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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."
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.
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!
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)
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
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