Sony Music Testing New Copy Protection

RandyOo writes "According to this Reuters article, Sony Music is about to start testing a new type of 'copy protection' in Germany. It looks like they'll be releasing multi-sessioned discs with normal audio in the first session, and compressed, DRM'ed music files in the second session, as well added 'extras', including access to exclusive online content. The article explains that the disc's audio can still be copied, and there's a hilarious quote at the end by a BMG spokesman: "All copy-protections can be hacked, but if (we) give people what they are asking for in terms of value, they won't go out and steal it. It's called trusting the consumer." "

Comments

Hilarious?

[woozlewuzzle]

Why is that hilarious? Isn't that what you proponents of file-sharing and digital music have been clamoring for? to be trusted not to steal?

Re:Hilarious?

[AllenChristopher]

Because they aren't trusting us. They're putting DRMed files with untrusting restrictions on and hoping we'll use their software to use those files, accepting the restrictions, out of ignorance.

If they trusted us, they'd just print up CDs as usual and assume we wouldn't steal them.

I guess they're "trusting" that the ordinary consumer can't program his VCR, let alone evade a simple scheme, but that isn't the sense of trust that one wants.

Re:Hilarious?

[Mr_Silver]

If they trusted us, they'd just print up CDs as usual and assume we wouldn't steal them.

Trust has to be earned.

Judging by the vast amount of MP3's available on Kazaa, I see no reason why they shouldn't trust people who have shown time and time again that they'll happily make copyrighted material available to everyone for free.

Re:Hilarious?

[Eccles]

Trust has to be earned.

So why didn't I earn that trust when I went out and bought the CD, rather than grabbing it off Kazaa?

I'm the guy actually buying music, and 99% of the time, I'm not the guy who then goes and puts it on Kazaa. And if I was, a little thing like DRM isn't going to stop me.

You might as well trust and give good service to people who have demonstrated that they are legitimate customers.

Re: Hilarious?

[Wah]

If CD prices dropped past the $10 range (to only 1000% of the break even point) there is far less economic reason to download an album. Hmm, let's see, spend 1 hour working, make $8. Spend 1 hour finding all the tracks of the same quality, testing,them, organizing them, and burning them. If a CD costs less than that $8, there isn't too much question about how I should spend my time (and money).

If CD's drop below that special price point for their main customers, they will be as 'free' as the stuff one can download.

Remember folks, the whole equation is over T.

how can they ever stop it?

[freedommatters]

how can they ever stop people copying music? even if , at the worst case, it has to be take out as an analogue signal and re-digitised, who really cares? the people making millions (billions?) selling fake cds are going to invest in the equipment to do it. it's these people - largely mafia types - the industry should be worried about (something like 1 in 3 cds is fake) rather than a student copying a cd .

If they really trusted the consumer...

[WIAKywbfatw]

If they really trusted the consumer, wouldn't they forget about the copy prevention and the DRM stuff?

I just don't get it. Large scale-piracy outfits have access to large commercial presses, hence their being able to put out CDs that look just like the real thing. They sure as hell don't use burners, so all this copy protection is useless in combatting large-scale organised piracy. So, the only people that these new copy prevention and DRM techniques inconvenience are the consumers.

Tell me again how Sony is showing trust in the consumer?

still not worth it to me

[Vandil X]

I have become more accustomed to spending $2 or $3 on the 2-3 tracks I like via iTunes, and getting a superior-quality AAC sound file that I can convert to a high quality MP3.

Spending $14-18 on a CD-ROM (no longer an Audio CD) that has CD Audio, low-quality WMA files, links to low-info "exclusive" websites, and tiny music video files, just isn't worth it.

Re:Hilarious quote?

[geschild]

Who modded parent up insightfull?!

The parent-post and replies to it completely miss the irony of putting copy right protection on a disc and then claiming to be 'trusting the consumer'.

This is the kind of 'trust' I give to my three year old kid!

Unfortunatly, to 'the bottle-is-half-empty' me, the sadness of the statement overshadows the funny aspect. Others may well perceive the text to be hilarious though...

Sheesh people, wake up...

The other half of the formula

[dcavanaugh]

Well, Sony isn't testing the full formula either.

As you correctly point out, there is a problem in that current pricing has no link to the cost of production (which has dropped dramatically). Piracy happens when the product pricing motivates pirates.

Sony can either try and add value to justify the pricing, or they can fight a losing DRM battle. Unfortunately, most of the "value added" is just a workaound to the losing DRM battle. I see no need to pay them just to work around a problem they created in the first place. I can solve the technical problem without Sony's help.

At a price of $1/song or $2/disc, piracy would be a waste of time, and the product could still be profitable. At some price higher than that, piracy would be tolerable and the product would be more profitable. Then we have today's prices -- the pirates are in the driver's seat.