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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?
Wow, I sure do want to buy some Sony discs now.
I can't wait for the music industry to implode. An abusive power (whether in goverment (old school) or coporate (new school)) must be subverted. Funny thing. I just went to the library yesterday from which I had ordered eight discs I've been wanting. Spent an hour or so last night ripping copies of them to give to myself as a holiday present.
Am I stealing? Yes, yes I am.
Do I feel badly about it? No, no I don't.
How come? Because the media companies have so far overstepped the boundaries of decency, that I have lost the ability to feel their pain.
Isn't there one executive at one of these companies who has the slightest idea or vision of how this is going to work out?
Finally, I agree with the poster who said simply that this will be hacked. It will indeed be hacked and it's likely that it will be hacked before the discs are widely available. Then the music will be on p2p and the system will continue to dissolve and fade away.
Yeah, I'm as old as my UID would suggest.
If we had not become so used to being walked all over little by little by the record companies, this would be strongly and outrageously objected to by the affected communities. Imagine if we had not been introduced to the so far lame and piecemeal anti-copying/playing tech that exists at the moment, and Sony comes up with an announcement like this - there would be wide real-world public outrage!
To ostracise computing communities in this way is nothing short of disgusting - and it should be corporate responsibility to bring all under the same umbrella. Will this be a good thing or a bad thing for Sony? I do't know, but what I do know is that from the moment this technology is used Sony will have lost one CD-purchasing consumer (me) simply becasue of my choice of computing platform (Macintosh). Does this affect me? Well, slightly yes it does, but I am sure that if I want a song bad enough there will be a way for me to get it, but on the whole I'm hoping it affects Sony more than anyone else.
Mac users (and possible Linux users?) are a very media-based group of people, there are so many Mac-based graphic designers, film editors, 3d artists, animators etc. These creative people love music! The two go hand in hand! So what are these people going to do in the CD-store? Are they going to change their computing platform so they can listen to music on their machines, or simply not buy the (Sony) CD?
I simply don't get how this could be a *benefit* to Sony.
We should speak out about restrictive technologies such as these - is there a consolidated action group for such things? If so, where can I join?
-Nex
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You're wrong. Picture this:
1) Sony develops copy protection that largely works (yes, yes, I know.)
2) Sony develop hardware and software (for their other hardware)that supports it.
3) Artists start getting less money because recording labels give them less royalties due to bad sales.
4) ???*
5) Profit. Massively.
Can you guess the blank? Horizontal markets are the way to go. Microsoft supports everything off of Windows sales. Conglomo's time has come. And its name is Sony. or microsoft. or nokia. or maybe samsung at a push.
*A Record label offers them more, because it a) sells more due to hassle factor, and b) can partially support it from hardware revenues.
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Too bad that's not what the article says in any way, shape, or form.
Too bad that you don't understand CD player technology in any way, shape, or form.
Many high-end audio CD players use CD-ROM drive mechanisms which will be confused by the new formats such that they won't read the audio tracks. The same is true of many in-dash card CD players, which are often based on laptop CD-ROM mechanisms. Consider the JVC that I have in my car. It plays audio CDs, MP3 CD-ROMs, and will read CD-R and R/W discs. It will, almost certainly, not be able to play the new copy protected discs that Sony is releasing.
Of course the programmers developing the technology know it will be hacked. The problem is, if they tell management that building a hackproof copy protection scheme is impossible, they might not have a job. "Find someone who doesn't think it's impossible!"
Don't you slashdotters understand yet? The music indsutry is trying to obsolete CDs as quickly as possible so that a more "protectable" format can be produced.
Karma: Incomprehensible (Mostly affected by posting at +5, reading at -1, and metamoderating everything unfair.)
Dream on. If every Unix and Mac user in the world never bought another Sony CD, I doubt Sony would notice. What would they lose? A few percentage points of the market? The Windows market is the only market they care about.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
What we need are utterly stupid CD data drives. The board on the drive will do nothing more than spin the cd, move the heads, and read and write data at the lowest possible level. Absolutely all functions of the drive should be implemented in software. If cdparanoia can control the every tiny thing that goes on in the drive then this sort of scheme is done. It will only take a few days for a new driver to be written every time another one of these schemes comes out. I wouldn't be surprised if EE students don't start hacking existing drives to behave in just this way. Saaaay, that's even better. Hack in an "utterly stupid" mode for direct ripper control.
If this sounds reasonable to you its probably because you've lowered your expectations too much.
I own a mac which has the perfect music listening/organizing software. Even if (and they won't!!) Sony ports their app to OSX I would still have to switch between iTunes and Sony's app to listen to my music. This doesn't even cover my other legitimate uses that involve iTunes and a CD burner...
On the other hand I haven't bought anything made or published by Sony in over two years, so this won't affect me, yet.
Their remaining innovation seems mostly directed at dumping crippled products on their customers. They push proprietary "standards" like SDMI and invent new ways to lock up the tripe they press on CDs. And, just like Microsoft, if there's an industry standard, it's a good bet Sony is pushing a competing technology.
Sony still lets the engineers out once in a while, to create products like the Aibo. It has little commercial significance, but it keeps their image polished. In their profit-making lines, they're coasting on their reputation. They still command premium prices, but the value behind the logo is gone. Substance and performance have been replaced with frills and flash.
Like most companies, some Sony products are very good, some are junk, most are so-so. Unfortunately, even the decent stuff may have proprietary bells and whistles that increase costs or limit compatibility. The Sony brand used to top shoppers' buying lists. Now, unless you know a product well, the Sony brand is best avoided.
IMHO, YMMV, etc.
There have been some reports of DRM speakers that decode the sound inside the speaker. But I can't find them right now.
But seriously, I understand what you mean. No matter how hard they try, we can just put a microphone up to the speaker and record it with a slight degradadion in quality and then digitize it and it's good forever.
"I wonder just how long the record labels are going to survive before they figure out that they, not just their technology, are obsolete."
Ultimately, I believe that that is the real point here. They will last as long as joe consumer doesn't realise that old music distribution methods are obsolete.
If you use a product such a vmware, it's a simple matter to start up windows in a virtual machine with a virtual sound card i.e. vsound.
Recent versions of Windows Media running on Windows ME and Windows XP will not play copy-restricted audio over unsigned drivers. The driver for VMware audio is not signed.
"So apply to get the driver signed." Microsoft won't sign a driver unless it turns off all cleartext digital outputs when playing copy-restricted audio, which means that the virtualizer would have to open a Secure Audio Path on the host operating system.
"Then just use an older Windows OS." And risk newer versions of WiMP not installing.
"Then just use an older WiMP." And lose support for new proprietary codecs such as Sony's, which is (knowing Sony) probably based on MiniDisc ATRAC3.
"Then try something else." And risk doing several years of hard time in prison the next time you step into the UK or the USA, both of which have banned circumvention of access restrictions.
Will I retire or break 10K?