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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 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
Yet another "protection" we can bypass by pressing shift ;-)
i like that.
Anyway, if it's a multi-session CD, anyone with a cd burning tool on windows or macOs can extract the right session...
On Linux, it would be even easier...
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
>> 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.
Acyually I would go step further and say that this isn't possible with ANY adio media EVER. The simple fact is that whatever your medium, and no matter how much copy protection you like to add, eventually the data is sent to a speaker. By the nature of what you're trying to accomplish (play some sounds) all your fancy DRM/copy protection MUST be discardded before it it's converted into vibrating air molecules, so even with "perfect" DRM on audio media you just move the pont at which the data is recaptured.
I wonder if anyone has explained this to the PHB's at the media companies?
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 |
Yes. And DRM compatible speakers must have a DAC in them to transfer to analogue output, which means:
1. Anyone with a soldering iron can get the analogue output of the DAC and wire it into the audio input of a sound card.
2. Anyone with a bit of electronics knowledge and aforementioned soldering iron can tap into the digital input of the DAC and get a perfect copy.
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"
What's going to happen with a system like this is that it breaks on all music CD players that are capable of identifying other formats. This is nothing new, and audio enthusiasts are not enthused to hear "Sorry, your CD player is too advanced to play this non-standard CD. Get a $79 one, and it will work".
Regards,
--
*Art
I can't wait for this stupid DRM bullshit to die off like the sick joke that it is. They'll never get my money with that kind of 'f--k you' attitude towards their consumers.
"Oh, but just go to iTunes where that have lightweight DRM..."
No thanks, man. Either no DRM, or no sale.
"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.
While the companies producing the DRM will make big bucks in the short term, the recording labels will only shoot themselves in the foot by using DRM. When they are forced to abandon the technology as Sony recently did, the gravy train for DRM producers will be gone, too.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
I think the pragmatic view is DRM doesn't have to be unbreakable. It sure doesn't seem possible unless you encrypt the content and never decrypt it for any reason. Even the theoritcal poster child of working DRM (console games) proves this: with a totally closed system and everything under your control you are still going to be hacked. Like with accounting rules ("it shouldn't cost more to track the thing than the thing is worth") I think this is just a matter of how painful it is. Its like asking if anyone makes a lock for your front door that is unbreakable -- no, but that's not the point.
Hardware dongles are pretty close to 'working' (for some definition of the term). Sure you can hack the app, but they give a reasonable in-between: you can copy the s/w all you like, use it anywhere, etc, as long as you have the physical token that goes with the license. As long as the physical token isn't fragile this is IMO a fair compromise; with USB its even moderately convenient.
I worked as a developer on a couple of products using these and the theory was you could create enough FUD that legitimate users wouldn't use a hacked version: dongles of the mid 90's gave you enough space to put code in the dongle, the suggested use is that you put bits of your application into the dongle and pull them out at runtime. They recommended you put a couple of obvious "this program can't run w/o a dongle" messages in, but then also put more subtle chunks of code that if not run would corrupt or crash the product in subtle and recognizable (to tech support) ways.
From a business/moral/usability point of view h/w dongle based DRM (for pricey s/w) 'works'. This doesn't mean its unbreakable, just that its 'fair' enough it isn't worth the effort (the chief complain of having a single point of failure is to just send two dongles per license and suffer the possibility of it being abused).
None of this helps with music of course, since they have to support normal audio players.
I hope they keep trying crap like this and making it worse and worse, with any luck it will implode on itself and 'no DRM' will be a selling feature. I turned the corner of not buying PC games with HL2's DiVX scheme coming on the scene.
The standard way around that is to have a second TOC which says the audio tracks don't exist. Audio players only read the first TOC, computer drives read all of them. Of course, this is where my friendly black mar^H^H^Hevil circumvention device comes in handy.
I am trolling
I have a easier solution for you.
Get a friend which has a fairly new mp3 player with a line in, plug it into the cds line out
and start recording. Most new mp3 players can encode up to 320kbps and
split the tracks where the cd are split, so you wont even have to do that by yourself.
So its really just the time that it takes for the cd to finish.
- webbie
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)
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