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Crippled CD Deemed Defective In France
Noryungi writes "The daily newspaper Liberation reports that at least one person got her money back, by suing EMI, no less. She was able to do that with the help of the largest consumer organization in France, which has its own list of articles on this subject.
So, French people who cannot read their copy-protected CDs can get their money back, but copy protection is not made illegal by the court decision... It's certainly a step in the right direction, though..."
For the French-impaired, an anonymous reader adds "The Register has a good article on EMI being forced to refund the cost of a copy-protected CD, because it was found to have a 'hidden defect' -- it wouldn't work on a car's CD player ... Is the tide changing?"
There is an Act that if passed will require clear lables on all copy protected CDs. From EFF:
t em =2664
Senator Ron Wyden recently introduced the Digital Consumer Right-to-Know Act (DCRKA), a bill that would require entertainment companies to label products with copy-protections that limit consumer use. Support the DCRKA if you think the content industry should be ordered to clearly label media that restricts your rights!
http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&i
In Soviet Russia, the television watches YOU!
I actually e-mailed EMI about the copy protection on the new Jane's addiction CD. Here is the reply I have recieved:
"We are in receipt of your email and regret you have experienced a problem with one of our products.
The technology we are using is designed to ensure that the disc plays on multiple devices. There have been playability problems with a very small number of players, but the vast majority of these problems have been fixable by our technology suppliers as they are constantly updating and improving the technology that is included in the copy controlled discs.
As long as consumers alert us to the problem we will endeavor to adapt the copy control technology.
Please forward your address as we search for a replacement from another territory. Thank you.
Regards,
Emi Music Canada
Quality Control Dept
1 (866) 553-0220"
"Achete par une consommatrice, Francoise Marc, dans un hypermarche Auchan, le CD d'Alain Souchon etait illisible sur l'autoradio de sa Clio."
A PC with an X through it doesn't really help to show that the CD doesn't play in your car. If that isn't enough, most DVD players don't play these, either. This policy is starting to really piss consumers off. As far as I know, most retailers around here (Germany, that is) just take all the CDs back, if you give them "it doesn't play on my DVD/car stereo/discman" as the reason.
If you believe
the study referenced in this article, then the whole issue of copy protecting audio CDs is pretty much dead in the water anyway.
Obligatory links to TRUTH about McDonald's case whenever a person speaks of it based on IGNORANCE:
m cdonalds.htm
http://www.centerjd.org/free/mythbusters-free/MB_
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
The copy protected CD you buy today may run on your current CD player. But what about your next CD player? How much percent of your CD collection will not run on the new player?
heise.de has setup a register for copy protected CDs and on which drives/players they are playable. The results so far show, that the copy protection is not PC drive specific. Some CD players do play some copy protected CDs, some players don't. The same goes for CD-ROM drives. Depends on the copy protection system also. Thus you can't tell which copy protection system will stop your next CD player from playing the CD.
Thus the record companies are FORCING music fans to make a digital copy (which is a crime in Germany now if you have to circumvent a copy protection mechansim).
In the worst case copy-protection scenario, I would just take the audio out cable and feed it into the audio in feed on my soundcard, and record it then. Yes, the Digital->Analog->Digital conversion would degrade the sound quality, but not so much that I'd mind. Then I can play my CD in my car and everyone's rights are respected (the IP rights of the music corp, and my rights as a consumer). Somehow, though, I imagine I'd be seen as a pirate by the music execs anyway.
It's crippled too.
Latest outrage: I can't format drives as FAT32 under XP. Just found this out yesterday.
The reason why:
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
Interestingly, the Brazilian CD which was defective (Tribalistas, featuring Marisa Monte, Arnaldo Antunes, and Carlinhos Brown) was not copy-protected in the US (I was worried after reading this article, but I bought a copy and had no problems reading it on my Mac).
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
A while ago, I heard that philips wasn't going to allow the crippled CDs to be called Compact Discs because it doesn't follow the Compact Disc Spec. Is that true or does anymore have more information about that?
According to this article, FAT32 can be up to 8 TB. However, due to limitations in Windows 2000 and XP's FAT driver, it can only create a FAT32 filesystem as large as 32 GB.
Depends on the copy protection the record company used. Some copy protection schemes do in fact mess up the CD data in a way that computer CD drives can't read, and such CDs typically don't have the official CD logo on them. They did at one time, but Philips got upset about it and now they don't.
One recent purchase of mine (Doll Revolution by The Bangles) says it's copy protected, and doesn't have the CD logo on it. As nearly as I can tell, they make it all but impossible to play it on a Windoze box unless you use their (brain-damaged) CD player application. My Linux box played it without comment, and cdda2wav ripped tracks without comment.
Another recent purchase (Unicas by Azucar Moreno) also says it cannot be played on a PC or Mac, but doesn't seem to incorporate any copy protection of any kind. Go figure.
...laura
There is actually a group of standards that apply to CDs. The trick is figuring out what exactly is happening on any particular disc. For example, in the official Compact Disc Logo Guide published by Philips, there are different logos to show discs compliant to the following standards:
There is actually a specification for each one of these logos. Also, there is no guarantee that a CD-ROM drive will be able to play a CD-DA disc (per the spec, though the spec says that it would be easy, and it is).
There is an effort underway to understand all of this stuff and to figure out how these things work together, and with various types of hardware. The project has an Open Source (BSD-style license) package called CD Verity that performs some testing of discs. The software is part of Interhack's Digital Media Project and might be of interest.
Thanks for your e-mail and we are sorry you have experienced playability issues with the new [CD removed] and your PC.
It would help us a lot if we could get the model details of your PC so that we can make sure that the compatibility issue will be resolved as we continue to evolve this technology.
If you could attempt the following and send the resulting file to us, it would help a lot. Go to START -->Programs-->Accessories-->System Tools-->System Information. Please save this information as a text or nfo file and send that back to us.
Please note that you will require at least "Power Users" access or higher to install the application on Microsoft Windows NT operating systems and above.
With these details we can forward your query onto our European technology partner.
Please be aware that, if you prefer, you can return the copy controlled CD to the place of purchase to obtain a refund. (my emphasis)
sincerely
[name removed]
IT & New Media Director
> Hi
> I recently bought [CD removed], with your copy control stuff on it. When I try and play it on my computer, it uses 100% CPU, and also sounds terrible. There is a lot of high pitched screeching, and it cracks and sounds scratchy. All normal CDs sound fine. >
> What should I do? I play most music on my computer, and your label says it works fine, but it doesn't at all.
> Regards, [name removed]
dominionrd.blogspot.com - Restaurants on
Excuse me? Like the US didn't help Iraq build its military and WMD capabilities, especially during its war against Iran.
You don't have to dig deep to find that from 1982 to 1990 the United States supplied Iraq with not only conventional arms and cash but also chemical and biological materials, including the precursors for anthrax and botulism, so point your own dirty finger elsewhere.
Verdun
nuf said, shut up