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Apple (R)ejects Copy Protection
Frogbeater writes "Apple keeps on keeping on with the anti-copy protection crowd by using their technical info database as a platform for denouncing the artists who are getting on the bandwagon." I like this line from the technote: You may be unable to eject certain copy-protected audio discs, which resemble Compact Discs (CD) but technically are not. Indeed.
This isn't all a good thing. If you read to the end of the apple support page, you find the sting in the tail. Since these are not legally CDs, trying to play one in your Mac constitutes improper use. This menas you get to void your warranty and have to pay any repair charges.
Now this is partly apple covering their backside, which is not unreasonable, but it could all get very interesting if someone with a significant repair bill and a lot of annoyance starts firing lawyers from the hip to get someone else to pay. Who will they go for - the record company, the people who devised this particular anti-computer scheme, the artists...
And more importantly, would they have a case???
Yep, it's a real shame that again lack of knowledge/information is likely to cause confusion. For those in the know, cd's have long been a bizzare and often black art (especially in the early days of burning). Now companies such as Epic and Columbia (read: Sony) are selling things that in the eyes of 99% of the population are Audio-CD's. People don't don't tend to care what format a cd is in, but if it works in their cd-player, then they expect it to work in their computer's cd player. Selling non red-book format cd's in this way, causing the potential to damage hardware is a extreme case of taking advantage of the general public IMHO. Interestingly enough, it's not just computers that have problems, many other cd-playing devices have problems, altho non as drastic as the iMac it appears. (Altho you can nicely crash an x-box using a celine dione cd I believe). ;)
Now, I wonder how Sony made devices handle these non-cd's
How are they adhering to standards by providing a device which does not fail gracefully? I don't mind if the drive can't play these CDs, but if the device is going to suffer serious damage as a result of putting something in which has the exact same form factor as a proper CD and can only be differentiated by putting it in the device, then Apple has some bad engineering on its hands. Apple blaming this on the pseudo-CD makers is just passing the buck, sorry.
Not really, Apple's not the only one that has
problems like this, Sony's electronics arm
has complained of this as well. (Which I find
funny, considering Celine Dion is published by
Sony's music arm, left hand not knowing what the
right's doing much?)
These discs are crashing machines regardless
of maker. At least Apple's being up front about it.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine...
Apple should at least try to seek some compensation from the RIAA for all the wasted man-hours spent taking support calls for people using these non-standard CDs.
In this article, and in the ensuing discussion, the assertion has been made and supported that these particular optical discs are not technically CDs. My understanding, however, was that these discs were CDs, but did not comply with the Red Book standard (and thus could not be called CD:DA discs).
A minor distinction, I know... either way, these things are not true audio CDs, and should not be advertised as being such. But could someone please clear this up for me?
I had a moment of horror when I realized I owned one of those CDs, execpt it played fine in my G4's super drive and I already ripped it. So its not exactly very well protected is it?
I think this teaches me to look far more carefully at the labels. I do not want to toast my drive.
Feminism is the radical notion that women are people.
Boy, if I bought these CDs I'd be pissed. Apple should write a driver to recognize, read, and rip these CDs, just to piss off the RIAA. Breaking the computer is unacceptable.
Seriously now... the tech industry has had to put up with a lot of shit from the (comparatively puny) content industry... if they wanted they could probably kill the music industry in short order by providing tools, lobbying, and anti-marketing. Show 'em who's boss.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?