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Digital Rights Management on CD's This Christmas?
McDrewbie asks: "Has anyone discovered that the new CD's found under the tree or in their stocking don't play on their brand new CD player? My father got a Brookstone Wafer-thin CD system and several new CD's. Most play fine, however several ones from Sony (with CDextra software on them) and from Columbia, either don't play or play with some crackling and popping, yet play fine on our older CD player. Did these companies decide to quietly unleash DRM on the public this holiday season? Or is this just a problem with the new player (separate from it not being DRM capable)? What are other Slashdot readers experiencing today?"
The Corrupted Audio CDs category at the ODP has several background stories, many from /.
Please also post any new corrupt or DRM CDs you find on that complete list, there.
(While you're at it, boycott the RIAA by buying independent CDs, instead!)
From Sony's website: CD EXTRA combines the worlds of Music and Multimedia. A traditional audio CD when placed in an audio CD player, CD EXTRA offers a free interactive multimedia experience when played in a computer's CD-ROM drive *. CD EXTRA offers the music fan a closer look at their favorite artists, with many CD EXTRAs containing exclusive content. Other CD EXTRAs contain Internet Service Provider Software which allows you to connect to the Internet.
It's not DRM, AFAIK. I've got several Sony CD EXTRA CD's that are nothing more than multisession CD's that some audio CD players simply cannot handle. However, I don't think you can get the same CD offered in both CD EXTRA and non-CD EXTRA formats, so you may be out of luck when trying to play those particular discs in those particular audio CD players; in fact, some older CD-ROM drives can't even handle 'em.
Downloaded the manual from Diamond/Sonic-blue.
I was quite gratified to see that while the Volt supports WMA format, it does not support copy protected WMA files. In fact, the manual walks the user through disabling copy protection in Media Player.
Now if only the Volt supported Ogg Vorbis...
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Also, for a list of UK Cd's, There is the UK campaign for digital rights, with their list of cd's at the Campaign for digital rights
The CDs in question are copy-protected. They are designed to play properly in a standard, dumb CD player, but not a "smart" CD player like the ones you find in your computer. Manufacturers are now starting to put CD ROM drives into CD players, which sounds like your problem.
There are numerous copy protection schemes out there, but it sounds like Sony is using the one that has bad error correction info, which makes the disc sound like crap if the CD player pays attention to it. Dumb ones don't, and tend to play normally (until you get scratches on your CD!).
Of course, anyone willing to spend about 10 minutes researching the issue can find the appropriate software/hardware to rip copy protected discs just fine. Copy protection will only stop the least sophisticated users from ripping the music. Just shows how stupid the record labels are.
They're all listed at Fat Chuck's List of Corrupt CDs.
Corrupt data is added to that extra session so computers will go boink when reading it. This is why that magic marker work-around worked -- it prevented the computer from reading the extra session.
Now a good way to make proper back-ups of your Audio CDs is to remove this extra session. This can be done quite easily if you are using a plextor CD-Rw because the DiscDupe software that comes with it will, when presented with an audio CD, do a bit for bit copy of the first session only. This means that the resulting backup will have the protection removed so you can excercise your home use rights and easily make more copies for the car, ogg encoding, etc.
It doesn't matter a whit what looks wrong to you, it's "CDs". "CD's, CEO's, UFO's" are all 100% wrong. There's no case to be made, no arguments to have, it's just plain old incorrect.
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
Ah. A member of the 'because I say so' school of grammatical thought. I can respect that.
Presumably you said that to your english teacher when he told you to put a capital letter after a full stop.
There are no two ways about it, "CD's" means "of the CD" or "belonging to the CD". "CDs" is the plural of "CD".
SpamNet - a spam blocker that really works
They're all listed
I bet they are not all on that list. The one I got for christmas says "COPY CONTROL" on the cover. So I assume it is YACCD (yet another corrupt CD), but it is not on the list. But then again, I didn't have time to test it yet.
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
Very good. I imagine that you didn't get C's in school, but rather As. The various Ph.D.'s--excuse me, Ph.D.s, I was reading the Chicago Manual of style for a moment there--at your college taught you rather well.
Some things are a matter of style.
What are other Slashdot readers experiencing today? ./ editors, please use a spell checker at least on your titles...
I am experiencing a nauseating feeling when I see that you do not know how to write 'CDs'.
Hey
i dont know what crack they smoke where you work, but...
;)
Track widths do not vary with CDs so you can stuff more on. Hence there is no such "narrow track width" problem with CD. however, this *does* apply to vinyl, and is one of the main culprits of poor vinyl quality over the last 15 years.
I've not heard of any "thin allyplate" problems with CDs, however using thin, low quality material has been a problem for sound quality for vinyl. some believe this was intentional on the labels' part to get people to switch formats.
also, having worked in the music business myself, i'm happy to say that i've never encountered an instance where the producers don't get a test pressing.
methinks your record exec may not be the only cokehead.
fross
If you bought any of the "copy protected" discs that won't play in your computer, Follow this link to the Milberg Weiss Law firm, and join Dickey V. Universal Music Group et. al, a class action suit against the manufacturers of these defective discs that frequently use the Compact Disc digital audio logo improperly.
That comes off the links page of a consumer group boycotting the recording industry, for DRM, price gouging, and harassment of file traders. Dontbuycds.org A previous poster gave the link to that organization, but not to the class action suit, so , pay attantion mods, this post is not redundant!
How ya like dat?
Here's how they put it in their court filing.
That's clear enough.
They ask that if you've found a defective CD, report it to them by clicking here.
Not to flame, but you're all idiots. :) The purpose of language is to communicate effectively; whichever method is easier to understand (using apostrophes to pluralize acronyms/abbreviations, or not, e.g. CDs vs. CD's) should be the one that's used. As language is entirely arbitrary (but, for the sake of simplicity, often systematic), there is no absolute right or wrong -- but if everyone expects "CDs" and you type "CD's", that may make things harder to read, so you should probably use "CDs". And vice-versa, of course.
Come on, guys. Anyone with enough education to argue about the finer points of disparate style manuals should understand this concept.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased