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Copy-protected CD Tops U.S. Charts
Joey Patterson writes "CNET is reporting that Velvet Revolver's new album, 'Contraband', which is protected with SunnComm's anti-copying technology, has topped the U.S. album charts. The SunnComm and BMG execs quoted in the article say that they're pleased with the apparent consumer acceptance of the anti-piracy technology, but they have been hearing questions about how people can get the copy-blocked songs from the CD onto an iPod."
It's quite probably just a case where not many people have discovered that they've been screwed-over just yet...
The anger will come soon...
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Funny, I thought I saw this on BitTorrent already.....
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
... is that in their attempts to create a CD that fits their aims, the record companies have tried many methods of corrupting the CD format, and then they have tested these by making secret releases into localized markets, sometimes of hundreds of thousands of CDs. Everyday people have then bought these sub-standard CDs, and have been unknowingly testing the record company's new CD protection schemes for them.
For instance, an early release made under Midbar's Cactus format in Germany reportedly had a 4% return rate. These were from people who found that these CDs didn't work on their normal CD players -- let alone in their computers. 4% is a huge return rate when you consider that many people might have found a problem with one CD player but not another, and who might have thought it was the player that was at fault rather than the CD.
Undeterred by these experiences of upsetting their customers, the record companies have continued to develop these formats and test them on an unsuspecting public, either unlabelled or with small or misleading labels. Along the way, problems with these CDs have been found on DVD players, car audio systems, older CD players, PlayStation machines, computers, laptops and several other types of devices.
To add injury to insult, several of these so-called 'copy-protection' formats actually interfere with the error-correction mechanism of the disk. This mechanism is designed to take care of scratches on the disk -- your CD player can fill in over a small number of scratches on the disk because the error correction codes tell it how to. The manufacturers found that by corrupting the error correction codes, they could make a CD that computers would reject, but that normal CD players would still manage to play. The cost of this, of course, is that your CDs are less resistant to scratches (and Philips have confirmed this). This is not too much inconvenience for the manufacturer -- but what about for you?
They seem to have confused acceptance with ignorance.
simple. have a home audio system with a fiber audio out, and have a nice sound card with fiber in, and make MP3s over it. Won't get the static or line noise of the copper, although I'm sure your dog can tell the different between this method and a direct CDA rip....
--
Yeah, to really prove how much people prefer copy-protected CDs they should sell two versions, one with and one without and then they can show the world that people prefer the ease of just buying multiple copies.
RTFA. There is a sticker on the CD that its copy protected.
Obviously a lot of people have bought this album, and no doubt a lot of people will want to transfer songs to an iPod or other player and will find out the hard way that they can't. This will get the public's attention on the issue of copy protected CDs. I suspect that most people will not buy another one, having been burned once before. If these prove to be unpopular enough in the long run, they will probably not be sold anymore. Hopefully, there will be a future story about a band's album having very disappointing sales due to copy protection.
I wasn't able to rip it on my OSX box, but it ripped just fine on my linux box. Maybe it's because it's a different drive, but it works just fine.
I should put it up on bittorrent just to spite them, fuckers.
Isn't this the same company who sued a Princeton student after he figured out that pressing the shift key defeated their copyright 'protection'?
Besides, it's probably F9 or something this time.
Go to iTunes music store.
Buy album.
Put on iPod.
On a less pithy note, would it be that hard for EMI to make an agreement with Apple such that, if you have the CD in the drive, you can buy the iTunes version for free? Or you could always package the album with a certificate code that can be used to buy the album for free on iTunes. Both of those seem like relatively easy solutions.
And, finally, on an inquisitive note, does this software also install on OS X? Or is this a Windows only gimping?
Philip Sandifer's academic website
so basically, if you can listen to it, it will be on p2p, get used to that RIAA!!!
I use a Mac and purchased the album. No problem encoding to AAC with iTunes or transferring to an ipod. Wouldn't have even known it was copy protected without this posting.
Yes. It is by called "Line In." I have a cd entire copied with Line In. Lead cable from CD player into the input port. Records it, and compress. This not the heavy pirates stops, just people with the iPods.
Read journal when you are not understand
Hell, I'll go buy this one. These guys make good music. Plain and simple. Go pimp your 'the people want copy protection' somewhere else. People want decent music. This band delivers.
Seems to have slowed down the pirates by .06 seconds.
Uh, buy it on iTunes for $9.99?
As in earlier tests by BMG and SunnComm, the copy protection on the Velvet Revolver disc can be simply disabled by pushing the "Shift" key on a computer while the CD is loading, which blocks the SunnComm software from being installed. The companies say they have long been aware of the work-around but that they were not trying to create an unhackable protection.
,etc).
If the point is to make people unable to rip the music and you allow a backdoor 'knowingly' then why even bother in the first place?
"We are actively working with Apple to provide a long-term solution to this issue," a posting on SunnComm's Web site reads. "We encourage you to provide feedback to Apple, requesting they implement a solution that will enable the iPod to support other secure music formats."
Dear Apple,
Please support the latest copy-protection scheme from my favourite recording label, BMG and their current subsidiary, SunComm. Also, please compile in support for the different methods for every single other copy protection scheme espoused by every other label on every other album at Best Buy.
Also, please be prepared to update these codecs as the record labels see fit or the iPod and iTunes may no longer be compatible in an effort to keep ahead of nefarious CD pirates.
Also, please CC: this message to anybody else you know that makes CD player apps (Nullsoft, Microsoft, Roxio, Sony, etc, etc
Finally, please forget about that old 'Redbook' standard for CDs. That is old and should be cast off upon a pile of 8-Tracks, Divx discs, and CSS.
Thanks for your time.
Love, Tom
What amused me was this line "The companies say they have long been aware of the work-around but that they were not trying to create an unhackable protection."
I suppose that if they only stop the lowest common denominator from doing the unauthorized copying its good enough for them.
However the handling of the iPod issue leaves something to be desired...
I'm sure there's a joke in there somewhere.
Karma: -2147483648 (Mostly affected by integer overflow)
I've not yet found a single CD which has been copy protected that cannot be bypassed easily. I wish they'd just learn that these systems which try trickery on the laser head (so that head bounces around the disc if you try to do a consecutive read) is simple to get past.
The last one I had that required "cracking" (although it hardly warrants the term) was bypassed using the sticky bit of a post-it note (I won't say exactly where it was stuck for fear that I'll have the legal eagles coming down on me, as it were).
I find it more of an inconvenience than a reason not to buy a particular artists CDs (although I've never heard of these chart-toppers).
The CD medium, as it stands now, just cannot support the kind of copy protection they want to put in place, simply because they have to cater for "dumb" machines, such as the typical CD player. It would be more frugal if they just didn't bother.
You can't make up the fact that the album in #1 right now, but is the recording industry saying "if people did not accept the copy protection then the sales would be lower"? Did it ever occur to them that maybe it is just a really good album and that the people buying it are people who don't steal music anyways?
From what I understand, most people who used to buy CDs from before Mp3s were popular STILL DO. Sales are up aren't they? I personally never used to buy CDs. I would just listen to the radio. Mp3s are convienient because they are commercial free and I can play DJ, but if they didn't exist I would be listening to the radio and not buying albums. Most people I speak to feel the same way.
http://brandonbloom.name
running Fedora Core 2, gnome-cd wouldn't play it and grip couldn't rip it. though XMMS played it just fine using the CD Audio Player 1.2.10 [libcaudio.so], and XMMS does have a Disk Writer Plugin sooooo i think that's pretty much copy-protection broken with no new software needed.
Please don't read my sig.
To be fair, it DID require them to hit the shift key... That's probably why it slowed them down a full .06 seconds!
"If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living."
- Seneca
The CD isn't really protected in any way.
According to the article, it has anti-copying software (read: spyware) that installs automatically using Windows Autoplay if you insert the CD into your Windows PC, but the CD isn't otherwise protected.
So if you have Autoplay turned off, or use Linux or a Mac, or simply hold down Shift while you insert the CD, you can rip the files fine. This workaround has been known since last October, when the SunnComm copy "protection" system was first introduced.
I've transferred my entire CD collection to mp3 with Exact Audio Copy. Approximately 200 CDs nearly all of which are collecting dust in my basement, the rest are in my car. I don't even have a CD player connected to my stereo, well actually I do - the CD drive in the computer thats connected to the stereo. Anyhow, this Velvet Revolver CD is one I've been thinking about buying but if I can't turn it into mp3 files then I really doubt I want to bother with it. I'm guessing though that the software I use for that, Exact Audio Copy (and LAME), probably wouldn't have a problem. Does anybody know for sure?
It's therefore a bit premature for record labels to celebrate mainstream "acceptance" of these horrid anti-copying devices, when the mainstream still doesn't give a hoot as they don't know / don't care / know specifically what that entails or how it infringes on their rights.
Mp3's are generally still a college level / nerd / for-the-privalaged medium with expensive doo-hickey devices to play them - Ipod costs $250 - $300 for crying out loud! - you can buy a CD-Player for $10 at Walmart, Target, or Radio Shack.
Copy protection is the kind of thing that will be slaughtered once MP3's become more actual mainstream. Then let's see about such "acceptance". The whole point of MP3s is the flawless and svelte transfer from one medium to another, without the junk of big goofy disks to carry around. The magic word is "transfer". We have the right to transfer and convert the content to any medium we wish. Once people become aware of the possibility of such freedom, they're really going to get as pissy as the rest of us and to hell with "mainstream acceptance".
Pros: the sticker's big, shiny, and eye-catching.
Cons: it's in the tiniest type I've ever seen.
I had it three days before they started recording it.
Okay, I'm completely boggled now . . . what exactly are they're trying to accomplish?
So then what the hell is the point of copy-protecting CD-ripping when you can just get the whole thing off bittorrent.... because someone else loaded it from iTunes and re-encoded it back onto the internet??!?!?!?!?!?!
What the heck is the point of the copy protection system anyway, considering this fact?
I guess the moral of this story is, if you can come up with some fancy crypto security technology you can sell it to companies with too much money and too many PHBs. Even if it doesn't really solve the big issue, it will let them sleep well at night.
I'm pretty sure I'd suck as a saleman.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
Exactly.
I purchased this album at the store. I asked the girl behind the counter if I could bring the CD back if it didn't play in my car. She said I could.
I bought it, it played in my car, and Grip had no problems archiving it for me. Dunno what the copy protection is, but it works GREAT!!!
Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
Don't buy the CD from the store, but go straight to the iTunes-MusicStore the album is there. (As you might probably know: Now you can listen to it on your iPod or burn a CD or listen to it on all your five computers.) http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/ viewAlbum?playlistId=14131660
Oh and yes, it's also available in the european stores.
That doesn't answer the question; how many people actually read that sticker or have any idea what it means?
If you don't care about the deliberate corruption of the well established CD standard. That's your choice.
But, if you really like the music/the band but hate the protection, then you should buy two copies. Buy one and return one. The music company will realise something wrong if the customers can boast the return rate somehow to double-digit.
So by messing with the scratch protection algorithms in most CD players, it makes the CD less durable.
Doesn't this increase the consumer's need to rip it immediately?
Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
If RIAA, SunnComm and BMG found out that Macs can easily bypass their "security" feature, they might "try" to make this protection scheme to work on the Mac. Maybe they don't care too much about Macs and Mac users, because there are only a "handfull" of them compared to the Windows-mongers. "Dear Apple, please keep your installed base lower than 5% so RIAA and record companies would leave us alone. Let them chase after Windows users. Thank You."
iTunes AAC (mpeg 4)
- burn it unlimited times to unlimited CD's
- back it up to HD, to CD, to DVD, to floppy, if you must
- copy it to unlimited iPod's
- copy it to unlimited PCs, play it on up to 5 simultaneously
- stream it to up to 5 machines from one Mac or PC
- hook it wirelessly with lossless audio via optical connectors to your home stereo with Airport Express
Copy-Protected Optical Media
- play it in only one place, once at a time
- scratch it once, lose it forever
- repeat after me: it is not a CD if it is not Redbook
So which one are you going to buy?
The next pasture is always greener
I find it funny reading all these outraged posts about how the disc is not valid red book, etc, etc.
The protection on this disc is very light, and will really only catch the casual user. If you know what you're doing, it's very easy to bypass.
I find this protection a breath of fresh air. It is almost as if the publisher is saying "Here. If you know enough to bypass this, presumably you understand copyright law and won't swap files." No scheme will stop a dedicated cracker, so they offer one that doesn't even try. In fact, the publishers even acknowledge it isn't a very secure scheme. Yes, their trust is probably naive, but that's their problem not mine.
See this article for a description of MediaMax.
SunnComm rips off the record companies by selling them a copy protection scheme that doesn't actually work.
The record gets passed around on all the file sharing networks and usenet newsgroups.
This free advertising results in increased sales, driving the record to number 1.
The pointy-haired bosses at the record company believe that the increased sales prove that the copy protection scheme is working and issue congratulatory press release.
But I did hold down the shift key when I put the CD in. Then I ripped it, packed away the original, and proceeded to play it from my home entertainment system of choice, my computer.
Do I share it? Hell no. I'm a huge fan of Scott Weiland and would never do that to him. The CD was worth $14 to me and then some, but I did think twice about buying it after reading the notice on the cover. I seriously thought about downloading it out of spite.
If I would have unknowingly had their software installed on my computer that blocked a function, I'd be just as pissed at them as I am at people who write viruses.
This is just another "legal" virus like Gator, Real Player, Comet Cursor...
If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. - James Madison
If I buy a CD and it plays in my CD player, I don't care if its copy protected or not, It will be accepted as long as it works as advertised.
Its been said before but its valid every time, what seems important on Slashdot to the majority of people here isn't important to the majority of people in the real world.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
I'm not sure if this has been posted, nor am I sure if I'm breaking any laws by posting it. If I am, I'm sorry, and before the mods delete this post, its wrong to install stuff on computers without asking, its just common sense.
1. Insert the CD and let the software run if you haven't already.
2. Remove the CD and restart your computer without the CD installed.
3. Enter the Device Manager (Right-click on My Computer-> Properties-> Hardware Tab-> Device Manager.
4. From the View menu, select Devices by Connection, then select Show Hidden Devices.
5. Scroll down and find the device called "SbcpHid", right-click and DISABLE it.
6. Close Device Manager, Windows should ask you to reboot, say Yes.
This will disable the protection, allowing you to listen to the CD using Windows Media Player, you can even rip the songs to MP3 for backup without the garble.
400 Person LAN for Charity: Zion LAN 2005
What difference does that make? There's a sticker on my parents' VCR that says "long play" and another that says "Nicam Stereo" but neither of them has a clue what either of those things mean.
Just because people have bought something that doesn't mean that they have fully understood every aspect of what they've bought. Just as my parents don't appreciate the full functionality of their VCR most CD purchasers don't appreciate the restrictions attached to these copy-protected "CD"s*.
(* Technically these copy-protected discs aren't CDs, because they don't meet the red book standards, hence my use of quotation marks.)
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
I'll keep you posted, I have yet to try it on the Linux box.
Yes, I listen to Guns N' Roses back in the late 80's and early 90's.
I talked to Duff (the bass player) when he was working with John Taylor (Duran Duran), Steve Jones (The Sex Pistols), and Matt Sorrum on Neurotic Outsiders album.
Yes I also listen to Stone Temple Pilot.
Yes, I've heard of Wasted Youth
But I am not really anticipating anything of Velvet Revolver.
The main reason I bought Velvet Revolver CD is because it was previously reported that the CD would be Copy Protected. I just want to find out if I still can rip them.
As for 200,000+ other people, they love this so called "supergroup"
Well, I ripped the whole CD on my Mac with no problems at all.
Once again, I have yet to try it on the Linux OS.
I'll find out about it tomorrow.
needless to say, I didn't like them very much and propmptly deleted the music files (within 24 hours i assure you!)
Please stop perpetuating the 24-hour myth. Length of posession has absolutely nothing to do with copyright law. 30 seconds is just as illegal as 24 hours.
Hmmmm, the sticker is missing from the copy I downloaded from usenet. Try again SunnComm and BMG.
The brigade, in this case, is incorrect. Some varieties of the Corrupt Discs contain restrictions-managed .wma files that the owner can copy to a limited number of WMA players. Almost every modern pocket music player can play WMA, but Apple's iPod player can't.
Let's just make the **IA happy and say I was making a personal backup copy. The disk seems to have two sessions, a data and an audio. The audio session seems to be unreadable if you just put the CD into a Windows box and expect to be able to rip audio. Windows just seems to ignore the audio session. I suspect that the TOC has been screwed up.
My work around was quite simple. First turn off auto run because it will pop up an EULA when you put the CD in to install the Suncomm crap. I got an image of the CD fine with Alcohol. I then burned it with CloneCD. When I put the copy into the CD-ROM drive, iTunes picked it up as an audio CD. I can only assume that CloneCD wrote the TOC correctly.
As far as Linux goes, I only tried K3b and it could get a good image from the CD.
... The RIAA have bought a law banning keyboards with a shift key.
You make the mistake of thinking you can educate the fundamental stupidity out of people. You can't.
For people who don't speak Babelfish:
.wav file.
.wav, run it though a program for audio compression, maybe MKW audio compreesion toolkit. Then, distribute it to as many of your friends as possible.
Get a cable which you can plug into your CD (Note: "real Compact Discs" don't ever have DRM) playing device of choice. It should have a male port on both ends. Plug one into your microphone port, the other into your CD player. Open a device (for example, sound recorder) and click record. Hit "Play" a half second later so you don't cut off anything. After the song finishes, stop the recording, clip off parts from the beginning and end, and save as a
With your
MKW = http://www.etree.org/mkw.html
Mod "Overrated" instead of replying "I disagree with you," you coward.
RTFA. There is a sticker on the CD that its copy protected.
Does the label bother to mention that it isn't actually a CD, or are they merely relying on consumer ignorance, such as that you display in your post in calling it such?
Are the stores stocking it in their normal manner for CDs, instead of in a seperate section as they should? Not doing so could well be considered consumer fraud by the retailers, it might not be out of line to drop a line to sundry Attorney's General if such is the case.
KFG
I bought the album, afer all I am all for supporting Scott Whiland's drug habit, but I also noticed that GRIP for linux ripped it without a second thought...so much for copy protection.
;)
Also worth noting is that my co-worker (who also bought it) put the CD in his windows box and refused the DRM in the auto-run program, and it completely hosed his profile simply can't log in anoymore.
I thought they were trying to screw the people who were pirating the software, not those who actually bought it!
proxy
Ya, folks have been able to rip this CD in OS X. Pop it in, load up iTunes, click import, done. :)
;) )
But hey, could always buy this album online from the ITMS (and, possibly, sprinkle a bit of PlayFair on your download
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Well, the fact that it did well on the charts has more to do with Slash and Duff McKagan together again, sans Axl Rose. As far as ripping, it works fine on a mac... no problems whatsoever. Oh! And the album is also available at the iTunes music store, so you have the option of buying it cheaper and not having to rip it anyway.
The music is actually good. Whoah, crazy thought, I know.
Next, they'll be claiming that the sales is actually due to the copy protection. My first instinct when reading this story was to download it and see if I liked it.
Since it's selling, it must be worth buying. Hence more people download it, like it a lot, and buy it! Wow... what a concept.
Oh, and the copy 'protection' doesn't work. Broken via any number of simple means no doubt, but the simple truth is, there are no less than FIVE torrents for the full albumn right now on my favorite tracker site.
Hehe.. funny.
Meanwhile, I've taken this whole issue a bit less seriously, especially when the there are more pressing issues to worry about going in the world today. Nobody is being killed for copyright violations (yet?).
Haven't found a CD yet I couldn't copy with Exact Audio Copy, although secure mode doesn't work with Cactus DataShield version 2, you have to use burst mode.
Jeremy
My wife bought a copy protected CD and wanted to copy it to MD but the MD recorder refused. Under Windows if you played it you got some crufty 48Khz WMA file, never the full 16 bit PCM. On my Mac however, I was able to rip the disc to iTunes as straight WAV and then burn her an unprotected version of the CD. She then used this to record her MD. I have yet to see a disc that the Mac can't copy.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
Yes, holding down the Shift key to prevent the DRM from being auto-played and auto-installed does the trick.
And if you scroll down, you'll see literally dozens of comments from Slashdotters crowing about how easily they ripped this CD to MP3 or Ogg or ACC or whatever format suits them.
And what that means is the RIAA has won this round.
What do I mean by that? This CD is a trap, and everybody who is crowing about how easy it is to circumvent its copy-protection has fallen into the trap.
The trap consists of two parts: one, as Mr. Roadkill (731328) explains here, because circumvention is so easy there will not be any en masse returns of this CD. BMG will declare that the public doesn't mind copy-protection because there will be few complaints or returns, and its massive sales given the publicity BMG is giving to this release. And with that they've slipped in the thin edge of the wedge, begun accustomizing us to copy-protection.
But more than just copy-protection: as The-Bus (138060) demonstrates by copying the entire CD EULA, BMG will also
They're not just sipping in the DRM keys; they're slipping in a whole different legal interpretation in which to understand CDS, an interpretation that emphasizes licensing instead of purchasing.
And that's just the first part of the trap.
The second part of the trap is even more insidious: BMG has purposely used a trivially simple and already well known to be easily circumvented copy-protection in order to encourage you to circumvent it.
Why would BMG do that? So they can point out all the happy, crowing, boasting circumventors to the Congress, call all the people holding down a Shift key "hackers" (indeed SunnCom's already said they don't expect this to be "unhackable"), and thus justify legislation to made DRM mandatory. "See what those hackers did, Senator? They hack our state-of-the-art copy-protection, those evil wizarsds! That's why we must make a hardware copyright bit mandatory on all new CD and CD-ROM players!"
Every time you think you've scored a point by managing to rip this CD, all you've done is to further play yourself -- and you liberties -- into the hands of BMG and the RIAA. You're given them a precedents to point to and a spurious "threat" to whine to Congress about. Who's really winning here?
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
You're probably right, but if BMG can on the one hand claim that the CD had massive consumer acceptance, then they can't very credibly turn around and claim that piracy hurt their sales of this album, and so they can't credibly claim that hackers out there are a threat.
But aside from that, I think your post is probably a good summary of how the RIAA sees things...
-- *My* journal is more interesting than *yours*...
>what exactly are they're trying to accomplish?
This is just another shot across the bow. Ideally Joe and Jane consumer should be thinking thusly, "They sued all those people! Our CDs now have protection! Uninstall that damn eMule right now!"
All the record companies have to do is get x amount of sympathy going and the P2P gravy train will go further underground. As Joe and Jane opt-out (perhaps they don't want to get sued or perhaps they're sick of 'subsidizing' those who don't pay by dealing with DRM) out of P2P there goes another node and a strict lesson to their kids, "I better not find any P2P software on there." And then this meme travels to the water cooler, "You believe this? I gotta use this stupid Sunncomm player because of all the thieves out there!"
Then the average P2P enthusiast isn't seen as a harmless overzealous yet poor music fan, but as a criminal who is making your life hard. They then hate them and blame them for the reactions of the RIAA. Heck, they may even buy DRM on purpose so they don't get "stolen goods" on their computer or as a 'moral' action.
In other words they want you to understand that they're serious about copy protection infringement and want you to feel bad about it. Once you sympathize with them, they win.
I'll let the reader decide whether its best to let them win or not.
In true civil desobedience fashion, the proper way to make decision makers understand that they are wasting their time is to:
1- purchase the CD
2- Optional: rip & copy it
3- return it and get a refund because it doesn't play on your equipment.
(2) is optional. The proper and law-abiding way is to not rip that CD.
If the return rate goes to around 10% or so I think the message will be pretty clear.
Google answer summary of wealth distribution in the US
and a nice Pie chart distribution of wealth
What really SHITS me is that the parent comment is plagiarised word for word from here:
http://cfdr.eu.org/issues/cd/
without attribution to the original author (who incidentally is 'Jim Peters'), then modded up to be 'Interesting'.
Perhaps there should be a PLAGIARISED moderation section, with a link to the original article.
Whenever the topic of Music and CDs the natural progression of the discussion eventually leads to a few posts of fair use, yet this poster has not used 'fair use' with the copying of the text (almost ironic).
This is NOT the best sig in the world, but this IS a tribute to the best sig in the world.
I think you could also look at it as them shooting themselvs in the foot..
As it is, people who are willing to pay for CDs are still buying them because they know they can rip them despite the copy protection. If the RIAA sees this acceptance as a green light to go through with more stringent copy protection, this chunk of people might start to not buy the abulms they would have otherwise bought and resort to piracy, a higher level of it than if they had non copy protected CDs. The variable factor as to wether or not this would have any effect is how big that chunk of the population is. Hopefully it would have enough influence to affect some change.
... is that I can't use them. I have a Marantz dv4200 DVD player, that I also use for playing CDs. This is no problem with ordinary cds, but the copy prot. cd I have from EMI won't play. Ripping the disc was no problem and the copy works fine. My question to the music industry is: What have You accomplished by this?
1. Create a product that can't be used legally by some people
2. These people stop bying Your product
3. Blame low sales on piracy
4. ???
5. Profit!!!
'Nuff said.
Personally, I feel that there will ALWAYS be a way to circumvent CD protections. So, as a relatively bright guy with extensive knowledge of computing and active in the software/CD piracy scene, I'm not gonna worry about it. Let the RIAA and MPAA feel that they are successful as people are still buying CDs and living by DRM laws. I will sit quietly here in the corner and circumvent their protections and rip their music and DVDs for my personal pleasure. I'm not even scared of hardware designed for DRM. There will always be a market for hardware that bypasses the protections and it will be available.
Basically, anything that can be built by a man, can be unbuilt by another. So no worries here.
What is your penile percentile?
This strongly suggests that the "protection" exists solely to undermine legitimate personal use. There is no possible anti-piracy use for preventing only half (?) of your users from format-shifting. They know as well as we do that there will be the same amount of internet piracy of the album whether it has this protection or not.
THEREFORE, it's time to entertain theories as to what their real motive is. The two that spring to mind are:
Ultimately they're clawing for all the mindshare they can get, because they only really exist as long as you believe in them.
It's tragic. Laugh.
I suppose that if they only stop the lowest common denominator from doing the unauthorized copying its good enough for them.
However the handling of the iPod issue leaves something to be desired...
Maybe they should suggest people look for the files on KaZaA instead of ripping from their legally purchased CD?
Promote Sensitivity on Slashdot, make me your friend.
I decided long ago that I would never pay for another album from a major label. I've never even heard of most of today's "chart topping" bands. I listen to indie music and swap CDs with my friends. When I do buy a CD -- which I actually do on occasion -- it involves handing a wad of bills to the artist. I seldom listen to the radio, and when I do it's classic rock. Since I only recognize copyright for 14 years (or 28 if the artist formally requests an extension, which of course none of them do anymore) I can freely download my favorite oldies from gnutella. And if anyone tries to stop me, I'll just shoot 'em in the face. Pretty simple, really...
I believe there is a fair degree of truth to the old maxim "5% of the worlds population owns 95% of the wealth". You and I and the others here are not likely to be in that 5%. Sure, big companies have shareholders, but the vast amount of shares are often privately held by a board of directors who control the company. The other shares are released onto the market to plump up the coffers, but without risking loss of control of the company if this is at all possible. The power belongs to the companies, not the people. Your governments are bankrolled by these companies, and the governments write laws to suit these financial giants. We exist only as a demographic to be sold to.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
well, if i was going to pay for it, i'd take the Copy-Protected Optical Media and bypass the copy protection - half price with free postage from any of the nice websites i know. it's lossless music i can do what i want with and a physical product that lasts and has $ value. no i'm not trolling, but i don't think that was +4 insightful. not for me and i'm sure plenty of others anyway.
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
I have professional music production gear (Layla 8in/10out). Playing a CD and recording it on my gear would give as good a sound as a digital rip. The only hassle is it takes much longer to rip, compress the files, then title them. I'd still do it to have my music in unemcumbered digital form, but I'd rather avoid such measures and CD's when possible. But as stated, it only takes 1 person like me to tip the apple cart over and all their stupid protections are as vapour in the air.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
no wait.. it actually should say that, because that's all it is. i haven't seen the exact message, but if it's not clear & honest these companies should be taken to court for lying to people. this is the kind of thing that really gets on my tits. there has to be a law that covers this in most 1st world countries?!
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
"But more than just copy-protection: as The-Bus (138060) demonstrates by copying the entire CD EULA, BMG will also slip in DRM keys "personalized" .... "
Surely, the whole claim behind these EULAs is that you can change the terms AFTER the sale, if the contract gives you the option of returning the product for a full refund.
The refund is suposed to make it comparable to a sale.
This BMG contract says "if you don't agree, don't play it" not "if you don't agree return it for a full refund".
So they're not even putting a pretence of making this legal.
Backups are simply not an issue for the mass market.
Backups are not the issue for audio. Making custom mix CDs or transferring the music to a digitial audio player is.
Any CD that goes in my car is a CD-R for several reasons:
- I don't want the originals to be stolen/melted by the sun/scratched/etc.
- I can condense the music off of 50-100 CDs down to 10 or so CD-Rs because I *really* only want to hear maybe 1-2 tracks off of each one when I'm driving, and almost no pre-pressed CD I own is a full 80 minutes in length.
I also rip tons of my CDs to Ogg Vorbis at work for similar reasons - I have something like 100 albums on my hard drive there, so I don't have to keep lugging CDs back and forth and hoping they don't get broken in my bag.
If a record company wants to prevent me from making mix CDs and ripping to Ogg, they won't get any business from me. I think that once more people realize that that's their goal, it will seriously impact their sales figures. Not everyone I know rips music to their hard drive, but everyone makes mix CDs.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
I'm with you on this. I don't have any copies of CDs and I'm boycotting anything with DRM on it but I'm wondering if there's an easy way to check (without trying to copy the CD) whether or not it's DRM'd? If I don't see the CD Audio logo on the disc then I'm suspicious but I'm not sure I can count on that. Anyone know of an easy way to know for sure?
---
We spoke for about a half an hour. I don't recall a thing we said. - Colorblind James Experience
I know this post may get lost in the shuffle, but I just checked with a few sources online and low-and-behold there is the entire album in MP3 waiting to be downloaded by anyone and everyone that knows where to find it.
So much for copy-protected CD's. Why do they even waste their time with this non-sense? Instead of trying to figure out how to fool the copiers...why not turn the entire buisness model upside down and encourage downloading the album and then making the money back from live shows?
You know 60 years or so ago artists made their money from live shows or live broadcasts on the radio. They can do this again.
I could go on and on about this. People may argue about how the guy sitting in his bedroom making music and recording and pouring his heart out into making a CD is being ripped-off if people just download it. Well, that guy sitting there probably has a passion for music and would be making music anyway...and giving it to the community afterwards is much like Open Source programming. How many programmers from around the world slave over code to make something that they're not getting a dime from? I feel that music in the future can somehow learn from Open Source. How exactly, I don't know yet.
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
the RIAA wouldn't have succeeded with screwing everyone to the tune of $10-12 profit (or more) on every CD they paid a whopping $1.25 to manufacture and package.
Because as every slashbot knows, there's no more cost to the production of any given music cd than the cost to press it.
Someone made it incredibly easy for you to do this, too.
Yeah, right.
which apparently tries to install copy-protection software on your computer when inserted (Win and Mac obviously). Hell, while they're at it, why not install Gator or Bonzi Buddy?
Free Tibet, my ass...
What is music when you despise all sound?
using Grip.... no problems at all.
-Cnik
Actually, it costs a lot less than $1.25 to press and package a commercial audio CD, but you are right, the outdated, inefficient, and corrupt marketing schemes used by distributors is to blame for the high price of media.
Although, don't forget that the big five distributors were CONVICTED during the Napster case of price fixing in a federal court. I got my $13 check, did you get yours?
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
All the songs from Velvet Revolvers album Contraband were avaliable in P2P-ville at high quality variable bit rates before it was released to the public. Many CD's find their way onto the P2P networks day's, weeks or a couple of months before they're officialy released to the public.
You bougth something, expecting it to be a standard CD. (reasonable, given that the copy-protection is typically poorly marked, and the CDs stacked up on racks intermixed with the non-CDs) That is, you gave away money, reasonably expecting to get a CD for it that would play in any machine capable of playing CDs.
;-)
Well, in point of fact, these new Velvet Revolver CD's *ARE* standard CD's. They conform to the Blue Book Standard for hybrid CD Audio/Data discs. They'll play in any CD player, even that MP3-CD player.
The only copy protection here is a data track with some software and an autorun. Install the software, it fucks with your CD drivers when you try to rip. That's it. Hold SHIFT to bypass, or disable the autorun, or when the screen comes up that says "An upgrade is required", hit Cancel. Yes, you can actually *cancel* the installation on this sucker.
So as far as the record exec thinking that people approve of CD Protection mechanisms, maybe he means that people approve of easily disabled protection mechanisms.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Since you're using a purely audio CD player, the CD will work on it. Even fairly basic compact stereo systems have digital output.
That is a simple answer. Like most simple answers, it is insufficient. Having bought the CD, I am allowed, under fair use, to copy it. So, your answer, while simple, is incorrect.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Funny thing these copy protected CD's - they don't play on my DJ setup. Which means that I can't play them, despite the fact that the clubs I spin in all pay their ASCAP and BMI fees to allow me to do so. Usually these are mainstream records that I'd want to play because the crowd likes them (my own tastes are indie label and rarely DRM protected).
But the real loser, as usual, is the artist - their music isn't being played in the club so no public performance royalty, and their CD is returned so no points or mechanicals. (If you buy lots of records, stores are fairly cool about believing you when you need to make a return.) So the artist makess no money and loses out on a promotional opportunity to boot (i.e. "Hey DJ, what was that song you just played...?")
If companies want to trash up their CDs with all sorts of worthless gack, more power to them. Because the DRM trend is the best thing that ever happened to my music collection. When I found out that the artist-screwing, mediocrity-championing, price-fixing cockroaches in the mainstream music biz were now proposing to charge me the same thing for a less useful product I made a simple decision: I would not support them any more. Now I buy legacy content used and new content from indies - true indies, not major label shills. And my music collection has never been more interesting.
There's a genius guitar player who charges me a flat subscription rate. A couple dozen times a year a CD shows up in the mail - hand-decorated, with hand-crafted packaging, frequently a one-off live recording, the only one in the world. I pay less than $5 on average per CD.
The other night I went to Bitpass' Mperia.com and started browsing the downloadable music, some available as low as $.25 per track. A couple of hours and about $14 later I had well over thirty new songs on my hard drive with no restrictions whatsoever.
I buy more things at concerts by local artists. I buy more from CD Baby. I get a fair amount of content totally free and legal off the internet... and often end up supporting an independently produced artist with a CD purchase on the strength of what they gave away freely.
And it all has two things in common. It's less expensive and more interesting than what I'm likely to find on the shelves at Walmart or Sam Goody. I would estimate my music budget dollars are nearly twice as effective with this strategy as they were when I mainly bought new major-label-produced content.
Now, I'm rather a stickler about it, but there's no reason you would have to be; if you wanted to replace 20 or 50 or 90% of your purchases but still buy your favorite artists or whatever - nothing to stop you. The point is - just because some mainstream junk with DRM is topping the charts doesn't mean they're winning. We all oughta know by now that chart-toppers or not, the music industry is not doing well financially. Me, I registered my feelings on DRM with all the major labels years ago. They didn't listen so I took my dollar away. I don't want to stop them doing what they're doing - that's freedom of speech, as messed up of an example as it is - artists has the right to sell out their freedom of speech for a terrible record deal, publisher has the right to hawk their overpriced content purchases gacked up with DRM. Every artist has the right to produce and sell their stuff exactly how they want and I have the right to choose.
So choose!
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
"The SunnComm and BMG execs quoted in the article say that they're pleased with the apparent consumer acceptance of the anti-piracy technology, but they have been hearing questions about how people can get the copy-blocked songs from the CD onto an iPod."
This should tell them that the people buying the CDs probably don't realize what it is that they are buying and are going to be pissed when they find out.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
The purpose behind DRM confused me. There is no doubt that Velvet Revolver's music was readily available on the net for free before the CD was even released. Thus, any so-called pirate was able to get it with no problem.
There is also no doubt, as seen above, that the DRM was easily circumvented.
There is also no doubt, that those who legitimately bought the CD and respect the digital millennium copyright act, are screwed. They are unable to convert their newly bought CD to a different format, even though doing so is perfectly legal under the fair use laws of the US.
Considering there is no doubt as to the utter failure of DRM, as shown above, I was perplexed at why it exists. I had trouble finding the answer as I was looking at it logically. The answer to my question is that there is no logical basis for DRM as it is necessarily true that DRM fails stops so-called pirates and screws legitimate buyers.
So what's the answer? I've determined that when confronted by a problem, it is felt by most people that doing something is necessarily better than doing nothing. This is seen as true even when the result of that something is worse than if nothing was done in the first place. Even when that happens, when doing something exacerbates the problem, people will say in defense of their screw up, "Hey, at least I did something!"
This psychological mindset is at play in relation to DRM. The morons in charge of the music industry see so-called piracy as a problem. They can either do something or do nothing. Even though DRM causes more problems, i.e., screwing over legitimate buyers while not putting any dent in so called piracy, they continue doing that something because they feel that doing nothing would somehow be worse. And that's despite all the evidence that clearly shows that DRM is actually worse.
This is why I think DRM will eventually fail. Over time those in power will see the futility of their "something" and do something else to solve any problems associated with so called piracy.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
The RIAA 'buys' the song a place at the top of the chart, so it would be pretty easy to maniuplate which CD rises to the top, and choose a market that would have fewer people that would realize its copy protected.
Instant verification of their 'success' for marketing purposes to help usher in more copy restricted media..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I have not purchased a CD in many years. When the RIAA can stop being greedy I will return to buying music. Why are CD's still $10+? I can go to walmart and buy a DVD for $5.50. Movies cost much more to make than a CD. Lower the price of CD's and I will come back to CD's. As for online music, those cost too much too. Why should I pay $15.00 for 15 songs, the CD costs less, and with a cd I have a hard copy. Make the per song price cheap and make good music and people will download lots of music. Why priate music if you can get it cheap? As for copy protection of the songs, it is more of a pain to paying customers than pirates. So forget the copy protection in songs.
i am a huge gnr and also stp fan. i went to the concert here in kansas city and i liked it so much that i bought the cd last week... i am listening to it on my computer here at work after running it thru grip and streaming it from home... what kind of copy protection was on the cd? i haven't noticed any problems yet?
Without having the cd here to look for my self, i am just guessing at some of what i'm about to say.
Copy protection schemes can serve more then one purpose. Attemping to not allow anything to copy it would be one purpose. Not allowing somethign to be mass copied could be another. Tracking what cd the copy was made from and then distributing the copies in an organized way so that the general location could be pinpointed down is yet another. I'm probably missing a few more reasons here too but the point is they aren't always as obvious as we would think.
Acording to EMI's website, after looking through the trouble shooting sections, it apears the the copy protection is supposed to introduce noise and make the copied product have some hisses, clicks, and pops in them. I would asume this is a way to stop the cd's from being mass re-produced for ileagle sales and gives the user a little less quality if they decide to copy it. People with better systems might experiance better results then those without as good of a sound card/system.
So yes, while it apears to be nothing and mostly usless, it would serve a purpose and may in fact be a somewhat good design were it is bearly noticable by the user and still efective against outright ileagle actions. Of course i'm guessing that it is effective against mass copying but if i bought a cd with some hissing or cracking and poping in it, i would take it back and demand a better version. If i copied it, then i wouldn't care as much and probably run some type of filter and attemp to remove it.
Small claims courts do not set legal precedent.
The worst case scenario would be that the judge rules in favor of the ripped off CD customer every time, but each ripped off CD customer has to go through the hassle of small claims court.
I'm probably missing a few more reasons here too but the point is they aren't always as obvious as we would think.
;)
I can think of an obvious one: Making money by selling flawed technology to CEOs who don't understand it.
Don't assume omniscience on the part of the music industry execs. You may think they're big fish, but there are smaller and smarter fish ready to scavenge from their kills.
Somwhere, somebody has made a lot of money from selling copy protection software, whether it works or not.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Even with the new CD protection, it is still trivial to copy the contents of CDs.
One simply needs to connect the "analog" output of their CD player to a recording device (PC w/soundcard) and the protection can be circumvented.
As long as we are allowed to hear the music, it will always be copied.
There is no way of preventing music piracy short of bolting headphones to peoples heads!
DOnt many say to return it if you dont agree?