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Copy Protection On CDs Is 'Worthless'
zotler writes "NewScientist.com has an article about how copy protection on audio CDs is worthless. I thought this was funny since I just read this earlier Slashdot article 'BMG copy protecting all CDs'." The article also neatly sums up the technology behind current fair-use-inhibition stratagems.
It amazes me how intelligent and qualified individuals can show time and time again how copy protections are at best a short to mid term solution to unwanted copying. On the otherhand, you have Macrovision snapping up competitors in a race to stay ahead of consumers. It is just a war of attrition which will be around long after we're all gone.
What one man can hide, another can find.
Cheers,
VonKraken
I always understood that *any* copy protection of media such as this is useless, because at some point the content has to be decoded to analog so that the speakers can physically create the sound. At this point you can capture the analog signal and encode it in any digital format you like.
A simple (and ineffective due to quality issues) example is connecting a line-in cable from your CD player's head phones jack to your PC's line-in, and then recording and encoding to ogg.
What's stopping people doing this?
The never ending game of copy protection and "crackers" will end one side gives up. I think we all know the crackers aren't going to. Is there ANY proof that these copy protection schemes have saved any company any money? I can pull up a lot of "research-data" that says they have lost money, but it occurs to me that these protection schemes are quite a waste of money. Does anyone have an argument as to why companies should continue to develop such technologies?
I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but seriously, why don't the record companies do something productive like adding more content to CDs if they're not willing to lower the price? Recently I've seen a few cd's on the shelves (the one that comes to mind is the Nick Carter CD > ) that include a DVD with videos and stuff for the same price as a regular cd. If more labels did that, offering video content at DVD resolution, I would gladly plunk down the $16 for a new cd!
Romeo & Juliet for 1337 hax0rz! http://www.redcoat.net/pics/romjul.swf
This is one very bad article. It states copy protection is worthless. Then, supposedly in an effort to back up that claim, it says that the copy protection schemes the author of the article examined can be circumvented by updating software used in CD players. IANAL, but I think such `updating' is illegal in the USA (think DMCA).
I do think that [some] future computer CD players will be made such that they correctly play those mangled CDs, which would indeed make _this_ form of copy protection useless (if not backed up by laws like the DMCA). However, that does not port to copy protection in general, which is what I initially thought the article was about. Plus the copy protection works against current technology, and that's all that can be expected of it. (Although I recall something about a German magazine detailing how one could disable the copy protection using a felt-tipped pen.)
The author ends his article by saying that selling CDs for cheap would be a solution for the record companies, as it people would find it too much trouble to find their music online and burn it on CD. I can't speak for the rest of the world, but I find finding [ack] music online and downloading it less of an effort than going to the store, searching for the CD, and paying for it. Besides, does the author _really_ believe that reducing prices by an order of magnitude would _solve_ the record industy's problem??? I think it would rather create a currently percieved but nonexistent problem...
Rant off.
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The more laws and order are made prominent,
the more thieves and robbers there will be.
-- Lao Tsu
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Music sales are down for the simple reason that there is very little music these days that inspires folks to run out and get the album. I mean come on, I remember when U2's The Unforgettable Fire and The Joshua Tree came out and everybody I knew HAD to go out and purchase the album because it was a new sound and soooo well put together. Same held true for Peter Gabriel's solo albums, Bob Mould's solo stuff, Rush etc...etc...etc.... These limited examples of 80's music were albums that were crafted with heart and soul and lots of work. Now we get "engineered" bands and artists who rarely if ever write their own material and the artists on the discs are commonly studio musicians. All because the large corporate studios wanted a bigger cut of the pie than they already were getting. Because of this stranglehold, musicians like Jen TryninJen Trynin [jentrynin.com] were forced out of the music biz despite being very talented. Check out United Musicians [unitedmusicians.com] or QDivision [qdivision.com] for other smaller labels with real talent.
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Not only do I think this will be ineffective, I think in many cases it'll be self-defeating.
I've got a toddler in the house, which means that CD cases left in the open get opened and covered in peanut butter fingerprints. C'est la vie, so I went ahead and ripped my library via iTunes to a pair of 80 GB drives, and now I've got a wonderful, searchable, kid-proof music library.
I simply can't imagine going back to having to deal with physical CD media anymore. I'm happy to rip the disc when I get it and put it in the storage room, but that's about it.
So, if I really wanted music that was on a copy-protected format that was effective, I'd HAVE to pirate it to listen to it.
Other folks are in the same boat - everyone who listens to music on systems not compatible with this protection. The presumption behind this copy protection is that users will replace their in-dash CD players with a compatible one. Instead, I think it is MUCH more likely users will return the CD to the store, and download the tracks from a P2P site.
It only takes one user to crack the copy protection to make the content available online. But EVERY case where the copy protection works is a lost sale for the record company.
They need to understand that the effectiveness of a copyright protection scheme is inverse proportion with how difficult the copy protected version is to use compared to a cracked version.
This is one of the reasons dongles have been disappearing in the software industry - users would crack a legit copy just to use the software on a laptop!
My video compression blog
This is an article I have put on my site as well. Because I am a DJ I am very dissapointed in the decision of BMG.
:)
Bertelsmann (BMG Music) will stop to sell uncrippled CD's. This means such cd's will not play at certain older & newer CD players, certain car players and will not play in your computer. This for the price of 20US$ to 22US$ per CD !
As DJ I am very worried because one scratch crashes my CD into oblivion. The copyprotection does not let me play half of my cd's on my old cd players in my house (and I have three of those).
The protection on these cd's is the Cactus Data Shield from Midbar. The protection is currently only being used on EUROPEAN cd's. A lot of the cd's being used in Europe are not available in the US what leaves only one option, buying them here and praying they do not get damaged + work in the CD players you use at that time.
The error is in your player, not in our copyprotected cd's.
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BMG distributes a lot of the cd's that are currently being used by me as DJ and shows no respect for their customers whatsoever by creating CD's that work on only 80% of the home/pro audio equipment. Additionally they say "the error is your player's, and not in our CD's".
I am at a very moral dillemma because every time I buy music I first search the MP3's and then write down the titles I want to find. Some of these titles are only to be found on CD's and some of 'm are only to be found on vinyl.
legally bought music is working against me now!
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I used to go to the recordstore and get about 20-30 records whereof 1 or 2 where usable. Whenever I go to the recordstore now I give 20 titles and get 15 useful numbers out of it. I currently have over 800 CD's and over 22.000 records of vinyl. Currently I am buying more on CD because carrying all the vinyl is breaking my back
Since I cannot use the cd's wherever I want and 1 scratch can kill the CD because of this lousy copy protection I need to buy the CD *and* burn the same MP3's to seperate CD's to be sure I can keep using the music I want to play legally!
The secret agent not working everywhere!
I have bought the CD of James Bond (Universal) and it seems not to work in my PC (where I play the most of my music, my PC speakers are the best in my house!) and they seem not to work in my old cd players of my own DJ equipment! Next to that the shop does not want to take the Bond CD back. With the line of defence BMG has by saying "their cd's are fully redbook compliant and it's your player's fault" they also tell you you can bugger off by bringing it back to the shop where you bought your precious CD.
I have bought several other CD's like "Solid Sounds" which is giving me errors as well. Currently I am trying to recover one of the legally bought CD's by searching the MP3's and burning them in the same order on another CD because I cannot just copy it and the CD is damaged by (over)usage as DJ.
BMG's reply of one of their CD's
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Whenever you send a note to BMG you get the following mail back (unaltered):
"we are sorry you have troubles with our copy protection technology. The copy protection reacts on the special new technology that is build in in burners. Unfortunately htis technics was built in many new CD players, even if they can't copy a cd.
"The copy protection yet does not recognize wheather that burner technics is build in a cd player or in a burner. That's why the cd playern might not play a copy protected CD. Since burner technics are also built in car radios, this may be the reason, why you can't listen to a copyprotected cd in your car.
"As far as we were adviced, our copy protection is according to the Red Book Standart as well as all labelling on the cd.
"A standart home CD player is one that has no burner technics built in. Our Cds play on all Cd players without burner technics.
"There will be no cd manufactured without copyprotection any more."
This seems to limit a lot of options and costs me a lot more to find the numbers, import these from wherever possible and find them on mp3 to have a backup CD of my original CD! Of'course they tell "we are sorry" though they also tell us "the fault is in our bought players and there will be no cd's manufactured without protection anymore"... I wish I should not have read this blasphamy towards a lot of customers!
Moral dillema, I am for the music, not against!
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Because I am a DJ I cannot tolerate (for myself) to be using illegal material! I live by the music and I live FOR the music and not AGAINST. Seems to be BMG has the same reason but not only FOR the music but to protect their precious wallet!
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
Looks like they have pissed off audiophiles as well...'no digital outputs are being put on SACD/DVD-AUDIO Players until they can secure the digital audio stream'...wtf is the point of higher quality sound on a disc if the output will be even worse?
I can't remember where I read it, but years ago I heard this described as the paperback effect. Nobody copies paperback books because it's cheaper and easier to just buy your own. Might have been Negroponte; it sounds like something he'd say.
Unfortunately, I'm having a hard time imagining a price for CDs that's sufficiently cheap that copying them becomes unappealing. On my computer, I can copy a CD in about five minutes (drive to drive), and I can rip one in about three, depending on how much music is on it. I don't generally steal music, but that's because I hardly ever find music that somebody else has that I would like to have but that I don't already have. (Did that make sense?) Even at $3 each, it'd still be possible to copy a CD-- or even download it, if you can find it on the Internet-- faster and less expensively than you could drive to the store and buy it.
I write in my journal
"..but if CD's were only $3-4, I would be buying them impulsively with little regard as to whether I would even listen to it."
Heck, I'd settle for a "send us a list of MP3s you have and we'll send you a fair priced bill for digital use" service.
The RIAA would make a few bucks off me that way.
I only buy used CDs.
Don't forget that they would love to stop that, too. After all, buying a used CD is an unlicensed activity.
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Dum de dum.
Freedom is not the license to do what we like, it is the power to do what we ought.