SACD-CD Hybrids -- A Way Out For Us Both?

net_shaman writes: "As reported in Stereophile Magazine online -- There appear to be some serious moves afoot by the recording industry to move en-mass to another compact audio disc format. No doubt frustrated with the utter failure of every attempt to copy protect Compact Discs. But this could be an opportunity for both better sound, strong copyright security and reasonable fair-use rights. The Hybrid Super Audio Compact Disc contains two layers of encoded information; one for standard 'Red Book' Compact Disc, and another for high resolution audio recordings (SACD). Here is a description."

"An interesting feature of the SACD layer is plenty of room for strong digital rights management code.

Here's my proposal: it should should allow artists to get paid, and the citizens to have archived and portable copies of the recording they have purchased. The record companies should produce a superior audio product and get to protect it from serial copying. The CD layer should be freely available for personal copying such as to a computer or portable digital player. These 2 basic concepts are a model that can be applied in the future, when better formats become available. It may also serve as a model for digital visual recordings. Perhaps we can get the artists, publishing companies, electronics manufacturers and the federal trade commision to all agree on this compromise: 1.The high quality recording allows only one copy of itself to be made for archival purposes. 2.The lower quality recordings are available for personal copying.

Personal digital technology has brought a tremendous change to the realtionship between media publishers & consumers. It's time for a new paridigm that will re-define that relationship for modern times."

Comments

uh

[bludstone]

As long as I can use my speakers, I can make a copy. Its not that difficult to understand. Maybe they should stop wasting money on futile "protection" schemes and spend it on adapting to a new business model.

But no, that would make sense.

Re:uh

[TRACK-YOUR-POSITION]

But wouldn't recording the super resolution sound from your speakers be a waste? Some downgrade in signal will occur, and you wouldn't want to use lossy compression, because then why bother with high resolution?

This makes a lot of sense to me--except why have copy protection at all? No one's going to try to get the gigabyte sized lossless high resolution songfile from P2P networks--just sell the high resolution copy to audiophiles, use advertizing to brainwash everyone into thinking they're an audiophile and need the high resolution copy, bang, boom, money made, fair use rights retained, internet freedoms protected, everyone wins except the lawyers.

Re:uh

[billtom]

Companies don't have some inalienable right to have the same revenue streams forever. Just because the big 5 earned $X billion last year doesn't mean that they have some right to earn $X billion next year or five years from now.

And they sure as hell shouldn't have the right to buy legislation that uses the government's monopoly on force to maintain their revenue stream.

Markets change, and the revenue stream that company's gain from those markets changes.

The canonical example would be if the buggy whip manufacturers bought a law that required you to buy a new whip with every new car. It would maintain the revenue stream for the buggy whip manufacturing companys, but would it make any sense?

Re:uh

[Bearpaw]

You have a new business model that would equal their current revenue streams?

Not having an alternate suggestion doesn't mean that one has to pretend that the current model isn't seriously flawed. Just because I don't know how to build a warp drive doesn't mean that it's not worth pointing out that somebody's scheme to do it by strapping JATOs to an old 57 Chevy probably won't do the trick.

Coming up with a workable business model is their business -- or should be, if they want to continue making money. The universe doesn't owe them any revenue stream, equal to their current one or not.

And these companies are not making the art. They're just delivering it.

Re:uh

[ivan256]

The way most CDs are mastered uses only a small fraction of the resolution available on the disc in order to make the tracks sound as 'loud' as possible. One can only assume that the same would happen with the new format. Studios and producers don't care about quality, they care about marketing. What you'll end up with is a new format that costs more, with the same (poor) quality sound, and a bunch of self proclaimed 'audiophiles' running around telling you how much better the first Brittany album sounds now, even though it doesn't.

It's unfortunate, because it makes life unplesant for those of us that really care about the quality of audio we listen to. Yes, 'Audiophiles' are hilarious, but actual audiophiles who aren't spouting second hand opinion have some valid complaints about CDs.

Result...

[LightningTH]

I imagine the record industry, if such a format was accepted, would put a very low quality version on the redbook CD part. They could, in effect, slowly phase out the redbook CD (due to low quality) and end up forcing people to only use the heavily protected version that would be unplayable in many players (due to copy prevention).

Re:Result...

[elmegil]

Force? What "forces" me to run out and buy the latest Britney Crap? All this will do is slowly eliminate people willing to buy their products. Anyone who *cares* about being able to copy their music around won't go for such a scheme, and those who don't are sheep who'll buy whatever comes out anyway.

Me, I'll continue to support artists who don't use distributors who cripple their music, and go see those I like live.

wishful thinking

[Gerad]

Yes, this COULD "re-define that relationship for modern times", but people could also stop commiting illegal and immoral copyright violation, companies could also stop abusing legislation to punish people who do believe in fair use.

Face it, this is a technological solution to a moral, social, and legal problem, and I don't think it's going to do much to fix the problem. The problems are that individuals don't consider intellectual property to be actual property, that corperations are willing to do anything to protect their profits (including acting first and thinking later, and encroaching upon the rights of innocent consumers), and that legislaters are largely in the pockets of big business.

Re:wishful thinking

[EllisDees]

The problems are that individuals don't consider intellectual property to be actual property

The whole concept of intellectual property is just an example of telling people a lie often enough that they begin to believe it. Legal fictions aside, once you have shared an idea with someone else, it ceases to be yours.

that is protection?

[dirk]

The CD layer should be freely available for personal copying such as to a computer or portable digital player. These 2 basic concepts are a model that can be applied in the future, when better formats become available. It may also serve as a model for digital visual recordings. Perhaps we can get the artists, publishing companies, electronics manufacturers and the federal trade commision to all agree on this compromise: 1.The high quality recording allows only one copy of itself to be made for archival purposes. 2.The lower quality recordings are available for personal copying.

SO, the CD version is completely copiable, meaning it can be ripped into MP3 or whatever format you wish, but there is another "protected" version of the song that is "higher quality" and can only be copied once? What is to stop people from taking the CD layer and ripping it to whatever high-quality format they want? And what happens when the "high quality only copy once" scheme is broken? How does having things exactly as they are now offer the artist/RIAA anymore protection than uncopyprotected CDs?

Re:not likely

[subgeek]

that may be, but there just isn't much way around it. the recording industry wants to be able to cut piracy back. i say if they are willing to continue letting people have things at current cd quality, that's not to shabby. sure, it would be nice to have access to the higher quality stuff, but i just don't see it happening.

if the recording industry starts using this standard and allows unlimited usage of the (currently) regular cd quality, that is pretty fair.

they also give a reason for buying the drm encumbered discs. higher quality! it's a trade-ff.

we won't be able to copy everything easily forever. at least this still allows the customer to have some fair use.

This makes sense?

[JudasBlue]

Okay, let me see if I get this. It somehow makes sense that a lower quality version of something should be able to be copied as much as you want, while the high quality version of something is strongly protected?

How, exactly, does this help anyone? IP is property or it is not. This is like saying it is illegal for someone to punch you, but only if they do it where it really hurts.

Or, conversely, like saying we are selling you something, but you only own the broken version.

This strikes me as a solution that is sure to just piss everyone off, as opposed to some of the people.

Sony are hypocrites - here's the evidence

[NewtonsLaw]

As others have said here, it's very likely that the dual-layer disk being contemplated would have a very poor quality version of the recording -- maybe even with voice-over ads at the start and end of each track -- who knows?

It's also a shame to see the RIAA trying to charge more for what is effectively the same material. Even if it's being offered at a higher digital resolution, it shouldn't cost them that much more to provide it -- besides which, does the average music listener really want to pay more for higher quality?

Hell, the quality of CD music sounds just fine for my heavy-metal-abused ears anyway - all those extra bits (and the money I'd pay for them) would just be wasted.

And here's an interesting article which provides some rather nice evidence to support allegations that Sony is being hypocritical in respect to CD ripping and downloading music from the Net.

No Better Sound Than CD quality?

[Karma Sucks]

Sorry, but CD quality is pretty much the perfect optimised quality at this point, and any claims that a new format has "better" stereo quality is dubious.

The determining factor is the quality of audio recorded in the studio. There are many factors involved, and to make a long story short, the recording studio is the bottleneck -- they contribute a minimal level of noise to the recording -- not the CD.

forget it kid

[sulli]

better sound, strong copyright security and reasonable fair-use rights

Who will buy this? Let's look at these one at a time.

better sound

Nobody (except audiophiles who spend $10K on a set of speakers) cares about sound quality enough to switch formats. Nobody. MP3 sounds much worse than CD - and it's the standard we all use! (Except ogg fans, who are in their own special circle of reality.) So this will not lead to adoption.

strong copyright security

It will be cracked ... and nobody but nobody will buy any new equipment to play these, because nobody will accept the loss of the ability to play, rip, etc. on PCs.

reasonable fair-use rights

HA HA HA HA HA HA

Since current fair use rights include the ability to rip, mix, burn, and use MP3s for whatever we damn well please, and any copy protection scheme at all will take these away, I don't see any way that people will buy this.

So: 0 for 3. Failure. Next!

Why this won't work...

[killmenow]

Here's my proposal: it should should allow artists to get paid,

1. RIAA doesn't care if the artists get paid...RIAA only cares that the production companies get paid...how the musicians fare is their problem.

and the citizens to have archived and portable copies of the recording they have purchased.

2. RIAA doesn't believe you have this right. If you want the music on more than one machine or in more than one format, buy it again.

The record companies should produce a superior audio product

3. Less than 10% of the music buying population want or care about higher quality audio...you can't tell the difference over the road noise anyway...

and get to protect it from serial copying.

4. If it can be read, it can be copied...plain and simple. Copy CONTROL (protection is a prophylactic) does not work. Music will continue to be pirated by the same percentage of listeners who pirate it today.

The CD layer should be freely available for personal copying such as to a computer or portable digital player.

5. So music production companies will actually LOWER the sound quality of this layer to something worse than cassette tapes, effectively eliminating its use.

These 2 basic concepts are a model that can be applied in the future, when better formats become available. It may also serve as a model for digital visual recordings. Perhaps we can get the artists, publishing companies, electronics manufacturers and the federal trade commision to all agree on this compromise:

6. Chances of getting all of those groups to agree is somewhere around .3%

1.The high quality recording allows only one copy of itself to be made for archival purposes.

7. So this copy will be ripped to MP3, thereby making the whole point moot. Pirates will just have MP3s of the better quality layer.

2.The lower quality recordings are available for personal copying.

8. I reiterate, RIAA does not believe in fair use. I don't think they'll ever agree to any scheme in which you can copy decent quality audio even once.

And #9, the main reason it won't work: MP3 is the new format. All the other attempts at introducing new formats are pointless. People like MP3s, MP3s are the new way. Audio players now support MP3s, car sterios are already supporting MP3s. The music industry, or RIAA, cannot change this. If they want to jump on the bandwagon, fine. If they want to push it over and knock everyone else off, they are too late.

But, as Dennis Miller might say: "That's just my opinion. I could be wrong."

Here's the fundamental problem

[melquiades]

There's a white rhinoceros in this whole debate. Copyright law -- fair use in particular -- is too subtle and too contextual to implement in software. It is impossible to create rights management software which implements the law; such software will always err in favor of the consumer or the copyright holder (or both).

Let me repeat that: It is IMPOSSIBLE to implement copyright law in software.

Period.

I don't like it. The problem is...

[einhverfr]

This looks to me like a transition strategy. The basic idea is that CDs are a format that the music industry does not like for the reason that they have no control over the content (but Disney did not like the VCR initially for the same reason). Their solution to dealing with the opposition is as follows, suspect:

1: Release a hybrid CD-SACD

2: Push SACD hardware, with built in DRM.

3: Eventually drop the CD format as obsolete.

I say this does present a way out-- these hybrids will be initially costly, but as long as the demand exists for redbook hardware, the plan cannot succeed.

The way to win here is to ensure that the demand remain high for redbook only hardware and hardware without DRM.

This is pointless . . .

[npsimons]

. . . and here's why:

Trying to make bits uncopyable is like trying to make water not wet. The sooner people accept this, and build business models that take this into account, the sooner people will start making money again.
-- Bruce Schneier