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Cactus Data Shield Tries Again
autocracy writes: "Midbar, an Israeli company that developed the breakage of standard called Cactus says that they have released more than 10 million CDs to the U.S. and Europe. They now claim that there will be no issues playing it but you will lose quality if you try to copy. I'm just wondering how it is that you can play it on a system at perfect quality, but when you copy it things don't sound right. Do they not know about optical output? Lame quotes including comments by the makers of how this is a 'proven technology' can be found at C|NET."
I like what philips has to say about it.
"Its NOT CDDA"
'nuff said.
... implies they've tried before.
It was the "More Fast and Furious" soundtrack CD and the resulted in this discussion when it was found the protection could be bypassed with a DVD player.
While this does allow it to become freely distributed over the internet, how is the anti-piracy technology supposed to tell the difference between our legitimate copy and the pirated copy. I really don't think they can do it without seriously pissing off the public.
You mean its not? :)
Can any media truly be 'copy protected'? If all else fails I can use a program like Ghost2002 or other forensic-certified disk duplication software to do a bit by bit copy. Basically make an exact duplicate of a disc.
How would this be unplayable?
Y'know what this reminds me of? If you're sick and the doctor says you're probably going to die, you're very prone to buying remedies from quacks. Even people who know better will do dumb things when faced with their own mortality.
Well, everybody is telling the record companies that they're going to die, so they react just like a human...any shaman who comes along, even Noam Zur, is worth a shot because they simply don't know what to do.
The CD is here to stay, and by its nature its unprotected. There's not a thing the record companies can do about that except release stuff that will just piss off their regular customers.
Meanwhile, they could convince people to go to a different format, but why would you give up CDs which have pretty good quality and the ability to copy freely with some unknown format where (a) people have to buy the same records over again (b) its copy protected so you can't make copies (c) there's an installed based of players that will be around for 15-20 years (notice cars STILL come with cassette decks?).
They really are screwed at this point. I have no prescription for them because they've gone out of their way to be deceitful and they treat their customers (us) like crap.
They rejected business models that could make them money (Napster).
They turn to things like copy protection (proven to fail over 2 decades ago).
And they stand behind laws like DMCA in an attempt to get rid of first-sale doctrine.
I am not crying a tear.
Why do these people continue to annoy the consumer when in the long run it will do nothing to stop sharing of MP3s. They actually manage to stop us from running the SPDIF Out into the SPDIF in, then I bet me sticking a mike near each speaker will likely be how I have to make my MP3s. Yeah quality won't be as high, but I bet it will happen. This just tramples our fair use rights. If this continues I will have to call my congressman about supporting the guy that was looking into revoking the CDR charge we pay, because the CDR make be used to illegally copy music.
A mathematical or inductive proof on data quality, access, copy protection, etc.
Inductive proof. We'll work with a single bit, and assume that it scales to multiple bits.
A single bit exists on a medium We'll use a stone tablet, and assume that it scales to thin wafers of aluminum encased in plastic.
A consumer who owns, for legal purposes we'll use own and not lease or license, this stone tablet can see the bit and can identify it as either a one or zero.
Said consumer can then copy the bit to another tablet, assuming they own a tablet and chisel. Or, theoretically, a laser and a wafer of aluminum encased in plastic.
If the consumer can see the bit, nothing can stop the consumer from copying the bit, short of a man with a knife standing over the second blank tablet. Or, theoretically, a man in a suit with a pile of papers in his hand.
GPL Deconstructed
Oh, the recording industry was always pissed.
In colleges in the 60's and 70's there were recording parties that would get busted from time to time.
The riaa is taking another shot with their 'death of the industry' nonsense. I suppose its nothing new from them for the past 100 years.
However, its not the digital part that has the riaa worried, its the easy distribution method called the 'internet'. Now that over 10% of the usa has broadband, probably 1 out of every 8 people have the equivalent of a T1. The only thing its good for is pr0n and p2p. That's scary when you're trying to screw your customers into paying more for less music all the time.
So, we can make copies for ourselves by law...unless someone decides they dont like consumers to have that right?
This is just another common example that you really dont have any rights, they just like to make you think you do.
Ask ANY cop -- if they want something they will get it.
Example:
Cop: Can I search the vehicle?
Person: No.
Cop: Well, I ran out of tickets, going to have to bring you down to the station to write it up.
Meanwhile -- your car is towed for the moment (can't leave it on the street) and a mandatory 'inventory search' is put in place. Your car has been searched. Good thing we have that 4th amendment :)
two points.
Firstly, there was quite a fuss with analogue recording (primarily with video, but also with the start of the compact casette tape), it was, as you say, addressed with a 'media corperate' tax being applied to these items, and the feared drop in profits never happened (infact quite the opposite), so the recording industry made big $$ out of this.
Secondly, the reason this *should* not happen to newer digital media is that a crapload of this is NOT used to record copywrited, stolen, artistic stuff. Much (most?) of the writable digital media (cdrom, harddrives, dvd, etc) are use for storage of computer data.
I would be VERY annoyed if these same companies manage to get a tax added to the rice of every HD/writable CD/etc, and believe me, they are trying, as they know this is free money for them!
Not sure if I am just not understanding what you are saying, or if you are misinformed.
Also, I am from Louisiana -- we are known for corrupt politics. The LA government is out there to make money, and thats it. Threy do everything from re-wording laws to make them easier to enforce, i.e. not needing to prove 'intent' simply by re-wording the law. I just finished a defensive driving class, and the cop teaching it didn't stop mentioning how corrupt the Louisiana government was and how corrupt the laws of the state were. Right down to the cops who are enforcing them. Who knows, some states might care about you, I know mine doesnt.
More clearly: Cactus cannot call these Compact Disks because the trademark owner, Philips says they are not.
I suggest another name, maybe "Cruel Deceivers". More stories:
Philips moves to put 'poison' label on protected audio CDs
FEATURE-CD creator Philips blasts labels over protected discs
Bush's education improvements were
>
> That's It, it's all over - If nobody buys copy protected CDs (and nobody with an iPod will or MP3 player will), it's game over. DIVX went down not because it was broken, but because nobody was interested in buying the Discs.
Good point. I never thought of it that way, but when I buy a CD, I, too, listen to it once or twice at the most - either to find out what my downloaded MP3s were missing, and then to gauge the quality of the MP3s I just encoded off it. (Side note: LAME rocks. Rocks hard enough that I've pretty much not had to bother doing CD-MP3 comparisons, as I've stopped being able to tell the difference, even on headphones at 192. I encode at 256, just to be on the safe side. Maybe someday I'll have a stereo system where I could tell the difference, hard drive space is cheap, and I'm not uploading 'em to anyone else, so the space is mine to waste.)
But after the rip/encode day, it's computer and MP3 player from that point on. Last time I listened to a CDDA was a set of compilations/mixes that I burned for a car stereo and a long trip. Even then, I didn't even bother to dig out the original CDs to create the .WAVs, I just decoded the MP3s.)
Put it on unprotected CD-DA, and I'll buy it. Hilary still gets her 90% of the artist's money.
Put it on copy-protected discs, and I might think it's worthwhile to work around the protection to get the format I want. Hilary might still get her cut of that money.
Make it so I can't work around it, and I'll download it from a P2P source. Ms. Rosen can take a long hard suck on my arse.
U2 probably gets a buck for each album.
/.) do not make an impact on the industry's marketing decision.
Creed proabably gets $.10
Wannabes (Marketing bands such as Spears, Boyz something) proabably see a penny if that.
Artist don't make money off of albums, they make money off of tours. New artists don't get to tour much you'll notice. They're usually back in the studio for a sophomore album before they can get make money for themselves. But it's an evil catch. The record industry practically owns the airwaves and store shelves so the musician who wants to make big money signs deals to get exposure and some spare change from record sales. Then hopefully with sucess running into and after a sophomore album they can finally tour.
Unfortuneatly, I don't see the loop ending.
It doesn't really take a genius to figure it out.
They're will be musicians (and wannabe performers) who want to make a buck. The marketing nimrod actually does realize that current pop culture thrives on the shit they put out. Whenever comsumer confidence shrinks, (let's say a wide boycott b/c of non standard CD's) the industry will back off, suck up to the consumer, and then play the consumer again after they have recovered confidence. The few people that don't like the actions now (such as the sampling of readers from
Thank goodness they're will always be that small chunk of local, unsigned music that pleases me.
But it's an evil catch. The record industry practically owns the airwaves and store shelves so the musician who wants to make big money signs deals to get exposure and some spare change from record sales.
How about this: Get some artist to produce an album and then market it and distribute it entirely over the Internet. Since the artists don't make money off album sales anyway, they wouldn't lose anything in that regard. They might lose some exposure initally that they would enjoy from radio play, but maybe the 'net could fill the void. They would make make the bulk of their money from a tour...just like they do now anyway. And some of us might just be willing to pony up a buck or two for digital music delivered via the 'net if most of it went to the artists!
You're using her as bait, Master!
Many people here has commented that copy protection will always be broken by crackers. But in the case of music and movies, the reality is "worse" than that. The logic of the corporations is that it will take time and effort to crack each version of the protection, which will ensure the short-term value of a new cd or DVD.
What their logic misses completely is that the copy protection scheme *does not have to be cracked*. A one-time digital-to-analog-to-digital copy is indistinguishable from the original. Thus, all one needs to do is play the thing normally and record it digitally.
You can see how the suits think about this: they know that copying loses quality, and that people care about that. What they are confused about is that although in fact multi-generational analog copies lose quality quickly, a one-time analog copy to digital copy does not.
The error correction system that Cactus is tampering exists to allow for problems with reading, specially, small scratchs that always appear no mater how carefull one is with a CDDA. By introducing NOISE/ERRORS in the tracks, they are in reality reducing the life time of the product and that is, a no-no. CD's are by definition to have a life time of at least 10 years...
so if you can hear it, you can record it
Not necessarily. Watermarks are designed to survive D=>A=>D conversion, and if the legislative bodies of the USA, Europe, and Japan (the major electronics markets) pass a law that makes it illegal for consumer audio equipment to ignore watermarks, you're screwed. (The DMCA already makes it illegal to remove watermarks or other copy management information from an existing signal.)
Will I retire or break 10K?
Actually, I believe there was a Congressional investigation last year which revealed that the recording industry has been overcharging for CDs for the last 10 years.
Supposedly, IIRC, the CD was originally touted as being cheaper to manufacture than the vinyl LP and that consumers would eventually see a drop in recorded music prices. The results of the investigation were that that drop never ocurred.
MjM
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
If I wanted to know about Shanachie, before potentially buying an album, how should I go about this?
1) Download a song or ten and listen.
2) Wait for it to play on the radio/mtv/etc.
3) Go to a store that lets you listen and stand there with cheap headphones trying to listen.
#2 will never happen if the artists isn't huge. #3 involves me taking time to go to a store for a chance of liking an artist, time I'd much rather spend doing something else. #1 might technically be copyright violation, but has a much higher chance of getting me to spend money.
And even if at the end of this I decide not to buy the music, who has it hurt?
Certainly not the artist, whose music I wouldn't have bought if I'd never heard of them.
Perhaps it hurts the stations and the promoters (because I didn't listen to the radio) but I can easily live with that on my consience.
I think if you examine it and quit spouting propoganda, you'll see that most people fully support the artists and will do so financially, if they like the art enough to collect more than a tiny sample of it.