Slashdot Mirror
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."
If all the machines he tried the CD on did not recognize, load or play it how did he manage to make a copy?
My Warcraft III EULA (and I'm sure others -- that was just a random selection from my game collection) explicitly states that I have the right to make one backup copy.
Well, guess what -- that disc is copy protected. So, in order to excercise my authorized right under the EULA, I have to defeat the copy protection...
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
How is this "news"? The protected CDs are designed not to work in computer CD drives.
AFAIK in Finland you are even allowed to share your own legal music with your friends/family. As you can imagine, because of the p2p networks there have been serious discussion in who really is your friend (eg. the guy living in the States that you have never seen, but you know him by IRC, is he your friend?). It will be interesting to see how things will end up.
I demand the Cone of Silence!
Of course, we should boycott artists and record companies that use copy protection (playback protection?). But we should do it in a way that causes the most inconvenience for the stores and record companies:
The store is obliged to pay the refund when the product doesn't work. A "copy protected" disc is not a CD, even if it's (misleadingly) sold as one.
I heard that the latest, copy protected, Robin Williams album was sold in more than 100.000 copies in my country. No more than 10 discs were returned. Let's make that number higher!
A friend just bought the latest Massive Attack CD. When he got back from the store I asked if I could have a listen to it on my PC at work (NT4 *shudder*)... when I did it did not load my default Winamp, but instead automatically, with no prompting, installed its own player which proceded to crash... leaving me with no way of listening to the CD.
I've also come across this with some other CDs I own (Although not Norah Jones funnily enough).
Every time I buy a CD I rip it and store the CD away. This is so I can listen to the music I PAYED FOR while I'm at work without having to lug all my CDs around.
Also, I make copies of my CDs for use in the car. This is after having a company car broken into twice, where approx 100 CDs were stolen (My wife had the original CDs in those slip-case things in the glovebox)... so now we have a pile of original CD cases with no CDs in them.
I copy CDs so that I can listen to them without having the original that I paid for stolen or broken. Software that tries to stop me doing that... just kinda... PISSES ME OFF!
Right... I'm going home.
I bought the Norah Jones disc (is it a redbook CD or just a disc?) here in Australia, and it worked fine for me.
My machine is a Mac G4 (Aug'99) with a new-ish LG CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive I put in recently.
Not only did the disc play from iTunes (without fault), it ripped to mp3 with no problems at all. The disc even includes a little stand-alone app to play it in Windows, Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X. That worked too (from OS X).
Same with the Ben Harper disc.
It seems as though this copy protection is patchy at best. Not the sort of thing the industry should stake their reputation on.
You can't copy CDs for personal use in Britain as it's not one of activities listed in the fair use laws -- an activity has to be explicitely exempted for it to be free from the restrictions imposed by the copyright laws. See The UK Campaign For Digital Rights for more info, particularly the FAQ
They very much fail to make clear that breach of copyright is only a criminal offence when the breacher makes money out of it (or breaches "to an extent that affects prejudicially the owner of the copyright" - quote from the law). Any other breaches are simply civil offences (in general much less rewarding in Australia when compared to the US). [how large a breach needs to be before affecting the owner prejudicially has never been tested in the courts here to the best of my knowledge]
They also don't make mention of the right to back up software - a right which has been supported by the Australian Competition and Consumer comission when they supported the right to sell Playstation modchips.
Yeah, but remember in Australia we do specialise in making laws and then not enforcing them ;)
:)
Look at the internet censorship one.. or our "dmca".. or traffic, drug, petty theft laws.. hell, you pretty much need to kill someone here to do more than 3 months jail time
If the public has their food and drinks and gladiator games, they are easily controlled.
Analogically speaking, EMI just messed up the gladiator games.
Unrest will ensue.
(Gee, I wish I knew the EXACT quote and which Roman Emperor said it....)
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
It's specifically mentioned in our (AU) copyright law.
It's actually quite interesting if you read it. The law makes exemptions for "fair dealing" and then goes on to specifically mention some things that are included in "fair dealing". However the wording (to me at least) doesn't indicate that the list is an exclusive.
I think you'd have every chance to stand up in court and argue that making a backup copy of a CD you own is "fair dealing".
The reason that hasn't happened is because in the real world the record companies have no interest in stopping you doing that anyway. There is no money to be gained and they don't want to cause a weakening of the copyright law by creating a precedent that expands "fair dealing".
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
I wonder whether this "CD" bore the Compact Disc logo we all know and love. If it did then perhaps he should email Philips and let them know - Philips don't (or at least didn't) take too kindly copy-proctected cd's using the compact disc logo. This is because by baring the logo it claims to be a proper "Red Book" cd, but isn't because it has copy protection.
Does anyone actually know who (if anyone) in Philips to bother about this? As I've just discovered that a supposed "cd" (it bears the logo) that I own is copy protected and I'm in a record label bashing mood.
The RIAA screwed up bigtime. You just towed the party line "Most people actually want to PAY for their music. They steal it out of convenience." The RIAA's response? "No, they steal it because they're cheap bastards." Oh, wait...except for the APPLE MUSIC STORE, which beat their one _month_ expectations in one _week_.
Oh, poo, it appears that the guilty-until-proven-innocent idea the RIAA was operating under was just demonstrated to be wrong, at least among macintosh users. (Granted its a population subset, but the RIAA has 0 data to the contrary....) But the apple music store makes those nice record labels obsolete minus their functions "discovering" (pronounced: "manufacturing" c.f. avril lavigne) artists and "producing" songs. (long live daniel beddingfield....)
Go buy a mac. Apple _is_ fighting for your digital rights.
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
You mentioned the blank tape levy, and it made me wonder... In that case, won't forcing customers to copy the CD mean the record companies make even more money (from the levy) ?
-- Levien de Braal
I ran into the same problem with Archon published by Electronic Arts. The copy protection was incompatible with the Epson Equity I BIOS. Electronic Arts "support" suggested getting another computer to play the game (which wasn't realistic for me at the time). Instead, I found a cracked version of the game where the copy protection was skipped and the game played fine on my existing computer.
More recently, I have found that I need to crack any games that use SafeDisc v1 to play them on my DVD-ROM drive. For whatever reason, it treats using the original CD as if it's a copy but the crack version will use the DVD-ROM drive for playing just fine. Neither Macrovision or the game publishers provide any useful help in getting these older games working with DVD-ROM drives.
The question becomes, if the long term solution is to get a cracked version then why pay for the original version in the first place?
A friend said he bought the Norah Jones CD and went to make a copy at work, then realised halfway through the burning process that it was copy-protected. Not a peep from the burner, Windows or anything. The copy worked just fine, too...
There is no exception in the Copyright Act that allows copyright material to be reproduced for private purposes without permission from the copyright owner.
The very act of playing a CD is a reproduction of the original (copyrighted) sounds made by the musician at the time of the recording. Therefore, under a strict interpretation of this law, a CD cannot legally be played at all without explicit permission from the copyright owner.
Than again, that's exactly what the music industry wants - pay per play.
Doesn't this mean it's illegal to actually play a CD since the CD player has to stream the CD into a buffer while playing?
The thing that seems to be missed most in these discussions is loosing and regaining your purchased material. When I buy my music I buy a LICENSE to listen to that music. Lets face it, the cd cost a couple of bucks, where does the rest of the money go. The pysical media cost next to nothing.
I was unlucky enough to have almost my entire cd collection stolen (yeah no insurance but there u go) and I'll put it straight: There is no way in hell that im going to fork out the hundreds of dollars to get them back again. I have already paid for my license to listen to the material I purchased a long time earlier. I am merely regaining the physical media to execute that license.
But that makes me a criminal? Well, bring it on!
Surprisingly few australians can trace their heritage back to original convicts. I know the closest I got was some Irish relatives who came here in 1830.
;)
Living in a country founded by criminals is a lot more fun that one founded by puritans
Christ. Get the mp3s. If there are no mp3s og oggs, borrow the CD from someone and make mp3s and oggs and publish them. If we can make sure rapid dispertion of high-quality copies of copy-protected works - plus we don't buy the crippled hardware they offer us, then the effect of crippling the discs will be negative. All it takes is a high quality cd/dvd-player with digital output paired with a pc that accepts digital input. Then, you'll have a pretty good quality copy of any crippled cd even if they made it _impossible_ to play back on a computer.
Or, buy the disc, make a copy as described, and return it claiming it didn't work on your computer at work and that you primarily listen to music at work.
Maybe I should try that approach with the new Ed Harcourt CD? I used to convince myself that a simple boycott is enough. However, a bit of piracy of the supposedly "safe" format will make the business case for "copy protection" even worse..
Stop the brainwash
The problem with your argument is, you're ignoring something pretty huge.
.....
Yes, in theory, LP has a high-end rolloff limited only by the equipment used - up to 40kHz is readily acheivable with a decent magnetic pick-up. CD, by contrast, has a high-end rolloff limited by the quantisation process - the Nyquist Limit of 0.5x the sampling rate. Basically, to know what the frequency of a signal is, you need at least one sample somewhere in the crest and another sample somewhere in the trough. This is a fundamental limitation that no technology will get around.
Changing the sampling rate of a digital signal is non-trivial (except for integer multiples). So the entire mastering process is performed at 44100 samples / second, the ISO9660 red book CD sampling rate, and gives a Nyquist limit of 22.05kHz - above the limit of a child's hearing. In practice no filter can be made with a sharp enough "knee" to fit the limit, so the response typically begins to tail off around 18kHz, in line with an adult's hearing.
So your analogue vinyl LP was recorded and mixed digitally at 44100Ss-1, and therefore contains nothing that wouldn't be on the CD of the same work. Except Vinyl Warmth, of course.
Apple Records tried to copy-protect The Beatles' Sergeant Pepper LP by including a frequency too high to hear, that was meant to beat with the ultrasonic bias of a tape recorder and cause the volume to modulate up and down on playback. One resistor and one capacitor would have got around it. It worked fine in the labs, but most home equipment of the day couldn't reproduce the copy protection signal at all and the album was easily ripped off
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
I had to do this with a CD last year because of some old CD players we have at home. I e-mailed Sen. Hatch about it and explained in detail what I had to do and why I had to do it. I then pointed out that the music industry was 'forcing' me to make copies of their CDs in order to be able to use what I had paid for.
I also told him that I copy every single computer CD that I get and only use the copies so that my originals won't get ruined. I would do the same with DVDs if I could. I don't steal software, but I copy everything I have. Luckily, I pointed out, I am knowledgeable enough to get around all of these copy protection schemes; but most people aren't and it is illegal for me to help them.
Everyone should write their congresscritters and legislators about their experiences like this so that they will be more aware of the problem. Be a squeaky wheel.
Those who open their minds too far often let their brains fall out.
The long-time stance of the Slashdot crowd has been that if digital music distribution were made available to bands, they'd see more of the revenue from music sales. I was listening to the radio last night and heard the band "Cold" talking about MP3s. Their stance seemed to be that the money earned from CD sales is owed to the record labels for the work they do promoting the music, pushing the concerts (something that apparently generates a lot of revenue for the band), and making sure their songs get played on the radio.
This seemed completely backwards to me. Cold has basically bought into the line that they need the RIAA for promotion, and they're willing to give up their revenue from CD sales in exchange. It was the first time I'd heard a band actually come out and say this.
I think the digital music battle has a long way to go if artists fail to understand that what digital distribution offers is a way to break free from the record labels. I can't believe that so many artists are willing to give up their CD revenue in exchange for promotion and production costs as long as they still get their take of the concert sales.
I don't have a laptop, unfortunately, or I'd try this... Go to a big music store with your laptop (some time when you've got a lot of free time). Bring along a printout of the Redbook standard (the one that they have to comply with if they want to put that little Phillips 'Compact Disc' logo on the disc).
Buy a Phil Collins CD that you know is copy protected. Bring it over to the service desk. Open the CD in front of them, stick it in your laptop, have it fail to play, and insist that it's broken and you want another one.
Go get another one, open it, and do the same thing.
Repeat until you've opened the shrinkwrap on every copy of the CD, forcing the store to either re-wrap them or (more likely) send them back to the manufacturer as defective (at the manfacturer's cost).
Then go on to Norah Jones. ;)
-T
-T
More and more people (like me?) just DON'T have any CD players at all!
I have a DVD player in my living room, which I doubt will be able to play those disks (heck it can't do CDRs/CDRWs).
I usually play my CD's on my computer and then redirect the audio to my home theater system.
Will I have to become a pirate to listen to my future CDs?
I guess this also raises the question whether or not you own the media or the songs on the media? What do you pay for? The right to listen to the songs (if so, can other people around you listen too?) or the right to listen to *that* media only? (then you can't make MP3s for your walkman/car player?)
It seems like the fact that you can't play that CD on some hardware is some sort of discrimination. You can't fully enjoy your CD. Will record companies refund you a part of the price since you can't play it on all your players? If you own the right to listen to the song, would making a copy be legal in that case?
-- Leeeter than leet
That is exactly the point. It only takes one illicit copy to ruin the whole effort.
:) The track breaks &c. can be got either from the embedded timecode or (for real diehard hackers with points to prove) the LCD drive signals.
.....
It wouldn't be too hard to take a feed of the zeros and ones as picked up by the laser in a standalone CD player (even if there wasn't a digital out) and decode that. The process is published in the Red Book
Or, you could build a card that sat on a computer's bus, and emulated a well-documented sound card well enough to fool Windows - and grabbed the resulting data in onboard RAM, or possibly a dedicated separate HDD. All in all, copy protection is a fallacy. The only workable scheme would be one that could truthfully detect whether or not the listener is doing anything dishonest.
Anyway, even if the record companies do succeed in implementing such a scheme (I for one believe it's impossible) we can always make our own music! Unless/until the record companies find a way to regulate the manufacture and sale of instruments [excuse me chummy, that there guitar looks as if it might be going to be used to play a copyrighted song - you're nicked], anyway
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!