Slashdot Mirror
Sony Intentionally Crashes Customers' Computers
Uttles writes "According to Yahoo!, Celine Dion's latest CD will not play in computer drives. In fact: 'Should the consumer try to play Dion's CD on a PC or Macintosh, the computer likely will crash.' How is this legal?" Since Sony admits that their product is designed to cause damage to your computer system, almost anyone would likely have a good lawsuit against them. Attention Celine Dion and all musicians: crashing your fans' computers is not a good business practice. No matter what your agent says.
Hours? Minutes? Seconds? It shouldn't take long for the entire CD to appear on the Gnutella network and other P-2-P sessions. In fact, it will probably be one of the most ripped CDs of all time, just out of spite -- not that anyone wants to listen to it.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Exept they have a BIG warning sticker on the front.
If I was the store manager I would not exept returns on this cd.
"Sorry pal you were the idot that bought Celien Deion".
I know I'm going to hell, I'm just trying to get good seats.
If Sony tried to market this thing in the U.S. they would probably run afoul of state and Federal Consumer Protection Agencies. In spite of what Sony may claim, any sudden crash of a computer has the potential to cause irrepairable harm. I seriously doubt that any company can dodge responsibility with a printed disclaimer. Which of course explains why this copy protection (ha!) is only being sold in Europe. In the litigious U.S. they would very likely get into trouble very quickly.
A well-crafted lie appears unquestionable - Dama Mahaleo
There's a warning in my car owner's manual that admits that pouring gasoline all over myself and lighting a match may cause permanent injury or death. I should sue them!
I am not a lawyer, but I don't see how a rational judge would interpret the warning label "Will not play on PC" as "If inserted into a PC, may irreversibly damage PC hardware". Sony's best bet here is to blame the CD-ROM drive manufacturers and shift the damage to their warranty. In that case, if it's a Sony drive, tough sh*t for Sony.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I am very sure Sony thought this out in detail. The wording on the back of the CD (warning you not ot play onthe PC or MAC) most probably covers them.
Similar situation is like the warnings on bleach. Don't drink bleach. So by drinking it you can't sue the bleach company even if you wanted your insides sparkling clean.
Is anyone using any critical thinking? How can a particular combination of bits on a CD crash your computer, much less "cause damage to your computer"?
If your computer crashes based on a bad CD, then get a new CD-ROM drive because it's a piece of crap.
Assuming Sony is not doing anything physically wrong to the disk (like making it too thick or something absurd), there is no story here.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Seriously, I don't think this music needs copy protection. The people who listen to it are NOT the type who pirate a lot of music, and I can't imagine more than 1 person would want the CD. But that's still no reason to crash the 12 year old girl's machine!
I hope not. Then any company could take away consumer's rights by just issuing warnings. What if I opened up a store with a big sign out front stating, "Warning! Homosexuals are not permitted to make purchases in this store." Something tells me I still might get into trouble... I don't have time right now to cite actual court cases, but it seems to me that consumers have basic rights, and that companies have to have damn good reasons for taking them away.
"Now gluttony and exploitation serves eight!" - TV's Frank
"how is preventing me to listen to a CD an incentive to buy it????"
Makes you wonder, doesn't it? It'd be like Coca Cola making their drinks evaporate moments after they leave the can, that way nobody could pour the coke into a cup and sell it to somebody else.
"Derp de derp."
Read the article before you make knee jerk posts.
According to the article: "According to a spokeswoman for Sony Music Entertainment, it is clearly stated on the front of the booklet and on the back of the jewel box that the CD "will not play on a PC or a Mac" in the language of the country in which it is sold", and then goes on to say, "Should the consumer try to play Dion's CD on a PC or Macintosh, the computer likely will crash"
There is a HUGE difference between "will not play on a PC" and "will crash your PC". Ask someone who just spent four hours working on (say) his thesis, and decided to put the CD in the drive, even if just to see if it really "would not play". "Would not play" means "nothing will happen". "Crashes your PC" means "if you hadn't saved, you've just lost a lot of work".
They claim to have sold over 10 million discs using this technology, and will have sold over 500,000 of the Celine Dion CD by the end of its first week.
Attention Celine Dion and all musicians: crashing your fans' computers is not a good business practice. No matter what your agent says.
The artists are pretty much powerless to this sort of underhanded behaviour, or so most of them think.
the warning should read:
Attention musicians!!! Go for indie labels or produce your music yourself. Better profits, better control over YOUR work. You are not an indentured servant of the record labels!! Give your producer the finger! Go INDIE!
A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with. - Tennessee Williams
Just as long as they don't have the CD logo... if they do, then which one do you, as the consumer, believe? The CD logo that says it will work in your computer, or the Sony one that says it won't? Sounds like fradulent marketing to me.
Imagine :
"Malboro Advisory: These cigarettes will not cause cancer!"
"Surgeon Genral's warning: these will cause cancer."
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
That's not a copyright (or a patent) that's a trademark. Trademarks NEVER expire, unless the compnay fails to renew it or allows infringment without taking action.
Ask a lawyer for legal advice.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
I have one of these Mini Disc Walkmans. Along with it came this handy little kit to connect my walkman to my PC and record a cd to it.
Now with this CD from Sony Music I am unable to use my Sony PC Link to enjoy this music I have (hypothetically) purchased using my Sony MD Walkman. Hmmmm. Certainly calls into question my plans to purchase a new MD Walkman, the much more expensive MZ-900DPC sometime this month. Or maybe I just won't purchase Sony Music titles any more.
Nice of you guys to put me in a position where I have to choose between your hardware and music titles. I would have figured you would prefer me to purchase both, that's probably why you're the high paid media exective and I'm just the consumer with a love of music and a large disposable income though.
So long and thanks for all the laughs, if you need me I'll be in the Panasonic section at Circut City.
Sadly, no. The Fair Use provision of copyright law only shield you from prosecution, they don't guarantee anything. And the DMCA overrides most of the fair use laws, too, especially the ones about backups (If you can make a backup with it, you can make a copy with it, if you can make a copy with it, it's a circumvention device).
Did you read the article? "Sony Intentionally Crashes Customers' Computers" is merely a rephrasing of what Sony actually claims:
look, there's a "compact disc" logo on my CD player at home and a "compact disc" logo on CD-ROM in my computer. if sony wants to sport a "compact disc" authorized logo on their music, it had better damn play in both or else it happens to be an optically-read 4.5" platter that is misusing red book certifications and patents. case closed.
... is that it's waaaaaaay too easy to replicate. I think the RIAA chose a very bad product to produce if they are concerned about non-paid-for copies floating around.
All I have to do is download the lyrics and I could sing the song. Garage bands could easily do a nice rendition of the song that'd be worth listening to. As a matter of fact, re-mixes are quite popular out there. A lot of remixes don't even have elements of the original score in them. Sounds like a problem, doesn't it? They may be able to stop me from ripping a CD, but there's no way on Earth they could stop somebody from recording their own rendition of a song.
It seems to me that the RIAA is being rather unrealistic in their choice of products to make. I just don't see how they could expect to end all 'piracy' for good. The worst part is that they are blaming the wrong people.
For example, Eisner said that Apple was promoting piracy with their "Rip/Mix/Burn" campaign. His concern is that people will think that music is free and that they don't have to pay for it. But wait a minute, people were trading MP3's LONG before Apple was airing any commercials. If anybody thinks that music is free, its because it's played on the radio!
When the music is played on the radio, they're basically saying 'music is free, just enjoy it.'. That's part of what made it fun to go buy songs. What you were buying, then, was not the right to listen to it, but the convenience of listening to it whenever and wherever you want. CD's, at the time, were the best way to do it.
Then MP3's came along. Oopsie, the RIAA didn't stay on the ball, and now their business model that THEY CREATED is turning against them. The amusing thing is that they are playing the wrong hand to fight it. I can't believe they are actually surprised that people may think music is free. This is not a new occurance, this is what the RIAA taught them!
If they want to fight it, they need to come up with a MORE CONVENIENT solution, instead of trying to make it illegal. Underage smoking: Illegal, happens anyway. Underage drinking: Illegal, happens anwyay. Smoking pot: Illegal, happens anyway. Why on earth do they think they can stop it? What they're FAR better off doing is saying "You can buy MP3s (or a variant) from us! They're cheap, and you can download any song you want really really fast. Buy an album and get a discount."
Better yet, they'd find ways to make money through the channels people are using to get songs. What if they released an MP3 version of a song with one of the singers at the end saying 'Mention this code: JdWt when you buy the song and get $2 off the album purchase.'?
They have so many options they could use, but they chose the one where they piss EVERYBODY off. Nice.
"Derp de derp."
'Hi, I'm a thief, but don't let that make you think any less of me.'
Jeez...
The Hollings/Disney bill is a big deal because it seeks to mess with our hardware with us having no choice. Copy protected cd type things that won't play in a computer aren't a big deal because we have a choice, simply not to buy the damn things. They're not for us anyway. Entirely different demographic, obviously, since they wouldn't put this sort of protection on a cd type thing aimed at slashdot readers! Let them produce shit for customers who buy shit. It's only a big deal when they force shit on us.
How thick are the recording companies?
They think that by copy-protecting their CDs, people will no longer burn backups for the car or for their portable diskman players -- both environments where it's easy to accidentaly scratch/wreck an expensive original.
What they don't realize is that instead of buying legal CDs and making "fair use" backups for their own use, people will now find it far more attractive to simply wait until someone else either rips the disk or does an A-D conversion then makes the resulting MP3 files available on the net (through alt.binaries.music.* or one of the many P2P networks).
I for one won't buy a protected music CD -- so that would leave me with no alternative but to download an illegal MP3 copy because I need to burn a couple of spares for my own use.
I guess if I really wanted to be honest, I'd send the recording company a check for the value of the album I'd downloaded -- but chances are that they'd then prosecute me for piracy -- even though I had offered to pay anyway.
These guys couldn't organize a piss-up in a brewery!
May it please the readers, I have summarized the above story and all attendant comments.
1. Story is posted noting that $company had implemented $copy_protection on the newest CD of $artist.
2. Someone points out that $copy_protection has a certain $bad_thing associated with it.
3. Users bemoan this heinous $copy_protection and associated $bad_thing.
4. Users bash $company and suggest boycott. Other users note that boycotts never work. Flamewar ensues.
5. Users bash $artist, say it wouldn't be worth ripping anyway.
6. Other users take the high moral ground about the sanctity of fair use.
7. Still other users suggest that $artist go independent. Other users defend $artist, stating that $company controls $artist.
8. There will be a smattering of posts flaming RIAA and other evil organizations.
9. Some users will suggest possible hardware/software workarounds.
10. Finally, in the background, the trolls continue on, oblivious to the actual content of the story.
There you have it, the story in a nutshell.
~Chazzf
No statement is true, not even this one.
>Well exept the cd-logo is a LOGO and not a label that says anything.
:-)
No, the CD logo is a Trademark, and carries the same weight as a UL or CSA Trademark. It means that this product meets all the licensing requirements of the people owning that logo. With the CD logo that means it is playable in a computer.
More importantly, even if this CD bears no logo but is placed in with other CDs that clearly do, and under a sign that says "CD -- XYZ/Various", it will be VERY difficult for the store to get themselves out of trouble with a judge. Its like having a "new car" section at a dealership and sticking a used car in that section. If you buy that car and the dealer doesn't say "Oh, we made a mistake, that isn't a new car" first then they are practicing deceptive advertising (probably a felony).
The minute that isn't true, watch out for knockoff electronics killing people that still have a CSA/UL logo in the "safety products" aisle.
>I dont think you could bring it back saying "Man it hade the little USA flag on the back. I though it was in english".
I bet you could when you point out the sign above the rack of CDs that says "English CDs". Now, if a music shop would rather label their CD section with "Shiny round music discs" than "CDs" they are welcome too. Until then, they are attempting to deceive me into purchasing a clearly inferior product.
Besides, any smart manager would realize that having someone shouting "You are selling me fake CDs that can't be played in standard equipment" would scare away more than enough business. And no, you can't just tell someone to leave and expect them to. And you can't force them out. You need to wait, and wait, and wait for the good 1/2 hour or two it takes for the police to respond to the least important of calls -- tresspassing. Or at least Cops says so.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Heck no! How could we spout flaming rhetoric if we knew that? Slashdot would collapse!
"If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he's sorely mistaken." Bush on bin Laden
Sounds like a good way to crash other people's computers. I wonder if this would be defined under the law as a "hacking tool".
Just don't count on me to be the guy who buys the CD to rip it for you. :)
Considering he has a .uk website, I don't think he's exactly waiting for the FBI to kick his door in ;)
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
Now you have a case.
If you used a credit card call them up and contest the charges.
I know I'm going to hell, I'm just trying to get good seats.
And *you* may have just broken the same law, perhaps, by using the phrase "fight CBDTPA" in your comment tied to his comment. You have created a future link in Google between "fight CBDTPA", his post, and, implicitly, the allegedly infringing software. You're helping people find software that "fights" (circumvents) these laws.
Of course, I've now done the same thing.
The statementa about Celine Dion makes no sense -- since she does not have anything to say regarding these decisions.
You buy music after checking it out on a P2P network, right? I'm fine with that. I do it myself. The original poster said that he has 15GB of music, of which less than one-fifth was actually bought and paid for. That's just being dishonest.
Unless I completely misunderstood you and your argument is actually that copying music and giving nothing at all to the artist is morally better than buying the music and giving something (admittedly, a small amount) to the artist. In which case, you're deluding yourself.
BTW. Why put copy protection on this disc? Really, honestly, how many people who actively participate in file sharing (ripping, encoding, and sharing) are going to listen to Celine Dion? I was under the impression that most P2P users were somewhere in the age bracket of 15-30, and male..I may be mistaken, but that's my understanding from following all this..
So why then? I'm guessing that this is an attempt by the RIAA to say, "Look! Copy Protection works! There are 'x' number of copies of Celine floating around the net. Without Copy Protection there would be many more. If we compare it to the latest Nickleback album, you see that copy protection works! This is why Senator Holling's bill is genius! " This is the argument that the RIAA will take to Congress in order to get the SSSCA passed.
Go and buy this disc. Rip it in ANY manner. Make it the MOST shared disc EVER. GIVE copies away to all who WOULD have bought it. Return it to the store. Repeat.
Of course, this would probably end up being the argument then: "See! We NEED Hardware Copy Protection! We tried to keep them from this disc and they broke the protection!"
The answer, then, is to not buy OR listen to music from the RIAA. Explore unsigned bands! THINK! Has your life improved because of Creed's newest album? Where would you be if you had never heard it? If the RIAA sells nothing, and has no pirate to rail against, where are they? Gone. And, you are also helping out artists who deserve your attention, and are not part of the Media Industry.
Gaaarrrr! I'm gettin a beer.
This means that the second encoding process has to throw away audible frequencies, resulting in audible compression artifacts.
No it dosn't. In theory a good encoder could reproduce, bit for bit (or extremly close) the mp3 file at the first stage, in other words it dosn't have to throw away anything because all of the data would fit into a compressed format.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I mean, they are making a product that is LESS useful than what you can get on the net. So, if I want to hear artist X on my PC, I can't. I am forced to go to the net to download an 'unauthorised copy'.
This copy has greater utility than the Sony offering. I can copy it, burn it to CD that will play on my PC, or my CD player, play with it, share it etc etc
This is a form of madness. They are creating demand for P2P networks and filesharing with this policy.
Morality has no place in America. We are a capitalist society.
War is necrophilia.
Very true, although I think it might be even bigger than that. It's not just the business model that the RIAA created, it's the model that all of society has created for us. It's like that one (great)
The problem is that the model has totally backfired here. We've been programmed to consume so much that we're all doing it far too well for them now. We can consume and consume and consume all we want now without them acting as our (drug) dealers. We're not taught to buy our stuff, we're taught to devour it. Hence, no one sees any problem with not buying CD's because we've been taught that the purpose is not to buy as much as we can, but to have as much as we can. This is why people fill up their hard drives with MP3's and movies and why my roomate has cases and cases full of burned CD's.
I think this also explains why companies are more focused on regaining control than on increasing sales. Rather than add extras to the CD's to make them worth buying, or dropping the price, they try to regain control of access. It's stemming consumption at will that matters. Before it was good enough to control what bands got promoted via radio. Then it was MTV. Now it's bigger than that. Because people can download whatever they can make their own playlists. Granted, a lot of it is the stuff that the record companies are pushing heavily, but a lot of it is stuff they wouldn't expect, like older favorites that aren't the flavor of the month. Suddenly radio and MTV doesn't hold as much sway any more, and their control is weakened. At the end of the day, this is what it's about. It's not so much about profit in itself, but about control, because control guarantees profit.
We've all been trained too well, including the RIAA themselves. We've all been brainwashed in to consuming everything. The RIAA has been brainwashed the same way, which is why they're so focused on the control aspect. Finding ways to increase sales would suit them better than what they're doing. Unfortunately, I doubt they'll see the light until someone stands up and shows it to them with a spreadsheet and a stock quote.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
It's not inherently immoral to get something for nothing. Every time you inhale, you're getting air for nothing... and nobody considers breathing to be immoral.
Look at it this way: if computers, the Internet, mp3 players, etc had been invented 5,000 years ago, and were available/affordable to anyone who wanted one... if everyone in the world had had the ability to send and receive digital information to everyone else since time immemorial, would there even be the concept of copyright infringment? Quite the contrary, I think -- instead, the right to copy files would be protected as a 'natural God-given right'.
The idea that Joe may dictate what Sue does, with her own equipment, in the privacy of her own home, is merely an artifact, a historical accident, that will fade away as digital communications become as natural as breathing. Certainly unrestricted digital copying can give content creators the short end of the stick under the current system, but the current system is also an artifact of the now-obsolete physical/industrial model of content distribution. It too will fade away, and (presumably) be replaced with another system, one that better reflects the new realities.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Although I disagree with the use of the propaganda term "piracy", this summary from a footnote in the landmark Diamond Rio case, the case that opened the door for portable MP3 players, is otherwise agreeable:
To which I'd also add that even if one were to pay for the music CD, it's not clear that one would pay the publisher for it. There are venues to legally obtain the music CD without paying the publisher (public libraries and any second-hand sale) in which case multiple people can listen to the music as the music licensee but only result in one sale for the publisher. Your burger example doesn't help eludicate understanding of copyright at all. A burger cook working for someone else doesn't hold a copyright on the burgers.
Too simple; simplistic, really. I'm not sure what you mean by the "result" of your thoughts, but your thoughts are not copyrightable, copyright law in the US only protects certain expression of ideas. How much control you have over that expression is not anywhere near as simple as you have made it out to be (your burger scenario, for example, would not allow me to do as I wished with the burger; sometimes there are patents that can interfere with your ability to legally distribute a work copyrighted to you). You should find the book I recommended earlier (ISBN: 0-8147-8806-8). It will painlessly get you up to speed in understanding copyright. I found it a worthwhile read and I hope you do too.
Digital Citizen
A well-mastered CD has 120 dB dynamic range
eh, 20*log(2^16) = 96.3 dB
Look up "noise shaping" on Google to see how
Do not use Google, but calculator and brain (sometimes they do better job than pigeons...)
I listen occasionally listen to real audio CDs on the following devices:
- One of our PCs (all running Linux..)
- My Rio Volt
- Our Apex DVD player
This means that pretty soon I won't be able to listen to audio CDs on my own players even if I want to.I have never used Napster (or similar services) as I think it's morally wrong and illegal. However, if I can't go out, buy an audio CD, rip it and listen to it then I consider myself forced into using one of these means to acquire the music I want.
I have absolutely no qualms with paying $20 for a CD. I always get my money out of it, provided the disc doesn't suck. Frankly, at the rate we buy CDs I don't even mind occasionally paying for a dud. I will, however, refuse to buy something I can't use.
End of story.
As has been reported ad nauseum, this does absolutely nothing to curb illegal copying of these songs. All it does is anger good customers. If I, a paying, legal customer, am going to be treated like a criminal, I may as well act the part.
So, here's my ultimatum to the recording industry: Stop this ridiculous behaviour or I will cease to be a customer. As soon as I buy a CD that I actually want (sorry Celine) and can no longer rip and listen to in MP3 form I will cease buying CDs at all and will start making use of one of these napster/kazaa/limewire type services. I don't want to do this. I still think it's illegal, I still think it's wrong, but I think that punishing all customers for the sake of a few, who will pirate anyway, is worse, not to mention a dangerous precedent. I won't stand for it.
If the record industry won't play fair neither will I. I know I'm only one person, I realize that the recording industry probably doesn't care about me, but I buy about 30 CDs a year. That's $600 they lose from me. Pretty insignificant in the big scheme, but it's all I can do. I will continue to listen to the music I want in the form I want.
Thank you Sony, I buy every CD that comes out in Europe and thank you Sony, really thank you, so I do not have to listen to Celine Dion
(not).
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
How do I consume recorded music? I play the CD. I listen to it. I play it again. Repeat ad nauseam. Nothing has been consumed. One can consume a concert event (once one has listened to it, its over, and it takes work to create another concert), and therefore it has economic value as a finite resource. Additionally, the basic supply-and-demand principle applies to a concert (my going to it deprived someone else), a principle that does not apply to infinitely-reproduceable and infinitely-reusable recorded music.
Additionally, your logic in the last paragraph is ridiculous. An artist expecting to get paid for their recorded music is akin to me expecting to get paid by my employer well after I quit, simply because theyre still using a piece of software I coded for them. The initial production of the work is worth something, economically speaking, and thats what I got paid for. Each subsequent use or copy is not.
Liberty in your lifetime
You make the classic conceptual error all the napster types make, in confusing the recording with the music itself. I suppose this is to be expected from a crowd that by and large don't value creativity.
Of course the recording itself is infinitely reproducible, but the music is not. It takes time and effort to write, produce and record another piece of music.
The initial production of the work is worth something, economically speaking, and that's what I got paid for. Each subsequent use or copy is not.
They are getting paid for the original work. The amount they get paid depends on the number of copies sold, because this is what is used to determine the economic value of that work.