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Sony Japan to Abolish Copy Controlled CDs

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the music-wants-to-be-free dept.

Gridle writes "In a complete reversal of their policy and on the heels of Avex's partial cessation of copy protected CDs (translation), Sony Music Entertainment in Japan has announced that it will abolish its Label Gate CCCD format (translation) beginning in November 2004 and move back to normal CD-audio format discs for all future releases. Reasons cited are music users' increased consciousness about copyrights and maintenance of legality (conformity to the CD-audio format specification). In related news, Sony also released a slightly updated HD walkman (translation) due to pressure from the iPod, but because of hardware limitations the device still does not support MP3 playback."

8 of 251 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Roxxor by halowolf · · Score: 5, Informative
    Well I'm from Australia too and I've never had a problem getting region free DVD players in Australia. Everyone seems to offer them. Just do some hunting, perhaps at a specialist store and I'm sure you will find a good player unencumbered by and anti-competitive practice. The ACCC doesn't seem to mind region free players existing ;)

    The UK however I don't have a clue about. However if you can get a DVD player through customs send one home and change its power plug :)

  2. Re:That's odd about the no MP3 playback. by erick99 · · Score: 4, Informative

    In this article Sony says that they are working hard to bring MP3 devices to market but they have nothing to announce at this time.

    --
    http://www.busyweather.com/
  3. Re:Roxxor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    1. can I get a region free DVD drive for my Dell laptops? no.

    You can play DVD's from any region on any player if you use software with decss... like VLC and such. (Yes, it works under Windows too.)

  4. Re:Roxxor by Frogbert · · Score: 5, Informative

    Some links that may be of interest to you:
    http://dvd.box.sk/index.php?pid=d_soft&prj=l ist&to ols=region&pol=2
    http://regionhacks.datatestlab.c om/
    http://www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks

    Enjoy your movies :-)

  5. Re:Roxxor by B2382F29 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Mplayer uses it too, there is also a Windows version

    BTW, it is not libcss anymore, but libdvdcss.

    --
    Move Sig. For great justice.
  6. Re:Business by TiggsPanther · · Score: 5, Informative
    As a side note to your well put remark - whatever happened to /. crowd's usual dislike of Sony (member RIAA)? To read most comments posted here would make you think Sony is the New Angles Co. (tm).

    I think it's because it shows one (or both) of two things.

    1. Sony might be an RIAA affiliate but that doesn't influence Sony Japan's decision-making. Which means that the worldwide company isn't having it's decisions dictated by its American arm. This is good in that if more and more regional divisions of Sony decide it's better not to copy-protect CDs then their American arm might follow suit out of sheer convenience. Oh and as a Brit I admit to having a little bit of bias in thinking that it's good that non-American arms of international countries don't always follow the "bad" decisions of their American counterparts.
    2. They realise that DRM isn't a perfect solution whether they like it or not. (See below)
    This is just a simple decision to end a failing practice in the marketplace. Nothing more.

    Coming from a company so involved in the industry I see this as a good thing. If nothing else it's a pleasant change to the usual story of trying to prolong the failing practice at the expense of customer irritation.
    Even if it is "a simple decision to end a failing practice" it would be a very welcome decision if more companies would realise that irritating your customers isn't going to increase sales.

    --
    Tiggs
    "120 chars should be enough for everyone..."
  7. Region unlocking by Danj2k · · Score: 3, Informative
    1. can I get a region free DVD drive for my Dell laptops?

    Possibly. Try having a look on The Firmware Page and seeing if there is a region-unlocked firmware for the drive in your Dell laptop. Your other alternative is to get hold of a program like DVD Region Free which I believe will strip off the region coding (and other things) before it reaches your DVD player software.

  8. Re:Roxxor by DeeKayWon · · Score: 5, Informative
    You can play DVD's from any region on any player if you use software with decss... like VLC and such. (Yes, it works under Windows too.)

    No, you can't. For about the last five years, DVD drives themselves have been enforcing region coding in firmware. Firmwares that do not enforce regioning are called RPC-1. Ones that do are called RPC-2. The only way to make a recent drive RPC-1 is with a hacked firmware, since the companies only release RPC-2.

    The Firmware Page is one of the best sources for hacked RPC-1 firmware. But if no one has hacked up a new firmware for your drive, then there's no way around region coding regardless what software you're using.