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Another Class Action Over Crippled Music Disks
pulaski writes "Here's a link to an interesting Baltimore Sun story. It's about the case of two Californians trying to take some major record companies to task for selling copy protected CDs. It's got the classic Cary Sherman whine but the plaintiffs apparently have some legal muscle." A similar suit was settled with the defendants agreeing to make changes in their practices.
"...If you use an Apple computer, you can't even get the disc out of the tray. It requires the time and cost of taking the computer into a repair shop and having it removed that way..."
Or you could just hold the mouse button down whilst rebooting...
Apple really needs to provide an obvious external means of ejecting CDs.
(tig)
Ignorance and prejudice and fear
Walk hand in hand
From the article (the "Cary Sherman whine" referred to in the posting):
... Cary, mi amigo: The copy protections on video tapes and computer games don't cause your VCR or computer to become unusable. If they did, those industries would have exactly the same problem you're currently having. Putting a warning label saying "Be careful, this apparently innocent disc may eat your computer" isn't sufficient: it would be better to, oh, I don't know, maybe use a method that works without breaking things?
"Music creators have the right to protect their property from theft, just like owners of any other property," Sherman said. "Motion picture studios, and software and video game publishers have protected their works for years, and no one has even thought to claim that doing so was inappropriate, let alone unlawful." [said Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Assn. of America]
Umm
It's a small point but I'd like to see people start using a phrase like copy crippled instead of copy protected as protected has a positive connotation.
The RIAA President quoted in the article implies that what they're doing to copy protect disks is some kind of encryption. My understanding is that this is not the case. They're basically messing with the directory structure of the disk in such a way that computers will misunderstand what's going on and will, at minimum, be unable to play or read the music. Isn't he being somewhat misleading by calling this encryption when in fact its an issue of deliberately failing to follow the CD standard? Is this distinction going to play a significant role in the class action?
I hope they're successful. It could be the deciding case on whether or not our fair use rights will be upheld.
Would it really be that hard to put a label on the disk saying that its copy protected? If they can do it with the explicit lyrics label, they can do it with this. Although, I can see it now where the artists will start suing because they can't get their cover art on the discs because there will be so many labels on the front. Back to the longbox! :-)
quod me nutrit me destruit
In the article about Sony and Universal's liquid audio releases recently, there was an interesting section which gave hope about the situation. When it came to copy protection, which whether or not people can burn CDs, someone was quoted as saying the reality of the situation is music is being pirated now, so not allowing songs to be made doesn't really add any value. Obviosly, that is not an exact, quote, but it close and shows some people in these companies are starting to "get it."
The barn door is open, and has been for years now. They are bickering over how the close the barn now. Needless to say, the horses got out years ago, and already have children and grandchildren.
I may be sick in the head, but I will be very interested to watch the moves these companies make over the next couple of years.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
Well there is a distinction that needs to be made. Copy Protection is OK (witness: video games). Protection from theft is OK. Crippling a product and calling it either Copy Protection or Protection from Theft is not.
There's a line between trying to stop people from copying/stealing and selling things that don't work in equipment that should be compatible.
I for one am hoping this case either ends in a positive settlement for the lawfirms involved, akin to the way Charley Pride's label caved in over his CD when a California woman sued them for deceptive trade practices and other goodies.
I run FatChucks.com and get a ton of e-mail over the Corrupt CDs issue every week. It would be nice if this case makes my site obsolete because big, fat warnings would have to appear on the CDs themselves (rather than Joe Public having to know about my site).
Last, the warnings you see on corrupt CDs are so far *not adequate.* They need to warn the potential buyer of the following:
1. Will not play on your computer.
2. Will not play on your DVD player, Discman, CD-Duplicator (like the kind put out by Sony, Harmon-Kardon, Pioneer, etc), high-end stereo CD player, car CD player, game console (PS, PS2, XBox, etc) or MP3-CD player.
3. Using this CD in any of the devices above may damage that equipment.
To see this in action, check out this image for the Rosa CD in Europe:
The Image
In Spanish, it translates to this:
"This disc is equipped with a device to prevent digital copying, which could impede the playback of the recording in personal computers and/or harm such devices, in videogame consoles, in automobile CD and DVD players and multi-changers, as well as other CD-ROM and DVD-ROM players."
The record labels probably have a legal right to corrupt their CDs, but they need to *fully* warn consumers about what they are buying.
Peace,
Chuck
Free Mac Mini
Dave,
You're right. It isn't encryption *at all*, it is simply messing around with the Audio CD standard so that computer-based CD players get confused or reject the corrupt CD. In short, they look like CDs, but they really aren't. They're just shiny music platters that we mistakenly assume are CDs based on our previous experiences with these things.
Peace,
Chuck
Better yet, the manufacturers should be permanently enjoined from using the term "Compact Disc", the familiar logo form of those words, or the abbreviation "CD" anywhere on the disc or packaging, because they deliberately violate the standards specified by the owner of those Distinctive Marks ... Phillips, the only big company in a position to use IP law to protect dilution of its work to fight this crap. I don't believe they have tried to do that just yet, but the company has at least made public statements that sound promising.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
I crashed a Win2k server by inserting a scratched CD. It just froze. No blue screen, no error message, it died.
Heh, I've had that happen with no CD at all. It's almost magic.
This is not intended as a troll but, seriously, CD drives and OSs shouldn't freeze up just because there is a faulty CD in the drive. This is just one more example of crappy software/hardware design. Behaviour like this gives me a strong impulse to take the computer back to the shop.
On the other hand, spitting a flawed disc out and putting up a popup with "Defective Compact Disk" would be more likely to encourage the user to return the CD and demand a refund.
"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them." -- George H. W. Bush
It doesn't always have to be taken back to get the disk out of the tray. On restart, though, the crippled disks will often so confuse the CD drives, that they continually thrash on the disk. Apparently they continually bang either disk inserted or drive busy messages back to the OS, because in OS X, it will get hung up on a gray screen, and go no further in the boot process. It doesn't even get to the point where a mouse button eject works. Sometimes, if you hold down X during a restart, you can bypass the problem, and get it into OS X. The other option is to drop the machine into open firmware before it tries booting, and eject the disk from there. Alas, there are situations where even this won't work, and the data integrity and convenience of CD eject under software control becomes a liability, and the machine has to be opened up to get the CD out. I've got one of the new iMacs, and the CD eject hole is nowhere to be found.
"Music creators have the right to protect their property from theft, just like owners of any other property," Sherman said.
I agree too - although I haven't heard of very many cases where the lorries full of CDs get hijacked on the way to the record stores. Perhaps the police should get involved. Copyright infringement, however, is a different story.
This case is simple and I'm glad a huge law firm finally saw the opening to cause the RIAA and assc. companies some major pain.
Deal with facts people, this case is not going to deal with Fair-Use Rights. This case will likely be based on the simply premise that the recording companies are mislabeling the things they sell and furthurmore being secretive about it from the public.
Copy-Crippled PCC's (Polycarbonate Coated Circles.. note I didn't call them CD's) are not CD's, they will not work in a large array of CD capable player devices, and might actually harm some of those devices. This case will likely set out to prove that the Recording Industry did not make a good faith effort to explain the limitations and possible dangers of their product, which misleadingly looks like all of their older, but different products. The RIAA will likely loose this lawsuit. All that remains to be seen is how much the law firm makes them pay.
Somedays I wish this country wasn't so litigious in nature, but others I figure out that its the only thing holding back huge mega-corporations from totally screwing us.
Also, let's please be careful to never, ever refer to a crippled disk as a "CD", because (by the Red Book standard) it isn't.
To me, CD stands for one of two things. For Red Book conforming discs, it stands for "Compact Disc". For discs that deviate far enough from the Red Book standard that they become unplayable, CD stands for Completely Disabled. (Such discs are even more disabled than this little fellow.)
Will I retire or break 10K?
Doesn't Phillips own the patents
Philips's CD patents have probably expired by now. A patent lasts only 20 years after filing (it used to be 17 years after grant, which was the same in most situations, but that had loopholes). A trademark on "COMPACT DISC", on the other hand, can last forever.
Will I retire or break 10K?
These xxAA punks are going to screw up the computer and home electronics industry. The whole idea of buying a stereo/music/computer for my personal enjoyment makes me shiver, because it might not be usable for a long time, and it might not play nice with other stuff. It's this big maze of incompatabilities that will scare people away from buying consumer electronics. Once those shiny discs stop working in one device, only working part of the time, the average consumer is going to be pissed. All they'll say is that these "things used to work fine, now I've got to get a new key or something." Suddenly my out-of-date electronics are looking really cool!
it says right on the cd's jacket that "This disc is not intended for use in computer CD-ROM drives" If they put them in thier cd-rom drive it is thier own fault they fucked up thier ability to eject.
1) Fair use means just that--you have the right to reproduce copyrighted works in a "fair" manner as prescribed by law. That doesn't mean that the publishers have to facilitate such reproduction--just that if you are able to reproduce the work, you have the right to do so for certain "fair" uses as prescribed law.
2) Even if these CDs do damage or destroy hardware--so what? It's your own fault for using them in there. No one forced you to buy them, and no one forced you to put them in your computer's CD-ROM drive. But then again, what do you expect from California, the state that has effectively done away with the concept of "individual responsibility".
"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"
Nope; that's not a sufficient disclaimer. A reasonable person would interpret that to mean "if you put this disc in a computer CD-ROM drive, it won't play the music", not "if you put this disc in a computer CD-ROM drive, it will break your computer".
Next time you're in the store, look at the warning labels on any poisonous substance. They go well beyond "hey, don't drink this stuff". If anything, the warnings on these faux-CD discs need to be even stronger than those labels, because they address a danger that is completely unknown to the average consumer (as opposed to the danger of drinking something that everybody already knows is poison).
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
it's not the disc breaking the computer. it is the poor handling of corrupted data files in the mac that is breaking the computer.
"Music creators have the right to protect their property from theft, just like owners of any other property,"
Yeah, and I have the right to put up a fence around my house to protect myself. But if I decide to cement broken glass along the top, and someone tries to get in and inevitably cuts themselves, they can sue me.
Taking into account what the result of other class-action lawsuits will be, I'm afraid that if this one is successful, the result will be that I'll get a coupon for a free Magic Marker (to modify my affected "music discs," of course).
Get off my launchpad!
A) The case gets dismissed after a bunch of FUD from the record companies
B) They settle out of court for what is a large sum of money for these two people but a very small sum for the RIAA.
the sad truth is, it's just like the tobacco companies: they're just too big and no _real_ change will happen until some major players (i.e. states) become involved.
This just occured to me. I do not see the word "CD-ROM" on the faceplate of my DVD drive. Since the label only says "no CD-ROM's", isn't it implied that it will work fine on my drive? Wouldn't the same go for my CD-RW?
Dyolf Knip
Isn't it really a corruption of the blue book standard? And that technically the CD's conform to the blue book standard just because no one ever thought of the case where someone would seek to purposefully cripple a computer?
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
Next time you're in the store, look at the warning labels on any poisonous substance. They go well beyond "hey, don't drink this stuff". If anything, the warnings on these faux-CD discs need to be even stronger than those labels, because they address a danger that is completely unknown to the average consumer (as opposed to the danger of drinking something that everybody already knows is poison).
Typically such warnings are "warnings for dummies", including warnings against things no one in their right mind would do. These psudo-CDs need to carry warnings with the same kind of pitch, including a large "no computer" logo on both the packaging and the disc itself.
You cannot distribute millions upon millions of instances of copy-protected and/or encrypted data along with millions upon millions of devices capable of reading and/or decrypting that data worldwide to literally billions of people and not expect it to be reverse engineered and/or cracked in rather short order.
The whole exercise is rather pointless if you need the system to work for something like a century.
And the big offenders will be the pirates who don't care that DMCA or whatever has made the reverse engineering illegal. It's not like they are paying attention to the law anyway.
Assuming they even need to bother with reverse engineering anyway. Many "pirate" CDs originate from regular production lines.
it's not the disc breaking the computer. it is the poor handling of corrupted data files in the mac that is breaking the computer.
And it's the recording industry that created the corrupted data that triggers the poor handling of corrupted data files in the Mac that is breaking the computer. Even if the labels could convince the court that they hadn't known about this problem when they came up with their scheme, they'd get hit with gross negligence for failing to recall the products once the problem became known.
Red Book. And no, they don't conform to the standard.