Artist Suggesting Ways Around Copy Protection

fanboyslayer writes "Switchfoot's new album Nothing Is Sound shipped from Sony with copy protection software on the CD, much to the dismay of thousands of iPod-wielding fans. The band posted a response on their official forum apologizing for the protection and detailing ways to circumvent the protection and rip their songs to PC. Switchfoot linked to open-source program CDex's download page with instructions on disabling the autorunning protection and ripping the files to MP3. Many of Switchfoot's fans have been upset by the copy protection measures, and it's nice to know the artists seem to care about the issue."

Comments

NOBODY WANTS IT

[frinkacheese]

So..

Artists dont want it.
Consumers dont want it. ...

When will they learn? It's such a pain in the ass to get any media, especially DVDs with diff region codes that I am literally FORCED to warez movies to play on my mac. If I buy the DVD, I can not play it (I am in the UK - I want to buy a Region 1 DVD...)

No Possible way out???

[inflex]

It is heartbreaking to see our blood, sweat, and tears over the past 2 years blurred by the confusion and frustration surrounding this new technology. It is also unfortunate when bands such as ourselves, Foo Fighters, Coldplay, etc... (just a few of the new releases with copy protection) are the target of this criticism, when there is no possible way to avoid this new industry policy.

[Bolding mine]

Not sure about there being "no possible way" - perhaps when it comes time to renew their contract with Sony they'll consider going to alternative solutions. Worse comes to worse, perhaps they won't ever be able to escape Sony but they'll serve as a warning for others.

If the large corps keep on with this process it'll typically generate a new band of recording studios who don't and thus are seen as somewhat more friendly (though the cycle will probably still go on).

DMCA

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a band from the USA. Unless I'm mistaken, since the record company is usually the copyright holder of the recordings, this is actually a case of a band infringing the DMCA by telling people how to access their own music. Seems like a perfect example of how screwed up the DMCA is. I can only hope that they get sued for it, perhaps then people will realise the extent to which both copyright and the music industry is screwed up.

Re:DMCA

[dr_d_19]

This is NOT "a perfect example of how screwed up the DMCA is". This is a perfect example of the original copyright holder (Switchfoot) SELLING the copyright of his/hers/their music to another party (Sony). There. You get the money, and you LOSE the control. Simple as that.

DMCA only involvement in this story is the fact that the band gave instructions on how to circumvent the copy protection. But the discussion about DMCA belongs in another thread.

sigh.

[Anonymous Coward]

How long do you think it'll take for Sony to delete the post? My guess... they'll say "even if you bought the cd, simply trying to extract the songs onto your pc means you're going to send the songs to all your friends" and shut it down within a couple days. I don't understand this logic at all. Apparently (since the RIAA goes after p2p), they don't seem to care about the commercial pirating of music. I wonder what will happen when every music cd has copy protection on it, yet p2p and everything else (insert bittorrent jokes) thrive. The only thing this copy protection does is piss off people who legitimately bought the cd... it does absolutely NOTHING to stop piracy. sigh

Re:Nice comment

[nmb3000]

I prefer this comment:

A) If you're a mac user, or you have access to a mac, or you purchased the dual disc, you should have no problems... simply import the songs the same way as you always do.

Not trying to Mac-bash, but having only about 3% of the consumer market share does have it's advantages.

If the Apple and Windows userbases suddenly became equal, you'd see copy protection for both platforms. Why spend an equal amount of money for copy protection that's only going to affect 3% of your consumers vs 95%?

That said, the whole DMCA side of this is plain stupid. Microsoft designed Windows (this really *is* a feature :) so that you could bypass pesky autorun software by holding the SHIFT key (or just turning off on a per-drive basis). It's not a secret. Maybe Sony should sue Microsoft for not giving them a good way to prohibit users from exercising their fair use rights. That's a Slashdot article I want too see; Microsoft getting sued (yay!) but by Sony because they want strict media access control (boo!).

Re:So, are they any good?

[Osty]

Would it be worth it to me to buy their album as a way of showing my support for their being awesome?

If only there was a way to register a reason why you're buying something when you buy it. Without that, you'd just be adding to the total number of sales, proving to Sony that consumers don't care about, or even like(!), this copy protection BS.

My advice? Don't buy the CD. Even if you're a fan, don't buy it. The artists get barely anything from CD sales. Go see them live, or buy their songs off of iTunes or MSN Music or similar (I have no idea if they're listed on any online music service). The very last thing you should do is buy the CD if you want to show support.

How stupid are Sony?

[BenjyD]

Something like 90% of my music listening is on my iPod: if I can't rip your music to my iPod in one easy step, I'm not going to buy your album. It's as simple as that.

I'm sure that is true for a large number of people these days, most of whom are 18-35 with a reasonable disposable income: ie. exactly the kind of people that buy large numbers of CDs. It's amazing how companies can be so incredibly short sighted.

Re:Wow

[Seumas]

And to play those purchased songs on their ipods, they have to circumvent copyright protection, which is a crime. This has nothing to do with piracy or p2p.

Re:I'd never heard of the band..

[Seumas]

Because nothing will show Sony the error of their DMCA/DRM ways like skyrocketing sales of their DRM CDs...