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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
... 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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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 had it three days before they started recording it.
Okay, I'm completely boggled now . . . what exactly are they're trying to accomplish?
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.
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.
Sure, there will always be PIRATES out there that can get it. This protection is just to train the general population to know how far their right to use the products goes.
I shall go and tell the indestructible man that someone plans to murder him.
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
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.
The CD has an auto-load software (which loads seemingly even when you ask windows to NOT load it for you). Software asks you to agree or disagree to a EULA. If you disagree it ejects the CD. If you agree (I haven't) it presumably installs some sort of mal-ware.
If you let it auto-load it will load the software into memory, even once you take the CD out (and will probably do so whenever you accept the EULA* and it installs permanently).
The apparent workaround I found for Windows was just to have the CD in the drive and reboot. No loading, EAC extracts it just fine without errors. This, (pay attention RCA Records / BMG ) then lets me have fair use the CD as my rights and the law allow . The CD I bought, I can now listen to on my computer. What does this do?
Well, let's see. I can:
1. Download the album. (Very easy)
2. Buy the CD (difficult but I do it because I want to support the artists). Then spend an extra 5-15 minutes to see how to circumvent it? Don't make my choice easier.
Here's some info from the back of the CD (which I have in my lap right now): "Digital files on this CD will also play on portable players supporting secure WMA files." It also says it requires 98/2000/XP.
Oh yeah, accessing the CD via Explorer crashes Windows. I keep sending Error Reports to Microsoft...
The CD also has a fun little "introduction" in "cool guy" terms... Excerpts here:
Welcome to your new "Expanded Experience" compact disc.
________________________________________
The EULA on the CD (emphasis mine):
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
Hmmmm, the sticker is missing from the copy I downloaded from usenet. Try again SunnComm and BMG.
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.
I saw 3 different torrents of this album on suprnova.org the other day.
Heard an interview with them on a Vancouver radio station last week, asking them about what they think about people downloading their albums off the Internet (by that time so many people already had copies of their albums and I'm actually quite surprised now just finding out that the CDs were copy-protected) - they said something about having their concert tickets jacked up more to get their revenues.
Apparently their entire US tour got sold out within 10 minutes, so I don't think jacking up concert tix would have that much of an impact...
my blog
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!"
Or use the [shift] key when you insert the disk. Or use another operating system that doesn't autorun the anti-copying software.
You make the mistake of thinking you can educate the fundamental stupidity out of people. You can't.
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?).
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?
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
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 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.
Actually, if you live in the west, and work with computers, you probably are .
--
"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.
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
What strange ideas are these? Take companies to court for lying to people? For a start you would bankrupt the advertising industry, not to meantion the tobacco, food (not just fast/junk) and pharmaceutical industries as well, leading to thousands of job losses and the collapse of the economy.
Are you a communist or something? Companies lying to people is the American Way, capitalism was built by snake-oil salesmen!
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.
So, can you sue the band or the record company for attempting to install a virus on your computer? Actually, isn't that a criminal offence? Scott Weiland's used to being in jail isn't he?