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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." "
do we get to see iso's of cds on kazaa instead of mp3s?
Runnin' On Empty
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?
Maybe I lack a sense of humour, but isn't that quote pretty sensible rather than 'hilarious'? Sure, they're not actually giving a lot of people what they want, but the quote itself is not at fault, is it?
Daniel
Carpe Diem
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 .
All I Want For Christmas Is My Constitutional Rights
So, what's gonna crack it this time? Green felt tip pen? Rubbing a small kitten on the disc? Looking at it funny? Placing sliced cheese on it?
I've stopped buying copy-protected CD's since none of them plays properly on my discman. As soon as they manage to come up with a form of protection that won't keep me from actually playing my legally bought CD, I might reconsider my boycott...
sony appears to think that by making it more convenient they'll avoid backlash. while it's probably a matter of days before someone cracks it, this seems a lot less stupid than some of the previous efforts the record labels have taken.
ed
Why is that quote hilarious? Isn't that what we've been saying here all along? If you're waiting for the music companies to start saying that music swapping is just fine and they really don't mind, then you obviously don't understand the situation. There will be some form of DRM, period. This may be one solution. Apple has another solution. The market will decide what works, but you should realize that sooner or later, some form of reasonable DRM will come in to play.
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
i've got a couple of 'em lately, they apparently won't work on Macs (according to the blurb on the back) but funnily enough do work without any problems whatsoever. odd!
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?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
I expect that the logic behind this is simple - the average consumer will simply use the DRM music on their computer instead of ripping the audio files (which is more complex), and this DRM music will not be sharable, hence the real issue, music sharing, will be cut down.
However, it only needs something along the lines of
1) relying on a custom music playing application (windows only)
2) relying on Windows Media Player (ugliest nastiest application ever)
to make the whole system pointless.
But it is a step in the right direction of not messing with the audio on the CD, adding more value to the CD, and yet trying to maintain the rights of the copyright holder without messing with the rights of the consumer.
It's a sad sad day when a record company executive can (even if in jest) refer to "trusting the customer" as a novelty. I'd boycott it for this cavalier attitude alone. However, as I have not purchased any new cd's in over 5 years, it's a non issue for me. Further, instead of "trusing the customer" on the DRM front, I think executives should be focusing on pumping quality out of the artists they sign. To paraphrase his quote, "If you give people what they want in terms of value," you'd five them music they actually wanted to hear instead of two or three singles on a cd chock full of crap.
The english language is in beta. It's evolving but has not yet reached a level of usability.
The Register also have an article today on the subject.
According to the article in The Register, the old discs where unpopular with consumers because they could not be played on PCs, or riped to portable music players.
The new discs will have a second session, containing encrypted audio data, that can be played on a PC, using Sony's software (On supported platforms, non lintel users need not apply). The audio can also be copied to a portable music player, but only sony players are supported.
In conclusion, I would say that while sony have listened to consumer complaints about their last copy protected disc, their solution is hardly any better. Even John Q Public will see these new discs as no better than the old ones if he owns another brand of portable music player.
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.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
If they used the millions that they spend to research this "copy protection" on finding good artists and not the same junk they've been putting out for the last 10 years, then maybe they could start trusting the consumer to purchase their products.
Cannot be fixed by adding useless crap to the CD's. Make the CD's cost less. Piracy will always exist and always had, it just wasn't quantifiable before the Internet.
That still doesn't address the problem of some/most CDs having a few good songs and the rest being crap filler. IMO, services like iTunes remain a better idea because you can buy only the songs you want.
I claim first use of "Error No. 0B" - or "No. 0B error." It'll be the new ID 10T!
These multi-session discs with DRM-enabled content, videos, etc has got to be taking a toll on the actualt minutes of music you get on a disc. Or is it possible to downsample CD audio files to free up some room? Even without the protection issues, I think these "Extras" like videos aren't worth less music or lower-quality audio.
What's pathetic is the DVD and CD prices differences of like releases. Take Rush for example with their latest "Rush In Rio" live releases. 3-CD set and 2-DVD set are roughly the same price, even though the DVD set gives you a documentary, Dolby Digital audio, etc.
OK, I'll bite...
How will this prevent CD copying? Where's the real extra value in the "compressed" (which I read as lossy) DRM'd content? Oh, I get to go to an "exclusive" website with extra content. Whoopee. If I have the CD, I'm ripping tracks in an unprotected format regardless of whether there are already pre-ripped tracks available. Why would I want to copy DRM'd material to my machine?
Seems to me that by having a multisession CD, that means there will be less unprotected music since it takes up a majority of space. Unless, of course, there is plenty of unused space on today's recordings. I wouldn't know, I haven't bought a "major label" CD in years. Last CD I bought was from a local performer, bought right from the guy after he played a club one night (got it autographed too...another perk in supporting local talent.)
I don't know maybe I'm one of the unwashed, but this makes no sense to me. I agree with the other poster that said "just make a regular CD" and I'll add "and price it reasonably" and we will come.
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
"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."
His heart is in the right place, but he really has to move away from RIAA word abuse. "Stealing" is something that has never been involved in the issue of copy protection, the p2p issue, etc.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Sony is doing the right thing. For years we have been screaming because the entertainment industry has been treating us like children, thinking that we can't do the right thing unless we are forced to.
Now Sony has come out with a scheme that shows they are beginning to place *some* trust back with the consumer and they are jumped all over?
I for one am pleased to see this small move towards the better from Sony.
tinfoilmedia
How do you tell them apart? Many red book CD's don't have the Compact Disk logo. Many copy protected CD's are not labled as such. Do you take a list of "defective CD's" to the store with you? I've been bypassing lots of probably OK CD's because I don't buy DRM CD's. I look for the Compact Disk logo.
The truth shall set you free!
Audio systems have got more complicated these days, with many able to read ISO-9660 formatted discs.
My DVD stereo system can handle MP3 and WMA CDs as well as Audio CDs, DVD-Video and DVD-Audio (and some other image related formats as well).
The odds on such a system not playing back the audio tracks and instead playing back the WMA content may be quite high!
This is actually a rather clever move. You see, Average Joe is going to put the CD in his computer and copy off the prepackaged music files, cos it's easy.
They're going to work fine on his computer, and he runs Kazaa so they are made available over Kazaa too. Problem is, others won't be able to play them after they download them from him. However, I wonder if Joe cares. The only thing Joe will be upset about is not being able to play music he downloads from others who are simply copying DRM files from similarly packaged music. But I somehow doubt Joe will make the connection between the files copied off the CD in this manner and the problem he's getting when he downloads random track X from Y.
people who -buy- CDs are not their problem. Never have been. People who no longer buy CDs, but download all their music online -are-. But these people are -not- buying CDs, so how will DRM stop them?
Ripping a CD to any desired format for use in a personal mp3 player, or on the computer or for any other purpose is clearly covered under fair use. There's no reason someone who purchases a CD should be additionally limited by some hackneyed copyright scheme.
All the RIAA is trying to do, is make someone click 'ok' to some licensing terms when they copy music from a CD, so that when their watermarked copy shows up online, they don't even have to -prove- that it ever got traded, or even got traded outside fair use guidelines. its mere existence is proof of guilt. (lower legal burden of proof)
no copy protection scheme will ever stop hackers, and they know this - but they're trying to leverage an inconvenience against all their -paying-customers- to try to make life easier for themselves in punishing the few criminals.
it is however, a self-fulfilling prophecy for the labels. the more they sue customers, the more they illegally fix prices, the more they monopolize all methods of distribution and cripple their primary product -- the more customers they'll lose.
they of course will only interpret this as being 'due to filesharing', and in a sense they're right. but to be complete, it's due to their -response- to filesharing.
beyond all that, there has never been any data to prove that downloaded material online represents lost sales. CD sales rate fell well within the bounds of every other industry who has been taking a hit in the economy -- and only knocked sales Ffrom their -all-time-high- in 2000. (pre bubble bursting, post napster)
the RIAA is simply fighting to maintain their distribution monopoly. they aren't worried about losing customers - because if they win, you'll have no choice if you want music (as now). but if they lose - they'll cease to exist.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
But Apple at least lets you transfer drm rights from one computer to another. THe tracks are yours as long as you own a system. And you can use 3 devices and systems at once. This means a friend or two can hear and decide if the file is worth buying.
Face it guys. Pirating is stealing. Yes I like downloading music but it costs serious bucks to make an album.
I hope Sony will do something similiar or just use the Advanced AUdio Codec that Itunes uses. Great sound quality.
http://saveie6.com/
isn't this exactly the way we would prefer the music companies to respond? i mean, we all know that there is in fact no way they can lock us out of copying current cd technology, so as opposed to spending lots of money on the problem, why not accept it and just move on? oh yeah, and give the consumer pre-ripped digital copies of the music as well. sure, it's DRM protected and we don't like that, but BIG F!@#in DEAL! they haven't actually tried to protect the CDDA tracks, so you can just rip with your encoder of choice.
so what's the problem? why is this hilarious? is it that they actually trust us for a change? is it funny because we can't be trusted not to steal their music? it seems to me like somebody at BMG finally "gets it".
Here's a project for the EEs among you. How about replacing the controller on an IDE drive with an utterly stupid device that is driven entirely through software? The load on the CPU would be somewhat ridiculous as CD-ROMs and audio drives do quite a bit of error correction and so forth. But this drive could not be fooled by anything they do to a CD. These copy protection schemes all hinge on interfering with assumptions that CD-ROM engineers have made. This is not a new idea. In the eighties, there were hardware modifications for diskette drives that basically made them software controlled devices.
That's a very confused argument.
DRM doesn't stop music copying - all it does is make it inconvenient for honest people. As you say. So those who are whining about it are exactly those who are being inconvenienced.
The pirates don't give a damn, 'cause all of these 'protections' can be easily circumvented with a bit of tech (eg linux+cdparanoia, cdplayer+optical out, etc.).. People who download music don't give a damn either, because they can just as easily download this music too (see previous sentence.)
Frankly I have no idea why the recording industry people do it. It doesn't achieve their stated aim, and just pisses off the very people who spend money on music.
2 sessions on 1 CD well to me it would seem as to use and APPZ to toggle to the 2nd session and rip to wav then convert.
Some things are better the OLD FASHIONED way
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.
My wife bought a "copy-protected" disc. It wouldn't play in the Discman, and wouldn't play in the Sony mini hi-fi either.
So I dropped it in the Linux MP3 server, and it ripped straight away, no problems.
So the "copy-protection" actually forced us to copy the disc in order to listen to it.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
It seems, from a cursory examination, that this "copy protection" scheme relies on a behavior of Wintel PCs -- specifically, when there are multiple sessions on an audio CD, the data session gets mounted instead of the Red Book audio session.
It seems that any computer running Linux would be able to bypass this scheme easily enough, simply by force-mounting the appropriate (music) session and ripping from it. And on a Mac, multi-session CDs mount all sessions as separate disk images, so the user should be able to rip to MP3 or AAC from within iTunes. So unless the record label does something to break these CDs on Mac OS X and/or Linux, they should rip and play just fine on those platforms.
I like this folk artist named Peter Mayer. My wife and i saw him perform live and wanted to buy his CDs but didn't have any cash on us so we went home and resolved to buy them on-line. One thing leads to another and we're busy and we forget.
A few months later i'm goofing around and i search for him on Amazon. I am surprised to find such a "small" artist on a mainstream site, but happy to see that he has some free downloads! (Don't ask me why there are two separate pages for "all free song downloads by Peter Mayer.")
I download the songs and spend a few days enjoying them. I copy them for my wife and for a few friends, then decide i really do want to support this guy. So i go to his label's site, Peppermint Records order his stuff (No money for Amazon today!) and check out some other artists while i'm there. Some sound good, but Anne Heaton really impresses me. Amazon has some downloads for her too. Turns out i'm crazy for one song and not so hot on the others so i don't order but i enjoy (and share) the mp3 and vow to check her out live if i get the chance and to look out for any new CDs she makes.
At the same time, my friends are doing the same thing because of the stuff i shared with them. They've bought several of Peter's CDs and some of them thought Anne's was worth the investment too. We were all being responsible and trading publicly available stuff, but when my CDs arrive i'll be ripping them to listen via WinAmp and if the occasion arises, i won't hesitate to give a few out.
I didn't have to buy anything, nor did my friends. I've got what amounts to a nearly complete album of Peter Mayer's Greatest Hits on my hard drive, but i know that if i don't send some cash his way, he'll have to go get a real job and i won't be hearing any more of his thoughtful, beautiful songs.
So is this post for or against file sharing? On the one hand, i didn't engage in any Napster-scale swapping. On the other hand, if Peppermint put some DRM crap on their CDs that made it a hassle for me to rip them i probably wouldn't buy them as a protest.
I think the RIAA doesn't take people like me into account. Most of what made me buy Peter's CDs was the music, but a part of it was my desire to support an independant label and artist. The only major-label CD i've bought lately was the Dixie Chicks. I like their music, but i was content to hear it on the radio on those infrequent occasions when i turn off NPR. I bought their CD to counteract some of the crap they were getting for exercising their first amendment rights.
I'm using my cash to reward those whose products and policies i like and withholding it from those i don't like. Maybe the RIAA doesn't have to take people like me into account. Maybe i'm just an insignificant statistical blip to them, but i'm talking to my friends and family about this stuff and some of them are doing the same thing, so maybe that blip will become significant if they don't change their ways.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.