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Recording Industry Hoist By Their Own Petard
An anonymous reader writes "As reported by MSNBC, the recording industry has been unable to offer combination DVD / CD discs to consumers because of the IP ownership questions as well as licensing issues between CD and DVD content. All I can say is it couldn't happen to a nicer bunch!"
Maybe they put the CD information on one layer, readable by the CD laser, and then the DVD stuff on another.
Nuff said.
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beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his mind he dreams himself your master
DVD Plus and DualDisc are based on the same concept--hybrid discs with a DVD on one side and a CD on the other--and Warner sold its patent on the technology to Dierks, though the label retained the license to manufacture products under the Warner name.
...except not. Now this interesting technology is tied up in patent and copyright fights.
It is simple enough. DVD on one side; CD on the other. Everybody is happy...
And we'll probably never see it.
Davak
24Kb two color JPEG: Loading Soon
Could someone please explain how this is bad for RIAA/MPAA? this just means that i now have to buy two disks-the cd and the dvd. or, they could package it as a two disk set like most special edition dvds that you see. really, i dont think it means much, especially to the /. crowd
So there you have it, each side of the disc is either the DVD or the CD. Seems a stupid way to do it to me... making a dual layer CD/DVD would be much more convientient, as suggested above, but I'm not sure how plausible it is.
Warner has released DualDisc albums by R.E.M., P.O.D., Barenaked Ladies, Donald Fagen, and Linkin Park. The CD side of the disc contains standard two-channel, 16-bit/44.1kHz audio, while the DVD side features a high-resolution, 5.1-channel mix of the album. BMG, on the other hand, has music videos on the DVD side of its Usher release. Sony has released DualDiscs by AC/DC, Audioslave, David Bowie, and Good Charlotte. RCA has issued an EP-length DualDisc by the Calling.
Sounds like tons of people are using it to me!
My belief is that record companies are looking for new high-bandwidth ways to sell media. Sure anybody can listen to the song from mp3 or the radio... but it's much nicer to have the video and additional content right in front of you.
Davak
>So there you have it, each side of the disc is either the DVD or the CD.
Now that is interesting. I had always been under the impression that the thickness of the polycarbonate on a CD prevented a CD/DVD sandwich.
I guess you learn something new everyday!
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
I don't think this is industry-wide. The Dave Matthews Band just came out with a live album from their tour-ending shows in 2002. You can buy the best songs from all three shows on a two-disc set, plus it comes with a DVD with 6 or 7 songs from those shows, plus highlights of the Gorge venue.
It's not as if it's a 2-disc jewel case and a DVD case, I mean it's all one case - open it up and the DVD is on one side, and the two CDs are overlapping on the other side. It's ONE unit.
Now, the Dave Matthews Band has been around long enough that they have pretty damn good control over their own content, and they release their albums on Bama Rags (their own label, i think), but it's also distributed through Columbia, so it's not completely independent.
Here a group called "Kool Shem" had their latest album released on a disk that has one side pressed as an audio CD and the other as a video DVD, a format they call "DVD [plus]".
I've only heard of this because of the technical first and have no idea what kind of music they do, apparently it's some kind of rap thing.
Sample link to an online store (Fnac.com)
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
Indeed, indeed. This is, as we say at the trekkie conventions, "being hosed by your own picard"
Sweet, sweet ineed.
of course it's not stupid.
1 scratch, you have to buy the whole thing again.
and no matter what side it lands, there's data to be scratched.
muhahahahahhahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaa
1. change probabilities in your favour
2. wait for a large sample of events
3. profit!!!
Philips Electronics, the licensor of the CD logo, has refused to allow the hybrid discs to be sold with the CD logo unless the labels guarantee to assume responsibility for "read errors" on the CD side, a spokeswoman for Philips said.
My personal RIAA boycott has been ongoing for some time now, but the last few CDs that I did buy did not have the CD logo on them, nor do the discs in my wife's (who has not yet seen fit to join the boycott) collection. It seems to me that the big labels have been eschewing the official CD logo for some time now--so the lack of 'official licensing' for DualDisc shouldn't actually be a factor for its acceptance, at least from the CD side.
This is different from a normal CD how?
If you scratch the polycarbonate side, you might interfere with the reading of the data.
If you scratch the label site you might interfere with the storage of the data.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Maybe this is very uninformed but it seems to me most players, except some slot-loading ones, could accomodate a 1mm thicker disc without problems at all.
.2mm or something? It happened only with a couple of brands, so I guess not all CD-R's are the same thickness.
My slot-loading Sony car stereo (quite old)had problems ejecting burnt CDs with a printed label sticker. And that's how thick?
Would a real DVD layer work on a player that could support both? IFAIK DVD & CD players currently see the CD layer then ignore the DVD^H^H^SACD layer. I don't know if this is due to the SACD layer being ignored when the player detects the CD layer first or that the DVD layer is not detect as a DVD video layer first. But if the SACD layer was a valid DVD layer would DVD players pick it up? My guess the patents/licensing for this type of disk prevents use or most current hardware would not work without a firmware change.
"Well, as soon as dualdisc burners are available, I have a feeling that I will be manufacturing my own DVD/CD combinations, with no help from the DRM^H^H^HRecording Industry."
i think that should be "Recording^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HDRM Industry"
yap
I imagine they will be quite annoying to handle as well. They used do (do they still do this?) make DVDs that had two sides, one side for full screen, the other for letterbox.
The most annoying part of this was the fact that they had to sqeeze the title and side infomation in tiny letters arcing around the spindle hole. It was a pain in the ass trying to read what movie it was.
These creations (abominations) will suffer from the same problem. CDs and DVDs really need a full side devoted to a label. Imagine trying to read that small type while driving.
Ya know, they could put anywhere from 400 high bitrate MP3's on a single layer DVD to 1600 good bitrate MP3's on a dual layer DVD.
Nahhhhh, what a silly idea. Who the hell would ever want to replace an entire shelf worth of CD's and cassettes and what-not with one disk you could toss in a (large) jacket pocket?
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
We already have CD burners, and we already have DVD burners.
Why would we need a dualdisc burner? All we should need is the media -- developed properly, succh media should work in existing CD/DVD burners as a "flippy" -- burn one side, flip it over, and then burn the other.
I can see why Philips might be wary about calling them CDs however. In order to achieve such a double-sided disc, the CD layer would have to be somewhere in the middle of the substrate, instead of on one side of it (under the label). As you can't really make the disc any thicker (else it might not fit into standard slot drives), you have to put it closer to the surface of the substrate, whicch violates the CD standard.
Yaz.
Also Phish has very good control over what happens, I guess. And, in their contract it explicitally says audience taping is to be allowed unless they say otherwise.
I like bands that allow the audience to tape their shows, visit Etree for a huge list of live shows by a large number of bands - most of them in glorious lossless SHN or FLAC formats.
When I found Etree and discovered SHN at the same time I almost came in my pants - among other things they have over 2500 Grateful Dead shows!
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Oh. I forgot we're talking about the USPTO here. They'll grant a patent on a patently absurd application.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
"They have sold for about $18.99 in retail stores."
Does this price sound familiar? It is roughly the price CDs were before they were caught price fixing.
It seems to me that the recording industry only has one business model
- Take one good item
- Bundle a lot of crap with it you don't want (now this includes video content)
- Sell it at a high price that it totally unreasonable.
DVD of movies are still cheeper than this.OS X, Linux, Tivo, Amiga, my fascination with cult-like technologies would intrigue any psychiatrist.
If this is the stuff I think it is, then you get a "flipper", where you have DVD content on the one side, and CD content on the other.
I actually remember a professor at my university talking about this, saying a friend of was doing something great with DVDs. That was in 96 or 97, I think.
As ye shall sow, so shall ye reap.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
Imagine having to deal with the asshole who's doing the reading, while crossing the double yellow line coming your way.
Is it fascism yet?
Petard
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
Maybe this is very uninformed but it seems to me most players, except some slot-loading ones, could accomodate a 1mm thicker disc without problems at all.
I'll add anecdotal evidence to this. Confusing as heck to pull a disc off a spindle, put it in, and have some other disc start playing, open the drive, confirm it's the disc you thought it was, spend a few moments wondering who's playing a joke on you and how, and then realize that it's two discs with static cling.
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
uhm, what purpose does the RIAA serve again?
To make the very thing you plan on doing illegal for anyone but them.
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
Actually, these discs would be more durable. The polycarbonate side can be scratched pretty badly before you ruin the disk. It's the more fragile label side which is usually what causes discs to go bad. As there is no label side, you stand a greater chance of the disc still being playable.
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
Am I the only one that read this "Recording Industry Hoist By their Own Retard?"
There is a Universal Life Value Check it
and then:
These things are not unrelated!! Why are DVDs doing so much better than CDs? Gee, could it be because I can get a feature length movie for much LESS than a 74 minute CD? Forget the whole problem of timebomb-popularity industry manufactured arists for just a moment, and think about price. Why is it that I can get Ghost Dog or Pulp Fiction at many movie stores for 10 bucks, but if I want to get the soundtrack it'll set me back 17 or 18? They're older albums, there is NO REASON for them to cost so much.
The problem with the music industry is that they don't remember the laws of supply and demand. If they lowered the prices of their music, more people would buy it. I have long ago ceased feeling sorry for them. They are digging their own graves by refusing to listen to the market. Here are some quick and dirty solutions...
People aren't buying CDs? Try lowering the price!! People still aren't buying your manufactured artists? Try signing artists with actual talent and promoting THEM over the plastic hype! People are downloading too many songs for free? (Hey let's sue elementary school kids! Great plan!) Try offering the songs EASILY and INEXPENSIVELY. If you had paid attention to this when we were all screaming at you 4 or 5 years ago this wouldn't be a problem now. Instead you opted for the head-in-the-sand technique and needed to be strongarmed by a computer hardware and software manufacturer.
"He's more machine now than man, twisted and evil."
and am, sadly, absolutely not the AC who submitted it :-)
.sig: file not found
...across the TOC. Oh, well. (-:
Most of the CDs you buy aren't anywhere near full, either. Rip and re-burn one, then hold the clone up to the light and see. Unless it's got extra digital content, the commercial CDs are rarely more than 1/3-1/2 full.
For example "Thick as a Brick" - the full version - is a 43-minute song. Yes, one song. That's the entire album, on an 80-minute medium.
You should be able to get over 4000 typical high-bitrate Ogg tracks onto a dual-layer DVD. You could probably fit the entire music industry into a carryall.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Issue two discs. One a standard CD, and the other a DVD. It costs them like what, 50 cents to burn a CD? Maybe $2 to burn a DVD? It will cost them more in R&D and legal fees to get a dual-format disk.
Using the Wisdom of Solomon, this problem is solved! Split it in two, and have two disks!
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
hmm, i was confused by the statement 'they have been unable to offer' these discs, because i have seen them in stores. but i guess boston (and the surrounding areas) must have been a test market, according to the article.
besides that, this is stupid. i hate double sided discs, (the only ones i've seen so far are movies with a fullscreen and widescreen verison on a single DVD). i like the idea of bundling a separate cd and dvd in one package, what's wrong with sticking with that model?
If you buy Weird Al music videos DVD (or anybody else's) you get the music for them as the 'soundtrack' of the DVD at no additional cost. Just be sure to rout the DVD audio through your home theater/stereo system and keep the TV turned off.
The only drawbacks to this method is that there might be Weird Al songs that he *didn't* make music videos for or the music video version of a song is different than the one on the actual music CD.
Food for thought.
The movie and music recording industries have committed several major sins:
Have I missed anything? I'm sure there's a few more issues that could be dredged up.
They assume ownership of music that is not theirs, yet blast you with lawyers if you desire to sample music of theirs. They encourage the flavor of the month, but will not invest in the long term career of an artist. They pay radio stations to play what they want you to buy, leaving less or no room for music not controlled by them.
(Hours later)
If you're a customer, you hate them because they treat you like a thief, they only admit the right of Fair Use when backed into a corner, they lobby incessantly for backwards technologies that make the act of listening, using, and enjoying music difficult if not impossible. They push format after format yet say the new format hurts sales. They preach that you can't own a CD - only license it from them, yet won't replace a scratched CD because you own it.
(yet more hours later)
If you're a /.er, you hate them for their fake statistics, their inflation of CD burner speeds to number of burners to make piracy sound like a larger problem than it is. You hate them because they fail to address the issues at hand, and attack 'straw men' of their choosing. You hate them because your favorite band broke up after being dicked around by some A&R guy. You hate them because they make backing up your CD collection annoying, difficult, illegal and tainted with 'cracker' spin. You hate them because they lie, they cheat, they steal, they are a monopoly and they use their power to keep others from competing on a equal footing. They have the ear of congress, and use it to make you a criminal - whether you are 'stealing' or not.
(hey is the sun coming up)
There you have it Bill. Consider yourself enlightened. There are more stories out there, and not that hard to find. Enlighten yourself, and see what happens when people sell other people art.
There's actually already a solution to this.... the iTunes Music store. you can burn all the AAC's onto a DVD and voila!
Or, of course, you can just transfer them to your iPod.
I've got more mod points and GMail invi
Is Weird Al really the best example you could come up with?
Just askin'.
Unfortunately I can tell you that my new Sony 400 disc changer only does MP3s on CD media. I tried a DVD, it popped up a message on the order of 'cannot play this disc'. This has been my only disappointment with the unit but was not unexpected.
It seems pretty assine to me. Giving more priority to the media type than the content is like a human reader claiming they can't read a language on a computer screen, they can only read paper while reading other things off a screen just fine. (Perhaps this analogy will provoke some interesting examples of difficulty with screens.)
Also, I know what you mean about the radio. Currently commercial pop music broadcasting sucks - especially when compared to its past. And not necessarily its recent past, either. This means that there are kids of the age to be buying quite a bit of material that have never known much of vibrant broadcast music scene.
I encourage you to seek out public/university stations and look for locally produced music shows. From your mention of Clear Channel, I assume you are in the US. While it is somewhat difficult going cross country, the lower FM frequencies are the best place to start.
I don't think enough emphasis is given to the poor quality of radio when considering the record industry's alledged market woes. It used to be that there was a much more active radio environment showing off their wares. The problem with 'One CD fits all' is that it doesn't and if you don't produce a large variety, you saturate the buying public.
All my previous sigs now look like this one, I wish they were permanetly recorded when used.