group of 14 would have bought the CD and that constitues a loss of profit for the company and the artist. Taking into consideration that MP3s are often good enough for most people and I'm not sure I buy the argument that allowing unfettered copying promotes sales.

Re:thinking ahead

[mpe]

With "rip proof" technology (at least, until its cracked), however:
Person A buys CD1. Person A tries to rip CD1, and fails.

Or even Person A tries to play it. If it won't play they are far more likely to kick up a fuss with the retailer and tell their mates not to bother buying it than they are to replace their CD playing hardware.

Re:thinking ahead

[mpe]

I also have a theory that there's a direct conflict there -- labels have a tremendous amount of power over the artist when they are unknown. However, once an artist becomes known the power shifts dramatically -- contracts help keep artists from reaping those benefits, but all contracts run out eventually.

Remember you are talking about a different group of people. Artists who become "known" have some kind of fanbase and possibly some level of talent. There are a great many who sink into obscurity, e.g. the "one hit wonders".

I've personally noticed that pop music has hitten a real low in the last few years -- and I really think I'm being somewhat objective in this, not just square and living in the past. Pop music is being recycled longer, and bands aren't being cycled in as fast.

Pop music has always have quite a bit of recycling, just that they used to wait around 20 years.

Many of those long-lived groups are really just corporate machines. No single part of the group has enough talent to go on their own.

Even if they do it could be difficult in "corporate environment"

You can't be successful based on your singing talent and dancing alone -- someone has to write the songs,

It's hardly unknown for singers to write their own songs...

Re:thinking ahead

[Ian Bicking]

Remember you are talking about a different group of people. Artists who become "known" have some kind of fanbase and possibly some level of talent. There are a great many who sink into obscurity, e.g. the "one hit wonders".

I was speaking specifically of those who don't have talent, and yet don't sink into obscurity -- e.g., the Backstreet Boys. (Or at least what talent they have isn't well-rounded)

Re:thinking ahead

[Ian Bicking]

No, I don't really know what's going on in the metal scene (to say the least). I only know what's being popularized -- and there are a considerable number of metal (or metal-inspired) bands that are being popularized. They seem to me to be fairly tedious -- that was my point. This is just what I'm getting from very brief samples of MTV, but you seem to agree (at least, if you will concede that there are new pop bands that can be classified as "metal" -- hey, if it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck, it doesn't have to be a talented duck to qualify as a member of the species...)

Come on, guys...

[ekrout]

Come on, guys.

For every technological solution, there's a technological "hack", right?

Name one anti-piracy tactic employed by any corporation for use in consumer products that has not, is not, and will not continue to be hacked. Still thinking? I thought so.

Whatever they think of will be hacked in a matter of days (or hours even), no matter how many times or what media/record companies think up a different scheme. If we can get the ones and zeros, then that's it. I'm not sure why more people don't understand this.

The only question is how long it will take Patti Q. User to get a purdy little Windows app that will rip her new N*Sync CD flawlessly.

DMCA? Probably not.

[Kjella]

Because I doubt this qualifies as a copyright scheme, neither CD players nor CD-ROM players have any built-in copy prevention. This is more a case of obfuscating and creating a standard-breaking disc. After all, the only thing needed to copy the cd is to emulate an analog CD player.

Kjella

Jargon to English Translation

[Skirwan]

How does the Cactus Data Shield work?

Translation: How can I circumvent it?

As Midbar explains "...The Cactus Data Shield proprietary technology was developed in-house by a multidisciplinary team of experts in the fields of information security, physics, mathematics, electronics, cryptography and algorithms.

Translation:We got a whole room of smart people who worked on it. Sometimes we race them.

The technology includes proprietary electronic circuits and software algorithms.

Translation:It uses computers and stuff. It's like the Jetsons.

The Cactus Data Shield processor is the engine behind the protection and serves as a platform for encoding original content through robust, multi-layer protection schemes.

Translation: I wanted to just call it Bob, but the head of marketing has a cactus fetish.

An engineering solution, the protection schemes are adaptive, easily updated and significantly more robust than software solutions.

Translation: Even though it's basically done in software we can't say that, 'cause it confuses the VPs.

The Cactus Data Shield copy protection slightly alters the information on the CD in several ways while maintaining perfect audio quality.

Translation: We only fucked it up a little.

--
Damn the Emperor!

So, if the only CD player I have is a CDROM

[pyramid termite]

... I can only listen to the music as a 128 bps MP3. Why should I pay 12-13 bucks to do that when I can download 128 bps MP3s for nothing? (And yes, a person who knows how to record from one audio source to a computer can make an MP3 that's indistinguishable from one ripped from a CD.)

This is a shameless rip-off of the consumer. It's fraudulent, in fact. When I buy a CD, I expect CD quality music, not MP3s. They should have to put a sticker on the case explaining that computer users get MP3 only quality.

And yes, my only CD player IS a CD-ROM. I won't buy one of these "CDs" ever.

Who says that she will?

[Kjella]

The only question is how long it will take Patti Q. User to get a purdy little Windows app that will rip her new N*Sync CD flawlessly.

I doubt that, way too much cat-and-mouse game. I think it's more likely she'll find the latest Napster-clone (they seem a dime a dozen these days), get a quality mp3 and stop buying "defective" cds...

Kjella

Re:Who says that she will?

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

but if Big Media were to make it clear that they would only use technological measures "against" their customers and never call down the lawyers for piracy/DRM issues, I figure that's almost a fair deal.

I have felt, for a long time, that the role of encryption and copyright needs to be rebalanced along the following lines: EITHER

• You publish everything "in the clear" without any technological access controls, and retain full access to the court system and civil penalties; OR
• You wrap everything inside access control mechanisms, but whatever you publish is automatically in the public domain. If someone manages to crack your protection scheme, tough luck ... you don't have the legal right to sue them, because you have voluntarily surrendered copyright by encrypting the material.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way and, with Big Media and the Content Cartel holding all the cards, especially the rectangular green ones, it's unlikely it's ever going to work that way.

Re:Who says that she will?

[WNight]

That makes a lot of sense. Copyrights are supposed to be a balance between the rights of the people and the rights of the creator. If one side gets ahead, we should rebalance the deal to help the other.

While I don't think any individual is owed a living, I think it behoves us to create a system that rewards the content creators in general, so that they make stuff we like. But also we need to make sure that the people get something back for all the tax money that goes into protecting these copyrights. (And that means unfettered access after a certain point.)

So yes, I think that copyrighted work should be easily accessed by all. This means that while a special machine (DVD player) may be required, they shouldn't be able to require access controls, or user tracking, etc.

Or, as you say, they require a bunch of hoops be jumped through, but lose the protection of law and are at the mercy of the first person to crack it.

Mutisession cd's? That's all?

[Elvii]

Well, not all, but seems part of catcus shield is just audio tracks, then data-session that plays under windows.. I have none of these cd's, anyone tried these things under cdparanoia to see if they read? Sounds like if you just ignore extra tracks that might contain false toc info, then you'd be ok.. linked article even says as much, that it's a feature in some (windows?) ripping programs to ignore the garbage designed to "protect" the data.. until everyone buys a new cd/dvd audio player, riaa and friends should just give up on copy protaction, it seems.

Re:Mutisession cd's? That's all?

[742Evergreen]

They tested about 10 drives in the article, and they all encountered some problems while reading, except for the AOpen CRW2440 (up to 91% with CDDAE, up to 100% with EAC).

They managed to copy the disc with CloneCD and the Aopen drive. They also tried to copy it whith one other drive (TDK CyClone 161040), but that one encountered read errors.

"The CDS200 cd-r backup does contain the CDS200 protection, however now is FULLY readable from all tested drives"

Translation: Rip away.

Also interesting to know is the amount of read errors in the original versus the copy. The diagram can be found here.

In short, the "real" cd was one solid block of read errors, the copy had a few spikes, but those were nothing compared to the other, both in frequency and seriousness (note that the scale in the two diagrams is vastly different).

Kind of reminds me of a Star Wars quote...

[pxpt]

...the tighter you squeeze, the more systems (CD sales) will escape between your fingers... well something like that anyway!

I had bought the new Natalie Imbruglia CD (here in the UK) when it first came out and discovered myself that it was copy protected. I was very annoyed to say the least and managed to return the CD and get my money back. A while later I ordered the unprotected version from BMG and now I have a CD that I can actually listen to.

There is NO WAY I will intentionally buy any protected music CDs now, or in the future. Music publishing companies will just force copying and distribution of music from these CDs via the channels that they are trying to stop. Duh! why can they not see this?...

...Maybe its due to the age old misconception that number of pirated copies equals the number of lost sales! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!

The day that all music CDs are protected is the day I will stop buying them.

Making us criminals...

[fleabag]

If I make 2 assumptions:

1) That this copy protection will be common place in 2 years time

2) I still want to listen to "new" music in 2 years time

Then I will have been forced into criminal activity. MP3 is my format of choice - it is convenient and easy. In the future, if I want to listen to music in the car, then I will have to download it illegally. I will have no choice but to do this. Eventually I will get pissed off with buying useless plastic discs to satisfy my conscience, and they will have lost another revenue stream.

Message to the industry:

1) A large proportion of your future customers use MP3. (i.e. anyone under the age of 15 today). By doing this you are forcing them to "go pirate".

2) A large proportion of your current customers use MP3. You are making enemies of them. This is bad marketing.

3) It's been said before, and I'll say it again. It takes one copy of a CD to be made digitally, and you've lost. The story showed that this is possible - although it says that the protection is effective, it isn't. They made a copy - and that's all it takes. Even if one person makes a really good analogue transfer, then you've lost.

My first copy-pretection experience

[tjansen]

Here is my first experience with a copy-protected cd:
it was 'Better Days' by JOE (Jive Records/Zomba). I got it from Amazon.de. The only sign that it was copy-protected was a very small printing on the back side "This CD is not playable on computers (CD-ROM/DVD-ROM)". So I tried it on my computer running Linux, with a Creative Dxr2 5x DVD-ROM and I could hear it on audio mode. To my surprise I was also able to rip it using cdparanoia (otherwise I would have returned it immediately, I have far too many CDs to manage them in any for but Ogg Vorbis or MP3 format). So I tried it on my DVD-Player (Yamakawa AVphile 715), and it worked, too. However I noticed that the player needed an unusual long time to detect it as a CD. Next try was my stereo, an old Sony CD player: worked fine as well. Then I tried a Windows PC with a 40x Pioneer CD-ROM: did not detect the CD. Ok, so at least in one cd drive the copy protection worked.

I thought about the possibility of returning it to Amazon, but I felt bad about the idea of returning a CD that I had already ripped and that worked in most computers, so I didnt do this. I wrote a letter to Amazon.de though, asking them to include information about copy protected CDs in the description and I told them that I would never buy a copy-protected CD, and if I would ever get another one I would return it immediately. They replied, telling that they cannot put this information in the description, but because of the special circumstances I was allowed to return even opened CDs if they are copy-protected.

What about lengthy CDs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sticking MP3s or other digital music formats on the audio CDs works ok for Pop Star Of The Moment's latest 40 minutes of music, but what about CDs that normally would have 60-80 minutes of music? For example, the Beatles 'One' CD was over 79 minutes long - definitely no room for anything else.

So will the record companies:

A) Ship 2 CDs - 1 copy protected audio CD, and 1 data CD, and charge more.
B) Just not include digital formats on lengthy CDs.
C) Edit the music so that both the protected audio and data will fit.
D) Option C, and also release a "Collector's Edition", that contains the additional music cut from the original CD, at a higher price.

Just the idea of copy protecting audio CDs is repugnant, but when you really think about the side effects, it gets even uglier.

ummmmm....

[waddgodd]

How can Cactus Data Shield "protect" Audio CDs, when the people who wrote teh spec (Phillips) says that TPM'd "CD"s aren't supposed to use the trademark? Cactus Data cannot protect CDs, because once Cactus Data goes on, it's not a CD.

Re:ummmmm....

[arkanes]

Ooh. But they can abbreviate "Cactus Data" to "CD" and call it one anyway!

Further Analisys of a Damn Stupid System:

[Romancer]

They hope to sell more of these altered CD's that have copy protection, cause less people will use piracy?

Wait a sec, this sounds too stupid.
Try to follow a little train of thought that'd probably help
some executives somewhere in the recording industry:

Why does someone buy a CD?
To listen to the music.

What does the industry do to get more people to buy the CD?
Not let people listen to the music, by:
a. limiting the playability
b. limiting the portability
c. limiting the quality

Why do people download MP3s?
to listen to the music free.

Why do people upload MP3s?
to let people listen to the music free.

What does the industry do about it?
force us to download the music, by:
a. Not letting us listen to the CD we just paid for in any of our PCs
b. Not letting us listen to the CD we just paid for in some of our DVDs
c. Not letting us listen to the CD we just paid for in some of our cars
d. Not letting us listen to the CD we just paid for in any of our MP3 players
'cause we can't get them there

If I cannot listen to the music from a CD that I just paid for, and I have to go download it off the internet because I cannot easily rip it to an MP3 to play in my MP3 player I am a very small step from not paying for the CD in the first place and just going and downloading the songs for free.
I can make a regular cd from the MP3s that will play on anything, and the media costs a whole lot less than $9-$18 and I get to pick the tracks!

Freakin brilliant RIAA!
Thanks for making my decision so easy!

Not letting us listen to the music that is the sole reason we paid for the CD, is the most retarded thing I have heard of in a long time.
People make choices with some consideration to the ease of using the result.

CD w/ security = Hassle = less are going to choose
Free MP3 = Easy = more are going to choose

Re:Hey...

[digitalunity]

Prominent cases and relavent information:

SONY CORPORATION OF AMERICA ET AL.
v.
UNIVERSAL CITY STUDIOS, INC., ET AL.


The Audio Home Recording Act
of 1992

RECORDING INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA
v.
DIAMOND MULTIMEDIA SYSTEMS INC.

The outcome:
All district court judges firmly believe in 'fair use' of copyrighted works. What we need now is a massive collision between companies. One that is willing to stand up and fight the DMCA. I don't disagree with copy controls, I disagree with the penalties for distributing technology which bypasses them. I urge everyone to become educated and at the very least; read the Court Opinions from these cases.

Re:"backup" audio CDs for "personal" use?

[Troed]

I rip all the CDs I buy, so that I can transfer the mp3s to work, or just play them through winamp at parties instead of having to switch CDs all the time. Yes, I put the mp3s in my AudioGalaxy shared folder, but that's because it's up to others to judge whether they want to copy them or not.

I buy more CDs than I download mp3s off the net.

Re:"backup" audio CDs for "personal" use?

[dietz]

Not only do I rip all my CDs for convenience (as mentioned by other people), I also know people who rip the CDs, compress them with FLAC, and write the FLAC files and the TOC to CDR so that if the CD gets scratched (and I know this happens to me, despite my best efforts) or stolen (this has also happened to me, out of my car) they can recreate a new CD basically identical to the original one.

You don't save too much with FLAC, but enough that you can fit at least two CDs onto one CDR (if you match the sizes... pick a big and a short one, or two average ones).

400 CDrs (for 800 CDs) @ .30 = $120. You've saved money if you have to replace more than 8 or 9.

So, those people do exist. I know two.

Those who don't learn from history...

[martyb]

"Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it." Back in the late 80's it was all the rage by software manufacturers to copy protect their software. (I still have a copy of Lotus 123 from that era.) Various schemes were used:

• Bad sector(s) on a floppy disk that needed to be present in the drive for the program to run. The disk could not be copied easily using conventional means, but soon people wrote programs to crack the protection.

  Many customers ran into problems when trying to use a legitimately purchased copy as their system reacted differently than expected to the copy protection. The vendors would add increasingly more complicated schemes that never blocked the motivated copier, but DID interfere with legitimate users being able to use the software on certain systems.
  
  

• Printer port dongle that needed to be present in the parallel port. This allowed unlimited copying of the software, but you couldn't run it unless the dongle was in place.

  There was a time when I had a half dozen of these hanging off the back of my PC (imagine 12 inches of dongles sticking out the back; couldn't push the PC against the wall; major leverage against the connector on the PC, etc.) Besides, each dongle interefered somewhat with the timing of the signal going through it... we had a case where a printer attached to the end of the dongle-chain needed to be powered up for the system to boot.
  
  

• Startup questions that required the user to look up a certain value in the documentation and key it in when prompted by the application.
  

  The thinking was users could easily copy the software, but photocopying the documentation was a much more difficult task that most "pirates" would not go through the effort of doing. I have a game somewhere that came with a "code sheet" printed on red paper that claimed it could not be photocopied. Truly, it was difficult using the black-and-white copiers available at the time, but I persevered and got a usable, albeit poor contrast, copy. (I feared spilling a coffee on the original and becoming unable to play the game which I had legally purchased.)
  

In short, users began to revolt and companies eventually began to recognize they were selling fewer copies of their software as people migrated to using non-copyprotected applications.

Software vendors learned this lesson the hard way many years ago, yet we now have audio (CD) and video (DVD) treading down the same path. I'm waiting to see how long it takes for them to learn this lesson, too.

Re:Those who don't learn from history...

[dietz]

Bad sector(s) on a floppy disk that needed to be present in the drive for the program to run. The disk could not be copied easily using conventional means, but soon people wrote programs to crack the protection. My favorite was the Copy II Plus program for the Apple II. It was a commercial program with a built-in, ever-updated list of copy-protected programs and internal instructions on how to copy them. It made pirating software trivial. (Hey, I was 9, OK? Right and wrong were fuzzy topics.) The best part about it, though, was that it actually had copy protection itself, but contained instructions on how to defeat its own copy protection. I always thought that was totally nuts.

Re:Those who don't learn from history...

[Waffle Iron]

And don't forget that the Lotus 123 floppy-based scheme used an incredibly supid CPU spin loop to time the floppy shennanigans. This was calibrated for the orignial 4.77MHz PC, so of course faster CPUs didn't work with Lotus.

Thus, we were cursed with "Turbo" buttons for over a decade to slow the PC down while loading Lotus. I'll bet that the consumers wasted orders of magnitude more money paying for these useless hardware switches on their PCs than Lotus ever recovered with their copy prevention scheme.

Re:"backup" audio CDs for "personal" use?

[ammulder]

There is the convenience issue. Let's count:

• Number of songs you can play without switching CDs: 15? 18?
• Number of MP3s you can play without switching hard drives: 2000? 5000? more?

Plus, with the multi-GB players, you can take your whole collection to work, to the gym, etc. And you can just drop all the songs you don't like. And let's not forget about playlists. And...

I don't have any MP3s I didn't rip myself. But even so, why would I ever go back to CDs?

Re:"backup" audio CDs for "personal" use?

[Lumpy]

I'll probably be marked as a troll for this but...

Screw you, asshole.

I have a plethora of mp3 audio playback devices. My car, home and portable personal devices. These devices have been on the market for over 4 years now and sold with high visibility advertising, so you know for a fact they exist and people are using them. Yes, I rip everything to mp3 so I can listen to it MY WAY, on MY EQUIPMENT, in my home and elsewhere. I place the CD I bought in a locked cd storage cabinet and that's where it sits until it's needed again. Now let's look at something else, what about the phillips CD recorder, compiler. Many more people with these or their computers like to make compiliation cd's. for their own personal use.

I am sick of your type of self-ritious attitude that marks everyone with an mp3 playback device, a cd burner, and linux or other non MS operating system as the pirates of the Carrabiean or Evil thieves. the cd's I bought ar my property, I can listen to them how I want, and I will...

and my atitude is the attitude that needs to be taken by everyone that hears someone even try to imply what you said... get in their face.

Re:"backup" audio CDs for "personal" use?

[Rasta Prefect]

Does anyone really believe that music consumers "backup" thier discs to mp3 for purely "personal" use? Let's at least be adult enough not to sugar coat this: we want to get around Cactus Data Shield because we want to "share" [or steal] music.

On the contrary - I rip my CD's for the same reason I used to dub them to tape. Why? Cause if I only really like 3 or 4 songs on a CD, I have to change the damn CD every 15 minutes, which sucks. With MP3, I rip, I have my WinAmp play lists, and not only can I listen to them here in my room(I don't own a CD player that isn't attached to a computer BTW. I used to have one, but it broke) I can take them with me on a (small) Mp3 player or my laptop instead of dragging a book of CD's with me. If I can't get around copy protection, I don't listen to the CD. I'm not about to buy a walkman CD player just so I can actually listen to something I just paid for thats been intentionally munged.

Ability to play in a computer is questionable

[Phil Wherry]

I'm just about to finish up ripping all of my CDs to 160 Kbps MP3 format so I can do casual listening without handling physical media. I'm not too terribly bothered by the loss in quality caused by compression, since I've got the original media to work with for those occasions when I need higher fidelity.

It occurs to me, though, that the inclusion of a compressed audio player on the CD really doesn't solve the problem, even if it's possible to copy the audio files in some protected way to a hard disk.

Here's why: my earliest CDs were purchased in early 1986. At that time, my PC was running MS-DOS 3.1. Think for a moment about the odds of a copy-protected program from 1986 working unmodified in a modern computer--let alone the computers we'll have twenty years hence. The inclusion of a copy-protected player program in lieu of a standards-compliant CD looks even more pitiful when one stops to consider the fact that the player program will be basically unuseable in a few years' time.

What about CD recorders and the AHRA?

[dpbsmith]

I own a Teac RW-CD22 CD Recorder.

According to the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992, I'm AUTHORIZED to make single-generation digital copies of CD's onto "Music CD-R" media, a portion of whose price includes a payment into two funds administered by the Library of Congress: two-thirds into a Sound Recordings Fund, with small percentages of this fund earmarked for nonfeatured artists and backup musicians, 40% of the remainder for featured artists, and the rest to record companies; one-third into a Musical Works Fund, to be split 50/50 between songwriters and music publishers.

My Teac appears to be rapidly turning into worthless junk. UMG's "More Fast and Furious" will not copy on it (it gives the error message "CANT COPY, SCMS ERROR").

So, the copy protection fails to prevent UNauthorized copies... but succeeds in preventing AUTHORIZED copies.

Midbar and UMG are cheating those of us who BOUGHT and PAID FOR the right to make copies.

The situation will evolve like DVD players.

[dmaxwell]

The default state of most DVD players is to have all of the fuckware features enabled. However, hardware manufacturers have nothing to gain expending energy to protect the fuckware. Within days of a player coming on the market new firmware is available to restore full functionality. The only thing that is often necessary is to burn a firmware cd and stick in the player. In my case, I'm going to have to use a little skill to build a twenty dollar firmware burner but it won't be any big deal.

The same will happen with CD-ROM drives. The manufacturers will make them the same way they do now but not go to any great trouble to obfuscate the firmware. Why should they spend all that money on expensive engineers when it's going to get hacked anyway. It's the media conglomerates that are obsessed about this. The hardware companies (except for one's like Sony) just want to sell the kit and get out.

Proper terminology

[thumbtack]

The proper term is CORRUPTED, not copy protected.They do not conform to Red Book Standards.

Congressman Rick Boucher of VA has written a letter to the IFPI and the RIAA suggesting that under the AHRA this may illegal and asking for explanations of the methods used. Under the AHRA there is a 2% surcharge on every CD recorder sold in the US at the wholesale level (See section 1004), that goes to the RIAA, just as there is a 2% surcharge on "Music" designated CDR media.

In addition Philips refers to these corrupted discs as "silver disks with music on them, but which do not resemble CD's" See this article

Boycott-riaa and Fat Chucks are maintaining a list of the corrupted CDs. Also, Check out the Home Recording Rights Coalition

CD Analysis Software

[HunterZ]

In case anyone is curious about the software used to view the tracks (see the screenshot on page 3 right after "Let's now see the structure of the CDS200 disc. There are 2 sessions inside:"), it's a great program called IsoBuster (www.isobuster.com) that I often use myself to verify and extract the contents of CDs and CD image files.

Re:"backup" audio CDs for "personal" use?

[Steve B]

Does anyone really believe that music consumers "backup" thier discs to mp3 for purely "personal" use?

Yes. In fact, all non-trolls believe that, because it is obviously the truth that people copy the two decent tracks on a dozen CDs onto one CD, that people convert a hundred or so tracks to MP3 so that they can be carried around on one disk, that people make listening copies for the car in case of damage or theft, etc.

Re:"backup" audio CDs for "personal" use?

[schon]

Does anyone really believe that music consumers "backup" thier discs to mp3 for purely "personal" use?

YES.

My car CD player only holds 4 discs (with space in the armrest for 8 jewel cases). I have >300 discs at home. The average commercial CD holds about 45 minutes of music, which is about half of what it could.

I routinely burn mixes, taking the best tracks from the originals; that way I get both a greater variety and more music when I'm driving.

I know others who do the same.

Egad, I think I've been trolled!

Dumb marketing at Universal

[pinkpineapple]

In a European country where I used to live and study, drivers in the opposite traffic lane flash there high beams to alert you way ahead of cops sitting on your side with a radar . And this is not illegal.

Why? Couldn't cops catch more speed offenders if the opposite traffic were prevented to inform you?

Sure they would, but that's not the point. The point is to reduce traffic speed on your side, so by letting the other drivers inform you, they can slow down the traffic for more than 50 miles at some point.

The same happens with the Music industry: if they were letting other people rip cds and do the cheap distro, people would discover artists and bands that they haven't heard about before. And owning a CD would be the next thing people would do because let's face it, it's still better quality and more convenient.

So the fascists at the music companies are simply not aware of good marketing. Shouldn't we educate them?

PPA, the girl next door.

Totally OT, but...

[sconeu]

Congressman Rick Boucher of VA has written a letter...

I know it's totally OT, but how is Boucher's name pronounced? I'm planning on trying to get a face-to-face with my local congresscritter to trye to give him a clue, and was going to tell him to look up Boucher, but I don't want to sound like a total idiot by fscking up the name...

Thanks!

Re:Totally OT, but...

[sconeu]

Thanks. I *really* didn't want to sound like an idiot.

Re:"backup" audio CDs for "personal" use?

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

Does anyone really believe that music consumers "backup" thier discs to mp3 for purely "personal" use? Let's at least be adult enough not to sugar coat this: we want to get around Cactus Data Shield because we want to "share" [or steal] music.

Um, this consumer backs up his CDs to MP3 for purely personal use. I have only downloaded one album that I did not (then) own. I'm a little ashamed to admit it was the Tron soundtrack :), which I did once own on LP(!) but which disappeared during a move. I figured, I'd already paid for it, so why not at least get to hear it?

You know what? Within a week or so I deleted the MP3s. I don't need to make the RIAA's point for them, and I do have a legitimate use. From then on, the only MP3s I have had are the ones I ripped from my own CDs. I now listen to the MP3s, since

• I can store my collection on one hard drive instead of scores of CDs
• I can listen to my collection from my computer without occupying my CD-ROM
• I can listen to the MP3s -- which essentially cannot wear out -- and preserve the originals -- which could.
• I can move my MP3s to my laptop at work and listen to my collection there. Heck, I can also bring CDs to work (since the laptop HD is not as large) and not have to cart them back and forth.

So yes, some consumers really do stay within the bounds of personal use and fair use. Of course I won't buy any so-called CDs that sport copy protection, as the inability to control the site of playing lowers the value of the CD. A CD that costs $20 and that I can space-shift is worth more than one that costs $20 and prevents me. The copy protection, in fact, lowers the benefit -- or raises the effective price -- beyond what I'd be willing to pay.

Final irony: When Disney finally released Tron on CD -- just this week -- I went out and bought it. Had I not refreshed my memory via the MP3s, I almost certainly would not. So that bit of "piracy" actually netted Disney a sale. In other words, the record companies are dinosaurs that don't understand all these newfangled furry things running around their feet.

Re:"backup" audio CDs for "personal" use?

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

Oh, and finally, this is NOT STEALING, call it illegal copying if you will (though I don't agree), but it's not stealing.

Why not call it what it is, which is "copyright infringement"? Not theft. Not piracy. "Copyright infringement". You want to know why the Content Cartel will not call it what it is, why they resort to distortions of language?

Because "copyright infringement" is a dry, technical term born of a dry, technical field -- copyright law -- and the Content Cartel know that to make your case, you need pizzazz. You need something sexier than "copyright infringement" to connect with the masses, to make them consider the crime as anything more than a passionless pursuit of cash through arcane usage restrictions that hardly speak to the common person. Label it "copyright infringement" and the ordinary bloke will think that it isn't really important, that it's not a "real" crime.

Now, do you want to know the really big dirty secret of the Content Cartel? The one thing they don't want you, or anyone else, to realize? Here it is: The ordinary bloke is right. It isn't a real crime, on the order of murder, or extortion, or speeding. It's a passionless pursuit of cash through arcane usage restrictions that hardly speak to the common person. It's a legal game.

So of course you can't call it what it is.

Re:"backup" audio CDs for "personal" use?

[Doppleganger]

I'll add another "YES" answer of the question of whether people actually back up their CDs. I don't have many places to play the music I've bought, and one of those places happens to be my computer. I have enough trouble with swapping out all the game CDs I own.. swapping music cds is even worse. So, I have a copy of pretty much every music CD I own in either MP3 or OGG format.

This has the bonus effect of allowing me to play music while playing games that require the CD to be in the drive even when they don't have any need for the CD.

I would have copies of the games I own as well, except that most of them are copy-protected. So if something happens to one of my game cds (like the roomate's monitor falling on my Diablo 2 play CD a few weeks ago when the cat knocked it over), I need to either track down a receipt and pray the store will replace it or go buy a new one. Pretty odd, since it is perfectly *legal* for me to make a backup copy of those CDs, and the EULA almost always explicitly gives me the right to do it!

Isn't it all just ones and zeros?

[HuskyDog]

At the end of the day, a CD is just a great big heap of ones and zeros. In some fancy way, your CD player turns this into sound. Presumably, it does this via a combination of software and nifty electronics (which could be emulated in software). So, therefore, if we could extract all the ones and zeros we could write a program which emulates an audio CD player (on which these crippled discs seem to work fine). We just put an OGG encoder where the D/A converter would be and voila! If a 15 year old CD player can convert the binary data into sound, then so can we.

So, what is the problem with implementing this scheme (apart from the DMCA). Is it that there is no way of persuading a CDROM drive to output the raw data? If so, this just confirms my view that the entire problem lies in CDROM firmware. Could we re-flash this in some drives?

Somewhere in a CD player the bits we want are wizzing along a PCB track. Does anyone know the practicality of tapping into this?

Just my random thoughts on the topic.

New Trick: Buy It, Rip It, Return It!

[BeBoxer]

The dumbest thing about this whole scheme is that in the end, it doesn't provide decent copy protection! I purchased a copy of the "Fast and Furious" disk to try and see how hard it was to rip. Let's see, I had to put in in my CD-RW drive, and run 'cdparanoia'. A few minutes later, an almost perfect copy. A few errors showed up, but none that were still audible after the automatic correction in the software. The next day I returned the opened album to the store for a full refund! I didn't actually bother to keep the music because, well, I think it's crappy music.

If this system actually provided copy protection, or at least made ripping inconvenient, maybe it would be worth it for Universal. But since it doesn't even provide copy protection, what the hell are they thinking? It only takes one person to populate the MP3's onto the P2P network. Given that common drives (an LG 8080B CD-RW in my case) and common software (EAC, cdparanoia, etc.) don't seem to have any problem reading these CD's. And given that Universal at least has a stated policy letting you return the CD for a full refund if you have 'problems', what the hell are they thinking?

Let's break it down. Folks who don't rip their CD's and have a player which isn't impacted by the protection: no change
Folks who don't rip their CD's but experience problems during playback: pissed off, and lost sales.
Folks who do rip their CD's: they still rip their CD's, only now the pirates can return the CD's for a full refund. This is actually worse for the companies than not selling the CD in the first place! Good lord, are they actually this dumb?

Re:This is stupid

[mpe]

Business is supposed to work on supply and demand. No-one wants copy-protection, cds and dvds cost nothing to press and the intellectual property is not worth allot, so why are they selling bits of plastic for so much money?

However the supply and demand bit dosn't work where you have a monopoly. The laws surrounding "intellectual property" create a monopoly (originally a very restricted one. But extended, through one sided lobbying.)

Re:"backup" audio CDs for "personal" use?

[mpe]

I have a plethora of mp3 audio playback devices. My car, home and portable personal devices. These devices have been on the market for over 4 years now and sold with high visibility advertising, so you know for a fact they exist and people are using them. Yes, I rip everything to mp3 so I can listen to it MY WAY, on MY EQUIPMENT, in my home and elsewhere.

If you really were just buying a licence to listen to the music. Which is what CDs claim to be... Then people changing the media wouldn't be an issue at all.
The problem is that various people are trying to blur the distinction between use and actual "piracy".

Re:"backup" audio CDs for "personal" use?

[mpe]

My car CD player only holds 4 discs (with space in the armrest for 8 jewel cases). I have >300 discs at home. The average commercial CD holds about 45 minutes of music, which is about half of what it could

You could easily make a device to play about 3 weeks of uncompressed CD audio to fit in a car. Even put the controls for this on the steering wheel. Safer than having the driver change media.

Re:This is stupid

[t_allardyce]

True, arn't there supposed to be laws to stop monopolies?

Re:"backup" audio CDs for "personal" use?

[Lumpy]

the lame argument that it is a License is bull.. I never agreed to anything, there is no use license printed on it, nor do I have to break a seal that states that I must surrender all my rights.

Sorry nobody can impose restrictions on people that are outside the law without informing them. so the record companies can go to hell or start doing the license agreement setup that software has.... and then watch the sales drop like rocks. 90% of america and other music buyers believe that the CD they bought is their property. (which it is) and they can listen to what is on it in any way they want and how much they want (which is also true)

This is why any attempt to limit access or limit playback options will back-fire (and are back-firing) as it will make joe-12pack mad or upset. Thus driving them to alternative sources of what they want...

I want them (RIAA) to continue to push this... I want them to start getting more active in trying to force these out there... It will get everything over quickly as the national outrage and uproar will solve the problem quickly.