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Sony Doing An End Run Around Its Own DRM
glassgnost writes "According to a story at CNN, Sony has an odd response to complaints from fans who have discovered they cannot import their CD content to an iPod. Individuals who complain to Sony BMG about iPod incompatibility are being directed to a Web site that provides information on how to work around the technology. In short, some labels appear to have been instructing customers how to defeat DRM -- which, IIRC, is a violation of DMCA." From the article: "For now, the copy-protected discs work only with software and devices compatible with Microsoft Windows Media technology. Apple -- the dominant player in digital music -- has resisted appeals from the labels to license its FairPlay DRM for use on the copy-protected discs. The DRM initiatives are generating complaints from fans, many of whom own iPods. The message boards of artist fan sites and online retailers are filled with complaints from angry consumers who did not realize they were buying a copy-protected title until they tried to create music files on their home computers."
Interestingly SonyBMG is blaming Apple for the lack of support.
I think this situation is bound to happen, when your right hand doesn't know what your left hand is doing.
The linked website does not provide information on how to work around the technology. It explains how to 'work with' the DRM software. This page on the website mentions the problem of playing their DRMed music on an iPod and directs you to this form that you are required to fill out to apparently be emailed instructions.
If you tell someone how to circumvent the DRM to something in which you hold the copyright. The real question is, are you violating the DMCA if you are following those instructions to circumvent the DRM? And, if you are, would it be considered entrapment? None of this really matters since it would happen in the privacy of your own home, but it is an interesting legal riddle.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Even if that does violate the DMCA, only certain people would have standing to sue about it...mostly Sony. Anyone else getting a piece of the profits would, as well, but it's possible that their contracts surrender that particular right to sue to Sony. Also, the artists may be just as interested in Sony in getting around this particular manifestation of the law of unintended consequences, so they might not want to sue, either.
Of course, if the artists' contract required Sony to put DRM on there (maybe from an extremely anti-file-sharing artist like Madonna), then they would probably have a breach of contract action against Sony. I'm not sure it would succeed, but I'll bet it'd survive summary judgment.
Stop learning! Only you can prevent esoterrorism.
Since Sony wants a "proof-of-purchase" style form, has anyone with this issue completed the form, and received the response? It's be interesting to see how Sony is telling people to circumvent their technology.
:)
I'd fill it out myself, but it's been over a year since I bought any music that wasn't from iTunes.
"Adventure? Excitement? A Jedi craves not these things."
I'd be interested to find out how many artists approve of DRM, and how many oppose it. Most of the names I see tossed about are has-beens, or never-heard-ofs -- I said most not all.
Seems to me that an artist would want their art spread as widely as possible, since most of their money is made in merchandising, and touring. Name recognition is everything.
My ZooLoo
I told you so, but would you listen to me?
Oh, nooooooooo, DRM will never cause problems for consumers, just a little harmless DRM...
Time to bring in the Holy Hackgrenade, and blow the DRM into little pieces!
--LWM
I'm not sure why this article is written/titled the way it is. There doesn't seem to be any information on the Sony site about circumventing DRM.
The big media companies want DRM and supported the DMCA. Now they have to break the DMCA to get around their own DRM. Please support the EFF http://www.eff.org/.
Thanks,
cesman
When the source is open, the possibilities are endless.
Instead of circumventing the copy protections, I hope most are simply returning their cd. Obviously they only care about their bottom line and not the trouble they put their "consumers" through. It's the only way they might get the message.
How about you ("The Company") give the technology to Apple so that you don't lose their users as customers. How would you like it if Apple published on their website that said "Don't buy your company's CDs, they are incompatible with our technology and refuse to change it." You see, in this case, Apple is driving the market. Either conform, or lose customers.
Evil people don't think they're evil. - George Lucas, Making of Ep III
Why are labels allowed to put this type of technology on albums and then say that they are not violating the consumer's fair use rights? I really don't understand why the fair use doctrine seems to have been thrown out the window lately. What would happen if someone took this to court claiming that their rights have been violated, not only by the DRM, but also by the DMCA?
This is it.
Thank you for contacting Sony BMG Online.
We appreciate your purchase of our CD and apologize for any inconvenience. Please follow the instructions below in order to move your content into iTunes and onto an iPod.
[Macintosh] If you have a Macintosh computer you can copy the songs using your iTunes Player as you would normally do.
[Windows] If you have a PC place the CD into your computer and allow the Sony BMG audio player on the CD to automatically start. If the player software does not automatically start, open your Windows Explorer. Locate and select the drive letter for your CD drive. On the disc you will find either a file named LaunchCD.exe or Autorun.exe. Double-click this file to manually start the player.
TIP: If your CD does not contain either the LaunchCD.exe or Autorun.exe files, it may not be compatible with this iPod solution. Please reply to this letter for more information.
Once the Sony BMG player application has been launched and the End User License Agreement has been accepted, you can click the Copy Songs button on the top menu.
Follow the instructions to copy the secure Windows Media Files (WMA) to your PC. Make a note of where you are copying the songs to, you will need to get to these secure Windows Media Files in the next steps.
Once the WMA files are on your PC you can open and listen to the songs with Windows Media Player 9.0 or higher (or another fully compatible player that can playback secure WMA files, such as MusicMatch, RealPlayer, and Winamp). You can then burn the songs to a standard Audio CD. Please note that in order to burn the files, you will need to upgrade to, or already have, Windows Media Player 9 or 10.
Once the standard Audio CD has been created, place this copied CD back into your computer and open iTunes. iTunes can now rip the songs as you would any normal audio CD.
Please note an easier and more acceptable solution requires cooperation from Apple, who we have already reached out to in hopes of addressing this issue. To help speed this effort, we ask that you use the following link to contact Apple and ask them to provide a solution that would easily allow you to move content from protected CDs into iTunes or onto your iPod rather than having to go through the additional steps above:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/ipod.html
Thank you for the opportunity to be of assistance.
The Sony BMG Online Support Team
CCKM
This message and any attachments are solely for the use of intended recipients. They may contain privileged and/or confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you received this email in error, and that any review, dissemination, distribution or copying of this email and any attachment is strictly prohibited. If you receive this email in error please contact the sender and delete the message and any attachments associated therewith from your computer. Your cooperation in this matter is appreciated.
Oops.
Personally, I'm glad Apple hasn't shared their FairPlay DRM scheme with the rest of the industry. It shows the RIAA what's like to be on the wrong side of a closed system. Now they know how we feel when we can't rip our songs to MP3s.
Electric Monkey Pants
take a permanant marker and cross off this track...
Quoth the article: The DRM initiatives are generating complaints from fans, many of whom own iPods. The message boards of artist fan sites and online retailers are filled with complaints from angry consumers who did not realize they were buying a copy-protected title until they tried to create music files on their home computers.
Enter the DMCRA, which, in addition to guaranteeing the right to circumvent copy prevention systems for the purposes of making non-infringing use of a work, also mandates that when companies put copy prevention on a CD, they also add an adequate warning to the case indicating that the CD may not work in all players.
I didn't think that the DMCRA would actually get attention because of the warning label provision, mainly because I'm more interested on the circumvention for non-infringing use provision, but perhaps the warning label provision is the way to get music consumers interested in getting the DMCRA passed.
When you buy a CD you purchase the priviledge to play the CD in a manner that the record company approves. Repeat three times.
Now, for every person that says "No way! The law says..." They may be right, but I submit that the music distributors (via RIAA) are training people to believe and behave according to the statement above and completely ingnoring the law. (not breaking, but pretending it doesn't exist) These laws in particular protect the rich from the poor.
Whatever laws may say otherwise, I submit that a coherent challenge to this mission won't be happening because the resources required to do so are:
-out of reach of nearly all the people consuming music.
-lack of incentive on the part of the people with the resources to challenge the RIAA. They are most likely shareholders garnering a return or otherwise can pay the price without concern.
-Mounting a challenge to this is likely to be criminalized outright because it's easy to label it "they just want to steal our music." (reminds me of the medical marijuana lobby)
-Allowing a CD to be used for more than one purpose is bad capitalism. The owner wants to monetize every single use and the current political climate in the US encourages this.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
To listen to the music on this disc, you need a PC with the following minimum system requirements:
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- Logged in with Administrator rights
why?
the internet is disruptive technology
we don't NEED music conglomerates
teenagers pick up guitars to impress chicks, not to become millionaires
if in the future artisits don't become millionaires, do you really think people will stop making music? as if fame and women aren't incentive enough?
and even then, in the future, bands will make their money the old fashion way: touring, stage appearances, and the ticketing that comes with that
and the bootlegs, videos, of that appearance will be free, as well as their entire catalog
so sell your stock in sony, and buy some ticketmaster stock
because the internet has made the media cheap
but there is still only one artist, and in meatspace, as opposed to cyberspace, the artist is a rare commodity, so you can still sell tickets
who loses in this future world?
nothing but the music distrubutors
the fans, and the artists, win
bye bye, dinosaurs
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
So, they are trying to convince me that the reason THEY are DRM-ing their CD's is because of Apple? Im sorry, but who do they expect will be convinced by this? We're not talking about Momma and Poppa Joe here who will be complining- this will be educated individuals from the internet generation. These people will easily be able to see right through this decieteful childsplay. This is a foolish act by Sony that makes them sound like even more of faceless evil megacorporation than they already do.
Silly consumers, you should know better than to actually pay for the product, since it'll just be broken! You should just go download the song illegally over the Internet, because that gives you a working copy that you can use as you see fit.
So, essentially, with DRM, Sony has succeeded in making the pirated copies of the songs more valuable than the real copies. Brilliant strategy.
DRM always seems to work like that. All it accomplishes is making the "official" versions that much worse. How many people here have wound up downloading the "NOCD" versions of games that you paid for, simply because either the nuisance of having to swap disks was keeping you from playing, or because the copy protection actually crashed? I can't remember which game (C&C Generals?), but I remember I couldn't actually play a game recently because it's copy protection scheme actually would crash.
I can only hope that eventually the media companies will realize that all this DRM stuff is simply taking value away from their product, not adding anything to it. Apparently their solution to piracy is to make the pirated product more attractive than their own. Then they wonder why the strategy isn't working. Hmm...
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
If Apple wanted, they could get the crippled CDs out there all using FairPlay to DRM the compressed songs. It's strange they don't. You would think that this would give a further competitive advantage to their iPod line of players, as well as seeing to it that everyone is using iTunes for playback and FairPlay for DRM. Should Apple want to, all of these objectives would be within reach. The strange thing is that they don't seem to want to. Somehow they wait on the sidelines while the music industry seems to default to Windows Media DRM. This is a less useful format for the majority of customers, and with enough of it around, competitors to the iPod get a serious advantage.
So my question is this: Why is Apple holding out on the licensing of FairPlay? Is it simply that they think crippled CDs are evil and they don't want to dirty their hands with it? Strange.
The method is actually:
Step 1: return the cd for your money.
Step 2: download the mp3 with p2p.
Note: Step 1 may be omitted in the future.
This is quite interesting. Although the e-mail blames Apple, I think the users don't really care. By not licensing FairPlay, Apple is really turning the heat on the record execs. Nobody wants a Rio when there's an iPod available. And rather than go through all that work to load the tracks on an iPod, perhaps some users would sooner download the material. For many, that would technically easier. Things certainly do seem to be shaping up for a battle as Apple really starts to flex. Seems like it has the masses backing it, not to mention the disgruntled artists.
iTunes vs Big Music and Google vs Microsoft: surely an exciting 2006...
ascii art
But the artists who have become millionaires aren't exactly clamoring to change the system, are they? The power is in the hands of artists, but the small number of artists who have benefited by the current system are as a whole uninterested in changing it.
The fact that you and I don't need media conglomerates doesn't mean that they'll disappear of their own accord. Until big-name artists start working for change, and legislation is passed to curb the music industry's excesses, the industry will use its considerable financial and political clout to resist change.
The current music industry profit model is probably doomed, but the labels won't let it go away without a fight. They know they're middlemen, and they know that the Internet is particularly good at weeding out middlement. The problem is no matter how many times they get hit on the head with a cluestick, they still can't figure out a way to shift their profit model. Expect this fight to go on for quite some time before the music industry either is utterly destroyed or is forced to adapt to the new reality.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Think that they might as well have said:
"sorry, we're right smack-dab in the middle of one colosal pissing contest with apple right now.
Unless you want to go out and further support us by buying our inferior digital music player, you should just piss off and do what you were going to do anyways: burn a copy of the cd, then use that copy with itunes to put it on your stupid ipod.
sure, you'll have inferior audio quality, but fuck you for going with our competitor. you're just lucky we're not suing you for it."
Come read my stupid blagablog. Rants and Giggles
For me, I quit buying Sony Consumer Electronics after I burned my first mix CD and found that my Sony CD/DVD player wouldn't read burned CDs. About 2 years later, the consumer electronics division is cutting 10,000 jobs and facing a $2B(US) loss this year.
Now the half of the house that sells CDs is trying hard to alienate it's customers by releasing CDs that can't be listened to on iPods. Earth to Sony, if you make your products unusable, consumers aren't going to buy them. In addition, the consumer economy is severely depressed due to energy prices and a really expensive war we are fighting in Iraq. Until these issues are resolved, consumers are going to spend less money on both electronics and content. Meanwhile, you probably shouldn't sacrifice the per CD licensing fees to the copy protection and DRM companies. Instead you should focus on superior products and profitability.
Selling products in a free-market economy is a tricky thing. Good luck! Oh, and one more thing. We are all sick of the movie remakes, please innovate something new and interesting. Herbie, Bewitched, and now King Kong? Geeeeeez.
Read the canned response, it actually tells you to MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THE DRM INSTALLED FIRST. Then they want you to install WMP 9 or 10. In other words, they are encouraging you to install their DRM.
They're not telling you how to circumvent it, they're telling you how to GET IT.
If it said to disable autorun and then use iTunes to rip it, then it'd be telling you how to circumvent it.
It's all a scam to get you into their circle of people already using their DRM system. By then it's too late.
Return the disc as defective. If you pay money for DRMed content, then the music companies will try to sell you more DRMed content. Our only hope here is to return every disc that has protection and hope the retailers stop stocking it due to the hassle. Then the music publishers will be forced to release it without DRM in order to get it on the shelf.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95