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?"

Comments

Take them back...

[Anonymous Coward]

Get a refund & then d/l them to burn on CD-R...

If the music companies want to mess around, play them at their own game! :)

Re:Take them back...

[spanky1]

What I want to know is how you would go about getting a refund. Most (if not all?) stores have a exchange-only-if-defective policy with music.

Crappy drive mechanisim?

[aaronsb]

Playing the "protected" cds in a CDROM drive would quickly reveal if they are truly copy protected.

I've found that a lot of the stuff you can buy from the sharper image, brookstone, etc. is kind of cheesy. Maybe it's just a crappy drive mechanisim.

Re:Crappy drive mechanisim?

[ackthpt]

I've found that a lot of the stuff you can buy from the sharper image, brookstone, etc. is kind of cheesy.

I've felt the same way about their stuff the past couple years. It looks pretty cool in the catalogs, but there is a Sharper Image store down the road and much of the stuff, up close, looks like maybe a good idea manufactured cheaply. In some cases, a stupid idea, altogether. Catalogs can sell stuff you wouldn't normally buy, because some little deception (usually a hot babe holding/using it) used to redirect your attention from it's faults.

That said... With all the crap the music industry has been doing lately, I'm less inclined to buy their products. Are they going to dismiss my few hundred $ a year, no longer spent, on music piracy? I don't even download MP3's (I haven't even had a system I could do anything with them until recently.) I'm more likely to visit the local used CD store and pick up old, pre-DRM music (which might become a hot collector's item if the current trend continues.)

Some day on eBay:

3034898724 Beatles Sgt Pepper Non DRM Current bid: $57.61

Re:Crappy drive mechanisim?

[Anonymous Coward]

And you're being overly politically correct to the point of being utterly and knowingly asinine. Are you scared with what you say is going to offend someone? Then don't talk. Shut up. Don't post. Afraid you are going to be offended? Don't read. Be ignorant.

Personally on this gyp gypsie thing, whooppee doo. Gyp gypsie. Fine, maybe he/she/it shouldn't have used it. But then you throw in the big r word. It's rascist, you say. Did it feel like he was putting down gypsies with mal-intent and knowingly? No. Instead of explaining to him that maybe he might not want to use the word gyp since it's might offend someone, you say "damn that is racist." Balooney.

You know what, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon was racist. So was SPIN, since it spells puts NIPS backwards, insulting an eastern culture/country. And then there's the whole mafia being italian thing. Blah blah blah. You know what? Stereotypes are frequently due to perception, and that perception comes out in language. Use of that language does NOT mean you are racist. The intent and purpose, aka context, leads you to conclude someone is racist, not just word usage.

And he used word to put forward the idea of cheap, not to put down gypsies, you idiot. If he had said "damn asinine mobile moving grass eating gyp crap" then maybe you'd have a point.

And don't give me this crap about silent racism. He isn't even commenting on race or relationships but on a product.

You know what? Now that I think about it, hell, I think you're hiding someting. Maybe you're being racist because you didn't think he was a gypsie, and since it seems rather common to accept it as non-racist to insult one cultural or ethnic identity, e.g. nigger amongst blacks, maybe you feel gypsies don't have internet access, hence you are the one really ignorant of the stereotypes you seem to be trying to overcome. Well, hell then, he used the word in innocence, while you just are putting down gypsies!!! Damn you!!!!

(Yes, the latter is an attempt at stupid humor through hysterical exclamations.)

Yes, throw the R word around until it means nothing. Asshole. (Wait, am I using that and being, gasp, male homophobic? Anti-sodomy? My gosh. How awful of me.)

Re:Crappy drive mechanisim?

[racermd]

More specifically, the CD/Book you purchase at the used CD/Book store has already done it's damage when it came out of it's original shrinkwrap. It's now unable to generate revenue for the media companies, but it's also unable to generate revenue for the artist.

I do have a small gripe, though. By buying the music that the major media companies "produce", you are still supporting them. Just because you bought yours second-hand doesn't mean that the media companies haven't recieved their money. It's the person that purchased it the first time that gave them the money ala First Sale. But your demand in the second-hand market may have given someone the courage to buy a CD they normally wouldn't normally have purchased, safe in the knowledge that they could easily sell it to the used CD store where the value of that CD has risen due to higher demand and recouping more of his/her original costs in purchasing the CD new.

Yes, it's a bit of a stretch, but it does happen and is very much a factor in the valuation of new CDs of similar content.

I do applaud your effort to minimize the impact your dollar (or other currency) has in supporting these blood-sucking lawyer-wannabes, however. If/when I purchase new music for my collection, I try to buy CDs directly from independent artists when they're performing locally. After that, I head to the used CD store. I *never* buy new CDs, except royalty-free blanks for my PC.

I wonder...

[Anonvmous Coward]

"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?"

I wonder if the RIAA realizes that they're pushing me towards MP3's when they pull shit like this. I mean seriously, they'll have no trouble blaming P2P music trading for their downfall if the MP3 is higher quality!

Re:I wonder...

[NanoGator]

"I wonder if the RIAA realizes that they're pushing me towards MP3's when they pull shit like this."

I think Slashdot should start an event called "Music Return Day". Here's how it works: Get as many people to buy a known copy-restricted CD as possible. Then, locate a national store that'll accept returns on 'defective CDs' (Best Buy or Walmart maybe?) then, on a particular date, have everybody return that CD.

Heh imagine slashdotting Equifax.

Re:I wonder...

[Aggrazel]

[i]"I think Slashdot should start an event called "Music Return Day". Here's how it works: Get as many people to buy a known copy-restricted CD as possible. Then, locate a national store that'll accept returns on 'defective CDs' (Best Buy or Walmart maybe?) then, on a particular date, have everybody return that CD.[/i]

Actually, my wife works at Target. She told me that there are several CDs with "known" issues that they'll take back and exchange for another CD with no questions asked, even though the normal exchange policy is for the same title only if opened. They are returned frequently for not working in people's players.

I don't have a list of the titles, but from what I gather its becoming more and more common. To the point that it will probably annoy the corporate buyers enough that this stuff will stop before it gets too common, IMO.

Re:Personally...

[Kinniken]

"Or is this just a problem with the new player (separate from it not being DRM capable)? " .. I'd recommend getting a broadband connection and an iPod. That'll solve all your problems with defective media(intentionally or otherwise).

lol, my father got one (the iPod). Sure beat DRM CDs ;-)

BTW, it had a "Don't steal music" sticker to fight piracy. Take your pick between the different protection systems, I've made my choide :P

-1 redundant

[JeanBaptiste]

The only people they are keeping honest with this bull$hit are honest people. The only people they are annoying with this $hit are honest AOL users. Anybody with a /. account will say 'big deal, if I can hear it I can rip it, a hack will be out within hours, no problem etc.' I am not worried about this $hit for my sake, I am worried about this for the non-technical people, whom are 99% of the people I meet.

DRM won't stop the 'criminals', it will merely annoy those who are honest.

What's all this talk about "playing it their way"?

[foolip]

Half of these comments are saying that it's no problem, since you can just download the music as mp3s (cough, vorbis!!, cough). While I would personally never (ever) buy a cd with copy protection, I think this mentality is sort of stupid. I actually believe that you should support the artists which you like. Yes, perhaps artists don't get very much when you buy a cd, but listen. You're not punishing the record labels buy not buying their stuff! Ok, perhaps they get less money, but it's not like it makes a difference (consumer power to hell). What would be nice to do is:
1. Buy the disc, rip it (as ogg vorbis, not fscking mp3). I've yet to encounter a copy protected disc which can't be copied...
2. Turn the disc back to the store, claiming it's useless. (it is, sort of)
3. Send a check to the artists, and say that you like them, but hate their record label, and explain what you did.
4. Send a letter to the record label, say that you hate them, and tell them what you did about it.

I'll admit I've never actually done this myself (because none of the music I like has been copy protected so far). But, hey, doesn't it sound like something?

Re:which cd's?

[drDugan]

"the country of freedom and liberty"

not anymore: [[ from an AC slashdot post today
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=49046&cid=4962 648 ]]

"""

here is a snapshot on how these fucks think:

"If you don't violate someone's human rights some of the time, you probably aren't doing your job," said one official who has supervised the capture and transfer of accused terrorists. "I don't think we want to be promoting a view of zero tolerance on this. That was the whole problem for a long time with the CIA."

found this in a quick search in TODAY's news. if you are not paranoid about our government, you're not listening.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A379 43-2002Dec25.html

"""

DRM = Customer screwing..

[Anonvmous Coward]

This is slightly - OT, but at least it's a real life story as to how DRM is harmful to legitimate customers.

I moved a couple of months ago. My GTA 3 disk was damaged in the move through my own carelessness. I contacted the producer of the game to find out how much a simple media exchange would cost. Want to know how much it'll cost? $18 + S&H. That's just for the disk. They can't throw a copy on the burner for me and do it for $5?

I should have backed it up. I'm not sure if I could have or not. I didn't try with this particular game, but I've had to go to rather extreme measures to back up other games I have. You'd think I'd have the right to protect my $50 investment, but obviously I don't.

I find this infurating. It's either a copyright issue or it isn't. Either I'm holding an $18 lump of plastic, or I'm holding an $.05 key to content I have licensed. They can't have it both ways.

I can't believe that these industries are legally allowed to get away with customer gouging.

Re:DRM = Customer screwing..

[Josuah]

How about going back to the store and asking for a replacement? It depends on where you got it, but when I purchased some GameCube games from Electronics Boutique, they said if a game cracks or breaks or whatever I can get a replacement from them for free. (Hardware is different, you can buy a 1 or 2 year warranty, which I did.)

Another option is to get a pirated/cracked copy. I think this is one of those "gray" areas where you might feel it's morally okay to do this.

Why my gifts are fine

[autechre]

I bought "It Isn't The Fall" by The Lesser Birds of Paradise (Loose Thread Recordings) for my mother, and "High Society" by Enon (Touch and Go) for my brother.

I know I sound like a broken record (ha ha ha), but these smaller labels actually want people to listen to their music. They have enough trouble promoting the stuff; they're certainly not going to put up any obstacles, or do things that would tick off the few customers/loyal radio stations they have.

"But I don't know how to find that stuff / indie music sucks!"

No, it doesn't suck. "High Society" certainly beats the hell out of Queens of the Stone Age. The new Apples In Stereo is great too.

As for finding the music, the College Music Journal (cmj.com) is a great starting point. I'd point you to WMBC's own music database, which is (barely) searchable, but it's still a little shaky; I'm hoping to straighten out the code this winter and release it publically (it also does the tracking the RIAA requires for Internet broadcasting).

[On a nice note, I also got "Big Swing Face" by Bruce Hornsby (RCA) for my father, and it wasn't crippled either.]

If you import music watch out....

[Anonymous Coward]

It looks like other companies are worried and are staring to push out DRMed music as well. I noticed that while it use to be rare, now more cds from Japan are starting to use "copy-protection."

The article submiter is right, I think a lot of these companies are getting really scared after having nothing happen in their favor for quite some time, and are thinking that they must do something about it now and fast. I would not be surprised if most companies feel that this their last year if they don't do something about it.

I don't believe this

[CaptainSuperBoy]

Yeah, I'm going to have to call shenanigans on this. I have never heard of pressed CD's with a lower track width causing a higher rate of errors. And that's all it would be if this happened, a higher error rate causing the CD player to interpolate more samples. These errors would show up on a good ripping program such as EAC, reading in secure mode. It doesn't seem likely that the pressing process could produce a lower quality CD given a bunch of bytes.. it's not like the pressing machine secretly switches bits on and off. So maybe a longer CD has a higher chance of unreadable frames, although I've never heard of this. But to say that the pressing process creates a CD where the bytes of data on the CD do not equal the bytes on the master, is ridiculous.

Lucius, if it's true you're in recording you're in a unique position to prove/disprove this theory. Just take the master of a track, at 44/16/stereo. Then get a pristine, pressed CD containing that track. Rip it with a good program and a good CD drive, then do a comparison on the files. Except for the very beginning and end of the tracks, they should be identical. Audiophiles will tell you ridiculous things, it doesn't surprise me that someone out there thinks a CD is 'more than just bytes.' I mean, you'll meet people who say that the quality of your DIGITAL audio cable matters - as if a cheap 3 ft piece of fiber will somehow lose bytes, but an expensive 3 ft piece of fiber will get all those bytes there intact. These are the same jokers who buy the CDs that are pressed with gold.

DRM Means Nothing.

[E-Rock-23]

What the suits don't realize is that if a person can hear something, they can rip it. The only way they can turely stop piracy is to totally silence music, period. And that just won't happen. If someone wants to circumvent copy protection, they will. It doesn't take that much effort. DRM is a lost cause when it comes to music.

There's nothing to stop someone from hearing a song on the radio and copying it onto a tape or in digital form short of shutting down radio. There's nothing they can do about someone plugging their TV into their computer and copying stuff from DMX or a similar service. Short of sending a "copyright babysitter" into each and every home to monitor every aspect of listening, they can't stop it.

They can install all sorts of DRM equipment into new computers and such, but that still doesn't put a stopgap into older equipment. Technology has given us control of how we get our media intake. And that scares the piss out of the suits. And if they try to curb technology, we'll only go a step backward to fix that problem.

To the RIAA/MPAA: Give it up. You're fighting a hopeless battle. Try lowering the price of a CD and maybe we'll stop pirating. We all know how much it takes to make a CD, there's no pulling the wool over our eyes anymore. Do yourselves a favor and treat your customers the way you should.

sue

[zogger]

--sue. Sue them, and here's how to do it. Take the LOCAL store manager to court, charge "fraud". Simple fraud is a crime. It's *illegal* to sell something that ain't that something. They offer to sell you a "cd" when it's not-it LOOKS like a cd but it isn't. It's fraud. Buncoism, it's against the law, just so widely done now it appears "lawful". You stick a crippled disk in front of 12 people on a jury and ask them what it is they'll say it's a cd, and cd's should play in cd players PERIOD. It's that simple a concept. Don't try changing the big guys all by yourself it ain't happening, don't try suing sony or walmart, take whomever took YOUR money and sold you something that wasn't as advertised to local small claims court or other appropriate venue for your situation and locality. Use this technique as a force multiplier. Don't even let them skate with a refund or a return, KEEP the crippled disk, that's your evidence of fraud, get some people who are "just following orders" to realise there ARE consequences for their actions. This is a basic problem our society has, "just following orders", it's never anyone's fault, nothing "bad" ever has any named human being attached to it just some vague "corporation" that's a bear to deal with, which is nuts, this goes for politics to economics, people just TAKE IT all the time when you don't have to. Don't let them plead ignorance or pass the buck or just rip off the next guy and the next guy and the next guy. If "anyone you" think this is an important enough issue, prove it! Once you get some judgements against these people, it will force THEM to bump it up, because THEY will in turn sue their bosses for being ordered to perpetuate and expand this scam congame. Work exactly at the level the crime occurred, you and your wallet and someone taking your money at a your local store.

If you went into the store to buy shampoo and dumped it on your head and it was shoe polish, would you take it or sue the ^&^*(tards? If they kept selling shoe polish labeled as shampoo? Over and over and over again? If you went into the store and bought a can of corn and opened it up and it had rat parts in it instead of corn, would you sue, or just take YOUR time and go back and get a 'real' can of corn, knowing that half the cans on the shelf labeled corn that looked like cans of corn were in reality canned rat?

The deal is these stores, and their corporate/cartel/monopolist bosses, want cowed sheepish brainwashed consumers, they want you to only grumble, maybe a few people exchange the defective products, they don't want to make the hard decisions that follow ethics, they want to skate the cheapest way they can. Suing some humongous corporation is HARD, suing a place local and a named individual for an exact specific crime is a lot easier and cheaper, and if thousands of people did it this crap would stop tomorrow.

Sam with spammers, in the states where spam is now illegal-WHY aren't there thousands of lawsuits? I'll tell ya why, it's because 99% of people are sheep, easily cowed, don't want to "rock the boat", scared, think their single efforts won't matter, just content to bitch about things but nothing else-whatever, all excuses really for not taking personal indignation and getting shafted right back to the shafter and getting your day in court. If your cause is righteous, you at least have a chance, never even trying means you'll keep getting shafted, which just further emboldens the badguys to keep ripping people off and pulling more and more scams.

If it was me with this particular issue, I'd tell that store manager (get their full name and job title) ONE TIME to stop selling crippled "counterfeit cd look-a-likes" that aren't "cds", that unless they are removed or labeled and displayed and stocked completely separately from REAL cd's PROMINENTLY six ways to sunday with BIG SIGNS that they AREN'T cd's and WON'T play in most normal cd players that you intend to sue HIM in local court personally,that you will file an official police report, then follow through if they keep ripping people off. Getting ripped off the first time is his fault, twice is "your" fault because "anyone you" puts up with it, generally and non specifically speaking.

Um

[CaptainSuperBoy]

Well, your example sucks. If you were running ethernet in 3 foot lengths it really wouldn't matter what you used for a cable. Barb wire would work fine actually, if you had 2 pairs.

So back to what I'm saying, audiophiles love patting themselves on the back about this shit, and you've bought it hook line and sinker. It's a piece of plastic, a damn tube that blinks bits. Although I'm not convinced, I'll give you the jitter - who knows, maybe a golden ears listener can detect it. I can't, and you probably can't either. Fine, let's talk about coax then. You'll hear audiophiles whinging about true 75 ohm cables, how RCA connectors are bad - we're talking about a two wire digital connector. Have these people heard that a $5 USB cable has more bandwidth than their precious cables? And yes, they'll actually tell you that coax has jitter too. Am I supposed to believe that the sub-nanosecond time it takes for that signal to reach my decoder, actually degrades the audio? Come on. Most audiophile stuff is pure snake oil, bought into by gullible saps who want to pretend they can 'hear the difference.'