Slashdot Mirror
Lawsuit Challenges Copy-protected CDs
acer123 writes "An article states that 'The five major record companies have been hit with a class-action lawsuit charging that new CDs designed to thwart Napster-style piracy are defective and should either be barred from sale or carry warning labels.'"
ALERT!!
Now included with the purchase of any CD, a tube of KY. It'll make it less painless when the RIAA rapes you.
Linux is dead.
LU
mmmmmmmmmm excellent..
Now I will hopefully soon have the right to rightfully play my mp3 backups in my own Rio.
They should be required to remove that little CD-quality logo from packaging and say that it is a copy-protected CD. That way, people will know the quality may suck, and they can't listen to it in a computer.
Also, wasn't something like this reported a few days ago?
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
But the victory comes only from a win, and with the publicity napster and other file sharing programs had, it may be incredibly hard to get. Let's just hope that the lawyers managing this lawsuit know what they're doing.
"Oh no, 3 horny women and only 2 condoms...Thank god I read slashdot"
I purchased a CD for my mother for Mother's day that was one of the widely-reported copy-protected albums (Celine Dion, BTW). It wouldn't play on my parents' computer, which is the only player they have in the house. Is there any information on whom to contact to become part of the class action? Does one just contact the legal firm suing the record companies and inquire there? Thanks.
---
I'm tired of waltzing for pancakes. - Gwen Mezzrow
Karma: Excellent Birds (mostly as a result of listening to Laurie Anderson)
oh yeah...
5 8&mode=thread&tid=123
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/06/15/02502
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
I suppose that putting pressure on companies to not copy protect CDs is a Very Good thing. If the warning label is actually a warning label (no truth-ish "This CD comes equipped with Super Happy Fun Consumer Protection Technology!!!"), then sles will naturally be lower, and hopefully they'll stop.
The pessimist in me though, says this is only a delay tactic. LEt's hope it's not economically feasible for them to make this a new standard.
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
I know that they are going to say that they do mark the CDs (the really small print on the back) which are copyprotected, but I am getting really annoyed with having to look through a pile of CDs' small prints just to find the one that will work on my only CD player, my laptop.
Here's hoping that at the very least it'll become obvious which CDs are copy protected (maybe a sticker like the "Warning: Mature Content") sticker. Then I will be able to at least be guaranteed a functioning product that does what it claims to do.
~ kjrose
This looks vaguely familiar.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
The record companies will be required to distribute rebate coupons for free Sharpies.
Best Windows Freeware
Maybe we can start another class-action lawsuit to make it so that they can't sell a lot of the crap they're putting out... THAT really offenders me, and it isn't playable anywhere.
"Oh no, 3 horny women and only 2 condoms...Thank god I read slashdot"
In the best case: they spin out the suit, cost the people in the class action a load of money, then put a dinky little label on the back of the CD case in one corner. Joe Average, who owns a regular CD player, doesn't care or even notice, so the money keeps coming in. Fair Use is still dead on the format.
A better one was the business that they were getting sued for Trade Descriptions for describing the product as an audio CD when it did not follow Audio CD formatting rules - anyone know what happened with that? (That could have some interesting consequences for PC CD games with mangled volume tables)
I'd imagine that since KY is a lubricant, it would make it less painFULL.
Regardless, you're using a double negative.
- The Grammar Nazi
For the URL-impaired; this is the link to the original story, posted by Michael on Saturday.
It's about time that someone smacked them a little and said, "That's a not what we've come to expect out of the discs labeled CDs."
Think Philips when you buy electronics, think EFF when donating, folks!
Useless opinions, worthless observations, and more!
I thought the war was over... Didn't Napster file chapter 11? They were obviously the heart of the problem... the only justifible means of bankrupting two kids who mainstreamed file sharing. So now they are out on the streets, mission acomplished... no need for CD-protection schems...
Your mammas flamebait.
But then I know very little about the law. However, I don't see how someone could market something as being an Audio CD when it does not comply to the standards that define that definition. Obviously, if it doesn't fit the definition then you should not be able to call it an audio CD and sell it comercialy. It's fradulent advertising. It's like a blind man buying an orange and getting a lemon, when you are allergic to lemons. I'd say that that person would win their case if it came up in court, the same should apply here. The buyers of cds are blind in their lack of knowledge of the Audio CD specification.
However, I bet the companies will win out. In our land of the free, the big money wins out in it's interests in the end.
the CD manufacturers are afrade that people will not but the CDs if they know they are fscked with. the only way this works without a large scale backlash is if people dont know whats going on untill its too late(or they cant eject their coaster) when was the last time you checked your CDs for their logo? this method capitolizes on the ingnorance and apathy of the average Us consumer.
I want 2D games back.
i put the copy protected cd in a regular cd player, i have my headphone jack outputing into my computers microphone jack, save as *.wav or whatever, then encode into Mp3.....it works very well but that's besides the point....it's obvious that a person who buys the cd isn't a pirate, they're just burning bridges with the people left who are willing to buy cds, and that's no small number, piracy does cost them a fair amount of money, but a bunch of pissed off customers will cost them even more!
--fetch daddy's blue fright wig, i must be handsome when i release my rage
This is insulting to a musician like me. To hear what constitutes 'right to protect my property' (nevermind it should only be mine for 14 years, not 70 years after the death of me .. oh wait, forgot I had to sell that copyright to a company in order to get it heard, anyways!) from the mouth of suits is just plain insulting.
.. the biggest battle in the history of copyrights, and really, they are arguing in favour of nothing other than technologically enforcing pre-copyright law, where publishers held the copyrights, ad infinitum (well, 70 years past my death, same thing.)
... although I wont argue that N'Sync and Nickleback or whatever already-well-off artist you love will make more money in the short term because of it!
Interesting note: It was pre-copyright times in which publishers owned the works. Now, with the big 5, you have to sign your copyright to them for them to publish. And the copyright law is now 70 years after the death of me. Its kind of ironic
I really wish people understood how 'copyrights' that labels are arguing they must be able to protect are not copyrights at all, but more akin to the Licensing act of 1722 where publishers held a monopoly in the distribution of cultural works. (Also worth noting that the Licencing Act was also the first law that allowed government, and subsequently printing houses to censor works deemed against the Church or State.)
At any rate, I sure dont need to screw up your CDROM to make a living
"Old man yells at systemd"
...that we hate the RIAA and MPAA.
Today, anyways.
CDs designed to thwart Napster-style piracy...
These CD's aren't about stopping Napster/Morpheus/Kazaa/etc, they're about taking away our right to time shift and give the record companies the ability to charge us over and over again for the same music.
It really looks like the RIAA and CD-press people need to pull their heads out of their asses on this one. It's about time they realized that with the advent of the internet age, there is really no way they can prevent piracy and all they are doing with copy-protection schemes such as the most recent ones are annoying customers. It has been proven time and time again that protection schemes such as these do NOT prevent or discourage piracy and only serve to promote it. I know that I won't be buying a CD anytime soon...
Linux is dead.
LU
"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."
Uhm. Hello? Is this thing on?
DVD movies and PC games don't crash other platforms when you put them in last I checked. DVD movies work on DVD PLAYERS. PC games work on PC's. Music CD's should work on ALL CD PLAYERS.
What do they expect? If I pop'd a music CD in my PC and it locked my box I'd be awfully pissed off too.
I suppose that's why every single real copy protection for software has been abandoned, right? Anyway, the Jargon File defines copy protection as:
I think Sherman's claim is pretty specious.
There are reasons why democracy does not work nearly as well as capitalism.
-- David D. Friedman
this makes me wonder why no lawsuits have been brought against video game companies for not allowing consumers to play cdr backups of the games that they've purchased (eg: playstation).
aren't the major record companies being sued for, more or less, the same thing?
Gyrate Dot Org - "Where high-tech meets low-life"
I know what they are saying, but if thats is not what you want as a consumer, try this...... DON'T BUY IT!!! I know this sounds mean and like I support the RIAA, but I do not. To me, its just common sense, as a comsumer, if I want to buys something, I look at ALL of the specifications, and if there are any I do not like, I might decide not to buy it. This might mean I do not get the product at all, which sucks, but hey, that's life. You have weigh out the pros and the cons... and decide if it is still worth it to you to buy the product.
Enough pissed off rambling for now.
Great Linux Site
and "protected CD's" become more common, will they be giving up the recording media tax? The original assumption behind it was that blank media would be used to copy copyrighted works, but if the works in question are "protected" from copying, then they no longer have a case for the media tax, correct?
I wanna see how this plays out and I hope someone finds an angry grandmother type who doesn't take any guff to be the posterchild for this.
"Music creators have the right to protect their property from theft, just like owners of any other property," Sherman (President of the RIAA) 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."
Yeah, Sherman, old boy, but when the video game and movie industries do it, the games or movies don't show significantly less quality, fail to work, or break the machine they are used on. (Okay, generally speaking. I still can't get Diablo II installed correctly for my father...)
When will the RIAA learn that there is a vast difference between copyright protection and cripple-right protection? The RIAA may have a point about piracy, but that does not give them the right to push a "protection scheme" that is so inherently flawed as to be worthless (in more ways then one.)
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
That there would be at least one multi-millionare artist that wouldn't want copy protection on their CD's. They've already got bucks galore - you'd think they'd want to get their music to the people.
Granted, the record companies have the big bucks if you want a cash settlement, but if you want to stamp this kind of thing out, I'd think you'd be better off putting the Macrovision-level companies out of business instead.
Once a few of those companies have been sued into smoking holes in the ground, their surviving ilk should be hesitant to repeat the same mistake.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
From article:
"...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."
This is just wrong on so many levels. One, as anyone in Usenet knows, there are a lot of trolls out there who claim its wrong, not that we listen to them.
But seriously, how many CD copy protections prevent the CD from being used on a majority of players?? I know of one game thats been almost endemic in its lack of functionality, and thats MS' Dungeon Siege. I've got 3 cd drives (32x, DVD-ROM, and CD-RW) and dungeon siege only worked with my CDRW. Thats the worst case instance I can think of for software lack of functionality due to media changes (MS has some lovely copy protection nonsense on the CDs). And there are legitimate complaints all over the place about that problem.
The majority of software is protected via regkeys and other software based methods, *not* by scratching the CD so only some players can read it. Someone want to come with me to smack this guy with an EUL printout or two? It'd be fun...
http://thechubbyferret.net - Ferret pictures and informative links.
Besides being deliberately designed to prevent the copying of music on personal computers, the anti-piracy technology often prevents playback altogether on PCs, and even on some CD players, Mansfield said.
If it prevents copying on personal computers, it always prevents playback on those computers.
A recent trend seems to be having the PC as the center on a digital entertainment system. If the PC can't play the CD, and it's the primary CD player, wouldn't people possibly buy from other labels? I know my parent's only CD player is the one in their computer, and I use the one in my computer quite often in stead of my music only CD player because it is more convenient.
Far more telling is that while copyrights are initially the artists', you cannot get any respectable level of distribution without signing your copyright over to a corperation.
.. they drop millions on one-hit-wonders, and have shrugged off any concept of a 'career' for musicians), and ownership most of the time of said copyright. This is just a prime example of how those in power are destined to spend the rest of their existance attempting to strengthen it rather than focusing on what got them into that position in the first place.
In that respect, the impedus of how to 'protect' those works is all in the hands of companies now, with far too much power, nearsightedness, and complete lack of understanding of technology. The 'artists', the exploited posterchildren of all of this, are really powerless to have a say, and they are being tugged around in a battle that concerns their very nature, living and wellfare, in which they really have no voice.
Labels already have what they need in the form of insane copyright terms (nevermind that none of them are signing multi-album deals anymore like they did 20 years ago
"Old man yells at systemd"
Gee this sounds familiar.
Do you have any skillz other than Copy and Paste?
I know you wrote it the first time as well, but I think its just karma whoring on your part.
Oh wait whats that?? You didn't? thats just pathetic.
It seems to me that Phillips who owns the patent on CDDA had said that the record companies cannot use the official CDDA logo on these copy protected CD's since they technically break the standard. So a case could be make that no matter what the label (warning or otherwise) that they shouldn't be able to make and try to sell an audio CD that's not actually an audio CD by the Phillips definition of what an audio CD is.
since these are technicle not Phillips (red-book) compliant CDs, retailers technicly should not be able to sell them in the CD section. it is false advertising. so maybe the suit should fall on Best Buy or Wall Mart, to force them to separate the two disks (CDs and Copy Protected Optical Audio Discs) on the sales floor.
I want 2D games back.
Why sue the record companies when we know REALLY who's behind this all? It's the little guy in your stereo system called Ryan. Ermmm that would be RIAA, I think...
I'm the Devil the Windows users warned you about.
They are all for freely distributing their music, but contracts prevent them from doing it.
You sir, are a dumbass.
Thomas Jefferson had absolutely zero part in writing the United States Constitution. While he certaintly drafted up the first document our country holds dear, the Declaration of Independence, he was in FRANCE when the Constitution was being written.
Get your facts straight. He was whoring it up as a ambassador when the federalists got together and wrote the constitution, which he would never have agreed with -- way more federal power than he would ever have allowed.
In short, get your facts when you cut and paste.
Nice to see a JeffK fan!
If they start seeing that this crap COSTS them, THEN they'll get rid of it.
Until then, you're just suckin wind.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
This was said about a guy busted copying movies.
"Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Krotoski, who is prosecuting the case, said Mynaf faces a maximum penalty of five years and a fine of up to $500,000 for the DMCA violation. He also faces a maximum penalty of 60 years and a fine of up to $3 million for copyright infringement and trafficking. A sentencing hearing is set for July 11 before U.S. District Court Judge David Levi."
It's sad when a guy copying movies can get 60 years and a 3.5 million dollar fine. But killers routinly get 25yrs to life, Often getting out with FAR more life to lead on the streets.
A.C.
I ask, since some news stories have asserted that the protected version of Celine Dion's "A New Day Has Come" have NOT been released in the U.S.... It would be nice to have a data point on this. Also, did the disk bear any warning... AND (this could be significant) did it, or did it not bear the CD logo--the little gizmo that says "Compact Disc Digital Audio" on it? Supposedly Philips has insisted that since copy-protected disks do not comply with the CD standard they are not allowed to use the CD logo on it.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
In my opinion, copy-protected CDs should be packaged much like cigarettes in Canada. In other words, the government should mandate that not less than 50% of the package should be devoted to a warning similar to "This is not a conventional CD that may not play in a conventional CD player and may cause damage to hi-fi stereo equipment".
Of course, this warning label should be in big, bold, black text on a white background.
At the very least, this would make these CDs a very unattractive proposition.
But of course that is probably not likely to happen.
I think, therefore I am an Atheist.
The subject says it all.
... would moption picture industry follow? DVD protection schemes to disable their discs from playing in computers... do you think that hardware manufactors of DVD for PCs would have a case against them?
Your mammas flamebait.
FIRST WHO THE FUCK CARES ABOUT THE WORLD CUP POST
It's called "soccer." And it is teh sux.
Yeah, OK, so Team USA sucks. Well, I hate to bring it to you, but SOCCER (not "football") sucks.
Football is something that, like all other good things in life, was invented by Americans: the same people who gave you electricity, light bulbs, methamphetamines, the internet, airplanes, the telephone, movie cameras, basketball, baseball, rollerblading, skateboarding, surfing, snowboarding, half-life, quake, deus ex, unreal, motorcycles, rock music, television, automobiles, computers, nuclear power, tobacco, marijuana, Windows (the greatest OS ever) and Bud Light.
So regardless of who wins the World Cup, you'll be watching it/checking the scores/actually be there because of America, the greatest country on earth.
"CDs designed to thward Napster-style piracy..."
I tend to disagree. It seems to me it will increase Napster style piracy in a way. Say you bought XYZ which is one of these protected CD's and you are on lets say an Apple PC. The safe way to listen to the CD you bought is to find the songs in a Napster like enviornment and download them and play them that way. Why take the risk of a mismarked 'CD' damaging your computer by locking up your CD drive.
The 'artists', the exploited posterchildren of all of this, are really powerless to have a say, and they are being tugged around in a battle that concerns their very nature, living and wellfare, in which they really have no voice.
This isn't really true. Recently, a fair number of artists have been speaking out on the current music distribution system. Plus, a lot of bands have been moving towards independent labels. Side One Dummy is a prime example of a record label that is listening to the consumers. In fact, they have releases a lot of MP3s to emusic.com. The established record companies should worry. These new, smaller labels are pleasing their customers and their clients.
The founding fathers would not agree at all. They debated long enough about this issue, and eventually the 7+7 years maximum limitation seemed consistent with both sides.
What would they say to an issue like this? Easy. If someone wants to distribute copyrighted materials all over the country to millions of people, without thinking how they will ENFORCE the ALREADY EXISTING copyright laws, these people are idiots and shouldn't be distributing such materials to such a widespread audience.
What the record labels should do is pay for their own internal policing force to go and find copyright law breakers. They can then go to the police, and say "arrest John Peterson because he copied one of our CDs."
Or, they can lobby their LOCAL police forces (not the FBI, not the state troopers) to go and find copyright infrindgers.
The government should NEVER pass laws "requiring" certain hardware, that's for the free market to decide on. The government should merely reinforce the original constitutional limitations, and then let the record labels work at finding those who are infringing on those laws.
I knew that someone would finally get the sack to do this. The DMCA is in direct violation of space-shifting and fair use (anyone remember the Betamax case??), which have both been declared constitutional by the supreme court. Why can't people see that you can't (or at least shouldn't be able to) pass laws that are in direct opposition with existing laws without strinking the earlier ones down?
It's like passing a law saying that you can't kill people, then passing one that says you can 20 years down the road!
Then, we've got to have class action lawsuits like the one in court now to clear it up..
Why is this allowed to happen?
"I do not fear computers. I fear lack of them." -Isaac Asimov
....I don't know about everybody else, but this type of underhanded protection just makes me want to boycott cd's altogether and get ALL my music from p2p networks. Isn't this the exact type piracy they are trying to stop with their defec^N^N^N^N^Nprotected cd's?
oh that again.l d=0&commentsort=0&tid=141&mode=thread&cid=3705379
I feel the rage boiling within me as madness such as this is seen as respectable.
I just read Watchmen, thats gonna frel up this post.
YOU HAVE STOLEN THIS ARTICLE TWICE NOW!!!!!!
BOTH TIMES YOU WERE MODDED UP TO 3 AS INSIGHTFUL!!!
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/3/8/1465/50261
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=34240&thresho
WTF IS THIS? THIS IS A FLAME.
You are an idiot because as its already been pointed out in previous articles your facts are wrong, Jefferson had nothing to do with your Constitution, I mean if you going to steal at least steal from a credible source FFS.
Oh yes, your sig, Its a spring then that guy from Goatse.cx ass springs out from nowhere, bravo you sophisticated ass raper.
Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America, issued a statement calling the lawsuit "frivolous" and defending the labels' recent efforts to deter digital piracy.
:)
It must be a frivolous lawsuit. Has to be. The RIAA has filed so many, it has to know one when it sees one
What is your Slash Rating?
YYH. HAND.
I'm curious to hear the Slashdot community's response to Sherman's point. We cannot copy movies, even under "fair use" provisions, thanks to Macrovision (VHS) and CSS + Macrovision (DVD). While we can make backups of our software, it is harder to pirate them due to the use of software keys. This is a relatively effective, and unobtrusive protection mechanism.
But when it comes to music, it's no-holds-barred. There is absolutely zero protection on a CD to prevent unauthorized copying. Don't you agree that it is hypocritical to cry foul regarding CD copy-protection, but not the guards built into VHS and DVD works?
Why the double-standard? Why do we just accept that any VHS tape we buy will be uncopyable thanks to Macrovision (barring any specialized hardware to bypass it that's beyond the reach of the lay consumer), but we so vigorously oppose those similar protections on CDs? I can't copy my VHS tapes, even if I own them and want to make a copy to take on the road in my van, or to preserve the slowly-degrading quality inherent in repeated playing of such media. But we don't cry about it - we just accept it. Why?
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
What IS a "class-action lawsuit"??
Is this because the lawsuit talks about "copy constructor"??? (Nero is the best!)
Never mind the fact that the software industry has pretty much given up on copy protection in favor of hardware keys and activation code methods. No it was never unlawful, just a PITA for users who paid good money for software.
The music industry however is trying to forget the Home Recording Act of 1992, where they promised not to copy-protect CDs in exchange for a "royalty" on blank CD media. As far as I know, they are still get the royalties.
I am not your blowing wind, I am the lightning.
... A Black, Plastic Disc With Grooves On It
Music bosses have unveiled a revolutionary new recording format that they hope will help win the war on illegal file sharing which is thought to be costing the industry millions of dollars in lost revenue.
Nicknamed the 'Record', the new format takes the form of a black, vinyl disc measuring 12 inches in diameter, which must be played on a specially designed 'turntable'.
(Rumours at large say that a Japanese company, named the very mysterious name 'Sony', has been secretly developing a 12 inch wide, needle-based, firewire drive remain unconfirmed, turntable. It would appear that the music industry may, at last, have found the pirate-proof format it has long been searching for.)
my dvd discs won't fit in a:
Yeah, whoop-de-doo. We beat Mexico in soccer. Boy, that makes me proud to be an American.
Not.
Call me when the real sports are on.
From the article: "Music creators have the right to protect their property from theft, just like owners of any other property," Sherman said.
Where do I start?
a) It's not the music creators who have put "copy protection" on, it's the music publishers
b) Whether it's the creator or the publisher, the creation is not "property". If it were there would be no patent or copyright law
c) Illegal copying isn't theft, it's illegal copying
d) What they're doing isn't like any other property, and asserting the opposite doesn't change the facts
If the context for this sentence related to the theft of a truck full of CD's then it would be correct. But I somehow don't think that's what he means.
Dunstan
The last scintilla of doubt just rode out of town
This troll was copied and pasted from kiro5hin:
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/3/8
It was used on Slashdot before:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3424
I think you forgot about region encoding ;)
What is your Slash Rating?
Strange but true, before the US Constitution was written, there was absolutly no writing in the US.
"The last thing I want to do is deal with a bunch of people who want something."
Major Major
I for one think that all Celine Dion CD's should come with a warning kinda like cigs. I can just see it now!
SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Use of this product may cause severe ear damage.
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
What happened to Hillary Rosen? Isn't the the head of the RIAA?
Perhaps more importantly, we will be, along with other record companies, releasing future music on a format called Dataplay along with the usual vinyl/CD releases. Dataplay cartridges are very similar to mini-discs in appearance but are made in the mindset of Dvds. This includes copy protection, video and image galleries, the potential for higher audio quality, etc. My main gripe is that, as far as I know, the ability to rip mp3's off this new format is non-existent. For more info, go to www.dataplay.com
-Reggie Bannister
people just didnt give so much of a shit about copying cd's when no matter if the over priced CD is bought from the store or if its copied for personal use from a friend or the internet. Either way its advertising the band(s) and its getting the music out into the social masses (so to say). Now instead of crying over -boohoo- they copied our music and we want money, it should be set up that companies that work in the music industry just put their music online for people to download..gee what a unique concept *cough cough*...instead of whining that people who created Napster or Audiogalaxy took the perfect idea to "share" music instead of ripping of people's wallets making them purchase a CD where theres only one or two good or well known songs on it! its a waste of time and money...why cant these dumb entertainment companies just get the clue, they cant control the consumer..one way or another we arent going to pay for an over priced CD unless we absolutely desire to... i leave it at that.... just one persons opinion...after all... alicia
-Alicia
"Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America, issued a statement calling the lawsuit "frivolous" ..."
Suing a toy company for not putting labels that a teddy bear is not edible is "Frivilous"
Suing McDonalds for not warning you that coffee is hot is "Frivilous"
Suing somebody because you broke your leg while attempting to break into their home is "Frivilous"
I hardly see suing somebody because they sell a product with no warning that it is defective ( and yes, they are defective by definition of the CD format ) and that it won't work in your PC, MAC, DVD etc. In fact, these things have been know to kill Macs ( Celine Dion anyone? )
So no, I don't see this as being any more frivilous than the class action lawsuit againsts Firestone for their tires being defective.
... Philips take on anti piracy and copyright protection since they insists that the Compact Disk Digital Audio label shouldn't be used on copy protected CD's?
Look a monkey!
Football: a sport played by muscular athletic black men.
Soccer: a kid's game played by pansy-assed euro trash.
All this whole mess is doing is fanning the fire of piracy/sharing. If they think that this will stop the copying of music, they aren't thinking straight. And if the music is MORE difficult to play, and lower quality, then people are going to be looking for alternate sources to get it, and the easiest source is, indeed, the Internet. Just because something is copy protected, doesn't mean it is copy proof. It might be more difficult to copy, but not impossible. Just like copying videos that are copy protected is fairly simple, so will this process. All there needs to be is ONE person who takes the time to copy a protected CD, and it is available to all...
That's funny. I would have sworn that Diamond won that lawsuit making it perfectly legitimate for you to make mp3s from the CDs you own and listen to them on your personal mp3 player.
-r
Just because something is free does not mean you have to take it.
but if seems to me that if the labels would invest the time/energy/money/etc into making the music available online at a reasonable price (with reasonable usage) as well as making CD's themselves more reasonably priced they'd be a lot better off.
The technology is out there to "pirate" DVD's; but I've purchased almost 500 of them because they (for the most part) are reasonably priced (often less than a CD) or they are special editions that have enough content that justifies the higher cost (to me).
Everybody wants large margins; but a lot of companies have made a lot of money over the years on smaller margins with larger quantities sold.........
you will note that incompetent pirates & legitimate customers compose the vast majority of our population. what they're doing is keeping the legitimate customers from becoming incompetent pirates & promoting incompetent pirates to level up.
"I really wish people understood how 'copyrights' that labels are arguing they must be able to protect are not copyrights at all, but more akin to the Licensing act of 1722 where publishers held a monopoly in the distribution of cultural works."
The whole point of the contract you signed with the label is that you are giving them a monopoly of distribution. Thats the *whole* point of the contract. The labels dont enjoy the act of distributing music - they enjoy the money they get out of it - money they will not receive if you could also flog it to other labels, or yourself.
Take a look at the career of Frank Zappa (in particular his battles with Warner, EMI etc) before you come whinging in here about how you "had to" do something. You chose to do it, and if you made a mistake, then too bad - learn for next time.
I learned after the fact that it was a copy-protected CD. To be honest, I wasn't really following the whole copy-protection brouhaha very closely. When my mom called and told me the CD wouldn't play, I diagnosed it from the point of a faulty player software or CD-ROM drive rather than a copy-protected CD. It only struck me a few days later that it might be the CD's fault.
---
I'm tired of waltzing for pancakes. -- Gwen Mezzrow
Karma: Excellent Birds (mostly as a result of listening to Laurie Anderson)
Just replace "CD" with "Crunchy Frog" and --
Inspector: Nevertheless, I advise you in future to replace the words 'Compact Disks' with the legend, 'Technically Flawed Compact Disks that could impinge on consumers' rights to copy music for their own use' if you wish to avoid prosecution!
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
Now, IF they had made a new name for their not-quite a CD, instead of trying to lie to customers and call it a CD, that wouldn't have been a problem - it would have been a case where the buyer has to decide if having the music is worth having it in a less useful format that might not even work at all on his machine.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
a quote from the article:
"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."
the RIAA needs to understand that the suit is about the flaw in the security measure itself, not the artist(s) right to protect property.
a highschool teacher of mine once told me that "one's right ends when it impedes on another". the CD's security measure impedes on consumer's right to back up and fair use. hence the legitimacy of the lawsuit.
"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."
This argument is flawed. The difference is that software is used on a specific medium, i.e. a game console or PC. Music CDs are designed to be used on various forms of compact disc players, i.e. hi-fi systems, portables, and PCs. In other words, an 'authorized' piece of hardware is not needed to play a CD (although I'm sure they'd love to be able to implement that) as opposed to software.
One more thing to mention- certain forms of software were built with copy-protection in mind, i.e. DVDs, when CDs were not. That alone proves their argument invalid.
"You're getting brutal, Sark. Brutal and needlessly sadistic."
"Thank you, Master Control"
-Sark and the MCP
(Los Angeles)
The RIAA has issued a statement today that many consumers of Music Products are engaging in copyright infringing acts by singing along with or tapping ones foot in time with copyrighted music. The RIAA's spokesman, Bob Dobbs, has announced that the RIAA and other industry groups are working with congressional members to draft legislation banning these activities. Proposed penalties would be doubled if the violators of these new statutes are found to be engaging in illegal performances while listening to music downloaded from the Internet.
In related news, Sen. Hollings (D - Disney) has announced sponsership of a bill titled "The bladder relief act of 2002". This bill bans unauthorized lavatory breaks during commercial breaks.
Don't anthropomorphize computers, they don't like it.
I have 5 cd drives (24x, DVD, 48x, 32x, CD-RW), and both the original (I _bought_ a Microsoft product. The shame!) and the copy work in all drives. I didn't even find the slightest bit of protection. But, perhaps, that's because it's the german version. BTW, here in Germany, a CD that doesn't play in a CD-ROM drive is considered broken; rightfully, because it doesn't follow the standard and has no right to call itself CD. You can simply take it back to your dealer (after ripping it :-).
Robert Fripp, of King Crimson fame, has started a record label, Discipline Global that lets artists keep their copyrights. Check out this pagefor some general philosophy of their business. Unfortunately it doesn't say there explicitly that they do this, but it does say it on the back of one my Crimson CDs.
However the page discusses 'ethical' businesses and makes some interesting points.
Oh yes, if you're not familiar with King Crimson, go out and buy some right now!
with a CD (or cassette, or 8 track, etc...) there are tracks, each of these tracks can be listened to individually apart from the rest of the album. fair use allows someone to pick and choose which track they want to listen too, and allows the copying to another medium to compile your own collection.
you dont rip apart movies or games to get the best songs/scenes out of them (unless they are porn)
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
I don't have a non-US region disc need, so it isn't like it affects me. However, it is still a crippling feat^h^h^h^hbug.
I guess I understand why they put in region encoding (create an artificial market so they can inflate the prices), but I think that just underscores the greed of MPAA-affiliated companies.
What is your Slash Rating?
So there you have it... Now, who is dumb enough to need an explanation? OK here goes: Who is doing the informing of your discretion? The guvverment, who are as good as owned by the big corporations, who are all huddled together with share deals, gentlemans agreements, and whatnot. ALL the mainstream media is owned by The Big Six. you cant think about what you dont know about.
Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one. (well, not anymore, we're at war! Oh and where the fuck are the POW's? All we get are these pesky "Illegal Combatants")
"If the only reality you have is an illusion, then that illusion is reality." Yeah, so why did they bother breaking out of the Matrix?
Think before moderating.
www.smirkingchimp.com (Guvverment /.)
www.disinfo.com (The books rule!)
www.whitehouse.org (Funny!)
www.stand.org.uk (Looks promising)
www.theyrule.net (Donation database, cool shockwave interface)
www.ultrafree.com (In case you don't want your happy little world spoilt)
Do these copy protected CDs work on CDRW-capable non-PC players? If not, that's a potential point you can use against the bad guys.
"This device has no immediate usage as a pirating aid, yet I still can't listen to this piece of sh*t CD!!!"
All Your Memory Are Belong To Java
"Music creators have the right to protect their property from theft, just like owners of any other property"
I find it interesting that they are referring to the major labels as "Music creators." I wonder how many artists are actaully supporting the idea of having their cd's protected, or if they are stuck with it because they already signed with the label. Seems to me an artist ought to be able to opt out of this, has anyone heard of any major groups doing this?
The snow doesn't give a soft white damn whom it touches. -- ee cummings
I wanna see how this plays out and I hope someone finds an angry grandmother type who doesn't take any guff to be the posterchild for this.
Oh PLEASE let it be that "Where's the beef?" lady!!!
GMD
watch this
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/1008.html
and again
See, there shouldn't be a law against making copy-protected CDs, because then you'd have to make specific statutes for and against every format out there, and the next thing you know, the government has some 100,000 pages of law describing what is allowed and what isn't on a shiny disk with a hole in the center.
Most tech-savvy users know what to do with various CD formats anyway.
On the other hand, since most people who buy CDs don't know jack about technology (and probably don't know what a molecule is either), CDs sold as audio CDs should carry PROMINENT warning labels on the front and back of the case. It should cover about 1/4 of the surface of the cover, and read in large letters: "WARNING! This CD is crippled by copy protection. Nearly all CD players in the world cannot play this CD."
Actually, the law should state that if someone picks up one of these defective CDs not knowing of its crippleware, and discovers it doesn't work in a CD player of some type or other, the music industry is required to refund their money plus a penalty to cover inconvenience, supply a free, uncrippled copy, and an unlimited, nonexclusive, transferable license to do anything with that free copy, including but not limited to reproduction, sale, loan, rental, etc., without compensating the recording industry in any way. Furthermore, the recording industry would send that person a bottle of Negra Modelo for each copy that person sells without compensating the recording industry. (The recording industry would be required to pay twice the price for each bottle of Negra Modelo it buys.) The government would require the recording industry to spend 99% of their profits advertising this law, so that everybody would know and take advantage of the recording industry. (The other 1% would be paid to a government committee whose sole purpose is figuring out new and innovative ways to screw over the recording industry.) I believe that would be a reasonable and prudent solution to the problems posed by the evil recording industry. Those bastards.
You shouldn't sue over *technology.* You are talking about suing the inventor when he isn't the one making the nasty CD's. It is akin to suing, say, Napster for making software to distribute illegal music instead of stopping people from doing it. Oh, wait ... bad example.
How about it is akin to suing the authors of message board software for creating an encrypted message board that can be used to protect terrorism communications instead of going after the actual perpetrators.
DO NOT STIFLE INNOVATION, no matter how "good" it is. Do you want people to stop looking for "acceptable" copy protection because they are afraid they will be sued if/when someone licenses their technology, and then it is found to be imperfect?
Knees are jerking out of socket. Jeeeez.
This case gets perpetuated over and over as a "frivilous" lawsuit, when in fact it was not frivilous at all. People hear the headline "millions for spilled hot coffee" and don't look further than that. According to the Wall Street journal, McDonald's callousness was the issue and even jurors who thought the case was just a tempest in a coffee pot were overwhelmed by the evidence against the Corporation. Here's a great link telling the facts in the hot coffee case...
Milberg, Weiss, Bershad, Hynes & Lerach versus the record labels. Guess, Milberg, et al ran out of high-tech companies to sue. Tough call - any way they can both lose?
[Insert pithy quote here]
(Taken from here.)
Milberg Weiss Files Suit Over CDs With No-Copy Technology
Brenda Sandburg
The Recorder
06-17-2002
Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach has jumped into the legal brawl over how much access consumers should have to copyrighted digital music.
Best known as a leader in shareholder class actions, New York-based Milberg Weiss filed a California consumer class action against five record labels Wednesday claiming that the audio discs they are selling with no-copy technology are misleading and defective.
In Dickey v. Universal Music Group, 275602, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, Milberg Weiss requests that the defendants be enjoined from selling the compact discs and ordered to refund or replace them and/or label the products as inferior to standard CDs.
The record labels "conspired and agreed among themselves to sell defective audio discs which were rendered unreproducible [sic] or unstable for use in many personal computers," the complaint states. "By selling these inferior quality audio discs, defendants are attempting to curb the public's exercise of their right to play, backup, space-shift and time-shift their own music to other playback mediums."
Milberg Weiss' William Lerach and Darren Robbins did not return calls Friday. Nicholas Koluncich III, a solo practitioner in Albuquerque, N.M., who is working with Milberg Weiss on the case, said the record companies also are misleading consumers. "These non-record discs are misrepresented as compact discs, which they are not," he said. "They have poorer sound and quality" and built-in errors that cause computer problems.
Koluncich said he learned about the defective discs from his sister, Elizabeth Koluncich, who is one of the plaintiffs in the case.
The Recording Industry Association of America countered that record labels have the right to protect their property from theft.
"With this frivolous action, the plaintiffs' bar has sunk to a new low, filing a lawsuit over practices that most U.S. companies have not even engaged in so that they can stake out their claim to class action attorneys fees," RIAA president Cary Sherman said in a statement.
Koluncich said no one knows how many of the altered discs are on the market. According to the complaint, Midbar Technology -- an Israeli company that provides copy-protection technology -- has said more than 10 million discs with no-copy technology have been sold.
The RIAA said it is aware of only three CDs that have been commercially released in the United States that use copy-protection technology: "More Fast and Furious," the soundtrack to "The Fast and the Furious;" "A Tribute to Jim Reeves" by Charley Pride; and "Serenatas" by Los Toros Band.
Consumers apparently have figured out ways to get around Sony Music's protection technology. News publications recently reported that by tracing the rim of a disc with a felt tip marker consumers were able to copy the music.
Fred von Lohmann, senior IP attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the advent of copy-protection technology would lead to further legal battles with respect to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The 1998 law prohibits the use of technology to circumvent copy-protection devices.
"Magic marker manufacturers aren't worried," von Lohmann said. "But people who distribute CD copying software and CD burners are probably getting expensive legal advice regarding the DMCA."
The battle over copyright protection in the Internet era is far from over. The entertainment industries, electronics and computer companies, consumer groups and Congress are fighting over how much protection is adequate.
Sen. Ernest Hollings, D-S.C., introduced a bill in March that would require the manufacturers of computers, television sets, cable boxes and other digital media devices to incorporate technology in their products to prevent illegal copying or redistribution.
The Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act calls on manufacturers to work with content industries to develop standards and technologies to protect digital content.
Earlier this month the motion picture studios proposed implementation of a "broadcast flag" that would mark digital TV broadcasts and prevent them from being copied and retransmitted. Consumer electronics groups and others rejected the proposal.
Milberg Weiss is familiar with the debate over copyright and digital music. It had a brief role in litigation against Napster Inc., coming in as co-counsel in a class action brought on behalf of independent artists. The plaintiffs, who claimed their music was being traded through Napster's file-swapping service without their consent, failed to obtain class certification.
If I rent a car, the car comes with locks and possibly a security system that deters theft and vandalism. This system does not inhibit the functionality of the car. The car doesn't go any slower, the car doesn't malfunction on certain highways.
This CD protection changes the CD in a way that makes it perform differently than the specification intends and differently than consumers would expect. It seems, then, that these CDs should not be labeled as CDs, but as a derivative, the way CDR, CDRW, and all those other similar formats are labeled. Call it CDP (CD Protected) or whatever, as long as its labeled. Then, I know when I see this symbol that I require a player that supports this format, the same way I know not to expect my eleven year old CD player (Well, I don't use it much, ok?!) to recognize a CDRW.
...which Einstein got the bright idea that the way to prevent people from using their intellectual "property" illegally is to take away a legal way to use it?
I mean really, people are going to listen to music on their computers one way or the other. If they can't use their legally paid for CD to do this, the only option they are left with is to find a pirated copy.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Technically they are correct that if you destroy someones computer you'll not beable to steal the music from the CD
hence they can make all that oh so great music you sheep like to listen to, and buy and listen to then wine when they decide to keep you from stealing their shit you bitch wine an moan
so stop buying their fucking music and email the arts and research division to stop making shity music.
On the same note email MS to encourage them to follow up with the highly rumoured threat of purchassing the RIAA, and name by name all the people you want to be Microsofts bitch
The idea of calling Metaligod's lable MSNothing
Is funy as hell
Oh and I'll no longer own a Sony Music black CDR/RW stack but a MSownsonyEnterTanement black cdr/rw disk
Go ahead and rate me as your Troll god fuckers
You all laughed at these jokes..so when idite me i'll name you as an acessory to theft and we'll walk to club fed hand in mother fucking hand.
..this problem will solve itself.
WARNING: This CD contains copy-protection that prevents you from transferring the data onto another storage medium. Furthermore, this CD may not play in your PC and may damage the hardware of your Macintosh. Copy-protection schemes may also cause deterioration in quality of the music contained on this disk. But the price is the same so you're ultimately footing the bill to fund efforts to make the products you buy less useful.
Make them put that warning on all CPCD's and I think the problem will solve itself.
The old adage came to mind, today, when reading through all the Slashdot comments about how the words this man is using are lies, damned lies and misinformation.
"Repeat something enough times and it becomes true."
The RIAA is quite obviously using this tactic. If they repeat how something is "theft" and "copyright infringment", then more and more people (both Joe Public and Mr. Congresman) will think of this not as "something that I don't know very much about" but as "truth". After all, thinks the uneducated public, these smart people who are in charge of this industry is calling it theft then, well, it must be so! (I'm not implying that the public is stupid, just ignorant; there is a difference.)
Nevermind this is complete and utter bunk, but repetition of a lie to make it truth is the Orwellian reality.
I just hope everyone who sees lies where they are don't just come here and preach to the choir.
This now concludes our broadcast day.
that by making it so CD's won't play on a computer they are practically forcing people to get it illegally elsewhere.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
They follow the blue book enhanced CD standard. At least a corruption of it. It might not even be something philips can do anything about.
I would intuitively think that this is a more dangerous tactic for the record companies, as it pretty clearly shows for thought and planning in their bid to actually disable peoples computers causing them a not insignificant expense in both time and money. The crippling of the computers wasn't a side effect of the 'copy protection' (such as it is) it was actually the plan. I personally can't see a difference between that and any other malicious act which damages someones computer.
But I do think going after the stores would be the way to go, with their thinner margins, it would hurt them a lot more. And they, in turn, would use their market muscle for ends that are more inline with their customers wishes. The last thing Best Buy, Sam Goodie, or any chain wants to do is end up in a court battling a former customer.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
Two quotes from the article:
" It also follows criticism from some members of Congress and from Dutch consumer electronics maker Philips, co-creator of the compact disc, that the anti-piracy CDs are technically flawed and could impinge on consumers' rights to copy music for their own use. "
""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.""
It's no longer the musicians property if they SELL IT TO US YOU DUMB BASTARDS! Plus if we as consumers have the right to copy music for our own use, the record companies should find a different way to stop the piracy which allegedly makes their lives so tough. My advice? Stop treating your musicians like pawns or they'll turn on you and play gigs for FREE. HOW WOULD YOU LIKE THAT YOU KENNY G PLAYIN MOTHER FUCKERS?
Hey, if they keep copy-protecting artists like Celine Dion and Phil Collins, that's fine by me. Just don't shut down FastTrack.
I don't care if copy protected CDs are sold, but I believe they should have a very obvious warning label just like the explicit lyrics sticker.
7 15 854
Why does it seem that most of the slash comments are totally stupid and non-constructive?
Take a look at this one for example:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=34332&cid=3
and why does the thing display with a space between the 3715 and the 854 in the url? I can't figure that one out.
The record companies will be required to distribute rebate coupons for free Sharpies.
See this comment.
I'm a programmer my self and I don't really care about people using my code to do whatever they want. That's just code, a couple of lines created bymy brain. It's the same thing for music and movies !
:)
;)
:P and of course his last CD is copyprotected via Sony Music)
copyrights is an stupid concept, If nobody was able to make money out of it they'll be no need for copyrights, I guess money is a stupid concept in a sense too...
Their is a lot of solutions but music companies just want to take a lot of your Georges Washinton collection away
Anyway Peoples out there think about it ! and don't buy any Celine Dion CDS (we are tired to hear about her here in Quebec
In the U.S: there IS a built-in royalty payment, but only in the blank media that are designated "music" or "audio" CD-Rs and CD-RWs.
These the kind of media that must be used in "home audio CD recorders." Technologically, the media are the same as ordinary CD-R's, but they contain an encoding that the recorder looks for. The recorder contains technology that enforces recording only to "music CD-R" media, and "serial copy control" protection (it will copy a commercial CD, but will NOT make a digital copy of a copy made in a home audio recorders.)
Interestingly enough, the first copy of "The Fast and the Furious" that I bought was encoded in such a way that it would NOT copy in my CD recorder. It gave a false SCCS error.
I believe that making personal copies, backups, RIPping for download into MP3 players, etc. is fair use.
However, the ability to make copies on a home audio CD recorder is more than just fair use. Under the 1992 AHRA act. We PAY for every copy that we make, in exchange for the RIGHT to make those copies.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Absolutely wrong. Red book compliant CDs are designed to be played in Red Book compliant players ONLY. So your CD player recognizes bastardized versions of those standards as well? Lucky you.
It is fair to say that audio CDs were never designed to be played on modern CD ROMs with their multitude of standards. If your CD ROM drive doesn't have a "dumb" mode where it ignores all directory data, then it can't in reality be called a Red Book compliant drive. The fact that PCs, Playstations, what have you can play audio CDs is due to a desire for reverse compatibility. Since when does reverse compatibility ensure 100% compliance with old standards? Fact is, these disks play perfectly in RED BOOK ONLY players. That, technically, is all that is required.
Twenty or more years ago, when the Red Book standard was finalised, CD copying was virtually impossible. There were no ripping programs, so nobody saw a need to include copy protection.
To paraphrase your argument: "If they hadn't left the window open for the last 20 years, I wouldn't have been able to climb in and steal their laptop & credit cards"
Of course, that doesn't mean I think that this particular copy protection method is the right way to go.
Once that LNUX stock dips low enough, I'm sure he will be...
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
When /. posted the story about Best Buy's announcement that they would be carrying the CDs, I went in to investigate the claims--I didn't intend on supporting Best Buy if it was true. I found the new Celine Dion CD prominently featured in a New Releases endcap, and unless they manufacture both disabled and fully CD-standards-compliant versions, there was nothing on the CD which indicated it was not a CD. I don't recall there being the standard Compact Disc icon from Phillips either. In any case, there wasn't anything to suggest to me that the Celine Dion disc was any different than any other standard CD.
I know it's very tempting to join the fray and sue their asses off. But did you try a simpler remedy first -- like, for instance, trying to return the CD for a refund? I doubt you really have a course of action unless you experienced real harm (e.g., a broken computer or lost money because you couldn't (as opposed to didn't) return the disc.
McFacts abut the McDonalds Coffee Lawsuit is a good summary, but any google search will find you plenty more citations.
Big Evil Corporations *love* the idea of "frivolous lawsuits" -- because lawsuits are one of the only ways we can keep them in line.
It's important to remember that this case has been taken ob by 'class action specialists' at a large well known law firm. Aturneys in class action suits usually take them on to line their own pockets, rather than for the greater good, so I fully expect they will be looking for a financial settlement, rather than amy more meaningful remedy. We're not talking about EFF or ACLU lawyers here. This case is esentially being brought by high class ambulence chasers. I wouldn't be suprised if we are extremely dissatisfied with the resolution to this case, regardless of who wins.
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
Friggin' 'ell...yet another format!
How about bring back 8 track cartridges while were at it...better still 78's on shellac.
Oh please! I have Vinyl 33/45's, CD's, SACD's, DVD's,DVD"A"'s, Mini Disc, DAT, 1/4" Analogue reel2reel,Casette already.
So the music world comes up with another compressed format. As a format it's going to fail...anybody for DCC, 8 Trax, Minidisc, DAT.
ALL TRIED AND FAILED.
That's my 2 penny's worth....
The law firm involved, (I only remember Lerach's name) is famous in law and consumer circles for filing class action lawsuits, many with large awards or out of court settlements. I wouldn't call them the good guys, but they are self motivated (read money) attack dogs, so in this case it might be nices to see the RIAA get mauled for a change.
Now, you've got these decentralized P2P networks to contend with, which are generally slow and unwieldy.
WinMX 3.1 is fast even on my dial-up connection. It should be even faster on cable because it supports downloading from multiple sources based on the MD5 hash of the file.
Will I retire or break 10K?
This seems to be their most effective method at the moment.
Y2K Compliant since the late 1890s
Actually many (more than half)of those "inventions" where not soley american..
meth for instance was brought to u by the nazi's.. to keep them awake while bombing england.
movie cameras: Auguste and Louis Lumière on 28 December 1895 in the Grand Café on the Boulevard des Capucines in Paris
telephone: German, Philipp Reis did alot of work on it also. telephone had many inventors.
the internet: Al Gore Invented the Internet
Electricity: Volta, Alessandro, Count, Italian physicist / Volta, Alessandro, Count, Italian physicist
Light Bulb: Sir Joseph Wilson Swan, produced his first experimental light bulb using carbonized paper as a filament
etc.. etc..
... silly american... always trying to take all teh credit..
I suppose that putting pressure on companies to not copy protect CDs is a Very Good thing.
I'm sure there are some people for whom this copy protection is a nuisance; people who only listen to music off the computer, etc.
However, I get the impression here (slashdot) that the main motivation is to make illegal eleet copies to trade on file-sharing networks.
Sure, you have the right to make a copy for your own archives or whatnot, but guess what:
The record company is under no obligation at all to make it easy or convenient for you.
Imagine a book printed with blue ink... this will be hard to photocopy, but that's not Del Rey's problem.
I do concede that it is rude and inappropriate to seize up your iMac.
What really needs to happen is that the court needs to rule that any "technology" which could infringe upon fair use, restrict it, or make it inordinantly difficult to excercise fair-use rights, should be illegal. Fair use rights should be gauranteed.
Failing that, however, here's the only acceptable outcome for this case:
1. Anyone who bought these defective CD's should get their money back, damages in time lost, and damages in terms of equipment damage (i.e., these CD's lock up some CD-drive).
2. A warning must be placed on the "CD" case, saying exactly what limitations are imposed, what quality problems exist, and what hardware incompatabilities exist.
3. Anyone who buys one of these defective CD's should be able to return it for a refund.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
C opy
R estricted
A nd
P rotected
discs
not CPOA discs.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Hell yeah there should be a warning label. The gore family already decided that if there is "unacceptable" lanauage on an album then it should have a warning label. I think anyone who buys a copy-protected CD, when they find out it's protected will scream "SHIT!!" and that is worthy of a label of it's own.
So, in other words, they will profit on your work for 70 years after your death — the longer you live, the more profit for them, ergo they should be your guardian angels!
It reminds me a magnificent play of Aleksander Fredro — Doywocie (Life Annuity). If you're interested in theatre, you should have seen or read this play and exactly know what I mean. If you don't know the Life Annuity, I won't tell you anything — instead I urge you to see this play in the theatre by yourself, it's one of the most splendid and funniest plays I have ever seen.
Aleksander Fredro wrote Doywocie in 1835 and it was translated into English by Segel Harold Bernard, as far as I know. For more informations, see Fredro on Google: all results, only in English.
So, everyone who wants to see how absurdal is the situation when someone else gets more money if you live longer (the exact situation as with the record industry giants as the copyright holders), ask for Life Annuity by Aleksander Fredro in your local theatre. (Please do not moderate this post as off-topic, unles you have seen this play — thanks.)
I have somewhere a VHS tape with Teatr Telewizji (a Polish Public TV theatre) version of Doywocie with Wojtek Pszoniak, one of my favourite actors, I think I'll watch it today.
Krótko: kady Erotomek
W pimiennictwie ma swój domek.
Several of the copy protection companies have acted in a way that harms legal use of the CDs.
At least one of these companies has produced a product that can lock up a Mac while being used legally. It is apparently a PITA to get the CD out, and I doubt that my parents could do it. That IS malicious. There are going to be people screwing up their computers with these things for years.
Frankly, I think as a consumer you have a reasonable right to assume that a commercially purchased CD isn't going to break your computer. If someone put out a Cd that contained a virus, you'd expect them to be responsible for the damages. I see no difference between this kind of "copy protection" and a virus.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
Tomato, tomato...
You're looking way too far into what I posted. Your first sentence killed your argument, as you totally missed the point of what I said.
Have a nice day.
"You're getting brutal, Sark. Brutal and needlessly sadistic."
"Thank you, Master Control"
-Sark and the MCP
Whoa Cowboys! You're all missing a prime opportunity to fight the good fight. The only way a multi-media monopolist will ever buckle is the bottom line. Admit it, every one of us is a closet Don Quixote - we all want to fight the giants. This fight is the best of both. Step 1. Buy CD (or purported CD). Step 2 make a scene when it wont work, I mean a really choice scene, that Don Quixote would be proud of, the Wal Mart manager is going to humbly beg you to quit yelling that Wal Fart is ripping off your Mother! Ditto for Burst Buy, etc. You're fighting the good fight, and the big box stores will take it to the bad guys for us. I used to work in Supply Chain. Let me tell you it is not designed to work in reverse. If enough of the stuff is returned it WILL logjam. Anyone for a slashdot effect live and in person?
The knowingly willful destruction of private property is indeed a crime, as well as conspiracy with oterhs to do so. This is shaping up to fall into a lawyer's wet dream: a full-fledged case of documented organized crime committed by the top five money holding organizations in the music industry. Can anyone say deep pockets. I love America! Once again capitalism will right itself (sorry for the politics)
This case gets perpetuated over and over as a "frivilous" lawsuit, when in fact it was not frivilous at all. People hear the headline "millions for spilled hot coffee" and don't look further than that. According to the Wall Street journal, McDonald's callousness was the issue and even jurors who thought the case was just a tempest in a coffee pot were overwhelmed by the evidence against the Corporation. Here's a great link telling the facts in the hot coffee case...
Well I _have_ read many facts about this case (and the others that have been spawned in its tradition since then), and I think it's absolutely frivolous! Lawyers are paid to be masters of using bullshit facts to win an argument. Let's look at some of these tidbits of "overwhelming evidence" from the link you posted:
No. 1: For years, McDonald's had known they had a problem with the way they make their coffee - that their coffee was served much hotter (at least 20 degrees more so) than at other restaurants.
McDonald's has known for years that they way they serve their coffee is overwhelmingly popular with the consuming public. That's right, they've done consumer research and found that most of their customers prefer their coffee at that temperature. And they HAVE KNOWN that in a BILLION instances a year, someone buys a cup of their coffee, handles it properly, and enjoys its taste -- without incident. And then of course there are will be a couple schmucks who can't keep themselves from pouring it over their heads, or down their pants, or drinking the whole thing in one big gulp and burning their throats. But honestly, if every manufacturer insisted on pandering to the safety needs of the lowest common denominator, nothing would ever be made. Because with anything more dangerous than a plastic bottle of water, some idiot is going to figure out a way to hurt themselves with it.
No. 2: McDonald's knew its coffee sometimes caused serious injuries - more than 700 incidents of scalding coffee burns in the past decade have been settled by the Corporation - and yet they never so much as consulted a burn expert regarding the issue.
This is just the same shit over again. Once a week (every 5.2 days) some marginally functional moron spills hot coffee on themselves, suffers burns, and tries to get some money out of McDonald's. During that same week, McDonald's sells nearly 20 MILLION cups of coffee to people who have no such problems. Now clearly, McDonald's is knowingly endangering the public with their reckless behavior, and should be made to alter their business practices to accommodate that one-dipshit-out-of-20-million. Come on, you have better odds of winning the lottery in some states than you do of accidentally spilling McD's coffee on yourself and going to the hospital for it. And the payoff for hitting the lotto is a lot better too...
And why the hell should they have to go around consulting experts about the possible negative side effects of not using Coffee for its intended purpose?? Hot Coffee is supposed to be drank slowly. Hot Coffee is not supposed to be poured on your crotch. There are an infinite number of MIS-uses of a product that can cause harm to people or damage to property, and it's ridiculous to claim that manufacturers should launch investigations into all of them. That's like saying "I manufacture ballpoint pens. We should hire an expert in anal probing to find out what negative effects might occur if our customers shove our product up their asses. And some eye doctor experts too, to see how much damage could be caused if they stick them in their eyes. And some physicists and doctors to see what would happen if they climbed up a utility pole and stuck their pen into one of the high-voltage power lines. Etc..."
McDonald's Coffee will always be hot. No amount of whining pussies and their FRIVOLOUS lawsuits are going to change that. As the great Seanbaby put it: "Let me tell you why McDonald's coffee is so hot. Because you have oily children simmering fluid in glass containers for hours at a time. If you lowered the temperature down a few degrees, that's not making coffee -- that's bacteria farming. Something tells me I'd rather wait for my drink to cool down than buy a cup of coffee-flavored cholera."
No. 3: The woman involved in this infamous case suffered very serious injuries - third degree burns on her groin, thighs and buttocks that required skin grafts and a seven-day hospital stay.
Yeah, that's what happens when you pour very hot matter onto your skin. It reacts, violently. Try pouring the hot grease out of the frying pan onto your crotch next you're cooking. You'll get those same 3rd degree burns. There's a small leap of logic that has to be comprehended in order to understand this phenomenon. It goes like this:
Now I know not everybody went to college, but even preschoolers are able to learn fairly quickly which things are fun to play with and which things will hurt like hell if you rub them over your body. Anyone who can't grasp this simple two-step logic train, and take appropriate action to avoid spilling said liquid on themselves, deserves to have the gonads-set-on-fire that results. The evolution of species does not occur by forcing the stupidest monkeys to stop sticking their genitals into a lava pit.
Let's see if I can put this another way for people who don't respond well to complicated logical theories... IT'S COFFEE! IT'S HOT! DON'T PUT IT BETWEEN YOUR LEGS! Do you need to be told to not put lit firecrackers between your legs? Do you need to be told not stick sharp knives in your lap 'just to hold them there'? Would you stick a rattlesnake in a fragile container between your legs to hold it there while you drive it to... wherever you might be taking a snake? So why would you need to be told to not put boiling water between your legs?
No. 4: The woman, an 81-year old former department store clerk who had never before filed suit against anyone, said she wouldn't have brought the lawsuit against McDonald's had the Corporation not dismissed her request for compensation for medical bills.
Hey guess what, I've never filed a lawsuit either. And neither have 99% of all the people I've ever met. It's good that she's not a career lawsuit filer, but if she had been, that would have been pointed out early on, and you wouldn't have seen much jury sympathy. And the fact that she only filed the lawsuit after McDonald's didn't roll over and ask how much to write the check for doesn't mean they were being unreasonable. OF COURSE they didn't agree to compensate her, that's the whole point of filing a lawsuit! To force action on another party when you can't come to an agreement. Exactly how long do you think it would take for a line a mile long to form outside McDonald's headquarters once word got out that they will hand out money to any schmuck he says he spilled his coffee on himself? They HAVE to say no to that on principle, lest they turn into a workers comp clearinghouse.
No. 5: A McDonald's quality assurance manager testified in the case that the Corporation was aware of the risk of serving dangerously hot coffee and had no plans to either turn down the heat or to post warning about the possibility of severe burns, even though most customers wouldn't think it was possible.
This sentence doesn't even make grammatical sense. Most customers wouldn't think WHAT is possible?? Not possible to turn down the heat? Not possible to post warnings about burns? Not possible for McDonald's to consider doing these things? Not possible for you to burn yourself with boiling water? WTF are you saying??
I'm sure this is probably a badly paraphrased version of something that originally sounded like a good argument, but it still sounds stupid. Of course they have no plans to change anything they're doing. They've done the analysis (similar to what I've already said above) and found that it's well worth the risks (of removing the ability to breed from retarded people) to keep serving their delicious coffee at the temperature that their customers most enjoy. Another non-point shot down. Keep 'em comin!
No. 6: After careful deliberation, the jury found McDonald's was liable because the facts were overwhelmingly against the company. When it came to the punitive damages, the jury found that McDonald's had engaged in willful, reckless, malicious, or wanton conduct, and rendered a punitive damage award of 2.7 million dollars. (The equivalent of just two days of coffee sales, McDonalds Corporation generates revenues in excess of 1.3 million dollars daily from the sale of its coffee, selling 1 billion cups each year.)
I've sat on a civil lawsuit jury before. There are always mounds of documents that they throw at you, knowing full well that you, the jury members, are not going to sift through all of it for your $15 a day jury pay, when you should be at work or taking care of your kids, etc. They know that you will only remember and consider the carefully worded emotionally charged words that they plant in your head specifically to persuade you to buy their argument instead of looking at the situation completely objectively. Is it possible that they could find 12 people who could be convinced that McDonald's is "willfully" serving flaming death in a cup to MILLIONS of people and "maliciously" trying to harm them? Absolutely. There's 700 such candidates that McDonald's has on file already. And out of 12 random people, you're going to have at least 2 people who will side with the "innocent victim" in any situation. And probably at least 1 person who will side against any large corporations because they're "evil". People like that can keep the rest of the group from making a quick dismissal based on the fact that the plaintiff is a fucking imbecile. And the longer the deliberation drags out, the more likely the "rational" people are to just side with the "sympathy" people at whatever dollar amount just to get the damn thing over with. I've seen it happen, and I'm sure it happens quite regularly, even maybe in this case.
No. 7: On appeal, a judge lowered the award to $480,000, a fact not widely publicized in the media.
That's fine and all. But it doesn't change the fact that this old woman should have been learning how to safely carry dangerous materials instead of feeding the lawyers with this FRIVOLOUS lawsuit.
No. 8: A report in Liability Week, September 29, 1997, indicated that Kathleen Gilliam, 73, suffered first degree burns when a cup of coffee spilled onto her lap. Reports also indicate that McDonald's consistently keeps its coffee at 185 degrees, still approximately 20 degrees hotter than at other restaurants. Third degree burns occur at this temperature in just two to seven seconds, requiring skin grafting, debridement and whirlpool treatments that cost tens of thousands of dollars and result in permanent disfigurement, extreme pain and disability to the victims for many months, and in some cases, years.
I agree that pouring hot liquids on your skin WILL harm you. That's why humans have developed an automated muscular reaction when our skin touches something hot. The nerve signal doesn't even travel all the way to your brain and wait for your brain to make a decision about what to do. It gets intercepted half way and your arm (or leg or whatever) automatically jerks away from the source of heat. This reflex movement normally pulls your arm out of the fire, or splashes the coffee you spilled on it all around the room, in less than half a second. For someone to sit there with the hot coffee on themselves for up to SEVEN seconds means either they sat there, watching the coffee burn their bodies and couldn't figure out what to do, or they managed to spill it on themselves in such a way or place that they couldn't get it off of themselves for a (relatively long time). In either case, at best, they showed an extreme lack of planning, and at worst it's only a matter of time before the mental police find them and take them back to their padded rooms and jackets that let them hug themselves ALLLLL DAAAAAAY.
I don't drink coffee anymore, but when I did (and mostly McDonald's coffee at that), I never poured it on my crotch without at least sipping it first to make sure it wasn't too hot. But if some day I did start drinking coffee again, or some other "dangerously hot" beverage, and I do happen to destroy my genitals because of own ignorance, I sure as hell wouldn't publicize the event and record it on public record with a lawsuit. That's just shouting "Hey, I may be physically deformed now, but I'm also admittedly STUPID too!"
"Tomato,tomato"...very intelligent argument, I don't think. Lets go through your comments sentence by sentence.
You state "Music CDs are designed to be used on various forms of compact disc players, i.e. hi-fi systems, portables, and PCs"-No, they aren't. They WERE designed to be used in Red Book players, and Red Book players only. Modern drive manufacturers have included that backwards compatibility as a convenience (see my point about a "dumb" mode).
"In other words, an 'authorized' piece of hardware is not needed to play a CD"-actually, the piece of hardware required is a Red Book compliant CD player. For many years it was impossible to play them on anything else, hence the lack of need (at the time) for copy protection. So you are quite correct saying that they were never designed with copy protection in mind, but they also weren't designed for use in the modern CD ROM drive with its multitude of formats. Audio CDs are a legacy technology.
"Your first sentence killed your argument"-it did? How? Explain in words that aren't "tomato". I clearly stated "these disks play perfectly in RED BOOK ONLY players"; their failure in other drives is due to the differences between Red Book and other standards. If a CD ROM looks for a directory sector, it isn't really a Red Book compliant player.
What point did I miss? I fully agree that these CDs are not Red Book compliant, but MY point (which you missed) is that they DO play perfectly in Red Book players. Thats all the record companies are interested in. They are in the business of making Audio CDs (mostly), not CD ROMs. In fact, this form of copy protection is incompatible with hybrid formats. Which one do you think the RIAA cares about more: the few who want to make MP3s of the millons who have bought audio CD players over the last 20-odd years? Its the same reason that 96kHz DVD audio hasn't been adopted as a standard for audio, despite being mooted around the industry for some time.
"You're looking way too far into what I posted." Well, if you don't want people analyzing what you say, don't say anything. Simple.
"Have a nice day"-patronizing git. Explain the flaws in my argument clearly, and I won't think you're an ignorant wanker.
The "controversy" over copy prtoection is really a mute point. When it all boils down to it the music industry isn't producing products that I am willing to purchase. I cringe at the thought of spending $20 to purchase the crap that is being passed off as music recently.
I went to a local fair in my home town last Wednesday and went up to one of the vendors who was selling CD's. None of the CD's had pretty printed booklets in the jewel cases and all the printed sides of the CD's had plain text names of the artists printed on them with the lists of songs. And, none of the CD's were burned copies. They were all silver discs. Oh yeah, any CD was $5, or you could buy 5 CD's for $20. I wonder how much this plays in the reduced number of CD sells??? I wonder which is more damaging, MP3's or bootleg CD's? And BTW, they had the most popular booth at the fair by far.
Personally, if the major lables sold there new CD's for a similarly priced deal then A:) They would sell a tremendesly higher number of CD's B:)It would become cost prohibitive for people to bootleg and make a money thus lowering substantialy the loss due to bootlegging and C:)Customers would more than likely purchase more CD's rather than download MP3's if not simply for not having to try to hunt down MP3's wait for them to download, have to buy blank media, then witing for them to burn to the disc.
Personally if new RIAA approved CD's cost $5 i would just go to the store and buy it before i would burn it. But at the current price point I wont. Especially not for the crap that is on the shelves today.
-You can register your displeasure with the recording industry by contacting Milberg Wiess Bershad Hynes and Lerach. Their address is: http://www.milberg.com/mil-cgi-bin/mil?templ=featu red/audiocds.html
-These guys specialize in class actions and have the resources to keep up with the recording industry.