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BMG Stops Producing CDs
An Anonymous Cow writes "The register has a new story about claims by Bertelsmann that they'll stop manufacturing uncrippled audio CDs. More can be found on Bertelsmann's own site (info by region, Europe only). Trouble playing it in your car stereo? According to BMG the error is your player's, and not their CD's. Quote: 'As far as we were advised, our copy protection is according to the Red Book Standard as well as all labelling on the cd.' In English: they don't even find it necessary to indicate on the CD cover that it's copy protected, nor do they think it advisable to listen to Philips' objections against using the CD logo on crippled discs, instead there's a label claiming that the CD is fully Red Book-compliant. It looks like this is a test case, because only all European CDs will be crippled."
How can you claim a device not able to play Red Book compliant disks is a CD player?
... if it doesn't play in my one and only CD player (my computer) then it will go back to the store and they will hear my complaints. I have also taken up writing (paper version) letters to these companies when something like this doesn't work. I guess I wont be buying any music from BMG from now on, should save me some effort. Although I will write them a letter about it.
An optimist believes we live in the best world possible; a pessimist fears this is true.
"BMG attaches great importance to assuring that the copy protection used does not lead to restrictions for consumers with respect to listening pleasure. Those who play back their purchased product on a standard home CD Audio player will not notice any difference at all."
... New trends and
talents can only emerge if music is bought..."
Does this mean that I cannot listen to CDs on my computer without being concidered a consumer without respect to listening pleasure?
"In the long term, massive copying deprives music-makers of their very livelihood.
I prefer listening to musicians who play music because they enjoy it, not for the money. As for the veri livelihood, I'd say that the ability to sample non-mainstream artists without having to stand in line at my local music store has made me by more CDs than ever before. I suggest that this assumption is down right wrong.
"...this decline is attributed to a large extent to unauthorised CD-R copying."
Or perhaps due to a downwards tendency of the entire economy. Sales will fluctuate, so don't blame the customers, make new and better products.
I suspect they're engaged on some wacko conspiracy: "Do as much as we can to lose money and then blame it on customers. And then, once we've reached bottom, we'll ... um ... well, we haven't figured that part out yet. Our goal is to simply piss off consumers, hit bottom, and then blame folks."
What's interesting is that three years ago I was an active CD buyer. I was constantly buying stuff at Best Buy, was a member of all the CD clubs (even though that wasn't making anyone much money), and buying CDs on-line weekly.
Now, I've stopped. I won't buy another CD because I have no idea whether or not it will play in what I want to play it in, and I have absolutely no desire to try to bring it back to a place like Best Buy or send it back to a place like CDNOW or Amazon.com.
Instead, I'm enjoying my "old" CDs, installed my old Technics phonograph, and actively search out obscure stuff -- mostly CDs, some vinyl -- in local record stores. My music listening experience has gone way, way up, and I'm spending less than ever -- but finding stuff I like.
And I'll occasionally drop into Kazaa to listen to new stuff and try and determine, say, why Justine Timberlake is putting out new albums that sound like vintage Michael Jackson or why U2 and Aerosmith insist on putting out a new greatest hits album every other week or why Bob Dylan's *old* stuff is far and away better than anything he's put out since Infidels (which was, IMHO, the last good Dylan album). But that's about it.
So, yes, to the RIAA I say this: if your goal is to piss-off customers and lose them permanently -- congratulations!
Watch as a new generation of young people (ages 6 through 16) hit Kazaa. Then Gnutella when Kazaa shuts down. When Peekabooty when P2P is getting hammered by **IA.
It's great news! I'm not being sarcastic. When they have to go to such lengts to protect a dead business model, all we have to do is sit back and laugh. And teach our familes how to use WinAmp or iTunes.
They FUNNY SHIT is this... I'd gladly pay PER SONG for an OGG download. But $20 for crap on an obsolete medium (CD's)? HA! Never...
Again, in short, they are dying and this is the first sign. enjoy the ride, you'll tell your grandkids about this.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
The Phillips/Sony Red Book Standard states that and Compact Disc that is created with this standard format will be compatible will nearly all CD players. BMG and thier false claim that thier "crippled" CD are Red Book compliant is outrageous. Once again this is just another reason why people use P2P servers to get thier music fix.
Furthermore, does BMG really think that producing "crippled" CDs will bring an end to CD burning and ripping. I for one have a Sony audio CD player connected to my sound card and if I cannot rip or burn a CD due to "crippling" I just pop that CD into the Sony player and rip it from there. It works great and has not flawed yet.
[n8.r0n] http://petesweb.spymac.net/
I know we'll eventually find a way around this copy-protection, I have no worries about that. What bothers me is the "Suck It Down!"(c) attitude BMG is taking on forcing people to buy new hardware if the disc doesn't work. I think they have the relationship between consumer and manufacturer switched. It's not like they are gracing our lowly presence, the hoi polloi, with goods they toss to us like slop to pigs.
"Here, this should be good enough for all of you. Too bad if you don't like it. Sooooooooooouuuuuuuiiiiiiiii!"
And yet they seem to act that way when trying to herd us all into something like this. I am a consumer, dagnabbit! I should be telling these companies what I want, and make sure they give it to me. It is the consumers who should be dictating where the market goes. But who is still listening to us? When did things change? Consumers have rights, use them!
Zech Harvey, MCSE, MCDBA, CCNA
As well as taking the CD back and explaining why you are returning it, why not write to the artist themselves. I know if i had mail from fans saying they returned the discs because they wouldn't play I'd be making some phone calls.
A quote from BMG's website:
Two years ago, on a worldwide basis, one digital copy was made for every three music CDs sold. Last year, that ratio had shrunk dramatically to one-to-two. In 2001, for every CD album sold, one copy was burned.
Actually the statistic I read is that in 2001 for every CD album sold, one CD-R disc was sold. Obviously we can't assume that every single CD-R disc sold in the world was used to copy a copyrighted CD. Based on my experience in statistics and research methods regarding sampling and surveys(Psych major),I'm fairly confident that no one will ever be able to claim how many CD-R's were actually used to copy copyrighted material, so any numbers they throw at us should not be believed.
My personal theory is that the surge of independent music(which is easily accesible on the internet)is really why the major labels sales are down. Not only is independent music usually better, but it's available for free on P2P's all the time(which is why killing Kazaa/Gnucleus/etc. would seriously hurt the independent musician, and give more power back to major labels). I guess I'm preaching to choir here at slashdot though.
"...One scratch could literally kill your CD."
Sounds like they want stem piracy and to increase cash flow by resales because of "SCRATCHED" CDs. That's what they liked about vinyl. When you just can't stand the POPS & SKIPS on "Dark Side Of The Moon" any more, you buy another copy. How did you think it stayed on the Billboard Top 100 for over 10 YEARS! Damn those seeds!!!
It also reduces the second-hand CD sales like Half.com. Some indipendent music stores were being pressured by the record companies not handle "Used CDs" (...or is it Perviously Owned?).
Any way you look at it, increased cash flow is the main motive. Buy once, buy often.
>> Practice Safe Hex
I'd like to point everyone to cdbaby.com.
It's the best record store I've found anywhere. It's full of independent artists in every genre you could want. They have a sweet feature where you search for a band you like, say Limp Bizkit or POD, and it gives you independent artists like Stink!#Bug or Burning Edge. All the albums for sale have at least half of their tracks available to listen to before you buy.
If you aren't happy you can send your CD back for a full refund.
They even have a wide selection of jazz and classical performances.
I guess the artists get a pretty fat percentage of the profits from the CD. Much more than they would get if they were signed with a major label.
I'm not affiliated with CD Baby in anyway except as a very happy customer. Super happy. Happy happy happy. I've never been so happy about my relationship with a business.
If you are like me, you love music but don't support the rape of artists by major labels. CD Baby is the best place I've found to satisfy my cravings for great tunes. All of the CDs I've purchased from them played on my computer just fine, and ripped to ogg with no problems.
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
Copyright is forever, effectively, in the US. Trademarks are forever, as long as the company protects the trademark. A patent is the only thing with a reasonable time limit, and that is probably what you meant is going to run out.
Still, Philips should be able to fight BMG based on copyright of the CD icon and trademarks which they own. BMG putting the CD icon on their works would violate copyright (of the icon image itself) and trademark (associating the broken disk with Philips's reputation).
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
...this is a desaster ! Especially since many DJs I know have migrated to MP3, with me currently archiving my collection to Ogg Vorbis... lifting one PC is easier than several hundred CDs (and you get cool search functionality and beatmixing with some programs, too).
;-)
:-)
I've found one CD so far that I'm pretty sure is copy protected (Genesis.1 single from VNV Nation), because it plays in normal CD players but not in the CD drive at my work. So I can't currently rip it (yes, I know that there are ways to circumvent that, but since it's just a single I don't care
But the real problem is that some friends of mine already had real problems with copyrighted CDs: they seem to get "jumpy" even with just slight scratches (which just occur when using them, even when being careful). It's always bad when people are dancing and suddenly get irritated because the music just stopped due to a bad CD (it's always the DJ's fault, mind you !
If Philips dont sue, then start to expect consumers to sue. In the UK the Trade Descriptions Act should cover passing off a copy protected CD as a red book CD. If everyone starts calling the local trading standards officer the retailers may fight Bertelsmann (as they can be criminally prosecuted for this).
You can claim it's a CD-ROM player. But to my nowledge there's never been any manufacturer that made CD-ROM, RW, R or DVD-ROM, RW or R players that didn't have facilities in the firmware to handle CD-DA according to Philips' standard. I'm not even sure if Orange book standard players have any clauses that make it necessary for them to be red-book compatible as well... Hmmm. Need to brush up. It's been 4 years since I supported HP's CD-writers. ;-)
But this is all so silly. Look, most people know the following..(you didn't? ok, now you do.)
The audio degradation experienced by ripping a CD via analog means (by either plugging in a cable into the line-out of the CD player and recording with any PC recording application, or using the 'Rip to Analog" feature of Musicmatch) is far less than the degradation produced by MP3 compression.
Since six years of MP3 has shown us that for the vast majority of people, even 160kbps MP3 encoding is "good enough," how will this stop their music from being pirated?
Very few people actually rip and upload...Gartner and Forrester both agree that 95% of mp3 content on P2P and other filesharing systems comes from less than 10% of the community. All you need is one guy to rip the content to analog, then upload. BMG will see no net reduction of pirating of their content.
Irnonically, the only ones to suffer from this inane decision are those who legitimately purchased the "CD." They will be plagued with a hobbled, limited-use product, which may actually convince them that P2P is actually a more convenient choice. No one else will even notice, as they will continue to download the content.
"The pie shall be cut in half and each man shall receive.....death. I'll eat the pie."
1000 users with 500 different versions of the music.
1000 users with 100 different versions of the music.
The later scenario provides five times as many sources for the same version album, so you will find it will become easier and faster to get the album, due to many more sources of HASH compatible files! Go BMG!
What burns my britches is that this decision is in direct contradiction with well-established consumer rights in some countries.
For instance, in Cananda, I have the right to make verbatim copies of any media I want, as long as I am the owner of the original and do not allow more than one copy to be used at the same time. I'm pretty sure that I could legally burn 10,000 copies of any BMG title and use them to shingle my roof if I so desired (I wouldn't, but I could).
I'm also pretty sure that BMG is not allowed to restrict these rights.
The problem is that even though we have these pretty strong consumer rights in Canada, interest in protecting these rights by the government has eroded to the point where it is just a funny funny joke.
Another problem I have is that I do not buy CDs at the "big" stores. I purchase from a local music dealer who I have a good relationship with. If it was HMV I'd just return the CD and say "it don't work". I don't give a shit if BMG isn't going to reimburse HMV, because I'll stand there and power pout until I get my fscking way. I won't feel so good about doing that to a smaller retailer.
This actually happened recently when I picked up the latest "Queens of the Stone Age" and the CD wouldn't mount in my iBook. I wasn't even ripping or burning it. I was fscking trying to listen to the CD at the coffee shop. No, we can't have that, so it locks up the iBook CDRom player so hard I have to reboot to read any CD. I want to return it, but I'd feel bad going back to this great music store I found.
If I was feeling paranoid, I'd suggest that this tactic also has the effect of hurting smaller retailers more, leaving BMG, HMV &etc. with an even bigger share of the CD retailer market.
Reading this article has reminded me how much people suck. Grumble. Bitch. Complain.
-- clvrmnky
CDDA is a trademarked logo (owned by Philips?). If you have a non-defective CD with CDDA logo and a player with CDDA logo but not compatible with each other, then sue Philips. Trademark laws in USA says that either you protect your trademark or lose it. Either Philips have to publicly announce that CDDA logo doesn't guarantee compatibility or they would lose the trademark (for allowing improper usage).
You're missing the point - they're trying this in Europe, where we have substantially stronger consumer rights than your side of the pond. If I get sold one of these discs, I'll simply return it as "unfit for purpose" under the (UK) sale of goods act for a full refund - and if the shop tries to refuse that, I'll bring a small claims court action against them (which is cheap and easy) and I'll win.
The only way shops could avoid this would be by clearly labelling these CDs as "This 'CD' may not work correctly in computers, in car CD players, and some audio CD players', and you can imagine the effect a label of that kind would have on sales... and even then the courts might still rule that they should accept returns.
... so we can legitimately copy audio cd's?
looks like they're either going to have to remove the protection on cd's shipped to canada or give up the levy.
Hey, but do they still get to complain about piracy? Really, BMG has blown it big time. How can they sit and say "We lost $12 Billion to those thieving computer users last year" when their CDs aren't supposed to work in a computer?
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig