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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?
This Copyright Method, Like Almost Every Single Other Copyright Method, can be circumvented with a simple winamp plugin.
Make music people are willing to pay for, and cultivate mature customers.
Oh wait, that means your greedy leech asses couldn't depend upon 14 year old girls for your revenue stream, doesn't it?
My little site.
In some ways, it's a positive thing. If it's a "same old prevention" system coupled with a "way out" that allows users to make a limited number of copies, then that shows Sony "gets it" insofar as they recognize people do want to make backups, quite legitimately, and shouldn't be restricted from doing what they can to protect their own works. But ultimately, we need be[tt]er solutions. These types of thing will eventually turn into effective efforts that lock out alternative platforms and technologies, undermining innovation and making it much harder to do the kinds of things that lead to the invention of the MP3 player, MP3 CD, home theatre system, etc.
In that respect, part of the effort has to come from the grassroots music listening community. Those who have repeatedly proffered technologies that have put the music industry on the defensive in this way need to be denounced, not revered. People like Shawn Fanning are treated as heroes within the Slashdot community, but why? Making the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted music via IRC easier via the replacement of Napster? How does that help anyone? For a few years, we've had access to so-called "Free" music, but at what cost? Restrictions on our technologies, a movie industry that has treated the GNU/Linux communities as hostile by default, and more and more draconian laws. Meanwhile the artists we want to fund haven't been helped in the slightest by these kinds of technologies. We want to encourage the creation of new art, but Napster and its successors such as Kazaa have done an extraordinary amount of damage to the ability of artists to do so.
In some ways, there's no such thing as the Slashdot "community". My guess is the majority of people reading this will be nodding their heads in agreement, but there'll be the usual gaggle of "Fight the man, why should artists be paid anyway, true art comes from love and money shouldn't exist" types itching to respond. The point though is that the system that created the vast bulk of the music we see distributed on networks like Kazaa is the system most harmed by it. And we can expect "compromises" that really don't meet us half way like Sony's becoming the norm if we're unprepared to do something about it, kicking out the rogues and piracy advocates from our midst. We need to disassociate ourselves with copyright infringement. We need to devise ways of keeping unauthorized music away from the P2P networks, and replace that content with new, original work, devising new and innovative ways to fund it.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
"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.
The First4Internet CD copy protection technology destroys the registry keys (driver device names) associated with your CD-ROM devices. Then a monitoring app allows or disallows access to the device.
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.
Also, by messing with the internal driver properties like this, many apps simply hang or crash the system when trying to access the device.
You can forget about using your legitimate buring software after putting one of those CDs in your computer...
-- anon DRM developer
Frankly, the way I see it, this still allows for fair use under the law as it's written. Who cares if you can't copy a copy?
No, fair use allows for any use, so long as it is fair. There's some tests to check for fairness, but there is no kind of use that can never be fair (or that always is).
As for who cares, I care. The point of having backups is that you expect that eventually you'll lose the master. In such a case, you'd better be able to make further backups from backups.
But more significantly, what happens when the copyright expires? I can then lawfully make as many copies, from whatever source I have handy, for any purpose at all. Will this DRM magically evaporate? Or will it keep me from enjoying my rights?
That's the problem with DRM. It is inflexible, it is permanent, and it is designed with stupid assumptions in mind. We're better off getting rid of DRM altogether.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Instead of burning the protected CD to CDR, rip an ISO. Then you have a nice file which can produce an unlimited number of CDRs and can be distributed quickly with BitTorrent.
Philips is serious about maintaining CD compatibility, and has forced the purveyors of incompatiple DRM schemes to clearly label that they are not compatible with the standard.
See, e.g., http://www.spectacle.org/0702/evan.html
--kirby
The way I see it there are three types of music artists who are affected differently from record sales. Basicaly there are two revnue streams for an artist, concerts and albums.
The first type of artist makes almost no money, plays small clubs, and maybe has an indie record out. This type of band wants his music to be copied and distributed as much as is humanly possible. Since these bands at best break even, and likely take a loss on recording sessions to make CDs they need the word to spread. When enough people have heard of them in your town they make a couple of bucks playing at the bar on the corner.
The second type of band has a major record deal. They are seing revenue from their album sales and they like it. They think that piracy is bad because their label tells them so. They make most of their money from touring, plus they're living the rock and roll lifestyle (or hip-hop, or whatever) so they really don't care about piracy, so long as people pay to see them in concert.
The third type of band is too popular for their own damn good. They make loads of money from albums and sell out stadiums. They might actually stand to make more money if piracry was made impossible. But can you really feel bad for bands like U2 and Metallica who supposedly are doing it because they love the music, but then bitch about not getting whats theirs?
The moral of the story is the only person who piracy is hurting is the label itself. They see declining sales and have to attribute it to something. Of course their ability to recognise, recruit, and foster talent hasn't waned, so it must be the evil internet.
Look at the the state of rap. When it started with Snoop and NWA back in the day it was edgy and said something about the artists culture. I don't know how it got mainstream exactly, but once it was there we got Vanilla Ice and Marky Mark. Well fortunately that died out quickly, but now that rap is fully main stream we have Ludacris rapping about the Number One Spot, Eminem and his Balls and Every rapper and their cousin talking about Krystal, Bentleys, and rims. No one can honesly say that rap has gotten better with increasing comercialism.
The solution? Get clear chanel radio dismantled under some kind of anti trust lawsuit or something. Allow independent radio stations to take back some ground. Get said local radio stations to not play shitty music (*cough* Ashlee Simpson).
So the summary is that corporate radio (MTV included), and bloated record labels are killing music as an artform. And pircay is biting the greedy bastards in the ass. People will always pay to see a concert. People won't always pay for shitty CDs.
Messing with CDROM drivers is scummy enough, but could they be messing with network drivers too?
A pass-through NDIS driver would make a grat tool for spying on, oh, say, p2p traffic?