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Recording Industry Hopes To Hinder CD Burning
Decaffeinated Jedi writes "News.com reports that the recording industry is currently testing technology that would limit the number of times that a given CD (or copies of that CD) could be burned. The idea is to let consumers 'make a limited number of copies of their music -- enough for a car, a vacation home and a friend, for example -- without allowing for uncontrolled duplication.' Currently, Macrovision and SunnComm International are developing competing versions of such 'secure burning' technology, with BMG Music Group already testing the latter company's software."
Record labels in the United States have been sensitive to these consumer concerns, worrying particularly about earlier versions of copy-protection technology that had difficulty playing in nontraditional CD players such as game consoles or car stereos. They've released many protected CDs overseas, but only a small number in the United States and United Kingdom, where perceived opposition has been the highest.
Oh please, they are unconcerned with how we feel. They are only concerned with how much money they will make. I don't see how not releasing a copy-protected CD because people will balk is being concerned w/our feelings.
I wasn't aware that free-use included allowing a limit to be placed on something you have purchased. Making a few copies for home use sounds good but it's all bullshit. They are trying to limit one of the few "freedoms" we still have.
"I think the labels have been relaxing a little in terms of usage rules," said Liz Brooks, vice president of business development at Buy.com's music division.
I realize that this quote comes from a VP at Buy.com but I wasn't aware that the labels got to decide what rules we had to follow regarding fair use. Wow.
Just remember all this when you are supporting the cartels. Your money goes to developing methods and laws to limit your freedoms and to supporting suits against your fellow man.
Wouldn't your CD burning software have to support this 'limit copy feature' already? Doesn't most burning software first make an ISO or a BIN of the CD(with encryption) and then burn the EXACT copy of the original CD? So if I'm making an EXACT copy of a product, never changing a bit in the process, how is it going to know I'm making copies?
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
Exactly.
A good friend of mine is a music studio middle-manager and I bounced this idea off him:
Imagine if you could go to a web site, select some tracks from various artists, click on: burn and send, and the whole CD was burned on high quality disc, and custom jacket with lyrics made, and the whole thing shipped to the customer's house, including shipping, for 3.99 (yes, the whole CD).
He looked at me funny for a second and said: But we'd lose money!
To which I replied: You're losing money now.
Then it dawned on him that millions of people would love that, because for the price, it's cheaper to order it that way than to download off your favorite p2p, listen for quality, burn it, and go to kinko's to photocopy the artwork.
I asked him what it would take for the studios to implement a system like that, and he replied, half jokingly: An Act of Congress.
Supply and demand are where it's at. The market laws apply to all industries and all countries for all commodities. What makes music industry execs think they're immune to it?
They should go jump off a tall bridge and see if they're immune to the laws of gravity.
"Piter, too, is dead."
The labels should consider selling their product the way DEC used to sell software: licenses and copies on media are two separate products. Then I could:
o buy a package deal (license+1medium) in the store and just use it;
o buy a license and make my own copy legally, from someone else's copy or a download;
o buy additional licenses and make more copies when I want 'em;
o make licensed copies on any medium which suits me.
All with the blessing of the copyright owners.
Yes, I would buy licenses if they were sensibly priced.
whether the duplicates will also have copy limits.
Well, back in the 80's the TRS-80's TRSDOS operating system supported a scheme like this. Your floppy could be "backup limited" and the system would permit only, say, 3 or 5 copies, after which the OS's disk duplication software would flag an error. In that case the OS would not copy a back-up copy.
How much this copyright protection helped Tandy realize its destiny as a world-class computer maker is left as an exercise for the reader.