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Labels Trying New CD Copy Prevention Systems
bAdministrator writes "What if a CD copy-protection system was developed, which did not compromise sound quality nor cause compatibility problems, and still allowed for your 'rights' to make a limited amount of personal copies (*.DRM)? UK-based company First 4 Internet (F4i) claims to have pulled this off with their 'eXtended Copy Protection' (XCP) system; 'The disc will present itself as a CD-ROM to PCs, a Mac CD-ROM to Mac computers, a VCD to DVD players and CDDA disc to audio CD players. This multifunctional disc format offers full playability and therefore greater flexibility without lowering protection levels.' and 'By using a range of methodologies, including the construction of multiple protection layers, limiting the player accessibility to the provided player software, and encapsulating the red book audio content, XCP® successfully protects the content from unauthorised copying.'"
It presents itself as a broken CD.
On most any computer, you have an audio out jack, and a microphone (or line in jack).
What's to stop someone from playing the CD, only with a cable connecting the out to the in, and pressing record/play...?
What's to stop someone from making an audio "device" that simply writes everything it gets to disk...?
Granted, you'll have a generic "loss of quality", but as long as you're playing from the CD, in theory the loss is no more or less than an encode directly from the CD (if using the device driver method, the audio cable may/may not kill some quality).
I'm just waiting for an automated program that'll do this...it completly removes all forms of DRM, it would remove the iTunes user ID, it would remove everything BUT the audio.
What a concept, huh? A friend of mine, after I told him this (that I've been contemplating for years), said, "but..that's like cheating!"
Who cares? It works.
As long as it can be heard (or seen), it can be re-recoreded at near identical quality.
Anyone have a link to a torrent for it?
Hooray for fifteen minute long albums!
So, who's gonna post the crack?
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
This is all good and dandy, but if something can be protected, it can be cracked.
The record companies should stop making CD's, that way, there is no WAY anyone can steal the music from them!
Slashdot sucks
Normally there'd be a bunch of AIFF files ready to drag/drop - with the schizophrenic nature of the disk, it'll be interesting to see what happens...
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
They can make all these grand claims and the like, but the simple truth is that what they're claiming is not possible with existing CD standards. They may have made some sort of hack that works most of the time, but there's no guarantee it'll work in all CDROM drives. I'm failing to see how it's any different from existing "solutions."
I have to play an electronic file that is not standard in a player that the company provides in order to listen to a rip of the song?
can soem one say BULLSHIT
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
I bet this new scheme yields to cdparanoia just like all the others.
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
This sounds like something that will take a while to hack. But once it is hacked we will have a new open format that can work like a cd-rom audio and stuff. Also we will have a cool new protection system.
Never Smoke A Banana.
How many times have we seen these promises, until the technology hits the public domain and its gets it first real world test, we'll never no.
That seems like a *big* showstopper to me. So, they're saying it works on Windows and Mac, but you can't use iTunes on *either*? I don't see how that would be possible if it's following the standard, as they claim, but if it does, I can't imagine many people going for it.
An unreadable block device to linux users
And this too shall be cracked ... I give it a week.
What if a CD copy-protection system was developed, which did not compromise sound quality nor cause compatibility problems, and still allowed for your 'rights' to make a limited amount of personal copies (*.DRM)? UK-based company First 4 Internet (F4i) claims to have pulled this off
That's what they* always claim, and they have not delivered yet.
I still should be able to do what I want with a product I purchased, for personal use. That includes encoding it into the format of my choice, not thiers.
* they being CD copy protection creators
It talks about a "construction of multiple protection layers, limiting the player accessibility to the provided player software". So I have to ask, how the heck does that work? Is my computer's CD-ROM drive really *that* much different from my CD players? What happends if my CD player is a DVD player too, will it be confused by some of the layers? Is this some kind of magic-mojo protection, or am I just missing something here?
WASTE - The Secure P2P
Nope.
When I pay for a overpriced CD, I at least deserve the right to be able listen to it in any (preferably open) format of my own choosing.
I have a feeling that this will finally be the copy protection scheme that works because this morning the RIAA stopped by my house and removed the shift key from my keyboard.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
The best way to look at these systems is not as an attempt to actually prevent people from ripping CDDA audio from CDs: that's effectively impossible.
Think of them as an elegant method of separating the record labels from millions and millions of dollars of their money, in return for...nothing.
Hm. I'm in the wrong line of work.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
The disc will present itself as a CD-ROM to PCs, a Mac CD-ROM to Mac computers
What about linux?
Nobody would object, because anybody who has complained about DRM before is merely objecting to their Fair Use rights being violated, and none of them are interested in actually pirating content!
... of course there will be complaints, all of them wrapped up in double-talk about open standards and fair use, merely cloaking a desire for piracy. This company is bending over backwards to address legitimate complaints (of which I've made a few), yet the pirates will still be unhappy, as they should be.
... even though I am an advocate of fair use.
OK, now I've put down the crackpipe
Go on, mod me down troll for dissing pirates
and rip the sucker to MP3 via the optical out..... Will they ever learn... There is no way to copyprotect 1's and 0's. :-)
I like to archive my music (I buy a lot of CDs every month, sometimes I can't find something a friend recommends I re-listen to) on my PC, and will not buy any CD that tries to prevent me.
Prosperity is only an instrument to be used, not a deity to be worshipped. Calvin Coolidge
my journal: scripts for leaching porn baked fresh daily
Look, I'm not going to go for any bullshit DRM-restricted music. If I can't rip to WAV and then encode to OGG or MP3, forget it. If I can't make my own mix CDs and playlists in the format of my choosing, then I'm not going to buy it.
I'd like to think I'm not alone in this. I just want the freedom to listen to the music I buy in the way that I want. Anything less than that is not acceptable.
-Jem
Good Lord, this is easy to circumvent Take any app that records any/all system audio to disc (on mac, this would be Audio Hijack or Wiretap) and just splice the resultant AIFF file. Technology rendered moot by preexisting code. Take that, you RIAA bastards
In the words of a great engineer, "the more they overtake the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain..."
Clicked on DRM on the site and this came up:
Flexible Approach
DRM is a key feature of copy protection and our philosophy is to provide a flexible range of solutions for the Record Labels. While XCP itself is a single session technology it has been developed to incorporate third party Second Session DRM as well as our own proprietary DRM which uniquely enables protected burning of copy protected CDs.
Sounds pretty good if you read it straight right? Now if you look DIRECTLY under it it has this (bold mines):
Second Session DRM
XCP copy protection has been developed to be compatible with third party Second Session DRM technologies enabling a feature rich experience for consumers. Multi session music CDs contain both the original Red Book audio files and also data files with video clips and photo libraries as well as Digital Rights Management features that provide greater controls for the Record Labels over the onward distribution of content by the consumer.
Hmm doesnt sound very flexable to me. Sounds like they are DRMing the music and the ability to copy but alot giving total control of said ability to the RIAA.
Just another overly abusive DRM it sounds like to me. Somewhere in some law buried is the right of usage for our media. The right to actually make backup copies and complations for our selves. Here, that ability is not only taken away but hands the RIAA exactely what it wants, total control of the media we have purchased.
What's to stop someone from playing the CD, only with a cable connecting the out to the in, and pressing record/play...?
True.
We used to do this, back in the seventies, with eight-track tapes. Those were the days, man.
How could we have guessed that our simple eight-track hack would lead to the hacking of today's expensive DRM?
(How, indeed: if I recall correctly -- a questionable venture -- we were listening to a lot of Foghat, in those days.)
-kgj
-kgj
One more reason not to trash your old good tape player =) Hook up a mic, and voila, will work around and DRM scheme, present and future. On the serious side thou, it it a shame to see companies pumping in millions to design just another copy-protection thingie that will be destroyed tomorrow by a 14-year old. Are Britney Spears songs REALLY so precious?
http://www.automatiq.se
'The disc will present itself as a CD-ROM to PCs, a Mac CD-ROM to Mac computers, a VCD to DVD players and CDDA disc to audio CD players. This multifunctional disc format offers full playability and therefore greater flexibility without lowering protection levels.' and 'By using a range of methodologies, including the construction of multiple protection layers, limiting the player accessibility to the provided player software, and encapsulating the red book audio content, XCP® successfully protects the content from unauthorised copying.'
And yes, the shift key will bypass all your hours and hours of pointless research, overblown 'technologies' and multiple orgasm dual-encrypted protection layers. I can safely assure you XCP® will NOT successfully protect Jack Shit from unauthorised bullshitting, and I can only wish First4Porn good luck in flogging this crap to the record labels before they realise they cant cancel the license... Actually I was wondering if I couldnt just make up a CD DRM system and give it lots of buzzwords about encryption and then sell it and skip the country? Any thoughts?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
While this may stop P2P usage, doesn't it also hurt the person who wants to have a CD for the car, a CD for the stereo, a CD for the office, and an other spare CD?
Making MP3 should be perfectly legal, shairing them, however, isn't.
~ Mooga
Ummm... No shift key this time? Maybe player comes with free spyware too, freshly reinstalled on every song. K00l!
BTW, any "copy protection" scheme for information which shall be reproduced is impossible from the pure mathematical reason. If you can't understand this, read some Shannon, Wiener or Von Neumann book about classic cybernetics/information theory.
Well, at least impossible until whole CD became entangled quantum pair with your CD player box, and both will cease to exist in response of copy attempt.
There you are, staring at me again.
This multifunctional disc format
Am I the only one who misread that as malfunctional? Or perhaps I didn't misread...
- Neil Wehneman
My legal education, in nifty podcast format
How stupid can these companys be? The one and only way to stop someone from coping any media is to not distribute it at all.
How long will they pour money into flawed concepts?
Can this override your fstab and other cd-ripping related settings. I doubt it considering that generally takes root access and that's assuming you allow autorun (which probably takes some fancy configuration involving WINE to even work).
.mp3/.org/.flac files on the internet instead of paying for crippled CDs.
It only takes one copy to be made, and then everyone will get their on-DRM enhanced
...will never work and isn't really a war - it's just greed, plain and simple.
The minute DRM starts to chafe for the average user the technology will fail because users want access to the material they licensed at the checkout stand - and make no mistake, they did license the fair use of whatever the hell is on the disk.
The lie IP hogs want us to believe is that they have rights over and above our right to hear/view/access what we have already paid for.
The real world says no.
But like a drunken man in search of more drink the IP hogs go for more DRM, they always do - like a blow upon a bruise.
"Doctor, it hurts us every time we try to implement DRM."
"Then stop trying to DRM everything."
I was just wondering why Real Networks is linked along with Windows and Mac for sponsorship(or something), aside for their cd-burning software...
According to this info-mech DRM Technology Vendors site it sounds like they're positioning themselves to be *the* multi-platform multimedia DRM protection software.
and now back to the fallout shelter...
Who cares? I've got an old 1989 Sony (!) CD player with an optical digital output, and a CMI8738 sound card with a digital input. I cannot imagine this copy protection scheme to violate existing SPDIF standards (mind you, "SPDIF" stands for "Sony/Philips Digital Interface", see also here). So - nobody able of getting an older CD player and a 50$ sound card will be too impressed by any backwards compatible CP scheme. This is ridiculous.
The CP vendor's web site says "It is a robust solution providing the highest levels of protection against casual piracy while ensuring full playability." which says all. This is not (and cannot be) targeted against the professional pirates in Asia who make and sell millions of copies, but against you and me and Joe User.
open (SIG, "</dev/zero"); $sig = <SIG>; close SIG;
If it can be read and played, it can be ripped and copied. Bottom line.
All these DRM stuff ... boils down to, telling something to your friend and asking hime to not to say to anyone!
It all depends on what kind of friend he is.
Nothing is wrong here with your friend and the uncertinety.
Present days computing, network power will make(tempt) huge corporation to controll and steer economy. This is very very bad.
This is where our friend is preserving the meaning of uncertinity and there by compitetion and thery by the Natural economy.
Economy is a continious on going netotiation not a fixed rule.
... as long as you are savvy enough to handle a CD player with an SPDIF output and a sound card with an SPDIF input.
open (SIG, "</dev/zero"); $sig = <SIG>; close SIG;
for...limiting the player accessibility to the provided player software
serenity now!
Users have a right to make a backup copy of their media. This new format does not allow for any backup copies, and even though its nicer than pure DRM, it's still not allowed.
I dont think consumers are going to be concerned with "piracy" until record labels are concerned with fair use. Why should consumers refrain from illegal copy distribution when at every turn the record labels continue to take away fair use rights?
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
If the CPU decodes the data and plays it via sound card, it's cracked already (sound card can be simulated in software and you never know any different). Same if it's a movie, does it display to a standard screen/video card?.
These guys are on crack and just trying to make a buck on their worthless technology.
It may be a good thing if they take lots of the RIAAs money.
broken by design
Yes, and it usually doesn't take that long. Makes one wonder: are there any examples where DRM has actually worked?
Sure, maybe there are some business applications where protection of internal company documents works dandy, but for mass market uses? If a protection scheme would really be unbreakable, people would likely avoid that product. And as soon as incentive (money, fair use rights, other) is strong enough, and the market is big enough, DRM does get cracked, right? Only a matter of time.
Anyone got some counterexamples?
Why don't they go back to making a generic, universally playable disk. And then release disks that people will actually want to buy? Sheeesh what a bunch of morons. Moral: you don't need to be smart to run big companies. Just pushy and obnoxious.
we will end no whine before its time
The mere fact that labels are making a big fuss about this is enough for any person to think about ripping off songs. When I was a kid, my mom told me to clean my room, so automatically, I didn't do it.
I'm a musician myself, and I look forward to the day when people start ripping off my CDs... because everyone should know that bands and artists make about 0.07$ off each cd sold. The labels make about 10$. When people rip off my albums, more people will hear it, and I'll be making money when they come to see my concerts.
The labels are greedy, filthy rich people that are trying to impose a system on us so they can raise the prices on us at christmas and sell the products that they advertise during their friggin award shows on tv (which are strictly useless, because artists cannot be compared on merit or sales alone... people's tastes are sole judges here).
I have over 80 Gigabytes of ripped music in my drive, and I will NEVER stop ripping music.
besides... someone is bound to come up with a crack for this!
Sébastien Ferland couzin2000@gmail.com freedom | liberté | libertad | freiheit | libertà libertade |
Seriously, you can't believe these companies because they want to say they have the greatest thing since sliced bread to pitch to music execs and to collect royalties on all the CDs it will be installed on.
This just isn't possible, as if the disc is able to present itself as an ordinary audio CD to anything it's fecked. Computer CD players, DVD players and ordinary CD players are just not built to recognise different types of CDs - they recognise CDs, and that's it.
I almost bought four CDs yesterday as part of a "buy 4 for £20" promotion in a branch of HMV. One of the CDs, an album by Ultravox originally recorded in the early 1980s, was DRM-locked. There was no other CD that I was remotely interested in the offer and I wasn't going to buy a CD that I couldn't listen to freely (my PC with Winamp or my Palm Tungsten E is how I listen to my CDs) so I left the store empty-handed.
End result of the DRM: the non-sale of four CDs. The crazy thing here is the DRM was on an album that hasn't been in any kind of music chart for over twenty years, and anyone who's likely to want it either owns it already or would be willing to pay for it. Certainly, it's not the kind of album that would be downloaded by a lot of people even if it were to be ripped and made available by someone on a P2P service.
In other words, by putting copy "protection" mechanisms on a CD that really doesn't benefit from it the record company has lost a sale and the record industry has lost four. And who knows what else I would have bought if I hadn't been disgusted enough to walk out of the store without looking at another thing?
You could argue that DRM isn't an issue for most of the music-buying public but, as the ownership of PC and MP3 players increases, the public's awareness of these blocks on their usage will increase, and sooner or later that will translate into fewer purchases of DRMed titles.
Earth to music industry: you're shooting yourself in the foot with both barrels. Stop before it's too late.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
I don't see how this will work on OSX as it should present the user with several sessions on the desktop including an audio CD session with the tracks that you can drag off as AIFF files.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
From the discription this sounds like nothing more then recording multiple sessions on a cd. This is something that has been done for years by companies that sell mac and windows software, allowing them to put the mac and windows software on one disc for distribution.
Post looks ripped from the website. Website is very low on details.
The section on pressed-cds makes it seem as though the disc can tell what kind of device it trying to read it, and somehow take action to prevent access if the disc was not intended to be accessible on that device.
Huh?
If it's "encapsulated" red-book, then it's not red-book anymore. An audioCD player would need to be built with logic to read and remove the encapsulation.
I don't see how they could implement this without "bastardizing" the intended CD format. There's no logic on a CD, therefore the logic would need to be in the player or drive, etc.
I can't help but thinking this is vapor. There's no way for me to tell, but the post smells like it was entered by a company marketing employee.
USNG: 14TPU4605
Because there is nothing you can do to stop the copying of bits if you don't control the hardware. Nothing. And it just so happens that pirates are always more sophisticated than the average consumer. Absolutely pointless.
Why bother.
Anybody with half a brain will be able to rip the stuff across the TOSLINK wire. I mean, if the "music" is worth ripping, to begin with.
open (SIG, "</dev/zero"); $sig = <SIG>; close SIG;
I know it's been said many times. But the solution is simple: make it not worth the trouble to copy cds. In other words: Lower the price of the cds to a reasonable level and people will just opt to buy it. Instead you have record companies doing all this r&d into protection and raising the cost of the cds to pay for it!
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
This holiday season, don't forget what a real audio CD is! A true audio CD doesn't have track errors and doesn't try to hide data or offer mixed data modes (DRM or low quality/crippled audio): it's just pure, sweet 16-bit 44KHz samples.
So if you buy something that's marketed as or implied to be an "audio CD" (maybe according to the section of the store you bought it from) check it out to make sure it works with your computer's CD player and that you can save the original audio tracks to your hard drive.
If that doesn't work, you have not bought an audio CD but have been fooled by false advertising or misleading marketing. Return the "audio CD" to the store you bought it from an insist on a refund. You have solid backing with this one, stick up for your consumer rights.
For those that say I'm being difficult, in this instance it's not an issue of P2P evangelism or even copyright disputes. This is an issue of consumer rights -- if a vendor tricks you into buying something under false pretenses, you have a right to get your money back.
Copy protection can never work. Ever.
In this case: Audio out jack, meet audio in.
For video copy protection can only work as far as a screen capture: Framebuffer, meet harddrive.
Video games fall into two categories, ones where you're paying for a social service (MMORPGs) and ones you can play with a specific group or alone. Anything that requires internet authentication can be fooled.
Direct away from face when opening.
Basically they're saying "works for now, but it will probably be problem sometime" - where sometime is anywhere between now and the future.
If this protection became widespread, I'd bet on a compromise shortly after it does, possibly within weeks to a month. So how much would record companies have to pay for this, and how much are they going to jack up our CD prices because they did so?
I think this is where the real "cost of piracy" comes in. Not in the piracy itself, but in the idiotic measures they pay for in attempts to limit access to paid-for media.
As with all compact disks- any which does not conform to the original CD standard is faulty. If I cannot make backups of the CD and make mp3 files to play on my MP3 player then sorry but the disk is faulty- I return it to the shop and I am forced to download a poor quality mp3 from the intraweb... I have many cds which have disintegrated- peeled etc. I now insist on making backups as there is an inherent design fault in the product. Also, I don't see why I should have to pay one price for a CD to play on my stereo and then have to fork out more money for a lesser quality audio file which is in effect merely rented to me. This business model is completely consumer-unfriendly- and until the music industry starts putting consumers first I will be forced to look elsewhere.
kin242.net
The disc will present itself as a CD-ROM to PCs
Uhh... To Windows or to PC's?
I assume they mean "present itself as a CD-ROM to Windows Explorer", but then you just need to write a low level CD reader right? I mean, if they're just trying to fool Explorer. If it can be read properly by existing several years old brain dead Audio CD players without having those requiring an upgrade to do so, surely you'll be able to develop software to do it on Windows, Linux or whatever as well?
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
...and CDDA disc to audio CD players
So this means the good ol' CDDA data we've been rippin' for year *is* included on the disc, right? Thus, a simple hack will be to use a scriptable sector editor to copy the raw CDDA from the disk to your HD and viola! no need to decrypt, just encode as usual! The only tricky bit may be to find where on the disk the CDDA data is located...
"There is no dark side of the moon really. Matter of fact it's all dark."
And we will still be able to bypass everything they have hyped so hard by, lo and behold, putting the disk in a DVD player instead of the intended CD player.
Wake me up when the madness ends.
If you can access the audio 'unprotectedly' on a audio cd player, then you definitely can access the audio data 'unprotectedly' on a computer, unless there is some hardware 'protection'. If it does the hardware to enforce DRM (like differences between cd players and computer cd drives) then it will definitely give compatibility problems. Another thing to note is that, it can be easily circumvented through device drivers. You just need to create your own device drive for your pseudo-soundcard which will just feed the data to your encoder/storer/whatever and make that device default. In fact this can be used against any audio DRM, although it may result in a (unrecognisably small) loss in quality in lossy-compression based audio(like mp3).
If I buy a CD I expect it to strictly adhere to red book standards. I don't care how bad I want the music, I won't buy any disk that contains DRM period! I don't pirate my music and refuse to be constantly be treated as a criminal because I want to rip my CDs to my laptop.
"We'll I'll tell you what ski king, why don't you take home some chicken and I won't have to stuff my boot all up in your ass!" - Capt. Spalding
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
If it can be displayed on screen, it can be copied.
If it can be played back throuh speakers, it can be copied.
If it can be read, it can be copied.
You may loss one or more:
- quality
- compression/memory usage
- lots of CPU power to recompress without further compression loss
- freedom for violating the law.
But if you see/hear it, you can copy it. As long as you remember that, no copy protection mechanism will ever stop you. It's only the matter how far back you go from the final analogue output to the digital source and where you tap into the stream to create a copy - the closer to the source, the more protection mechanisms are left, but the less quality is lost as well.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
It only takes one cracked copy to spread all over the internet. And there are hundreds of people qualified and willing to do so.
the cosmos in 20 words or less: thumbuki.com
Route that back to your PC to record digitally.. Problem solved..
Besides its MY disk, they should not have any say so in how many backup copies i make. Or how many of my portable MP3 players its on.. I can only listen to one at a time..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Slashdot keeps on reporting these new copy protection schemes.
As everyone here knows, if the disc can be played in a CD player, a CDROM drive can be programmed to read it in the same way and extract the audio, yada yada yada. These systems are all the same.
I'm pretty sure that the RIAA is aware of the suckiness of these systems. They aren't that stupid. These systems will stop a decent number of clueless people from ripping CDs, and that's probably all they expect from them...
My bicyles
...
Sorry, But here is NEXT YEARS perfect DRM scheme.
The product does not actually ship...
you receive a black box and a set of TRODES.
connecting these to your head, causes a memory of having listened to the music to be recorded directly into your brain...
no muss, no fuss... the year after that, they will even make you LIKE it too!
No no that's a copyright circumvention device!
A technology that makes buying albums online less restrictive than buying a physical CD.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The exact same complaint that Velvet Revolver's label gets every day: "How do I get the music onto my iPod (insert your favorite player name in sunstitue for iPod)?" is going to haunt any label that gets this technology going.
a me thing with this technology. No one is going to buy a CD they can't stick on a portable music player.
I read an article once that said, Velvet Revolver's labels get a call EVERY DAY by at least one person asking how to get the CD onto thier portable player.
file:///usr/share/doc/HTML/index.html
S
Kinda funny... Microsoft developed a DRM technology that presented a CD to a PC user as WMA files that were DRMed, and now the #1 HD based music player on the planet can't play WMAs, making this method of CD protection rather worthless to most record labels.
I wonder if protected CDs will start coming with coupons for a free download from the iTunes Music Store?
They will get rich, anyway, with this. All they have to do is sell it for millions in licensing to various corporations that are not run by geeks. As long as it is secure enough to defeat the CEO's own teen kid, he'll be suckered into the technology. Then when it gets worked around via analog recording, they'll just say "analog hole ... that's your problem". But the guys who created this will have a few million by then, and be working on something else now.
The quickest, fastest, way for a small time developer to get rich in the technology age is to come up with something that wows the big corporate executives. Then sell the technology or even the whole company to them. Valuation of businesses is based on expected future revenues and growth.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Imagine if all that effort was spent enabling people do do things instead of trying to keep people from doing something that they'll just do anyhow. If all the money wasted on DRM had been spent on enabling technologies for micropayments or new business paradigms, we'd all be better off and even the MPAA/RIAA would pocket some extra money. It might be too optimistic to think that the associations would use enabling technologies to help artists get compensation for their work, but maybe even that would occur.
Instead, it's all about prevention, disabling, protection against use, and blocking the people who pay out the money for these products from using them. Dinosaur stew anyone?
Logically, then, the market for selling the same product multiple times (ie, using DRM to force you to buy two or more CDs if you want to have one in work/car/etc. and one at home) is vastly more valuable than the illegal recording market, which has been in existance for a long time anyway.
The people behind DRM are not idiots; they know as well as anyone (or better) that sales figures show downloaders buy more music than any other group whether their downloads are iTunes or BitTorrent. They couldn't care less about stopping that - they just want to have the same bonanza that they did with the vinyl->CD repeat buying period, but now they want it every year.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
I will now be taking bets on how much it will cost the "average Joe" consumer to break this copy protection. ie: 99cent sharpie and draw around the outside.
...Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror, and you would not have been informed.
I'm starting to wonder if most, if not all, the DRM 'solutions' being sold to the music industry are actually little more than con jobs.
If a CD is going to work in a normal CD player, it's going to be copyable - put the CD in player with a digital output and wire into a PC with a sound card with a digital input and there goes the DRM and with a perfect digital copy. Even an analogue copy done properly is going to be good enough (especially after being encoded in mp3).
This simple fact leads me to believe that the people touting DRM to the music industry are little more than snake oil salesmen peddleing a panacea to an ailing industry.
At some point, somewhere, the entire internet will be found to be illegal.
is a driver for a PC-CD driver that gives your CD drive full CDDA emulation, but with a fancy on-screen control panel that matches the best high-end CD players, and a copy-digital-to-disc checkbox. If you PC drive acts like your CDDA player, can any copy protection possible succeed?
And while I'm at it, the summary didn't mention what an automotive CD player, which most closely resembles your PC CD drive, "sees".
And one other consideration. If you can only make a limited number of rips, what happens when the CD is loaned, played on another computer, or sold secondhand? Could you end up with a CD exhausted of all it's rips? How would you know in the store -- or on eBay?
In short, DRM sux in all its forms!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Poking around the XCP Aurora website, there are buried references to "playing through the XCP player," or "using the provided player." Makes me think they require playback through custom software that they include on the disc. There are also references to RealPlayer, MS Media Player, Winamp, etc. It's possible that they're providing a plug-in to those programs that allows decoding of the audio portion while still appearing to be the playback tool of choice. If they're breaking the CD-ROM access by putting bogus CD structure info up front, someone will break out a Sharpie and "fix" it.
My guess is that some MBA looked at the market, and included OS's and playback programs until he got 98% market coverage, and said "that's good enough. The 3% [sic] represented by the remaining folks won't matter - we'll more than make up for that with the increased sales that result from the reduction in bootleg copies." The unfortunate truth is that it won't make a damned difference. They fail to realize that the Internet is what the military folks call a "force multiplier." You only need one determined individual to crack the coding, or to make a decent D-A-D copy (thus stripping off the DRM), and post it on the 'net. Once that happens, you've got a gazillion traders who are more than willing to propagate the copies.
"What if they developed a CD with music worth listening to on it"
I wonder how long it's going to take before these idiots realize DRM solves nothing. The whole point of this DRM crap is to squash piracy, but what no one seems to realize is that it only takes one copy to escape the DRM and make it's way to P2P networks and everyone can get their hands on it. Record companies seem to think that if they cripple their distribution medium and make it a big enough pain in the ass for everyone, then no one will dare to circumvent the protection. This is a stupid and ignorant. History has proven over and over, someone, somewhere will get around the protection scheme and release the "warez" to the masses. What is it going to take before they realize that alienating their customers, in any way, shape, or form, is doing nothing but hurting sales? Give people what they want or suffer the consequences.
Nothing to see here. Move along, kiddies.
Why? Because it makes the phrase "This disc has NO copy protection measures...please support the artist by purchasing music" a real selling point.
Independent musicians (the kind that make a living off their music) are slowly but surely rejecting the myth that you need a record deal to be successful. (In fact, if you're good you can almost always be more successful without a record deal these days). These groups see the listener as a potential supporter, not a potential pirate.
When labels keep up this DRM crap, it just makes these indie musicians look more and more listener oriented. People aren't stupid, they pick up on this.
So keep it up DRM content producers! It's just one more selling point for your slowly growing competition. By the time you realize how bad you screwed up it will be too late.
That may be true on Linux, but not so on Windows. Under Windows, an encrypted audio stream may require that only signed audio output drivers may play the stream, and Microsoft will sign an audio driver only if it turns off cleartext digital outputs (such as the .wav redirection) at the request of the stream. Do you listen to music through a receiver connected to a sound card's S/PDIF output? If so, tough shit.
So what. All major labels do is put out crap. Case in point. Ashlee Simpson and that guy from American Idol both the one who can sing and most of all the one who can't (HUNG?)
when they ban enctryption only criminals wi$21*J *#JF$%!@#$':
If the sound can still be played out of my speakers, I can still record the sound, (line out >> line in) save it as an MP3, and do as I wish with it. There won't ever be a way to stop somebody from copying music unless they stop making music able to be listened to.
The first crack found will be to simply use the CDs under BeOS.
it just makes these indie musicians look more and more listener oriented. People aren't stupid, they pick up on this.
Not if people don't know you exist. You see, the only source of streaming music for most people in moving motor vehicles is either FM or XM radio, and Clear Channel owns a big stake in both. Unless you can afford to purchase several 3-minute advertisements on Clear Channel radio, how are you going to create demand for your discs?
Isobuster. Anything else?
At least from my point of view, they've already got a perfect copy protection system:
Don't release anything worth listening to.
Personally I feel that anyone who "steals" their music must suffer enough just from listening to it to expiate their guilt. Just as long as they don't inflict it on me.
And in addition, anyone who pays to corrupt the legislature has no moral right to any recompense. And anyone who distributes such compositions should be fined for pollution.
And anyone who distributes "CDs" encoded in any such manner should be prosecutable for fraud. (Unfortunately, I think that with the current legal system, Phillips would need to bring charges rather than the defrauded customers.)
I have no sympathy for the RIAA companies at all. I feel that the world would be better off were they to all go bankrupt immediately, and that it would have been even better off if they had gone bankrupt last year. And that next year is better than later.
It is my feeling that the people who copy their "music" without paying them are doing less public damage than those who pay them.
That said, if they hadn't corrupted the legislature into passing vile laws (s.a. DMCA, Sonny Bono Copyright Extension, etc.) then I wouldn't feel that acting to harm them was a positive social good. As it is, I wouldn't even consider premeditated homocide to be excessive, at least for the company executives.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
The purpose of copy protection is to make it harder to copy, not make it impossible. Remember, if a protection/encryption scheme can be made, it can be broken/gotten around. This is like wrist watches that say "Water Proof", then if you read the fine print, its only guaranteed to prevent water from leaking in as long as the pressure is below that found at a certain depth. Same thing, it is 'protected' up until it is presented to someone that cares enough to get around it, then its gotten around quickly (it seems that most CD copy protection scehmes have 'cracks' or work-arounds posted online within days of their application on a massively released disc).
--
If it can be made, it can be broken. No reason for me to bother with locks on my door, anyone that really wants to come in will come in anyway, I'll just put pictures of locks on the door to deter those who aren't serious.
Video Production Support
What if a general purpose data compression algorithm was developed, which was lossless and would not cause compatilibity problems, but still allowed for 300:1 compression ratios? A UK-base company First 4 Compression (F4c) claims to have pulled this off with their "eXtended Compression Product" (XCP) system; "The archive will present itself as a ZIP file to PCs, a Stuff-it archive on Mac computers, a MP3 to mp3 players, and uncompressed data on legacy systems. This multifunctional archive format offers full compatability and therefore greater flexibility, without lowering compression ratio" and "By using a range of methodologies, including the construction of multiple archive layers, limiting the data accessibility to the provided extractor, and encapsulating ascii format content, XCP successfully compresses all data to 1/300th of its original size".
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
CD's cost enough as it is. It's hard to find albums cheaper than $20 where I live, and the only time it's less is when the album is old, everyone hates it, and has bad B.O. Is it just me, or is this going to make the price of CD's skyrocket? It had to take a lot of time to develop this new format and make it work on everything. Seriously, if albums were about $10-$12, There would be no reson not to buy CD's new. I think if they used that strategy, CD sales would really pick up for the record companies. Anyone agree?
--- kthxbai
Under Windows, an encrypted audio stream may require that only signed audio output drivers may play the stream, and Microsoft will sign an audio driver only if it turns off cleartext digital outputs (such as the .wav redirection) at the request of the stream.
Until they get Palladium in (and even then there will inevitably be mod chips) you can modify Windows to quit checking the driver signature pretty easily. I've seen it done with NT 4. Then off you go again.
The sad thing about these Windows-only copy protection schemes is that they don't even work for Windows.
This doesn't effect me! I use mp3! HA!
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
And the answer is my corollary to Schneier's Law.
Bruce Schneier says (paraphrased): Anybody can create a cipher they cannot break.
My corollary is that: Anybody can create a DRM system that a record company executive cannot bypass.
This, of course, is more a comment about the technical savvy of the recording industry, than any comment on the hundred monkees [sic] of your choice at keyboards generating such a system. Is there a executive alive who'll admit that he can't manage to accomplish what legions of teenagers stupid enough to pay such inflated prices for his product can manage? I think not!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
you can modify Windows to quit checking the driver signature pretty easily.
Slashdot.org is hosted in the United States, and what you describe is almost certainly a DMCA violation in the United States. Any site telling you how to modify Windows to open up the Secure Audio Path will get shut down by Microsoft and/or the major record labels.
If it can be listened to, it can be copied. There is no way around that.
I simply can't believe it. Everything said about DRM protection and keeping CDDA compability is simply impossible.
Pay attention to this:
Everybody talks about medium convergence to personal computer, so neither RIAA nor MPAA can allow themselves to avoid computer programs.
DRM won't last. The only way to RIAA and MPAA survive is adapting themselves to the new reality of digital media. Or go back to vinyl.
-=-=-=-=
I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
as long as you have a standard audio/video output, and a recorder -- the copyright protection system is doomed. Now what would be truly interesting, is if someone were to develop a more hardware based method -- but that could always be hacked with a little bit of work as well. In fact, we'd have to completely build a new computer-type system from scratch that doesn't involve any sort of standards that are present in current computer systems. If the raw data is there, it can be extracted -- so you have to create a whole new coding scheme for it! The RIAA and MPAA are wasting their damn time and their damn money. All I can do is sit back and laugh at their legal fees. Silly humans.
Now then, Dmitri, you know how we've always talked about the possibility of something going wrong with the Bomb...
"Limited" only in the sense it can't be uploaded for unlimited distribution over the Internet? Something a lot of people don't particularly care about anyway, and wouldn't miss.
No, limited in the sense that I can't make a new CDDA copy to listen to in my car. Virtually all DRM systems won't allow you to make a direct copy of the Audio only portion of the CD-- if they did, it would make the DRM pointless in the first place. But that is why I personally want to copy them. I don't like keeping original CD's in my car since they are likely to get scratched or stolen. Instead, as soon as I buy a CD, I rip it to MP3 for home & portable listening (the Mp3s are not shared), burn an audio CD for my car, then I put the actual CD in a safe place where it won't get damaged or stolen. My purposes for copying are 100% within fair use, but they would be blocked by this DRM if it works, and even if it doesn't, I'd be made a criminal for bypassing it under the DMCA.
Of course the real irony of these systems is that they do not prevent piracy as others have pointed out. All it takes is one person to bypass the DRM & the CD is in the wild. And clearly, as DVD's demonstrate, DRM doesn't even slow down commercial piracy operations. No, the real reason for DRM on CD's is to stop people like me. The RIAA loves it when CD's get damaged or stolen. That means that there is a good chance that I'll buy a new copy of the same CD. That is the only reason that they are looking for "effective" copy protection. They know that it will never stop anybody who is dedicated, but if it can stop casual copiers like myself, regardless of the fact that I'm not doing anything wrong, that means more money in their pockets.
The young girls who are exposed to civil and criminal penalties because they supply the music you download? That is a little like saying that John should go free while his underage prostitute takes the fall. You tempt a child into crime, you should accept responsibility for the consequences of your actions.
Here you are making no sense at all. Who are you saying is liable? Under current law, the penalties for recieving illegally copied material are much less then those for providing it. The young girl in question ceratinly is guilty of the crime, even though you suggest that she isn't. The question is whether the "john doe" lawsuits the RIAA has been using are effective or even legal. The parent poster was presumably arguing that the means the RIAA are using are misguided and at leats bordering on illegal and I think he's correct.
What if a CD copy-protection system was developed, which did not compromise sound quality nor cause compatibility problems...
Hmm, something that will be compatible with everything and not compromise sound quality... I couldn't see any mention of VideoCDs in the article, but it's a video format that uses mp3 as the audio layer. Would it feature the music videos as well? Either way, the audio would be lossy. Then there's the Mac and PC (which presumably should be "Windows") compatible layers. Do they have .wav or .flac files on them? Oh no, because anyone can copy those. They'll probably just be very low bitrate lossily compressed files that no one would want to copy as there's no way to stop people copying computer files. So that would be lossy. Then there's the CD audio layer (what's left of it after a fair amount of the space on the disc has been taken up with the other layers). Assuming CD players can actually find and read it, it'll be lossless, but there will be far less room for any actual music.
I seriously doubt this will be compatible with everything and not compromise sound quality. There is a format that is completely lossless and works on all of the above mentioned media players. It's the regular CD audio standard, and it really shouldn't be tampered with.
Free music!
"successfully protects the content from unauthorised copying" :-)
Cool! Does this mean that they managed to develop software that will determine whether I have pure thoughts when I try to copy the CD I bought in order to make a perfectly legal, fair use, copy of it ofr my own personal use?
NO.
Are these people stupid or something?
If they're going to try and lock up their content by way of DRM -- so that regular folks can't rip it to MP3 for their portable player -- or make backup copies of disks they've legally purchased then many of them will simply be *forced* to turn to the Net and download "freed" copies.
Once they've downloaded a "freed" copy, why would they even bother going out and buying a DRM'd disk?
The idiots are making piracy the only option if you want to listen to music where you want, when you want.
"Limited" only in the sense it can't be uploaded for unlimited distribution over the Internet? Something a lot of people don't particularly care about anyway, and wouldn't miss.
Ever heard of MP3-players?
So now is it illegal to rip it and put it on my iPod? Or if not the iPod, what about any other proprietary digital medium. Now you need to buy the files in every different format for whatever you want to play it on? Well, I'm sorry, but CD's are slowly becoming of less worth to many of us, and this is only another reason.
Free Flat Screen
Slashdot is hosted in the United States. If you teach people how to replace the NSA key, an agent of the FBI's copyright enforcement division (or analogous organizations in the EU, Australia, and other WIPO Copyright Treaty members) may come knocking on your door.
Nobody in the free world gives a shit about the dmca.
For one thing, Slashdot is hosted outside of what you call the Free World, and any discussion that amounts to "ha ha, you have a DMCA and we don't" is (-1, Offtopic). For another, the United States has proved more than willing to require implementation of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act and the DMCA as a condition to "free" trade; see also Australia.
Canada? Not for long.
What's to stop someone from making an audio "device" that simply writes everything it gets to disk...? Granted, you'll have a generic "loss of quality",
Actually, if you're writing it to disk I don't think you would have any loss of audio quality. At least I've never noticed any using the XMMS direct WAV output feature. Anyone know for sure?
You're reading Slashdot. Of course you like Linux and pc hardware
anything that is playing can be captured with sndrec32.. to do this, you need a blank file of the appropriate length, say 4400 seconds.
play your CD with whatever, and hit 'rec' on sndrec.. it will overwrite your blank file with the CD..
now under properties, choose convert now, and choose your mp3 lame codec--
then save as *.mp3
voila...
want individual tracks? no problem, save the whole cd, go to the end of the first track, and 'delete after this position'- then convert the remainder, and save... =reload the original, cut the first song, save that as your master (reduces steps) and cut the third+songs, then convert song #2,
repeat.. and again, voila! no cable from in-out necassary, and no real software beyond stock necassary, except the codec.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Why can't the music labels get this right? Simply tranfserring music from CD to a computer digital format (MP3, OGG, etc.) is not equivocally piracy.
I have a CD collection of over 250 CDs. I love music and have paid for every single CD in my collection. I prob have more music then I know what to do with. I trasfer my music to my MiniDisc (which admittedly has tough restrictions) to listen to music all the time.
I'd like to see the music executive's music collection. They prob have MP3s on their computer. They prob also taped TV shows at home w/o the commercials.
Either change this label on digital formats and stop the DRM on CD's or I swear I will stop buying major-label CD's. (There are still some good bands). Get it??????
What if a CD copy-protection system was developed, which did not compromise sound quality nor cause compatibility problems, and still allowed for your 'rights' to make a limited amount of personal copies (*.DRM)?
Or what if companies stopped spending so much time and money developing more and more elaborate DRM systems, and trusted their customers instead?
From the article:
By using a range of methodologies, including the construction of multiple protection layers, limiting the player accessibility to the provided player software, and encapsulating the red book audio content, XCP® successfully protects the content from unauthorized copying.
The problem with schemes such as these is that the rights holders become so enamored of the idea that some limitation is maybe possible that they go overboard and limit the use of the copyrighted work to the point where even people who buy it legitimately crack the protection for their own convenience and sanity. Another thing...why is that whenever companies in the technology industry take some existing ideas and recombine them (or just take an existing idea) they slap a brand label on it, patent it, and attempt to pass it off as a new technology. There ought to be fines at the patent office for companies that attempt to patent doubly linked lists, hash tables, b-trees or any other well known and obvious data structure, algorithm, or user interface design.
It sounds like these people set all of the evil bits and broadcast flags and either encrypted the contents or used a proprietary encoding format (i.e. it only plays in their player software). All of these things have been tried before at various times and the copies still end up on the file sharing networks because it only takes one smart horse to open the gate and the rest of them follow the smart horse out to pasture. Meanwhile, the honest people who probably would have bought it anyway remember the experience they had with previous 'copy protected' CDs and keep their money in their wallet instead.
These schemes do not benefit the consumer in any way and ultimately they do not benefit the rights holder either. They just waste time and money. Invariably the only party to that comes out ahead in this scheme is the company that duped the rights holder into buying their 'technology'.
What if, after the CD "presented itself" as a CD-ROM to my computer, I ripped the CDDA part to OGG just as with any other CD? Would the CD then notice and yell at me?
This is another DRM fad that will do absolutely nothing.
Ever notice how drug addict bands always get really big really fast?
Could it be that they are laundering illicit drug money through purchasing their own CD's?
I bet it could.
Ever notice how so many rock stars are drug addicts?
sounds like the high end is being played through a celiphane wrapper.
it is a crap format and it always was.
The music industry should be held to task for that.
If you have poor hearing then maybe you don't notice.
I always notice how bad it sounds. Crap. Totally crap in the high end.
The paranoia about them evil russians is really absurd. Unless you're a bank I doubt you have anything to dread from "russian hackers" and if you are a bank geography isn't a defense. allofmp3.com isn't some get rich quick kiddie porn site; they've been there quite a while and are always trying to improve their service - how would it be in their interest to rip people off or to associate with those who do?
I use my mastercard. Been a year now, never had a problem.
BTW there is a US service that offers even higher quality and far better service. See this site.
Never seen above 2x ??? What the hell man... You have had some seriously bad luck or smoke crack rock like there's no tomorrow.
:) This is with an athlon xp 3200+. On my old ibook (700mhz G3), I can rip at about 7x. And on my old PC (xp1600+), I could rip at about 12x. All of these computers have different cd/dvd drives.
:)
I rip using iTunes on Windows and get about 20x ripping speeds. Yes, I can rip an hour long CD in three minutes! It's freaking awesome.
So, something is seriously the matter on your end.
Joseph?
EXACTLY. I just recently purchased a CD player for my car that supports mp3 and wma. I am currently fixing all my scratches and converting everything. Then I just use my originals for archive purposes, meanwhile I can fit my entire Led Zeppelin collection on two discs. The computer based copy is NOT shared, so I am well within legitimat use.
Now... If an albums come out with this copy protection, I am forced to search out a copy off the internet. Since I have to go to the trouble anyway, I sure as HELL won't be buying it. Therefore, the RIAA alienates another paying customer and loses my money. Trust me, with the thousands I have spent on CD's, they SHOULD be concerned.
Send whiskey and fresh horses!
Wonder what it will look like to dd-rescue? How about cdparanoia?
...but there's no such thing as full copy-protection without compromising compatibility. As long as it plays in my computer I can make a copy of it. Most multi-track editors like (I believe) Audacity are capable of recording whatever noise is being made on your computer. Not that hard to make a copy of anything, really. Hell, as long as it plays out loud, ever I can make a copy of it. All I need is a CD player, a condenser mic and the right software.
My Greatest Heist - Muisc partly inspired by the unbeatable Qwantz
Any attempt at securing the contents of audio will always fail from now until forever, period. If you can play it even once, any any audio player, it can be copied. Easily. Think anyone cares about one generation of re-recording degredation? Most people can't hear the difference between FM radio and a CD or 128kb mp3 and a CD, even a rerecording made at home using the line in an a decent sound card isn't that bad. Then, after one indetectable degrading copy, an infinent number of perfect digital copies can be made. Any music copyright scheme that lets you listen to the music you buy even once is insecureable. Give it up, this entire attempt is such a pathetic waste of money it boggles the mind.
People know who you are by live shows. Period.
Most live music venues in my area do not admit minors because they make their money selling alcoholic beverages. How do you plan to hook the children?
Even if such DRM can't be thwarted (and it can), so what if I can't rip it? It still can be read crystal clearly by CDDA players, so what's to stop me from hooking up an optical cable from my home-stereo CD player to my Audigy 2 ZS and then launching Sound Forge to record it? I might have to ride the levels a bit, but it's still in digital quality and will sound pretty damn close to if I ripped it straight off.
This new joke of a DRM hurdle means absolutely nothing, and even if it did, no-one would be fool enough to buy it.
1. Ripping analog stuff is not as easy as you make it sound. You have to be willing to sit there and babysit the process as x1. You have to be able to spell the artist and song names, which sounds trivial but apparently isn't from the stuff I've seen on P2P. And you have to have decent line-in capabilities to produce acceptable audio quality. Additionally Windows computers need extra software to capture audio that is longer than 1 minute; at least that was the case the last time I ripped an audio cassette. This involves an additional download that many average users are too lazy to make.
2. Everyone has to be willing to share hours of their own ripping work to the multitude of leaches on most P2P networks. This is a social engineering issue that would need a sophisticated software solution, involving more complex permissions based on original material.
DRM isn't about making things impossible, since that is in itself impossible. It's about making copying just difficult enough to keep the unwashed masses buying stuff.
You know, some people rip old LPs. Painstakingly smoothing the crackle and pop out personally. I'm in the middle of an old (anything pre-digital is old) Melodiya LP right now, with the permission of the lead singer. Just because the immortal music is only available on that crummy LP.
.;)
To bypass digital data protection, you could also use a CD player hooked up to your computer via some digital cable.
I'd never buy a copyright-protected CD myself (and I buy lots of music I like, because I write poetry and get very very sentimental about how my favourite musicians feel). But no matter how much I liked the music, I wouldn't buy a "protected" disc. You see, I like my fashion-statement quality Traxdata mp3 walkman better, and I want to feed it with good music without any unnecessary hassle . .
*wanders off singing Video Killed the Radio Star by Buggles --
You are in no way helping them get in trouble. No file sharing software that I have used makes much of an effort to force people to share files in order to download them. It has always been strictly voluntary. Certainly the culture encourages it, but it's not mandatory. If she chooses to share her files, it's her decision.
As to whether she knows that what she is doing is illegal, I can assure you that, unless she lives in a cave somewhere, she does. The RIAA is very proactive in their campaign to educate kids on the evils of file sharing. She may not really understand the fundamentals of why, but she does know that it is illegal.
Note, however, that the fact that it is illegal doesn't necessarily mean that it is wrong. Considering that as many artists seem to support file sharing as oppose it, it seems to me that it's hard to categorically dismiss it as morally wrong. Teens (and many adults as well) tend to disrespect apparently bad laws. The law may exist for the best of reasons, but unless you can rationally justify it to them, teens will tend to rebel against it. The RIAA's obviously self-serving arguments aside, I think that the case against file sharing is far from convincing.
"or have any of the record label IT people found a hack yet? No."
Uhh... no offense to all you IT people, but really, the average IT person knows how to install software and do a little networking stuff. They aren't software crackers. Many can't even code their own software. So WTF does this prove that a record label's IT guy can't hack it?!
IOW a CD cloner that copy's the CD perfectly, including all the anti-copy stuff, the same way a key cutter copys' keys, simply by tracking the bumbs & dots, whatever on the original & recreating the exactly same bumbs & dots, whatever on a blank CD. That way the newly created disc thinks it's the original copy protected disc too.
FWIU copy protection systems do things like having the index track misaligned with the rump content or something, so when ripped/burned the software try's to repair what it thinks is a error & in so doing the copy protection system knows the disc's a copy & stops it working. Well something along those lines anyway.
Meaning a copier system that simply just copy's the frequency of bits 'n bumps onto a blank (like as previously mentioned a key copier cutter in a hardware store copys old car keys) without any attempt at reading/decoding the track, will not get tricked by the copy protection & the copy will be a perfect copy protected clone of the original.
I see no reason why a machine as I have envisaged could not be built & work as I suggest successfully. Actually maybe they're are already out there - for a while some stores had CD copying vending machines in Adelaide (till the 'powers that be' demanded their removal) in which one just stuck a CD in one slot, a blank CD in the other slot & 2 AU$2 coins in the coin slot, & a couple of minutes later, add or take a minute, out comes the blank CD no longer blank. Well my brother had a go of copying the original Harry Potter game CD, which has Safedisc 2 copy protection, in one of those machines for our nephew (so there could be a copy of his game at his grandpa's) & it worked for all intence purposes like the original, to the point that even if one tried to copy the copy in a PC, one ended up with similar sorts of hassles one has when one tries to copy the original Safedisc 2 CD in a PC. Now whether those vending machines worked in a similar way to what I envisaged, I have no idea, but it seems like maybe they might have done something along such lines.
Give me good music and a way to sample new artists from home and I will buy more cd's. Im at the point on my life where I cant spend hours at the local cd store looking and buying new music.(you know early twenties, unemployed with lots of time on my hads while I sell drugs to make money )I do download but most of the music is either music that I had or have and I deleted with in few days or I totally forget about it and later delete it. I still do buy cd's but from only a few select artists that I feel make worth while music. For exaple I was searching for stuff from Fluke on soulseek and a brand new album of theirs appeared in the search. I was like WTF? So I downloaded it and burnt the cd untill my day off work (today) when I had a chance to buy their cd. See these guy make music that I can listen to non stop with out getting tired of it and there fore I WILL support them BUT if their cd had some DRM crap where it prevented me from ripping it or making a back up Id say fuk it and then just keep my burnt copy. Anywyas fuk DRM and those greedy fuk wad record execs.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
From the headline:
XCP® successfully protects the content from unauthorised copying.
Violating a copyright law is to distribute a copy(s) of an original work without the copyright holders permission. It has nothing to do with making COPIES of the material.
So... What exactly is an unauthorized copy? A copy that is redistributed, not a copy you keep for yourself.
Music, for me, is a social phenomenon - when I pay for music, I want to share it with my friends, let them hear it and decide for themselves if they want to pay for it, too. No matter what anyone can says about the legality of it, for me it's simply unnatural for music to be something that separates people (I have a certain new CD, you don't) - music should bond people.
So yes, I'm a criminal and will continue to be one under current laws.
By using a range of methodologies, including the construction of multiple protection layers, limiting the player accessibility to the provided player software, and encapsulating the red book audio content, XCP® successfully protects the content from unauthorised copying.
The only "methodology" here is B.S.
In Australia, for example, making any copy of a copyrighted work is an offense. Even taping a CD you bought to listen to in the car. It used to be a civil offense, but has been upgraded to a criminal offense to harmonise it with US copyright law. Curiously enough, the one part of US copyright law they're not harmonising with is the fair-use provisions; apparently there's no profit in those.
I have been a fan of Iron Maiden for years. I love that band. I own almost all of their albums. And a week ago I found their latest album, "Dance of Death", in a store, dirt cheap. I mean, around half what CDs usually cost around here. And I had the money in my wallet.
"Wow! I'm getting it right now!" So, I pick the box, turn it around... and see it has copy protection. Ho-hum. How nice. Care to guess what I do next?
Here's what. I carefully put the disc back on the shelf, and... oh, what is that? Judas Priest's "Painkiller". Heard it's a classic! And it's even cheaper. Guess I'll take it instead.
Lesson to Iron Maiden: foot, meet bullet. (and the shitty cover art didn't help either)
Circumcision is child abuse.
I'll have to change that 5th bulb.
You're describing the law as it should be, not the law as it is, at least in the US. If what you say were correct, there would be no need for additional legislation to make your claims true.
Fair Use is nowhere near as expansive as you describe it. Read the law. Important sections are here and here.
Actually, it's probably just a bit broader than the law states, due to various decisions in case law. But not much mor expansive, and most of those decisions precede the modification of the law, meaning that using them will require the courts to re-examine the law and the decisions to determine what it means now. Oh, and there have been some decisions that to narrow it, as well.
As I understand it (IANAL, but I am a moderately well-informed layman):
The copyright holder has NO RIGHTS if I make a backup copy.
This isn't clear and probably isn't true. There's certainly nothing in the law that specifically allows it. What you can say is if you make a copy for backup purposes, the copyright holder has no legal recourse. Your civil liabiity for the illegal act is limited to the amount of the damage, which is $0. The criminal provisions added by the DMCA (or was it the CTEA? I forget) only kick in if you make backups of more than $1000 worth of recordings in a six month period, so you're safe as long as you don't back up more than, say, 75 CDs per six month period.
Since the copyright holder's recourse against you is nil, a court would dismiss any such case as "de minimis".
The copyright holder has NO RIGHTS if I want to copy it to a different media/format.
This is pretty much the same story as backups, AFAICT.
The copyright holder has NO RIGHTS if I am copying to parody it.
This one is hard to be sure about. The case law with respect to parody is complex (i.e. I don't even claim to understand it except that I know the courts have okayed parody in some cases and refused it in others).
If you're going to parody something, your best bet is to either (a) get permission (which is what Wierd Al does) or (b) talk to a good lawyer.
The copyright holder has NO RIGHTS if I am copying it for educational usage, either as a student or as a teacher, or for research purposes.
From my reading of section 107, this would seem to be true. On the other hand, I know that schools have been successfully sued for copying sheet music for choir practice.
The copyright holder has NO RIGHTS if I copy to modify it in any way I like for personal use.
I think this is the same situation as backups and format shifting. The law does grant the copyright holder exclusive rights over the preparation of derivative works, and I don't find anything that grants you a personal use loophole. Again, though, any suit would seem to be de minimis.
And on an on and on.
Unfortunately, not only are all of the actions you cited Fair Use, there aren't a lot of other actions that are.
Not to mention the fact that even in the cases where you DO have Fair Use rights, if you have to circumvent copyright protection technology, you've broken the law and "shall be fined not more than $500,000 or imprisoned for not more than 5 years, or both, for the first offense; and (2) shall be fined not more than $1,000,000 or imprisoned for not more than 10 years, or both, for any subsequent offense."
That's why it's very important to support the Digital Consumer's Bill of Rights.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Ok, so I can make personal copies. But what happened in 70+ years when the material is out of copyright.
How do I make the unlimited copies I would then have the right to make.
DRM = no more public domain.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Well get instructions printed off, go to your local music store.
insert 'how to copy this cd' instructions in the display stand.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I would have thought that music copying has been going on ever since music was invented.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
...in Korea, only old people violate the DCMA.
They ALL claim to have pulled this off... Every single one of them. They're all lying through their teeth, but that's what a press-release is for, isn't it?
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
If an old CD-ROM player can read the same tracks a CD player can and get the same raw data, Linux or any other "non-DRM-aware" OS should be able to rip them and, with a CD-writer, copy them.
It's a fundamental the music industry is facing: You can't have "bullet-proof" copy protection AND play on early-1980s CD players as long as there's a single CD-ROM out there somewhere that can read the audio tracks the same way a CD-player does and pipe those bits back to the computer.
A computer doesn't have to be able to PLAY the disks to be a nightmare for RIAA.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I am not against copy protection in CDs, especially if they don't muck with the quality like this solution promises. But if the CD doesn't work with my iPod, it's out. Putting the CD on an iPod is the _only_ use i have for it - and the 10M+ other iPod users.
I recently wanted to buy a CD at a store that said "copy protection" on it. I immediately thought: whoa, does that mean i can't put it on my iPod? If it does, the CD is worthless, and i have to try and get the music on the internet (leaving the iTMS as the only legal option - pretty unsatisfying at 128kbit though).
I ended up buying the CD because i was promised that i could return it if it didn't work. Turns out it ripped just fine in iTunes. And... i could have returned it anyway...
Am I the only one that doesn't but CDs anymore? Yeah, it's way easier to just borrow it, but frankly, if I had lots of money to burn, and wanted to be legitimate, I still don't think I'd buy any CDs.
It's crap like this that keeps me from buying CDs.
________________________________________________
suwain_2
...people made records so that people would listen to them. Now they try to make them so that you can't in an attempt to create artificial scarcity.
Why bother spending all the time to create something only to ask people not to listen to it?
There's only one way to "protect" music from the world's tendency to want to hear it. Keep it in your head. Don't play it out loud.
But don't expect anyone to remember your name in five years.
As a friend of mine pointed out, "If music can be heard, it can be recorded" Most /.'ers know how to record what you hear on your PC and know how to record off an external CD Audio Player.
:-)
To error is the RIAA and to forgive is Linux
Guess they still dont know about dd, and raw data copying, which should operate below whatever is messing with the data. Not to mention it, but if Daemon Tools seems to work right with it, it could appear to be ANY cd drive, let alone have easily changed identifiers. Obviously, these guys still dont get it right.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
'The disc will present itself as a CD-ROM to PCs, a Mac CD-ROM to Mac computers, a VCD to DVD players and CDDA disc to audio CD players.
I for one welcome our new XCP Overlords.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
And just how long will it continue to be compatible with even Mac's and PC's? 2 years, 5 years, 10 years?
It's not the greatest quality, but I can play records from 50+ years ago.
so that means that with all those sessions containing duplicate content, the discs will contain about two songs.
As long as they add and factor RISK - for this non-standard format.
Once a consumer buys a disc - the sales of goods act, consumer liability law does not stop, if there is a hidden and latent defect, at least in many commonwealth countries.
When Joe sixpack discovers SP4 or whatever breaks his 'consumer' collection, hell will break loose.You would not want to be a major 'Label' when a class suit comes rolling around - and YMMV, but that could be years later.
or
Start - Programs - Virtual Audio Device. Play, record, save as MP3, thank you.
or
Start - Programs - coolEdit Pro - File - Extract Audio from CD - Save as MP3, thank you.
or
Start - Programs - Kazaa Lite - Download, thank you.
or
Start - Programs - Mozilla - www.google.com - "Breaking latest DRM" - Thank you
Average non-Slashdot reader's reaction:
"What the fuck do you mean the CD cost $5 more than without the copywrite protection! This shit doesn't even play in my players! Fuck you, I'll give my techie friend a beer and he'll make me a copy of it."
Thank you.
UTF-8: There and Back Again
At this point, the major labels could kill all future plans for DRM, expand fair use rights, and put a 5-year cap on copyright extension, and it wouldn't be enough to undo all the shit they've pulled. I no longer buy music on major labels, and I never will again. Bands that self-publish get my money. Bands I like who happen to be on major labels don't get a dime from me.
The key here is once again laying down the hack ANyone remember DIvx? how they tried to sell pay per view dvds? how long did that last? Lets see- sony disc...How many people do archival backups of playstation disc? No I doubt that any protection scheme they think of will not be hacked...I remember back in 89' when broader bound had printshop and boasted I could not make a copy of it...I did so and sent them a working copy....They sent me back a letter stating I should not do that, In which case I causualy tossed it away with out regard. WHat do these people think? they can stop us?
In other words, what they are shipping is a hybrid CD - which will still cause problems in many new CD players that also support playing ISO / Joliet disks with MP3 or WMA on them. Having recently bought a car CD player, I can safely say that the majority of new units are supporting MP3 and often WMA (but not copy protected files). Such units will often try to play the ISO partition before they will revert to trying to play the standard audio format data. They will also not deal well with the corrupted pseudo CD-DA disks that are sold as 'copy protected' (ie. they don't play). Unless the user has read the manual of such units, they would not know how to force the unit to read the audio partition over the ISO partition anyway. This disk format sounds like it provides a corrupted audio partition for audio CD players (which won't work on such a player), separate copy protected partition for PC (which won't work on such a CD player or Linux without something like Wine) - so the disk likely won't work on such a unit. It also appears to be a waste of time, since you can just rip the audio track from the DVD/VCD partition - which is easy with the available software these days, and you can probably rip the audio CD portion, even if it has been corrupted in some way. Also, if it plays in a player with a digital output, you can make an excellent copy on to an unprotected medium anyway. Only one person needs to be able to rip the files for them to spread on P2P, so another useless waste of resources from the 'copy-protection' hucksters.
"XCP is in commercial use and is actively being used by four of the major Record Labels for Pre Release copy protection."
And you know why they aren't using it for released recordings? Cause they won't fit on a single disc any more, is why.
You can only store so much data on a CD. About 100 minutes is the most you can practically do while maintaining compatibility with the majority of players, I believe.
This scheme puts at least 3 copies of the music on the disc. One in their own (probably highly compressed) DRM-laden format, one in standard CDDA format and one in MPEG format for the VCD copy.
Now, problem is, both the CDDA format and the VCD format are very strict about the data rate you record at -- in fact, both of them mandate 176400 bits per second. Therefore, even assuming the DRM format takes up no space on the disc whatsoever, the most you're going to get on a CD in this format is 50 minutes, unless it's violating one of the two above-mentioned standards, probably VCD (as it is a compressed format designed for storing video and audio, and they don't need to store any video). But, it ain't going to work on a lot of DVD players if that's what they've done.
All the points made here are very true, even the greatest coppy protection will be broken in time. Some people will know how to get around it sooner then others, some may never findout that there's a way around it. People already know how to get around it and i think that less complicated way to get around it.
I think the point here is to reduce the ammount of copies, they know they can't stop them completely. and this should work for a little while with the average user.
You might say that there's a way now, it easy! But, you are a slashdotter who was a backbround in either electronics or/and computer. What would the average user say if they couldn't copy the cd??? Would they know what to do?
Well I've got a couple of reasonable CD players, and two DAT machines. All devices feature analogue, coaxial (SPDIF) and optical outs with the DAT machines additionally having the same connections as inputs.
One of the DAT machines is currently hooked up to my computer which serves as the heart of my home recording studio. The main reason I bought the DAT machines was to record masters for some of the local bands I've played in over the years. They've also seen a hell of a lot of use converting old tape based demos to CD (including some 1/4 and 1/2 inch tape stuff)
In other words ANYTHING that can be input to my DAT machines (including my CD player, radio, cassette deck, video, DVD player, outputs of my mixing desk etc. etc.) can be turned into a WAV file. In the worst case scenario this could be done via microphones placed next to some speakers.
Once the datas in my PC it is then a trivial matter to edit the WAVs and reformat the data into MP3/Ogg Vorbis/FLAC/Format de jour. etc. etc.
Moral of the story ? DRM is a waste of time. A completely lame waste of time. All it will ever do is inconvenience the casual consumer. For anyone in my position (and there are a hell of a lot of us out there) it is utterly trivial to defeat anything they've come up with so far. If I can hear it, I can record it. Once I've recorded it I can format shift it to my hearts content.
And on this note I'd also like to say that I'm not interested in pirating the fucking crap that get's passed of a "music" these days. Every single MP3 I've ever created has been to play in my CD walkman (which plays MP3 CDs) and usually involves a CD I've either bought or have mastered myself. Very very occasionally I've taken away some MP3s on a CD from a friends house and guess what ? Just like when we used to share tapes if I hear something I like I'VE GONE OUT AND BOUGHT SOMETHING BY THE BAND.
The day I can't do that is the day I stop listening to other peoples music (I'll just twang away on my guitar instead)
The idiots who are running the recording industry protection racket are a bunch of clueless fucks. Pissing off your customers will get you nowhere. They are dinosaurs who deserve to die off. Thanks to the internet bands will soon be able to deal direct with their fans and the entire rank of utterly corrupt middle men are no longer required.
So Ladies and Gentlemen, vote with your wallets and just say no. Don;t buy anything with DRM on it (n.b. iPods fanboys this means you)
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
The copy protection systems will probably limit the number of copies. But what about people who actually wanna buy the CD? The cost price for a CD rises when such a system is used, and the artist will never see one cent more for his/her CD. If the music industry would lower the price, maybe more people will actually buy the CD instead of copying it.
and therefore can't be "copy protected."
Please use proper terminology, these are just pieces of plastic, not CDs.
So, the DMCA is like an end-run around previous court decisions asserting fair use. AFAIK, the DMCA doesn't explicitly deny fair use rights (backups, format change, etc.); it says you can't "circumvent" those technologies that prevent copying in general, fair use or otherwise.
in theory, enforcement of the DMCA should be unconstitutional in cases where circumvention is merely incidental to fair use. So far, though, I don't think there have been any attempts to prosecute *individuals* in cases where fair use was blatantly obvious (for example, ripping your own DVDs to a laptop for viewing on an airplane; and no, sharing MP3s with thousands of your "closest friends" on Kazaa is not fair use). That would clearly be going too far, to the point where even Joe Sixpack would think there's something seriously fucked up with the DMCA.
The main problem with public support for the DMCA and DRM is that the consequences haven't really hit home yet for your average joe. Once people realize that all their new CDs are "broken" you might see some corrective action. Or more likely, the law just won't be enforced against individuals.
my CD player has an optical digital out
OK, so here's a question - if you buy the DRM-thing anyway, then download the same material that someone else ripped, does that count as "bypassing the DRM mechanism"?? I'd like to think not, but it's not always that simple with the DMCA. So far, the RIAA is mostly taking action against people sharing lots of stuff, but the day may yet come when they expand their litigation to include downloaders as well.
First things first.
Analog is simply the best format for audiophiles like the AC and myself.
Just one problem.
Analog formats wear out!!!
Every time you play a analog recording, you destroy the fidelity of that recording 'bit by bit' due to 'wear and tear' inherent in all analog media.
Sometimes, you make the recording unplayable because you play it too damn much and the playback mechanism 'chews it up'!
That is exactly what happened to my cassette tape copy of John Williams' Oscar winning soundtrack to E.T. The Extraterrestrial (1982).
Fortunately, I was able to get this treasured recording on CD as well as the two longer, subsequent CD 're-releases'
It sounds just like the cassette did--just as I remembered it! I could even hear the faint tape hiss of its analog origins!
I now own one of the best pieces of music I've ever heard in a format that doesn't degrade over time with each and every playback (barring playback unit malfunction).
The only drawback is that it is guestimated that 'store bought' CDs have a 'shelf life' of about 20 years or so before they deteriorate--all the more to make backup digital copies of these old, likely out-of-print CDs and protect one's investment.
To me, a music CD is more than an expensive piece of plastic, metal, and polymer laminate--it is a 'carrier unit' that enables me to appreciate and enjoy the music compositions of others such as:
John Williams: Superman, Star Wars, Jaws, Close Encounters
Jerry Goldsmith(R.I.P.): Supergirl, Star Trek (I), Total Recall, Air Force One, The Secret Of N.I.M.H.
James Horner: Titanic, Brainstorm, Krull, Battle Beyond The Stars, Glory
Basil Poledouris: Conan The Barbarian, Starship Troopers (DVD isolated score)
Trevor Jones: The Dark Crystal
John Debney: Cutthroat Island, Bruce Almighty
Lee Holdridge: Splash, The Mists Of Avalon
Wendy Carlos: TRON, A Clockwork Orange (as Walter Carlos)
John Barry: Dances With Wolves
Bill Conti: Masters Of The Universe, The Right Stuff, Rocky
Vangelis: Chariots Of Fire, 1492: Conquest Of Paradise
Tangerine Dream: Thief, Legend
Miklos Roza (R.I.P.): Time After Time
Alex North (R.I.P.): Cleopatra, Spartacus, Dragonslayer, 2001 ('rejected' score)
And foreign music soundtracks from such artists as:
Shoji Yamashiro: Akira
Koohei Tanaka: Gunbuster
Joe Hisaishi: Princess Mononoke, Kikujiro, Fireworks
Michiru Oshima: Godzilla VS. Megaguirus
And many others....
if you hear it, have you made a copy to your head :p you can play it back if you're a talented enough musician
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