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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.'"
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.
This is all good and dandy, but if something can be protected, it can be cracked.
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."
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.
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
...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."
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;
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.
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!