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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."
Return the defective CD under his country's consumer rights law. If enough people do this, then the companies might rethink the whole idea. Many people use DVD players as a CD for their stereo systems. Why should a CD not work in them?
Those music disks are not 'copy protected', they are 'playback crippled'.
The best (or worst, depending of if you are an exec of a user) the record companies can do is to make their products a little bit more inconvenient to make copies of. They do this by making it more difficult (but never ever impossible) or time consuming to make copies. That is all.
To call it 'protection' is like wrapping your wiener in toilet paper and calling it a condom. It's stupid, it doesn't get yhe job done and it's only uncomfy. (I think, haven't tried it.)
...um...like...a sig...
And this it why:
Copy protection only works in systems that have been designed from the ground up to be copy protected.
Any video or audio that is decodeable on a PC can be hijacked from that same PC.
The only way to protect your data is to control the hardware. The only reason DVDs are hard to copy is because you can't get a DVD-r that has the same capacity.
the MPIAA is in a much better situation compared to the RIAA considering cd audio is already good enough, that consumers don't really feel the need to switch to a higher quality version of the CD. Where on the other hand, DVDs are much better than VHS tapes, and have the added benefit of being harder to copy.
He who knows not and knows he knows not is a wise man. He who knows not and knows not he knows not is a fool.
are they (record companies) so scared? No one wants to rip them off. Most people are going to buy their albums, regardless of format. Sure, some people will steal their stuff, and I have grabed some albums from friends that I never bought, but that;s how it works. I buy most of my music, but I have bought bad music and I can't get a refund.
I guess my point is, they should really stop alienating their customers. I have never seen a business model that treats their customers so badly. People are still going to buy your albums! We made copies of cassette tapes, we're going to make copies of CD's and were giong to make copies of MP3's. Get over it, it's how it works. You're still going to make so much money! Get over it, ok?
They're probably spending more money fighting this stupid war on whatever than they are going to save. All they are doing is making people resent them and want to steal from to the point where smart people are going to keep cracking their stuff and become passionate about distributing it all. Another day, another enemy for the RIAA. Because of their actions, I would wadger that they have made many people angry to the point where they don't want to buy their albums, where they want to steal their albums and frankly, it's a war they will not win. You cannot go to war with your consumers. They are your friends!
Think about it, what other business would do this? If you walked into a store and they started accusing you of stealing and would only sell you things in such a way where you were oblivious to most of what it contained and treated you like shit all around, who would come back? I'm getting to the point where I'm going to want to steal all their music, just to spite them.
In short, they need to settle down and just accept the market as it is. They choose a digital format because it is VERY cheap to make, thus increasing profits one billion fold and yet cannot cope with the fact that this cheap medium will also allow people to send a "free" album out to someone from time to time.
And lets face it, I would bet most albums people download etc are albums they probably would not buy in the first place. How many play lists of people have you seen that have tons of songs you know they would never buy anyways?
Anyways, the main point is that the customer just BOUGHT the album, WTF are you doing? They B-O-U-G-H-T it!
AHHHH!!
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
Dead serious... not impressed.
I purchase the CD and try to play it at work on Windows 2000 and it just isn't recognised... WinAmp insisting that no audio CD was in the drive.
So to listen to the album on my PC I just downloaded the bloody thing from alt.binaries.sound.mp3.complete_cd
Not illegal in any way since I now own the original... but bloody stupid and makes me realise that the only way I may now enjoy EMI releases at work will be to download a copy... which really defeats everything their system is trying to stop.
'Tis a mad, mad world.