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Sony Adds New Copyright Method to CDs in 2003
Natoi writes "Sony is leaving Mac and **nix users out in the cold with their new copyright method called Label Gate CD copyright system. You'd have to be running Windows and use a Sony developed proprietary software to listen to CD's published by Sony starting next year." This seems a little extreme to me, since sitting at the computer just to listen to music is stupid. What about car stereos and high-fidelity CD players?
No, dude, they are _not_ CDs.
Dear Sony,
We're just going to hack it.
Sincerely,
The Mac and *nix Community
This just means the tracks will be ripped via the headphone jack.
This is the sort of thing that promotes piracy - would you rather now buy the CD and not be able to listen to it, or download a ripped copy in mp3 and burn your own CD and be able to listen to it anywhere?
Why is it that the music industry just does the stupidest damn things...
"Sony ... will add a new function to music CDs early next year "
Uh... Shouldn't that read "Sony will be removing functions from music CDs?"
Is the recordcompanies last breath before the whole industry dies. They are scared shitless and they dont know what they are going to do. But I dont feel hurt about it. Since record companies can continue their work. But they have to accept that the golden days are over, where they dictate the prices and have multi-thusand percent profitmargins. Record companies, its time to face the real world. With real competition etc.
It's time to get the power of the music back to the artists and the listeners, from profitering bastards!
Revolution!
- To understand recursion, we must first understand recursion -
Duh, the article states it contains both convential audio tracks and this secured data for playback on a pc. So what's the problem?
I can see it now. And then when the sales of Sony's CD's starts to drop off more they'll use it as another excuse to go after P2P and file sharing. It's beginning to seem like a lose/lose situation with these people.
I use my computer to create .ogg files of the CD's I have here. When I start my computer, XMMS starts playing, and I like having constant music.
Another thing I do, is create backups from my CD's (after a tip from another Slashdot reader). That way, I don't have to be afraid of scratches, since I always have my original CD.
These are examples of fair use - if a company limits our rights to fair use, can we sue them then? IANAL, bue maybe one of you is (poor you, of course...)
Teenagers these days don't have as much sex as they want each other to think they do.
By removing the ability to play CD's on normal CD players they are just giving people incentive to abandon buying them altogether. Stoooopid.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
Being someone that doesn't use Windows all the time, surviving on my daily dose/fix of UNIX, this I guess is relevant to me. All I can think of is "well its time to stop buying Sony CDs" ...
... are Sony really the Microsoft of the music publishing world?
;-)
With their stupid "lock the CD/DVD drive" ideas and now this
I'm sure it won't be long before the software mentioned in the article moves from being software to being firmware of the CD/DVD drive/player.
So if we all stop buying Sony's CDs, it'll result in one of two possibilities:
(a) Sony enters more financial problems
(b) Sony drops the idea
Here's favouring the latter
I can't believe they would be this clueless...don't they realize that if Linux could play DVD's there wouldn't be as much of an argument (or need) for decss? If they just took our fair use rights into account (play it under linux, play it on the computer, on my mp3 player, on my car stereo and so on) nobody would ever need to break their damn encryption.
If you argue that it makes it too easy to copy their work, well, then what they have is an unworkable business model. It's like sheet music. For the really big orchestras who are playing the works of composers who are under copyright protection, they have to buy expensive scores. High-visibility = doing it the right way. This would be equivalent to using music in movies and games and such. On the other hand, if you're going for private lessons, and you need a copy of the blue bells of scotland, the prices of the real thing are going to be cheap enough to make it not worth the trouble of copying it from someone else. This is equivalent to consumers and cd's.
Believe me, I'm all for protection of intellectual property. However, when protection just isn't possible without harassing researchers, threatening consumers, and forcing us to get our songs in a crippled format, it's time for our government to say: "Good luck with that whole music industry thing, you're on your own."
But there is another kind of evil that we must fear most... and that is the indifference of good men.
SME plans to charge about A5200 (US$1.64) per song for the second time onwards ... so in other words, they are charging for you to be able to store your song on your computer. You have to pay $20 per CD. Nobody is going to use this service, I hope they realize. With that effort, they might as well just take a CD player and put it next to their computer. Voila, free music!
Oh, and this will be hacked within a week of its' release. The data can probably be intercepted somewhere in the soundcard on the way to the speaker...
I can't remember whose CD's are playable on my equipment and which manufacturers use which copy protection, so I'm not going to buy anything. It just isn't worth the trouble.
-aiabx
Just this guy, you know?
This is pretty indicative of what the entertainment industry really wants. They have now realised how people like to use their computers as a means of getting entertainment and decided to cash in, but it's got to be on THEIR terms... they don't want you to have a general purpose computer. They see your computer as just another content-delivery device. They want to control it - you use your computer for what Sony/Microsoft/AOL etc say you can, no more, no less. Want to run Linux, back your CDs up? You're a thief! Or possibly a communist! Or both!
:(
The sad thing is, too many people will just shrug and go "OK then", and sit there and be fed third-rate entertainment, have ads forced down their throats, and not notice or care while all their rights are taken away one by one
" You guys did it to yourselves, by downloading all...You got what you wanted, sorry."
Wait, yeah.. I remember that big petition that passed around the US on fidonet, then via fedex that we all signed stating we'd rather give up years of perfectly good research and development of audio standards that have reached a point in which they allow citizens to develop and trade their most important cultural language, music. I think I remember signing something waiving my rights to food as well. sheesh.
pm
** "It's not my job to stand between the people talking to me, and the ones listening to me." -- Pego the Jerk
I wonder if the new Sony CD's will be playable in Sony's PS or PS2? Being a CD and DVD player in addition to being a game station has always been a draw of the PS2 (at least, to budget-conscious consumers, like college students). If not, they just removed one of the PS2's selling points. Seems kind of cannibalistic.
It's not a copyright system. Copyright is a matter of law, not technology.
This is a copy protection system.
This days i trust the printed (legal) cd's better than the copies. They are usually better material quality and they play everywhere.
But with all this crap they are pushing into the printed cd's, it is going to be a good policy to just avoid them and trust the copies.
If you come across a copy of a music cd, you know that the person who copied it made the effort to remove the restrictions placed on it.
Therefore in the future, there will be less trouble with copies than with original discs!
Also, an album downloaded from the internet will have more value that a original one because it will play everywhere once you burn it!
I think this is gonna backfire on them.
When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
A new copy PROTECTION method. The only way there can be a new COPYRIGHT method is via legislation.
This space available.
I'm not surprised at all that it only supports windows. Sony is a Japanese company, and it looks like they are rolling out this protection scheme on a lot of their Japanese cd's. Despite recent reports of Japanese ministries looking into open-source, the vast majority of personal computer owners in Japan have windows. And at least in the Japanese market, I don't think that Sony will see as much backlash, as the piracy rates are much lower, and most people I know in Japan who make copies of a cd copy it to MD so that they can play it in their car or give it to a friend.
Let's make sure that Sony feels the pain in other markets.
Do they trust stupid laws like the DMCA to enforce their silly DRM systems?
Yes.
Remember the DeCCS and Dmitry Sklyarov debacles? Although "someone will hack it," good luck disseminating it and staying out of jail.
The industry does not view these laws as symbolic, and has the lobbying power to see them enforced. There will always be an underground, but it will be economically insignificant, far smaller anyway than the currently easy piracy any high schooler can pull off.
What about ripping from the audio stream, is that illegal too?
It would still be legal under "fair use." But a copyright violation, such as selling the music, would still be a copyright violation, as it damn well should be IMHO (not all artists are rich). Enforcement is not impossible -- for example, Napster; P2P is just farther underground -- but very difficult, like it is now. I doubt it will be long before P2P software is attacked, if it has not already (I don't know).
*
I don't think stealing will work. Stealing is not civil disobedience, anyway, it's just taking what you want because you want it. Piracy is no noble protest. Surely there are better ways, more open ways of protest.
The best that occurs to me, aside from lobbying Congress (ha!), is to boycott the companies, declaring we want fair use back. It's the oldest rule of capitalism: Vote with your feet. If imposing copy protection schemes results in making less money, the industry realize its error a heck of a lot faster than any amount of criticism or lawbreaking. (They'd rather be rich if unpopular.)
Guys, corporations do a perfectly good job of screwing us without all your weird-assed exaggerations.
They're putting restrictions on their product, we find it inconvenient. 1) don't go flying off the handle and claiming we can't play their CD's on anything but our PC's, and 2) don't act like some fundamental God-given right has been raped away from you.
It's a product inconvenience, making the product less desirable. The free market always solves these problems in the end. If loss of sales due to these features offsets the sales they're allegedly losing due to P2P, they'll drop it. That's all.
Calm down. You don't have some basic humanitarian right to listen to popular music.
Phallic Symbols in LOTR
Actually you're not stealing, if its for your own use. Its called fair use. The act of ripping music from CDs is not illegal. Sharing is. So rip away.
prior attempts by th music industry have left people who primarily listen on PC's and high-end cd players out in the cold, because they have relied on garbage parity data to stop copying (which stops playing also)
now this allows the cd to be played in normal dumb cd "players" as well as on a PC while still accomplishing their goal of making it tougher than a normal cd to rip to mp3 and trade.
so, except for the fact that most people actually like trading music for free, it sounds like a pretty good plan.
as an addendum, I will add that I wrote a couple really nasty letters about prior anti-pirating technology because of the 6 players I own, only 1 was capable of playing those protected disks because all others are either in my PC's or are $500+ head units in cars!
A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
While most of the slashdot community has been pointing their guns at Microsoft, two very large companies, which control content (music, news, magazines, movies, etc.) AND playback (viewing, access, whatever you want to call it) have been getting ever more powerful - Sony is one of them and the other is AOL-TW. I think the two of them are a bigger threat to a digital future than MS (and I realize that MS had MSNBC and the MSN network, but it's vastly smaller than either of the other two content/playback companies). Personally, I think the FTC should force a regulation - you can own the playback device, or the content, but not both. This way, no one company can "hobble" the playback device or restrict the content to the detriment of the consumers - at least not easily.
...as more and more people grow tired of problems, lack of choice in players and incompatibilities. It'll go something like this:
1. Shell out $$$ for protected CD, run into trouble.
2. Store refuses to take it back, claims it's not broken
3. Find mp3 (or ogg or whatever, let's not get int that) on internet, burn a 100% plain vanilla RedBook-compliant Audio CD.
4. Enjoy music.
5. Lesson learned: Next time, skip steps 1 and 2.
6. Record companies complain about increased piracy.
7. Even more protected CDs come out
8. Goto 1 (Basic anyone?)
And, unlike CSS, this isn't really a copy protection. This is just a crude hack to use different ways of interpretating a CD to make life difficult. Sometimes I wish CD-manufacturers would just give us the raw output of the CD, complete with lead-ins, lead-outs, only providing the error data but doing no error calculation of its own. With all the data, and a software ripper that could fix whatever tricks they pull, maybe they would realize just how pointless this is.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Fuck them, make your own music.
You may even score with a real woman, not some digital recreation.
photosMy Photostream
I read the article. Like all the DRM schemes I've seen to date, it still doesn't deal with my biggest question: What happens when my computer gets old?
A computer, over its useful life, can accumulate thousands of dollars worth of digital rights. Bought at $1 or even $20 apiece they don't seem like much, but it all adds up. When my computer gets old (or eats its hard drive), and I buy a new one, how do I transfer those rights which are specifically designed to be non-transferable? Am I violating the DMCA by even trying?
Do DRM keys survive a backup/restore? How about a disk-to-disk sector copy?
Think of it in today's terms: You go out tomorrow and buy a new computer. Before you can boot it for the first time, you must call the RIAA. They send a truck around that picks up your entire CD collection and takes it away to be crushed.
And if the stuff you like isn't popular enough, and the record companies haven't decided to keep it in print, forget about ever getting your hands on it again. Oh well, you'll always have your memories.
DRM is new now, but we should be discussing what happens when it matures. Until someone invents a key ring technology for digital rights, I'm buying nothing with copy protection.
I know the original saying is "Extraordinary Claims Requires Extraordinary Evidendence", but in your case, you're leaving the rest of us scratching our heads. You're assuming we know too much, so I've listed some questions to help you elaborate.
:) Ah well. It's a big company in a kid's cartoon. In fact, it's the only company in the kid's cartoon and it makes and sells everything. Name from conglomeration.
1. Are you partly saying because Sony manufactures hardware and the copy protection, it will be picked up and implemented?
No, the other way round. I'm saying that hardware sells anyway, and Sony, due to their presence in both the music media and music device industries can use influence in one to help out the other.
2. Which SPECIFIC horizontal markets are you talking about, and WHY are they the way to go?
Music. From distribution, through music hardware to normal pc hardware to copy protection software.
3. If Microsoft supports everything off of Windows sales, are you saying Sony will support everything off thier CD sales???
No, the other way round. CD sales are the endangered market at the moment, with sales dropping off. Artists are going to start losing money, and they don't want that at all. So if Sony can offer then better royalties by signing the to record on Sony copy-protected media, they will be happy. And to listen to the music we will have to buy the Sony hardware, making Sony a profic on both sides of the fence, and helping to keep the CD sales afloat.
4. What does your Conglomo link mean? It looks like a fan website. HOW does this tie into Sony?
Never saw Rocko's Modern Life then?
5. A Record label offers them more? What's them?
artists. more money.
6. What's the blank before "Profit. Massively."?
I included spoilers in the original post... that bit with the '*' on it..?
Basically, I am trying to point out how Sony is aligning itself to play the music market, both in terms of media and electronics, by the prodution of this closed copy protection mechanism, and how throwaway comments like 'the recording industry is scared shitless' are shortsighted and naive. Large companies have clever people in them that devote all day every day to planning a successful future for their company, and people shouldn't throw out their 5-minute's-worth-of-thought opinion like it's God's Own Truth.
Does that help?
If you can't see this, click here to enable sigs.
Hey, you're talking about millions of users. Millions of users mean millions of dollars. Ask Apple with their well-received iPod (now available for the PC) whether Mac users (1) have money and (2) listen to music.
... dollars. The US kind that are worth more than other dollars (at the moment anyhow). Really.
I wish Sony all the worst and am glad my CD collection was "completed" when I got pissed off at the ridiculous prices several years ago.
But hey guys, clean up your act and I'll rush out and spends
I am a Mac user and the great thing about the free market is that if Sony produces a CD that I can't listen to on my latop when traveling, then I am not going to buy it. In fact the the last 2 albums I bought were George Carlin's Nalpam and Silly Putty and the Episode II soundtrack. Why? Becuase the price doesn't warrent me paying for most CD's. Although Apple's iPod has the best DRM system yet, a little sticker that says, "Don't steal Music".
Remember when Tapes were about USD 10 and CD's were USD 12? It made sense, CD's were new, and in theory should last forever, plus their quality and portablity was far better. But then CD's were 13.99, then 14.99, then 15.99, then 16.99, and now an average CD not on sale is about what, 18 Dollars? Cd's have gone up in price faster than inflation, at least that was what one of my fellow students discovered and reported in his honors Econ Project last year. So what do I do to price gauging corperations? Don't buy their products. Now if a system ever comes online that promotes a fair price to download music, I would use it. Say USD 1 or even 1.50 a song. Hell I know people that pay 1.5 pounds for a ringtone on their cell phone. So that's not asking much. The biggest mistake the RIAA made was going after Napster instead of working with them to produce a viable solution for music on demand.
I maybe buy 1 CD a year. Although some times I buy CD's from organizations that use the money, like the Madison Scouts Drum Corps because I am wierd and like that type of music and from personal Drum Corps expirance I know they provide a good community service. So I get some music I like AND help the community, score +2.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
More restrictions on cd's. ...etc
Less people buy.
Record companies cry thier profits are down.
More restrictions on cd's.
DRM is new now, but we should be discussing what happens when it matures.
Depends on what you mean by matures; attitudes towards DRM don't seem particularly "mature" to me. Short of turning every western country into a draconian state with no freedom to do anything `unapproved' with a computer (including all those embedded ones) - a lot of hard work if you ask me - the music and film industries will *never* be able to change things back to how they were before.
'Mature' DRM would exploit new media, not attempt to suffocate it (current DRM technology just reflects these attitudes). But I think there are too many vested interests in the old way of doing things...
Until someone invents a key ring technology for digital rights, I'm buying nothing with copy protection.
I'm not doing that either. I'll just wait until someone cracks the protection and get a copy of that instead. More useful for me, but no money in that for Mr.Sony (*sob*! Just picture the faces of his ickle kiddies when there's no food on the table- remember, MP3 KILLS CHILDREN. JUST SAY NO.)
Sony can go to hell until they stop trying to charge me 10 times to listen to 1 CD where *they* want me to listen to it.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
No, no you're not. However, you areviolating copyright law. Big, big difference.
It's a product inconvenience, making the product less desirable. The free market always solves these problems in the end.
What free market?
You seem to be under the illusion that music is an undifferentiated market where all the products are interchangeable like wheat or crude oil. This is known in economics as perfect competition. Sadly, it doesn't happen in most real-world products people buy. The market for music is an imperfect competition, and it's hardly an open market right now.
Instead there is an oligopoly controlling music currently. All it takes is for the major members of the RIAA to band up together to introduce a scheme like this (which they are all in the process of doing) and 99% of the music you hear on the radio will only be accessible via this format.
Then what? Where does your average consumer get their Christina Aguilera, their Faith Hill, their Enimem, etc.? What competing publisher publishes the particular artists and even whole genres that they like? No one does. There isn't a wide variety of sources from which to get an artist's song that you like. Oh, if you're "indy," you can go underground to the local artist from your city, but 90%+ of the population likes what they hear on the radio, and what they hear on the radio is what the RIAA pays independent promoters to have them play.
So what if people buy less CDs because the TCO is higher? As long as they pay the same total amount of money, the RIAA is doing well. Heck, it even saves them money because they don't have to promote nearly as many artists if fewer CDs will make them more money through pay-for-play arrangements. The masses will continue to "vote with their dollars" to pay for these schemes when they're the only source of music that they like. The "free market" will decide this one for us because that market isn't truly free.
You're right on one point. It's not a basic humanitarian right to listen to popular music. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't be upset about being forced to pay more for goods while their utility decreases. It may not be "some fundamental God-given right," but it's certainly not fair and just treatment. It's someone making like a tinge less enjoyable for millions of people to greatly profit a few. It's like spam that way. The level of inconvenience that one person suffers is inconsequential, but the level of inconvenience that the total mass of affected people suffers is inexcusable -- especially when it's all done just to pump money out of people with providing them any benefit.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I don't think you really read the article. The article later details which 'audio devices' will be able to play the music ...
"Copied music on a hard disk drive can be transferred to audio devices that comply with SME's OpenMG digital rights management (DRM) technology for a number of times set by the music company."
So this means that only 'audio devices' that use SME's OpenMG DRM tech will be able to play the music, which was downloaded to them from a PC.
Sounds like a PITA to me.
I hope the technocrazed Japanese find this too much of a PITA as well and that sales of the CD like things are bad so that Sony decides not to continue using this technology.
"This seems a little extreme to me, since sitting at the computer just to listen to music is stupid. What about car stereos and high-fidelity CD players?"
XP Media Center? Hello? It's not like they put the words MEDIA CENTER in the name of the operating system or anything. Car stereos and high-fidelity cd players will eventually all run microsoft--if microsoft has their way. And it looks good to sony too, if microsoft can squeeze pc users with their iron grip of copyright protection and digital rights management.
Reinvent the wheel only at either a lower cost, greater effectiveness, or your own personal enrichment and satisfaction.
No, you are not stealing, or breaking copyright law. Borrowing CDs from the library and making copies for personal use is perfectly legal.
Libraries have been given the right to lend CDs and videos in court cases. Copyright law only covers the distribution of copyrighted material. There is an explicit statement in copyright law that "This law does not apply to individuals using home consumer audio recording equipment to make copies for private use".
Share. Until it becomes uncomfortable. Or at least a little.
Sony is not leaving *NIX and Mac users out in the cold, because they know that their copy-protection scheme WILL be broken by *NIX/Mac geeks who are already used to taking the road less traveled.
What this scheme will do is make it harder for computer-illiterate young girls (Teenage guys can figure out anything on a computer, so I stick this on the girls.) to rip the latest top 40 hits and share them on P2P networks with all of the other file swappers. This will leave the music being shared on the systems of clueful users, making obvious supernodes that the record companies will be able to hack once they are given vigilante privileges by the US government.
"Given the fidelity limitations of MP3, an FM stereo or stereo TV broadcast is more than the equal of most CD rips."
As far as the 128kb MP3s that are typically shared around on p2p networks go, I agree with you. However, cd audio ripped on a Plextor with cdparanoia and then encoded with a LAME preset like --r3mix is another kettle of fish altogether. I doubt most people could tell difference between those and the original. That is as long as things aren't the way so-called Golden Ears like them. They don't things that contribute to objectivity like double blinded testing. They have to absolutely see the hand built tube amp to KNOW they have quality.
NewtonsLaw is right, most mp3s that are traded around sound like FM radio taped onto a cassette. I did it when I teenager. What are they getting excited about? Oh yeah, that's right. They tried to kill cassettes too.
The recording industry are the ones that are stealing music.
Think about it, they did NOT make ANY music, the artists did, and they're getting the money that should go to the artists directly.
Blkdeath has almost exactly right, the technology isn't obsolete, but the industry is. The process of recording sounds made by the artists onto a physical media to be sold is no longer necessary for the consumers to get the music.
If the recording insdustry was smart they would create a subscription or otherwise fee based P2P network.
Question everything
The more these studios create these STUPID copy protections schemes, the less people are going to buy their garbage..
They only going to end up "shooting themselves in the foot".
After reviewing your letter, something dawned on me. You can keep your media, your $25.95, and your humble $95 billion company. I want no part of it. I will immediately cease purchasing any products from Sony or any of its affiliates or subsidiaries. You see, I figure that there is at least one enlightened competitor in the marketplace that can offer a reasonably-priced product with a reasonably fair licensing policy, and it is this competitor that will gain my loyalty as a consumer. While it's obvious that you see customers as a right, and not a valued resource, hopefully my actions will serve as a reminder that this reasoning is seriously flawed. Your competitor may offer a more limited selection, but I value my freedom far more than I value your product.
Sincerely,
John Q. Consumer
I'm suprised this mistake was not caught. The article has nothing to do with a new copyright system, which is a legal fiction. The article is about a new copy protection/restriction system.
This appears to actually be part of the copyright cartel's plan. First they twist the meaning of Pirate to include bootlegging, now copy protection becomes copyright, giving it a whole new outlook.
The attempt to "slip it under the door."
For a comparison, look at say, a VideoDisc (them big old record-like things). There's no way you'd ever confuse it with a VHS casette, and as such, not really expect it to work similarly. This, it looks like a CD, is marketed similarly to a CD, fills a similar niche to a CD, yet strangely isn't a CD.
If you want to do a DRM format, make it very different. How about the size and shape of a British two-pound coin? This benefits you in several ways:
1. Completely new and potentially propriatery player base, no need to worry about some old equipment designed in a way that can look through your attempts to maintain compatibility and DRM in one disc. I can easily see them giving away free DRM-disc players, perhaps with the purchase of some number of discs, to buy market share.
2. No problems with people returning "broken" discs because they thought they were CDs that work properly.
Consumers also win because they can make intelligent purchasing decisions, and not have to guess if a disc will work or not; it also allows them to see the true effect for them of DRM (because market penetration will probably never be 1000%, you'll probably see both CD and DRM-D releases together, and be able to compare sound quality and price.
It's just like a fascist dictatorship, without the punctual rail service!
Alot of my friend aren't geek. Not all of them owns a computer. Less can use it well. But they listen to alot of music. How can be able to buy & use a such cd? The only way is not a new copy protection scheme (hey, it's only a software so it can be broken), but lowering the cd prices. Only with lower prices people will be happy to buy an original cd and not a copied one. And only with lower prices music piracy could not get enough money and will fail...
I was there.