Sticky Tape Defeats Sony DRM Copy Protection

cybrpnk2 writes "As reported by InformationWeek, Sony BMG Music's controversial copy-protection scheme can be defeated with a small piece of tape. According to thinktank Gartner analysts Martin Reynolds and Mike McGuire, Sony's XCP technology is stymied by sticking a fingernail-size piece of opaque tape on the outer edge of the CD. 'After more than five years of trying, the recording industry has not yet demonstrated a workable DRM scheme for music CDs. Gartner believes that it will never achieve this goal as long as CDs must be playable by stand-alone CD players.'"

Comments

It's sticky tape now, huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's what you can do to defeat it without risking your optical drive: Hold shift when inserting the disc or, even better, disable CD autostart. But that wouldn't make such a nice headline, would it?

Re:It's sticky tape now, huh?

[BenFranske]

I think once upon a time there was a similar revelation that running a black marker around the edge would do the same thing. Really you're just interfering with the drive reading the data portion of the disc so it appears just as an audio disc. The parent is correct, the shift key or turning off autorun works just as well. They don't make headlines though.

Easier way

[nsayer]

Last time I had to defeat the usual sort of multi-session CD DRM I just used a whiteboard pen. It's helpful because if you go to far in (and start losing the last track), you can just rub little bits off until you get it just right.

Annoyances.org

[Spy der Mann]

How to permanantly turn off CD Autorun on Windows.

They didn't always; sometimes they got it right.

[abb3w]

An article predicting the current problem (as a minor aside!) was published in Rolling Stone magazine back in 1972; the RIAA has had more than thirty years warning about this.

Since huge quantities of information can be computer-digitalized and transmitted, music researchers could, for example, swap records over the Net with "essentially perfect fidelity." So much for record stores (in present form). From SPACEWAR: Fanatic Life and Symbolic Death Among the Computer Bums.

"A failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part."

Copy Protection Drilldown

[Anonymous Coward]

Audio CD Protections, in brief:

- Zeroth Generation (the Click Generation):

* Weak Sectors in ATIP: TTR Technologies MusicGuard (never deployed)

Flat out doesn't work at all, you probably wouldn't even notice they'd done anything. Any Lite-On, BenQ or Plextor wouldn't even skip a beat. Only CD-ROM tested which even gave a damn was a Sony (heh), the drive in the PlayStation 1 to be precise. Didn't get a contract, so TTR partnered with Macrovision, and tried harder. Much harder. Much too hard, in fact.

* Weak Sectors causing C2 Errors in Audio: TTR Technology/Macrovision SAFEAUDIO (limited deployment), Settec Alpha-Audio D-Type (data type, never deployed)

Extremely rare, no longer used; the market overwhelmingly rejected it, which is to say, it broke a music exec's speakers. High channel return rate because of obscenely low compatibility, duplicators returning whole batches as bad pressings because they couldn't perform any useful QA on discs deliberately damaged to this extent. Useless. (TTR apparently liquidated.)

Archiving: Alternate CDFS.VXD tools for Win9x may work, as they interpolate in exactly where SAFEAUDIO puts corruption. Other than that, deliberate damage = not perfectly playable, or rippable. Effectively an analogue medium with huge deliberate noise spikes. Use a mint disc, do the best you can, and high-order-interpolate over the scratches (Adobe Audition or something), just like archiving vinyl.

- First Generation (The Anti-CD Generation):

Archiving all first-generation formats merely needs a Good Drive and Good Software with Good Settings. Can be divided into roughly three groups:

* High Jitter Spike: Cactus Data Shield (classic): CDS-100/CDS-200, First4Internet XCP-Aurora XCP "Red"

(0'09", insert bad CIRC sector, 1200 weak sector/desync, 2 *blank* sectors with no sync, then start again with normal data.) Intent: Cause a "hiccup" during a burstmode rip which would be absorbed by a CD player's (tiny) buffer. Reality: Any quality drive firmware, buffer, or jitter correction, means you won't even skip a beat. Might slow down a little, but that's all. Now only marketed for internal releases/promos.

* Malformed TOC/Evil Session with no player: Early Sony key2audio (1.0), Settec Alpha-Audio S-Type (session type), First4Internet XCP-Aurora XCP1

Bread and butter, it's simple; include a normal or malformed TOC, and sprinkle liberally with a seriously malformed second session, relying on CD-ROMs being multisession and CD players being single session only.

* Malformed TOC/Evil Session with autorun player: Sony key2audio, SunnComm MediaClòQ

Differs from the above only in the second session being malformed, but having a valid data track containing a DRMv2 WMA player (or downloader). Players have evil EULAs, and may interfere with ripping while the player is running (although the first version of the key2audio player that appeared actually shifts the session enough to allow flawless ripping while the player is running...!) but as far as known, they don't leave behind malicious software.

- Second Generation (The Autorun Generation):

Rate of returns was still high, so Macrovision tried a weaker system with a much higher false negative, but a much lower false positive. Actually caught on; almost no returns. They could actually put the CD logo on these if they wanted.

* Valid CD-Extra with autorun player: Macrovision CDS-300, Macrovision TotalPlay CD, Alpha-Audio M-Type (main type)

Player (MS-DRMv2, as usual) interferes with ripping (while it's running) but doesn't seem to leave any malicious software behind. If the autorun isn't run (disable it, or hold SHIFT while inserting CD and be careful in Explorer) or supported, it's a normal CD-Extra. First session is valid Red Book.

- Third Generat