Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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
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
Actually, these copy protected CD's can sometimes so confuse the Mac, that even holding in the button at reboot won't cause the thing to eject. I had this happen a couple of weeks ago. I had to reboot, drop the machine into Open Firmware, and ask for an eject at the command line. Even this took some time to accomplish, as OF has to wait for the CD drive to quit thrashing on the disk, long enough to get an eject request in.
"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.
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.