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Australian Commission Rejects Crippled-CD Complaints
rooinlondon writes "The Age newspaper reports that a recent complaint to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission regarding copy-protected audio CDs has been rejected. Has anyone else complained to local authorities regarding this issue ? Has anyone had any more luck with their action ?"
I sent a few emails to the state government department in charge of consumer protection. Their answer was simple - "record labels must be able to protect their products, and if a few consumers have issues with that, it's unfortunate but there is nothing to be done about it.'
I asked what a person was supposed to do after they'd spent money on a CD and it wouldn't play, and they said 'that's unfortunate, maybe you should test the CD before paying for it'
I then pointed out I wouldn't be carrying my entertainment system into a shop to buy the CD, and was told that if I chose not to test the CD first then it was my problem.
As for the copy protected CDs not being standard, yet still displaying a standard marker, I was told 'well they play on some things so they can't be non standard'
So what's next? What can be done?
A business must sell goods or services to survive. After they sue every file sharer on the internet, they'll give in and start selling non-crippled media. I don't really understand why anyone would really want to listen to a music disc with one or two decent songs and ten to fifteen filler songs.
Skip the laws covering what is on the CD, how about laws covering basic product usability. If you bought a TV in AU that used NTSC (Used in USA) rather than the PAL standard that is used in AU, could you return it as defective?
True, it works, but not in AU!
NarratorDan
"If you're not confused by quantum mechanics, you really don't understand it." - Niels Bohr
Didn't Phillips say that the various protection extensions were different from "real" CDs and thus were not allowed to use the CD logo? If so, check to see if that icon is on your disk and/or case. If it is there then the manufacturer is guilty of false advertising. If not, well, I guess your just outta luck unless you feel like being a long term pain in someone's backside.
- doug
The fact that CD-ROM/CD-R manufacturers later ignored SCMS completely by allowing any audio-CD to be copied regardless of CP/SCMS bit values doesn't mean that the recording industry should level their wrath on us poor consumers by bombarding us with unplayable CD's.
It's the drive manufacturers who chose to circumvent the SCMS policy in the first place. In a way, it can even be said that they are assisting in circumventing a copy protection scheme and as such are violating the DMCA
Anyway, these so-called 'copy-protected' CD's do not conform to the standard so should not be sold pretending that they do.
The Hacker's Guide To The Kernel: Don't panic()!
... if you were not warned in advence.
And warned does not mean small text in a lose paper inside the box in which the TV is packaged. Warned should be a big label in red letters with "WARNING" in capital letters in the top of the box and the legal responsibitlity of the seller explaining this.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
A little off topic, but I feel the need to warn consumers of the potential pitfalls of buying these crippled CDs. I just bought 2 CDs today using EMIs 'Copy Protection CD' technology. Both CDs wouldnt play properly on my portable cd player (iRiver IMP550). Each track would start skipping after a few seconds of play. I suspect it has something to do the electronic shock protection present on the player. (Unfortunately I cannot turn it the ESP feature off) The CDs would play on the PC (windows media player etc), but there would be clicks every now and then. The clicks are not present and the CD plays properly on windows if I install their software player. Any solutions to this problem?
..and I'll say it again: I've not run across a CD yet that Exact Audio Copy has not been able to copy. It copies the track to .WAV, then uses your copy of the LAME encoder to convert it to .MP3.
What makes the deal even better: It's free.
I rip my CDs to CDR and pack away the originals using it all the time.
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
IANAL. However, I do know (from personal experience) that in both the U.K. and Oz the law relating to the commercial sale of an item are essentially encompassed by the following. The item must be all of these:
1. Fit for the purpose for which it was sold.
2. Of merchantable quality.
3. As described.
How these are interpreted by the various parties involved is obviously variable but I have always found that stating these tenets as part of the "Consumer Protection Act" with sufficient confidence and presence (DON'T get angry) has yet to fail in achieving a refund / replacement / whatever.
Finally, don't be fobbed off to a third party - your contract of sale under law is with the party from whom you purchased the said item, unless specifically stated and agreed to as an agent of another party, and even that's not too rigid and intractible.
Go permanent? In your dreams and my worst nightmares.
So the choice is to either buy cd's that may be crippled and have absolutely no recourse, or to download music. Pay and have something that MAY work, or get it for free and easily copy it to my mp3 player or play it on an Amiga. This is freekin' me out. I'm way more used to getting free limited use demo's and then paying to get the version that has all the features. :/
it does not matter. If my ears can hear it, i can record it and pirate it... not saying that i DO That sort of stuff... In the meantime check out these ill rhymes i wrote: Im only there to diss you, my words are a set of missiles this cats got beef, more like some skeletal gristle you havnt seen, the wrath of a gentleman damage king you got more issuses than original Mad magazine and i got more magazines than Mad, blastin queens and fags stabbin knees and backs leavin ya spine barely in-tact When i spit the shit, i know its rediculous cat couldnt crush bones, if he used all his strenght to grip a dick i got proof look at his writ material this kids inferior rip his two piece off and expose his bitch exterior
Throw away all your DRM-unaware HiFi equipment and replace it with shiny, new non-copyright-infringing gear.
Or download the songs in mp3 format from some anonymous ftp, and listen to it on your PC.
It's your call.
Someone wrote about Phillips and Sony and the
CD-DA standard for Red Book Audio. Yes it was
accepted as a standard. A commenter said that
a copy prohibit flag and a copy limit flag was
inserted into the code on the CD and in the
standard but not implemented at the time. This
was long before the recording industry's great
friend Al Gore started us down their 'information
superhighway'.
The revelation, if true, that DRM has always
been at the forefront of the agenda of these
companies and the industry as a whole means that
the laws facilitating it were foisted on us
through buying our politicians. That those industries can further insult us by tongue in
cheek spouting of their 'law' every time we
play a tape or a DVD is only furthers proof
of their hypocrisy, greed, and arrogance.
Now comes our judiciary in various countries
to abandon the populations they serve, much like
Adolf Hitler's court systems in Germany in the
1930's. What our politicians and the courts have
done is legislate and adjudicate our rights away
in a treasonous manner in the various countries
that subscribe to knowledge manipulation.
Not only Australia is at risk for media industry
tyranny, but also Canada. Do you also know that
Canadians from the Atlantic Provinces have to pay
money to the red Chinese in order to display
memorabilia of 'Anne of Green Gables'....they
own the 'copyright' now! How about Walt Disney
owning the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's red
uniform. Notice when the mounties are on TV
now on CBC it is always the blue uniform that
they wear. That way they do not violate the
copyright or whatever and have to pay Disney
for wearing their uniform....a national symbol.
Since the media likes to practice the big lie
and are masters of propaganda, when comes the
burning of the books...you know, the books that
instruct programming languages. These could be
used to write programs. So many subroutines have
been written that no program can truly be called
original. Logic being what it is, all machine
routines that multiply two mumbers will have the
same 'look and feel' (lotus vs IBM, 1987). So
you see that learning how to program could be
seen to be attempting 'intellectual piracy' and
to use the British definition in the 1999 Prevention of Terrorism Act...hacking! ; and by
the British POT, hacking if defined as terrorism
and punishable by life imprisonment or death.
This is all treason against a free people.
It is time those people around the world woke
up and changed their governments at the next
election. But don't hold your breath. Most
folks are eating fairly well, and well fed sheep
do not bleat very loud.
But Hitler also said: "When treason prospers,
the sun is beginning to set on that state!".
It's not like DVDs aren't already self destructable. This new technology (that I still haven't seen) has just sped up the process slightly. If the price is right, it's a better bargain than a rental.
One thing is sure: nobody wins so long as you keep giving them money.
EMI's copy control FAQ here
For what it's worth, I bought an EMI single and it's now on my computer in MP3 format. The copy protection doesn't seem to be very effective.
I bought one of those CDs. Did a lot of research and found that they only play in some machines. I found it only played in my DVD/CD player intermittently. Sometimes ok, sometimes not. And it would play in none of my PCs unless I installed some bit of EMI software.
Interestingly, requiring software to be installed before it can be played on your PC CD player, probably makes this product into "software" not "sound recording". According to the Australian Copyright law, you are allowed to make a personal backup of "software" and to make error corrections on same.
And this particular CD had nearly 3000 errors per track and didn't play properly on the PC.
I took it back to Sanity with the model of my DVD player written down and their receipt, and exchanged the CD for something without the Copy control. I did not say to Sanity, "I protest Copy Control". I did say I didn't like it because it is unreliable. They said they hadn't had many (any?) problems or complaints. Hard to believe. The Sanity staffer then wrote down my name and phone number as a precaution against me or staff members using the record shop as a record library ie repeatedy buying and returning CDs. But they didn't check my name etc, I figured that would be an easy system to bypass also. All you'd need is a good imagination or a phone book.
Oddly enough some people have opted to make extract/copies of the cds so they get clean cda tracks so they can play their music on their favourite players. Ie the copy control has forced people who wouldn't otherwise try to copy a cd, to copy theirs so it will play in their car.
Is it a copy or a "new work" if you make more than 300K error corrections on a "cd"?
-- its nice to be able to post anon occasionally