When Copy Protection Fails

StArSkY writes "The Age in Australia has an article today explaining the experiences of a Melbourne guy who purchased the Norah Jones CD tht is 'copy protected.' Unfortunately the only way he could listen to the CD on Apple computers or Intel computers running XP was to copy the CD. This sort of defeats the purpose of the copy protection in the first place. Serious yet amusing at the same time."

Comments

Re:He copied a cd?

[confused philosopher]

In Canada you can copy a CD legally for "personal use". Australia has a similar legal system, based on British common law. Their copyright law is likely similar in this regard too.

I'd be interested in hearing from an Aussie on this though.

Re:He copied a cd?

[chriskenrick]

When does he get out of jail?

That's not as funny as you think in the light of this. Copying CD's without the copyright holder's permission is illegal in Australia.

CD-RW Drives are the Problem

[Anonymous Coward]

The CD(s) concerned are protected by EMI's favourite copy protection system "Copy Control". You can tell by the little C.D.A.T.A logo on the data-side inside rim. We've been getting these CDs regularly at the radio atation I work for, and for computer previewing they're a real pain.

The way the protection works is by adding tracks (containing corrupt CD-R data) after Track 1 (containing the audio data). This is fine for AudioCD players because they only read Track 1. Standard CD-ROM drives also have no problem, because they ignore the data they can't understand (I think it's a form of corrupt extra session data).

CD-R/CD-RW/Combo drives however attempt to find these extra sessions/writeable areas and when they fail, assume the CD is corrupted and eject it.

What a fantastic copy control scheme, huh? Can't read the disk with a burner, but you can certainly copy it by doing a CD-ROM -> CD-RW copy. And then you can play the burnt copy. Ingenious.

I also wrote to EMI and to News Limited (in response to an earlier story they ran) about my troubles, but neither cared (possibly because I hadn't purchased the CDs in question, they were radio use only).

Re:He copied a cd?

[fact0r]

In Australia there is a specific legal right to make a backup copy of software.

Other than that the copyright owner can license their intellectual property however they want (which will ordinarily prevent a copy being made).

That is - the guy who did this has likely committed a civil offence (but not a criminal offence).

Australian Copyright Law

[Talez]

Incorrect.

Our copyright law is rather anal. Contrary to popular belieft you can't copy something for personal use at all. No exceptions.

For you to copy ANY music requires permission from the songwriter, the musicians and the distributor as they each hold a copyright for a seperate part of the article (music, lyrics and the sound recording itself).

That being said, if someone infringes someone's copyright it's a civil action rather than a criminal action (except when its a for-profit). We also have something similar to the DMCA except it only enables civil suits (ie, if I remove DeCSS from a DVD the DVD company come sue me if they feel I'm doing anything nasty).

For more information see the Copyright Council's web page and also their fact sheet on music and copyright.

Re:He copied a cd?

[serps]

The Oz Copyright Council says otherwise. When it comes to fair use, we are teh suck.

choice quotes:

Using a CD burner to make a copy of material will "reproduce the work" for the purposes of copyright, as will making a tape from a CD, or copying a tape or copying vinyl records onto tape or CD.

and:

There is no exception in the Copyright Act that allows copyright material to be reproduced for private purposes without permission from the copyright owner.

There was at one stage an attempt to bring in a "blank tape levy" scheme in Australia, under which private taping of recorded music would have been made legal, with copyright owners receiving compensation through a small additional charge on blank tapes. The way the government at the time attempted to implement the scheme was, however, found to be unconstitutional by the High Court, and Australian governments have not made any further attempts to introduce a scheme which avoids the problems of the earlier attempt. Blank tape levy schemes operate successfully in a number of other countries, particularly in Europe.

(emphasis mine)

FAQ

Is it legal to copy albums onto CD if you own the albums?
Owning an album is not the same as owning copyright in the music, lyrics and sound recordings that are embedded in the album. If you are not the owner of copyright you will need permission to copy music from an album to CD even if you have bought the album you want to copy.

Am I allowed to make a copy or compilation of music on a CD for private use?
There is no special exception which allows copying of CDs or cassettes for private use. In most cases you will need permission from the owners of copyright in the music & lyrics (usually the music publisher) and the owners of copyright in the sound recording (usually the record company).

Can I download music from the Internet and copy it onto CD?
The fact that material is made available on the Internet (for example, as an MP3 file) does not mean that it may be used freely. Material on the Internet may still be protected by copyright. If this is the case, and the copyright owners have not given permission to download and record their work, you will infringe copyright by reproducing the music, lyrics and sound recording onto CD. Sometimes, copyright owners grant express permission to use their work. You should look for such permissions on the site from which you are downloading.

Can I make backup copies of my music CDs?
Making a backup copy of a CD will involve making a reproduction of the music, lyrics and sound recordings on that CD. The right to reproduce the work is one of the exclusive rights of the owners of copyright in those items. You may not legally make a back up copy of a CD when the CD contains material that is protected by copyright unless you have permission from the owner of copyright or a special exception applies to your use.

I had to do the same

[clare-ents]

See also

http://www.ex-parrot.com/~pete/copycontrol.html

How I patched cdparanoia to copy Avril Lavigne in order to play it under linux.

CDEx & CloneCD

[Anonymous Coward]

Last week I sat down to work and wanted to listen to "The Very Best of Fleetwood Mac". It sounded terrible in Windows Media... Grumble, "Crappy Program."

Tried Real Jukebox that came with my Yamaha CD-F1, wouldn't recognize the disc in the drive. "Hmm..."

Look at the back of the CD case and in 4 pt font there is something about "Made with Macromedia." Now I'm mad.

First I used Clone CD to make a virtual CD image on the hard disk. This program is great, for making backup copies of CDs or allowing you to play a game with "Please insert original CD in drive D:". It is $40 well spent.(I'm in no way affiliated with elby.)

Now I had a readable image. Next I used CDEx to remove the copy protection from the image and create a Redbook compliant CD. CDEx is free from SourceForge. Hat's off to an impressive program.

Ahhh... Now I can listen to my new CD while I work. I wasn't copying to CD to copy it (it would have been more cost effective to buy another, as this process took an hour and I get paid more than $15/hr...) I space-shifted the CD so I could listen to it in the device of my choice.

I've never downloaded an MP3 from P2P, and have no intention to do so. It is very frustrating not to be able to sit down and listen to a CD that I just bought. (Actually, it was a gift from my sister.) Also, I typically make one copy to use in my car and keep the original in my home CD changer. Car CD's tend to get damaged easily.

Even simpler...

[MsGeek]

I don't know if any of you are old enough to remember the "look for the Union label" jingle. However, what you need to do as far as CDs go is "look for the CD-DA logo."

From what I understand, Royal Dutch Philips is actively looking for CDs labeled as proper Red Book compliant, non-broken CD-DA CDs but which are copy-limited, and therefore broken. If that Phil Collins and/or Norah Jones CD has the logo, but does not conform to the Red Book standard, Philips needs to be let know so they can SUE. And they have specifically said they WILL sue if cases like that are brought to their attention.

If the CD DOES NOT bear the CD-DA logo, you can't do this. But if it does...you can put a world of hurt on the music industry strictly by bringing this to their attention.