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Sony's New DRM Technique
skochak writes "Sony has introduced a new DRM scheme. You can burn a CD-R from the original once, but you can't re-burn from that first copy." From the article: "The concept is known as 'sterile burning.' And in the eyes of Sony BMG executives, the initiative is central to the industry's efforts to curb casual CD burning. 'The casual piracy, the school yard piracy, is a huge issue for us...Two-thirds of all piracy comes from ripping and burning CDs, which is why making the CD a secure format is of the utmost importance.'"
It only took a week to crack their last attempt at enabling copy protection with nothing more than a pen.
:D
Who's game?
Every single DRM scheme has been cracked before, so what makes Sony think they can outsmart everyone?
When will the execs stop wasting their money on all this ineffective DRM "technology"? If it can be seen, it can be copied. The profit comes from producing a complete package experience with liner notes and pride-of-bookshelf, not just the (approximate) digital waveform.
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These guys need a serious kick in the ass. I'm buying my son a Nintendo instead of a PS3.
Congratulations on being one of the few people on slashdot who understands how to really hurt these companies - make sure they don't get any more money.
Most people seem to think that Script Kiddie Jon's latest iTunes hack will do more than annoy a few people and encourage stronger DRM.
I'm sure everyone is going to point out that this will most definitely be cracked without much effort, what bothers me is why they're going after the casual copiers at all. They say that two thirds of all piracy happens from casual copying, how do they know this?! It seems like an excuse to go after the consumer rather than a legitimate reason. I think this statistic really amounts to nothing. We all know that what they should really be focusing on is the large-scale pirates, especially in EU markets where CD's are even more extravagantly priced than they are in the U.S. I can't imagine how much time and effort that this new protection scheme has eaten up. Shouldn't they be doing something more useful like seeking out the large-scale pirates?
"Trying to make bits uncopyable is like trying to make water not wet."
--Bruce Schneier
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
I was sort of a "late bloomer" for music. My older sister had bands that she liked, mostly picked up from friends, and certainly I had heard the Beatles and the Stones and the stuff that was on the radio. But I never really became somebody who listened avidly to music myself until I was maybe 15 or 16. I got into it after I developed a taste for the stuff that wasn't on the radio all that much. Some of the first bands I got into included old Oingo Boingo, Skinny Puppy, Front 242, GBH, Dead Kennedys, Minor Threat, Sigue Sigue Sputnik ... connect the dots between all those bands any way you want, but the point is that I wouldn't have heard any of this stuff if it weren't for my friends who dubbed me off tapes of it. (That's right, cassette tapes, remember those?) Did I buy records? Sure. Did I buy more records than I listened to copies from friends? Maybe, but I can't say for sure that I did. But even if half the music I listened to wasn't paid for, it still made me a more willing consumer of music today. So how evil is this "casual piracy" really?
But then, more willing consumer is one thing; better consumer -- at least in the eyes of the major conglomerates -- is another. I think I'm far less likely to buy into a lot of the garbage that's forced down the primary media channels today and far more likely to buy from independent labels/genres than most Americans. All that piracy in my youth made me more likely to spend my money on music today, but it made me less likely to spend my money on "the right music," as far as Sony is concerned.
Breakfast served all day!
There is really no way to prevent technically savy people from making copies of content which is distributed on media that does not have user specific encryption without owning the complete system that is responsible for playback. I am sure the long term dream of Sony is a transition from the relatively open CD format to something more proprietary like SACD. In the short term, they have to deal with CDs, which represents more than 99% of the music that is sold in stores.
Sony's goal is probably to make it difficult enough to copy coied CDs such that 90% or 95% of the people don't bother to deal with it. A copy protection system that is tedious enough to break can be commercially successful even if it is a technical failure.
Of course, the basic flaw in this system is that most people who copy music are not that conscious about the quality. Ripping the tracks from a copied CD to MP3s and then burning them back on to a CD would defeat this sytems with some loss of quality.
Most of the pirates they are fighting against aren't even interested in purchasing the music, and wouldn't even if they had to. Most pirates I know do it just because it's fun. It's a challenge - who can get the latest Britney Spears album out on FTP, IRC, and P2P networks the fastest. Adding DRM just ups the anty, making the game even more challenging - the only people it really hurts is the consumer. The music lover. The honest people who want to listen to music.
I stopped buying new CDs of artists under the RIAA months ago, and couldn't be happier. I rip all my music @ 320kbps, so buying a used, slightly scratched CD doesn't bother me.
If you are willing to be patient and keep an eye out, you can make it being perfectly legit AND not supporting an unethical industry - I picked up the latest NIN album used @ Slackers this weekend, and it just came out recently. I live and breathe music, and have a very large, extensive collection.
"Better to be vulgar than non-existent" -Bev Henson
So it's a virus then.
What we need is more DRM, something like MS Trusted Computing to protect us from this other....! Oh wait....
I like how Sony made a point of saying the discs conform to the Phillips CD spec. That still doesn't mean the CD is "pure", and that it is being deceptively marketed and sold.
Leave it to the Music Distribution Cartel to team up with the Software Monopoly to insure that everybody is screwed over; listeners as well as artists.
My immediate question is if these discs will work fine under non-Microsoft OS's and devices. Is the music still encoded in normal Audio CD format on the discs if you ignore the extra data portion.
The assumption that I will never pay for a CD as soon as I assume it's crap is rather flawed. Last time this argument came up someone posted the link to an alternative music site where you could sample and donate for what you liked in the things you sampled.
Maybe no rock stars have been made uber rich that way, but it's a lot more fair to the consumer, and as a consumer I'd like to say, "Screw you," to the bigger corporations involved in my music. Mainly because I've worked with / for them and heard stuff referred to as, "Content." Art != content to me, and I'm willing to vote with my dollars.
My little site.
The main difference between the two interfaces (other than the obvious -- S/PDIF is on unbalanced 75-ohm coax and AES/EBU is on balanced RS422) is that S/PDIF machines have to honor the SCMS ("serial copy management system") bit in one of the control subframes. AES/EBU does not.
SCMS works in the same way as this "new" scheme. As you record from a digital source (over S/PDIF), the recorder looks at the state of the SCMS bit in the incoming data stream. If the bit is set, then the machine will refuse to record. If the bit is not set, then the machine will gladly record -- but it inserts a set SCMS bit into the the recorded data. So when you go to copy your copy, you're locked out.
This, in and of itself, didn't kill DAT. DAT was killed because pro machines were substantially more expensive than the consumer machines (I remember paying a grand for a TASCAM DA-30 when DAT was still very much a viable format). Consumers weren't willing to pay a lot more to get a feature they wanted -- the ability to make copies of copies.
"Those that ignore history are condemned to repeat it." Or something like that.
Now, of course, S/PDIF still exists. I know that some S/PDIF interfaces (the CardD Digital, for one) let you disable SCMS. The most common use for S/PDIF these days is digital transfer from a DVD player to a home-theatre multichannel amp. Dunno if you can route that audio to a digital recording device and have it record.
The monitoring app is buggy. If it stops running or loses your device references, you will have to reinstall windows to make your CD-ROM devices work again.
Or perhaps you could just restore the registry from backup.
But this is why all Windows users should have AutoPlay disabled to prevent broken sofware from being installed without their knowledge or consent.
Hear, hear. The MD had a LOT of potential - as a "next gent" cassete tape/floppy/etc. Yet, Sony locked the format so hard it became a hassle to use.
I sold my MD player a while ago and bought myself a MSI 512mb MP3 player. I grew sick of having to reencode my music to shitty ATRAC3.
no, the DMCA makes you a criminal after step 4, not step 5. copyright laws make you a criminal after step 5.
the cd audio standard is by itself completely without DRM (if you ignore the pathetic copyright flag that all software ignore). in order to hack on a drm scheme that's truly effective you would have to break compatibility with 99.99999% of all cd audio players in the world today.
so you can see why this is a complete and utter failure. even on a windows machine... people use their own software to extract audio and write to new discs. and with autoplay turned off or disabled temporarily, this hasn't a chance in hell of working. even modestly smart computer users can break this in their sleep. and those who aren't can simply ask one of their more capable friends to do it for them.
dvd-audio and sacd though on the other hand, those are worthless DRM-encumbed formats that are anti-customer. hopefully they'll never become more than a niche.. even if the RIAA were to be disbanded, DRM shouldn't ever be used by anyone.
robbing us of our cultural heritage is high treason as far as i'm concerned.
Science : Proprietary , Knowledge : Open Source
It complies with the redbook standards, why is it not a CD?
From TFA:
Under the new solution, tracks ripped and burned from a copy-protected disc are copied to a blank CD in Microsoft's Windows Media Audio format. The DRM embedded on the discs bars the burned CD from being copied.
I'm having problems finding mention of Microsoft WMA and DRM in the redbook standards...
It may be that the original CD (if that is the source material) is redbook compliant [I didn't see a mention in the article], but clearly any copied CDs are not and most likely will not be playable in standard CD players... so what's the point?
Wanted: witty unique signature. Must be willing to relocate.
Except that the public has the power to determine what businesses are viable
But not by trashing the business in question. If I open a diner that's popular with lots of local folks, but a vegan/PETA type decides that shouldn't be a "viable" business because I'm serving meat, they can vote with their wallet - but they can't vote by burning down the restaurant. Further, people can't say that the only way in which they'll consider my work in the diner as viable is if I do it for free, and show me that by having me work for them (as I fix their lunch), and then skipping out on the check en masse. The point is, if I don't attract and keep customers, that's one thing. But being ripped off is another.
Most people like getting something for nothing
Sure, when it's offered. But most normal people (especially those that do something productive for a living themselves) would feel more than a little odd climbing over the fence of the local concert venue to see a musician they love. The point is that they claim to respect the musician (and her work), and they know that she's asking a price for entertaining people, but they're willing to rip her off anyway - even in the act of enjoying what that person does. It just suggests a real disconnect that would probably stop if they had to look that artist in the eye as they climbed over the fence. Can't you hear the conversation? "I love your music! You're so great! Now, can you help me down off of this fence so I can watch you perform for me? I didn't want to pay you."
I suppose that if your neighbor had a really nice looking garden, you'd want to give him some money for making the street look nicer?
No, of course not. Because I happen to know that my neighbor's enjoyment of her garden is its own reward. People who like to get paid for producing beautiful landscapes are called landscape architects, or professional gardeners. If they want to get into that (tough) line of work, that's what they'll do, and they'll find people (or municipalities, or businesses) that actually do want to improve the looks of their environment, and have other things to focus on... and hence the money they pay for the physical work, as well as the creativity of people like that. The neighbor that makes their yard gorgeous usually gets the additional benefit of inspiring other neighbors to at least put in a little effort to do the same. That's not the same as being in the landscape design business, any more than listening to the neighbor practice the violin is the same as choosing to go see a performance for which the musician has decided to charge.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Here's the thing. I agree with everyone who's replied to me so far, I'm just trying to explain why Sony would do such a thing. They believe they're being robbed, they believe that copyright infringers are thieves, and this gives them the beliefs that they have the rights to protect their "homes" any way possible and they're not moving. I believe that I won't be playing devil's advocate anymore.
"Plans are for fools! Oglethorpe, the plutonian (Aqua Teen Hunger Force)
How about, instead of trying to rationalize why I should run Kazaa or something else that uses up all my bandwidth to download free songs, movies and other trash, I simply don't bother wasting my time? I don't download crappy content I know I won't enjoy, and my decision costs me nothing.
The MPAA isn't pleased with people like me, who throw $6.50 their way via a matinee showing every two years, and that's only if I get dragged to the theatre by my workmates. To add insult to injury, very few of the DVDs I buy pad the coffers of the MPAA. Likewise, the RIAA is pretty pissed at people like me, who just STOPPED buying mainstream CDs 10 years ago, and only buy used CDs these days. But the RIAA doesn't have too much to gripe about, seeing how they're getting 75% of the iTunes Music Store money I spend, and even then it's not the hundreds every month they'd -really- want me to spend.
If something regarding the content is problematic (WMA-only files, no true a-la-carte cable channel selection, 100 channels of digital turds posing as a cable "product," highly-priced cable, movies and CDs, 20min of commercials before the previews, etc), I'll learn to live without that content. This philosophy works (for me), after all, and I get to keep my money. It's my very small way of letting offending entities know that they should eat shit and die without breaking any laws, real or imagined.
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Me spell chucker work grate. Need grandma chicken.
If you're feeling paranoid enough, how about some other questions that same developer has asked around other forums. Try piecing something together.
I sympathize with your thought proccess, but I don't think very many people would consider 128kbps MP3s to be above and beyond the quality of a brand new factory cassette tape. I certainly wouldn't. I'm not looking for an upgrade. I'm just looking for a mechanism to enjoy the music I already paid for.
But I have a question for you. Would you consider it "piracy" to download an e-book because your water-damaged paper book is unreadable? Would you consider it "piracy" to download a "pirate video" filmed with a camcorder to replace a scratched DVD?
In both these cases, there's no qualitative improvement in the replacement copy. If you still would consider this piracy, then maybe you could tell me why it's wrong? Personally I care a lot less about the law than the ethics of the situation. Is it ethical?
TW
No kidding. I went drinking with some Sony guys a long time ago and one of them was an engineer working on MD. He really didn't care for ATRAC and said the content guys forced them to do it.
For some reason, though, MD has become very popular in Japan if nowhere else.