Felt Tip Marker Defeats Copy-Protected CDs

We posted this story over a week ago but the mainstream media has flooded us with stories about felt tip markers and copy protected CDs so I figured I'd post it again since I'm really sick of deleting hundreds of submissions from people who didn't read Slashdot on May 13 ;) Basically you can mark the rim of some CDs and defeat the copy protection. And we all know what the DMCA says about tools for circumventing copy protection.

Comments

Confused editor

[AirLace]

And we all know what the DMCA says about tools for circumventing copy protection.

I thought the DMCA only stipulates laws for devices designed specifically copyright violation? A marker pen clearly doesn't fall into this category. Otherwise they could have outlawed CD burners, photocopiers and who knows what else by now.

Re:Confused editor

[rsidd]

I thought the DMCA only stipulates laws for devices designed specifically copyright violation?

No. Read the DMCA. It outlaws devices which can be used for bypassing digital copy control mechanisms, regardless of possible legitimate uses. CD burners don't pass copy control mechanisms, photocopiers don't deal with digital media (unless it's a barcode or something...). But a felt-tip pen which is used to bypass the manufacturer's CD copy control mechanism -- that's illegal under the DMCA, and I hope somebody sues for outlawing these evil things, that should show 'em...

Re:Confused editor

[kaimiike1970]

You are correct. Unfortunatly, the price of sharpies will quadruple to pay for 'piracy potential'.

Re:Confused editor

[okvol]

Hollingsworth is submitting a bill to make it manditory to have a device on all felt tip pens to prevent use on copy-protected CDs.

Re:Confused editor

[roybadami]

His software was designed solely for the purpose of pirating eBooks.

FUD

His tool was designed solely to allow copying of e-book data to another format. Not all copying is piracy; some is fair use.

Back in my day

[unformed]

We used felt tip markers to get high. Damn these kids with their fancy gadgets and such.

Has anyone actually proven this?

[dschuetz]

Has anyone actually been able to prove that this works? I'm not talking about anecdotal evidence, I mean, has any geek with /.'s general communal respect actually taken a stack of CDs, tried to rip them, gotten errors, marked the CDs up, and then got them to rip with no errors?

And then documented the crap out of it?

This all smells too much like the audiophile tricks of the 80's where coloring the outside rim of a CD was supposed to "trap stray laser radiation and improve the [clarity | transparency | imaging | other-nonsense-claptrap] of the music." (see the snopes entry on this one).

I ask because I'm really curious what the scientific explanation for this would be. It was my understanding that they (the infamous "they") did something to the actual track of the CD, with bad physical spacing, introduced errors, or something like that, but did it *throughout* the CD. How on earth would marking the inside of the CD fix that?

[okay, I just actually *read* the article. :) But I'd swear that an earlier posting talked about marking the inside, not outside, of the CD. Anyway, my question still holds -- any geek-written report on this, or do we only have the mainstream press to trust as to whether this actually works, and for which CDs?]

Re:Has anyone actually proven this?

[Dimensio]

The explanation is simple.

The "copy protection" is simply a means of preventing the discs from working in a PC. This is done by putting a phony "data" track on the outer rim of the disc. It's visibly seperated from the rest of the information on the disc by small ring between the data and audio sections. An audio CD player will never access this track, but a PC CD-ROM drive will always try to read the data tracks first -- since it can't read the data track it regards the CD as non-working and you won't be able to play it. Using a sharpie on the outer rim (from what I understand you make a diagonal mark along the data track that runs tangent to the seperator for the audio track, but does not actually mark over the audio tracks) you block out the data track, and as such the drive won't read it.

Reuters picked up the story and said that they tried it with success on the known Celine Dion non-CD.

Re:Has anyone actually proven this?

[ipmcc]

The proper procedure for dealing with Celine Dion non-CDs in particular is to color in the entire CD with the marker. This not only defeats the copy protection but prevents the CD from ever being played in any player, which is what's best for society anyway.

DMCA jokes

[Erasmus Darwin]

Call me crazy, but I'm getting tired of all 30 billion variations of "OMG! A paperclip is an illegal copy protection circumvention device because I can use it to poke out the eye of the person who makes the CDs, causing him to go to the hospital when he's supposed to be putting on the security track."

At this point, I long for the days of trolls posting haikus about a petrified Natalie Portman slathered in hot grits driving the Slashdot Cruiser over to a Beowulf cluster. At least those posts tended to get appopriately modded down as trolls rather than modded up as both insightful and funny.

The DMCA circumvention device joke has been made. Several times. Stop mindlessly repeating it like you're Raymond going through the Who's On First routine. Besides, I hear Amazon.com has a patent on the business model of mindlessly repeating a joke.

(I apologize for cluttering up the comments with meta-discussion, but I felt the point needed to be made. Also, since this is just a repost, most important points have already been made.)

Read the DMCA

[Royster]

Right here.

Specifically:

Title 17, Section 1201(a)
(2) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that -
(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;
(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; or
(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.

Felt tip markers are not primarially designed to circumvent access controls. Felt tip markers have lots of commercially significant purposes other than circumvention.

But, if you marketed a felt tip pen with the name CD Rip (TM) brand felt tip pens and included instructions for how to circumvent CD protection than you should expect a C&D letter.

It's the same situation as the fellow who's program unset the true type embedded bits and a generic hex editor. The first tool has one purpose, to twiddle embedding bits. The second tool has lots of commercially significant purposes many unrelated to any kind of circumvention.

Visual demonstration of the technique...

[Dimensio]

WARNING: The following image may be illegal under the DMCA. Further, the image depicts the actual commission of a felony offense in the USA. You have been warned.

Marker Method Illustrated.

OfficeMAX Commercial?

[_ph1ux_]

Life:

Customer: Hi, where can I find blank CDs?
Employee: Making Copies. huh? They are on isle five.

If Life were like OfficeMAX:

Customer: Hi, where can I find blank CDs?
Employee: Making Copies. huh? They are on isle five.Right next to the felt tip pens which can be used to circumvent the copy protection of the CDs taht you may be copying. Here I'll print out the instructions for you. And here is my username and password to ftp.phat-warez.com

ThinkGeek

[tzanger]

I don't know about the rest of you but I think that ThinkGeek should start selling DMCA Circumvention Devices. e.g. a Sharpie with a custom label with a caution symbol and the text "This object may be used as a device for circumventing copyright protection methods as outlined in the DMCA."

I think they'd sell. Who wants an entire office toolbox filled with copyright protection circumvention devices? I do, I do!

The Important Thing is that it Works

[serutan]

Ok ok ok, we get the jokes (most of us anyway).

The important thing is not whether felt tip pens will become illegal. It's that somebody figured out a laughably simple way to defeat something Sony must have spent a good chunk of money coming up with. I'm thinking meetings, demos, testing, approval, and at least one large congratulatory catered lunch. And now they look like idiots. Nothing, I mean NOTHING, upsets corporate management more than being made fools.

Right on.

CD Protection Strategy May Be Violating 1992 Act

[ranb]

I came across this interesting angle on CD copy protection a while back in Now you can't make a copy:

"The other difficulty for the recording industry's new CD protection strategy surfaced on 28 December in a letter from the Virginia Congressman Rick Boucher (Democrat) to executives of the recording industry's trade association. The letter reminds them that their fancy new technology may violate a statute for which they themselves lobbied vigorously a decade ago. This is the 1992 Act which gave music listeners the right to make some personal digital copies of their music in return for allowing recording companies to collect royalties on the blank media used for this purpose . Under this, the industry cheerfully collects a few cents for every digital audio tape, blank audio CD or minidisc sold. Boucher has not yet had a reply from the movie and record moguls. But when he does he will discover vicious animals are at their most dangerous when cornered."