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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.'"
Does using tape in such a fashion violate the terms of the DMCA? If so, could the tape manufacturers be held responsible for making a product that potentially aides in piracy?
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
This would be a good place to say something insightful, but the headline has me dumbfounded.
And they always said that home taping would kill the music industry...
I'm off to short 1000 shares of 3M.
Sony/BMG sued 3M Corporation today for their new technology called "tape" to circumvent their copy protection and encryption schemes. They will be tried under the DMCA, news at at 11!
Unstable Apps: Our Android Apps Don't Suck
Can we talk about Apple or Google instead 'cause I'm feeling depressed.
where is the foot icon above the sony icon?
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?
But it's still funny to me. Goes to show what these multi-million-dollar investments in anti-piracy and all of the legislation accomplishes. Go tape!
Indeed, these scenarios show just how artificial restrictions on knowledge and information are. It is impossible to try to make such an inherently abundant resource scarce, in order to derive profit.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
That's state of the art
Can't they come up with more original ideas?? Couldn't believe they _still_ think this kind of crap was working
Only outlaws will have office supplies.
Illegal technology, outlawed by DMCA:
* Sticky Tape
* Magic Markers
* Shift Keys
When will these companies learn? 3M, Sharpie, and Dell-- stop trying to get me to break the law!!!
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
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.
Right with the Shift-Key guy. HACKERS!
...shares of 3M rose by 15 points
From Information Week: According to 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.
Ok, if I'm a Sony exec, do I feel very stupid right now?
From Gartner: 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.
And being the music industry, they will not give up. Like lemmings to the sea. Really, there's nothing they can do. If someone can create software to copy-protect a CD, some enterprising soul can create software to defeat it.
They'll keep it up, because they will be in a blind panic at the idea of their profits drying up, even though they could spend time and effort creating some kind of shared, P2P music publication system whereby they could make money and people could get the music they wanted. But that's just one man's opinion.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
Gotta love it. Almost as cool as the captain crunch whistle.... well, not quite.
... what did you expect, something profound?
seriously
these guys are better than that insane chick on 'trading spouses'
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
That it will be impossible as long as CDs are playable!
What is next will Sony try and outlaw mics and wires?
Dear Sony. I will not steal your music. In fact I will not listen to or buy your music anymore. I am sure that eventualy artists will move to a label that treats it's customers with a bit more respect.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
"Alright, buster, how did you get around it?" "Look, Sarge! Tape! He's got a roll of tape!"
"You rebel scum!"
I bet I can overcome their DRM by not wanting anything from that list of albums, too.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Has there been any Audio CD drm put out that doesn't rely on the auto-run feature of Windows? I remember reading something about one method that would put defects in the disc that would be filtered out by an audio CD player, but I haven't seen any reports if that would affect cd-paranoia.
In other words, since I do all my music work using Linux, do I need to worry about any of the protection methods currently out there?
I'd like to see a list of all the drm methods that are "in the wild" along with their prevalence and effectiveness agains various OS's & tools.
i'd like to see some picture-demonstration for the less language-savvy.
Gee, all I need to do to avoid the backdoor* software is to stick a piece of tape to the CD and risk the tape coming off and damaging my CDROM drive?
BTW, when explaining the Sony CD fiasco to non-techie folk, using the term "installs a backdoor" seems to be very effective.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
In 2003 some of the HP Labs researchers looked at the related issues and published a paper titled: "If Piracy is the Problem, Is DRM the Answer?" http://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/2003/HPL-2003-11 0.pdf
You might find the white paper interesting if you've not read it before. This caused quite a stir when it was released, both inside and outside HP, and is still quite relevent in light of the Sony issue. This provides an counterpoint even inside HP where we try to maintain some form of management across all the issues.
The conclusion reads:
"We pointed out that unauthorized use and unauthorized acquisition are two aspects of piracy. A key concept is how licenses are bound to content. We saw that various kinds of DRM technology address these issues in very different ways, but that all of them have some kind of flaw that make it highly unlikely that they will be able to solve the problem of piracy. The real problem with piracy is that it takes only a small fraction of users who are capable of dissociating licenses from content to make managed content available to a significant fraction of users in unmanaged form.
We explored the concept of draconian DRM in which devices that handle managed content do not handle unmanaged content at all. Draconian DRM could potentially be effective at eliminating piracy if it were ubiquitously adopted, but introduces a new problem of how to handle public content.
Our conclusion is that currently proposed technical measures will not be able to completely stop the illegitimate distribution of pirated content. We believe that content producers must take steps to compete with the piracy as an alternative."
SONY should develop Penis Rights Management (PRM) systems for male geeks. Applying such a system to one's cock would prevent unauthorized use. Of course, since it is designed by SONY it will most likely work in the complete opposite way: women will be enticed to play with a cock using such technology! All of the geeks and nerds out there who can't get any pussy would benefit from such a device. They might even get laid!
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
how is this different from using a permenent marker to black out the same section?
No wait, don't tell me, it's op the tip of my tongue.....
For the perfect anti-Unix, write an OS that thinks it knows what you're doing better than you do and let it be wrong.
I still maintain that the best way to defeat Sony's DRM is by simply not buying their music. All the fuss and legal backlash is nothing if we are two-faced in our dealings with them, and indeed all big industry. If we're chiding them on the one side for their vicious tactics and financially supporting them on the other, they hear the message loud and clear: we're pushovers. I think that's the answer they were prodding for when they first decided to include XCP on their CDs in the first place.
Working in a DevOps shop is like playing in a band made up entirely of keytarists.
Noise heard from Sony HQ:
"DOH!"
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
...by getting your CD stuck in the player. Since it doesn't spin, the DRM software is vanquished.
Q: What do you call a CD with sticky tape on it?
Is it...
1) a tape drive
2) a genius workaround
3) an absolutely horrid waste of time
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Not to mention September 2005 (http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?ref=g_sea
"Organizations increasingly need to create, store, retrieve and manage rich media files. Those that successfully cultivate a digital asset management environment can cut their associated operational costs in half."
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
Sure, it's karma whoring, but I get tired of the "shift key" advice when so many of us have moved on. Never worry about evil code on a CD again! If you're particularly paranoid, feel free to deselect the other checkbox as well.
* if you're using the older version, you'll have to do some searching. I have no reference for it.
Without risking FOD.
You don't need to download TweakUI to do that.
Go to My Computer, right click on the CD-ROM drive, go to the AutoPlay tab and set your preferences accordingly.
or buy puts.
How to permanantly turn off CD Autorun on Windows.
How long before Microsoft and Sony jointly announce a DRM CD/DVD/-ROM drive that locks a copy to a single player? Or just a version of Windows which won't "Save As..." without a Certificate of Authenticity?
--
make install -not war
Or you could just do what I did and use the tape to hold down the shift key all the time. Of course, the lameness filter nonw prevents me from using my "safe" PC to post to Slashdot. I guess Taco is in the RIAA's pocket, too!
The Tools Of Ignorance wanna be a tool?
AnyDVD does it better, as well as many other things (disabling ads in DVD's).
This is different because people who do it are technically risking offbalancing their CD... and in todays CD devices on computers that seem to almost exceed the RPM of a jet engine, that can be catastrophic. And as another poster pointed out, the tape can also potentially come off and gum up your internals. I recommend the Marker Method over tape, definitely.
@Whee
The DRM, they do nothing!
"Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under." - H.L. Mencken
How about: Jump back 20 years in time and you'll see people circumventing the write protection on floppy disks the exact same way.
This is pretty clever and I have to wonder if the guy who thought it up was thinking of floppies when he tried it. My first guess was the tape covers the first data that contains the Sony crapware, but how do you also avoid covering the file table? I also wonder if this will make your CD drive rattle a little bit at 52X.
Oh, this is too funny.
.01 cent piece of 'write-protect' tape. And now, Sony repeats it with the same level of hubris... that's too funny.
Many years ago in the Apple ][ era... Lotus 1-2-3 was a great spreadsheet. They invested a huge pile of money to make certain that you could not run their program without possessing the original disk. And try as we may, we couldn't figure out how they did it... there was one sector that was funky, but it didn't make any sense.
Then, by chance, my neighbor had a nice RANA drive - and it had a 'write protect' button on the face, that you could manually toggle. We stuck a (non-working) copy into the drive to begin the arduous task of single-stepping through the code, and accidentally hit that button while doing so. The result?
Lotus fired right up!
They spent way too much money using a laser to create a specific media defect in a specific place; upon startup, the program would attempt to write to that location. If it failed, it knew it was the original. If it succeeded... then there was no defect there, and it was a copy.
All that time and god-knows-how-much-money they invested in this scheme... only to be defeated by a
help me i've cloned myself and can't remember which one I am
Owned!!!
---- You have been programmed by the Illuminati to not see the word ""!
UserFriendly has a dig at Sony (as well as Microsoft) in today's strip
WHICH IS STICKING THE TAPE TO MY SHIft key oh darn it got loose again....
Dear Sir,
I am a legal representative of Sony BMG. My client has instructed me to inform you that your site contains information that enables people to overcome their copy protection system, effectively enabling breach of their copyright. As I am sure you are aware, this is in violation of the DMCA act, and I must insist on the behalf of my client that you remove the offending page from your site pending further correspondence with us. My client fully intends to pursue this matter to the full extent that the law allows, so I advise you contact your own legal representative and provide them with a copy of this letter.
Lots of love,
Evil Lawyer Scum
XXXXXX
Jeez, I posted about this early yesterday: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=168923&cid=140 82164 and the original story was in the mainstream news close to two days ago. You're slipping /.
Maybe wipe the xbox 360 hype from your eyes for a couple minutes and realize that there is a whole world out there besides 40 360 stories in a week.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
People buy CDs to get the best 44.1Kbs uncompressed audio usually available for purchase. Yet the DRM'd versions are highly compressed audio files (hence things like the illegally included LAME decoder in the XCP package) where true quality is sacraficed in order to achieve compression levels allowing it to be sandwiched onto a standard CD.
Some very fine audio chips and speakers are available for computers these days, and certainly some people use their computers as their primary audio system. Yet were on the packaging, or EULA (an astonishing concept for a music CD in and of itself), does it tell you that you'll receive inferior quality playback when played on your computer. How many people believe that the DRM'd discs are actually playing back the .WAV files, instead of WMA or other crap files? It's fraud to not inform consumers that even after they agree to the DRM that they'll receive degraded audio as a result -- and Sony should have to pay for that as well!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
RIAA was forced to sue itself today, as some smartass found a way to use a "sticky" mailing label that was included with one of their subpeonas, to circumvent the Sony Digital Rights Restriction kit.
help me i've cloned myself and can't remember which one I am
Gartner believes that it will never achieve this goal as long as CDs must be playable by stand-alone CD players.
As long as it must be playable in a standalone CD Player? As long as media must be visible or audible, DRM will never work. It might for a while, but people are always going to figure a way around it. I've argued this over and over. The software industry which, let's face it, has been at this copy protection thing a lot longer than the music industry and has quite a bit more specialization in it, still hasn't come up with a solution that works for software. What makes the music industry think it will succeed where this industry has repeatedly failed?
The software industry has managed to survive, despite rampant piracy. M$ has become enormous, despite the rampant piracy of Windows and every app they produce. The music industry just has to bite the bullet, accept that piracy is going to happen, but for God's sake, stop treating all your customers like criminals. All that will achieve is alienation and it will eventually lead to their demise when someone comes along and offers a competing product without treating the customers like criminals.
red tape!
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
Sticky tape got your tongue?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
IIRC Sony tried to use a system similar to this some time ago. As well as the normal audio session there was a second data session right at the very outer edge of the disc that was effectively blank. To a multi-session CD or DVD drive, which picked up the outer session first, the disc looked completely blank, as the outer session included no information about the first session (normal multi-session CDs include a TOC for all previous sessions on each session TOC, so that the CD drive knows to look for them). A standard (single-session) audio CD player only picked up the first session, so the disc played correctly. It sounds pretty similar to this new method, and like this one, could be defeated simply by masking the outer session (with tape or a marker pen). The advantage Sony saw with this method was that it was OS independent, as it was entirely hardware based.
30 pieces of tape for 30 cd's or 1 computer with autorun disabled.. hmm... which option is less excessive?
Every time you skip on buying a CD because of DRM, write a letter to the artist explaining why. Yes this is work, and in some cases these letters go nowhere (or are just read by label staff). But many groups have their own people reading their fanmail, and in some cases the trend will be noticed by the bands. They will not be happy, and they can add pressure from other angles.
then it can be copied. Music DRM is impossible, period. If any sound is produced, that you can listen to, then it can be routed into a recorder and replicated, near enough perfectly for anyone to care. It's actually silly to even suggest it DRM on music, I'm pretty sure these "music copy protection" patents will be looked at like turn of the century perpetual motion maachine patents.
for DRMs. The big issue is that the DRM must be transparent enough to not effect the consumers, but strong enough that it discourages (not prevents) infringement. The best possible solution is at the hardware level. But at this point, with millions of CDs in circulation, you can't alter the hardware and break compatibility with existing disks. The key for the DRM industry is the next medium. CD will always be a weekness though. A high quality unsecured media. In order for DRMs to succed the RIAA/MPAA needs 3 things. A universal secure hardware based DRM (that in itself is a pipe dream), a new medium that offers something better then the current options (ie: Digital downloads and HD/Blue DVDs), and a marketing department that can convince main stream America to move up to the latest greatest.
The universal hardware DRM is a key. Because if a person doesn't HAVE to break your DRM to move their music from the PC to iPod to home sterio to car sterio to work, they wont. But you need a system that can be run in all of those places, and you need it to be cheap.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
The music industry would love to restrict the playing of CDs to stand-alone players.
However, because stand-alone players are simple and limited, they can not devise an effective system to keep CD media off personal computers.
Oh the irony!
I read
Sony, I believe, did threaten to sue the guy who revealed the shift key bypass a year or several ago. I suspect the current adverse publicity may have something to do with them not following up with threats against the sticky tape terrorist.
Infuriate left and right
What is next will Sony try and outlaw mics and wires?
Yes.
If so, I will be joining the Sony and RIAA action to stop this insidious abuse of tape and joining any action to encourage lawmakers to restrict the use of tape from organizations such as /. for our own good.
If not, then Sony can go whistle and we'll have to get back to looking for something else to scapegoat because the real reasons certainly ain't being taken seriously. (Some sort of "I'd never read organ I was accepted to edit or publish on" phenomenon it seems...)
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
Go to My Computer, right click on the CD-ROM drive, go to the AutoPlay tab and set your preferences accordingly.
Only on Windows XP. Users who bought a computer when Windows 2000 was the best available Windows operating system must use TweakUI.
Sony VAIOs will now ship without shift keys...
Holy christ, I knew they were messed in the head, but basically whining about having invented something as lucrative as cd's in the first freaking place!
What the f*@& changed so much that you were happy making billions 10 years ago, but now that you're making more than that, it's not enough and must be abolished to make even more? Wtf?
Why do we even bother discussing these issues when one side is clearly completely freaking mad as hatters.
I enjoy my music collection. I like the CD format, and also like digital formats, they work well for me, both of them. Too bad these fat cats don't sell CD's anymore, or they'd be getting some of my money.
I will NEVER EVER move over to paying for the right to download and listen to a song. Why so many of you support this model is beyond me. Personally, when I buy something, I have some particular expectations on that item. I purchase albums. The radio is for listening to random songs on. It's not _just_ about the music, the package is important, and I'd MUCH rather listen to a solid ALBUM than to pick and choose the only one or two good songs by an artist. (Is an artist that can only put out 1-2 decent songs out of 12 or so really worthy of paying your good money to?)
Which brings me to this point: Remember taping stuff off the radio? Why do you now pay ITunes for the same?
Now, what's even more interesting, is that I don't blame the record companies. I BLAME ALL OF YOU THAT SUPPORT THEIR CURRENT MODEL! You've facilitated this new model that has utterly DESTROYED what I grew up knowing and loving. I LOVE my music collection. What kind of emotion can a tiny plastic case that can store billions of bits provide you? Is there not more to it than this?
If nobody supported this pathetic horrible model, it wouldn't exist. So freaking STOP it already.
No Comment.
Thanks guys, I submitted this same article yesterday and it was rejected!
You got it backward: Lotus would not run *unless* it failed to write that spot.
.... 1-2-3 runs
Copy on ordinary floppy --> write works --> 1-2-3 won't run
Original disk --> write fails --> 1-2-3 runs
write-protect disk --> write fails -->
People buy CDs to get the best 44.1 [kHz] uncompressed audio usually available for purchase.
Popular music nowadays, even on Compact Disc Digital Audio, is hardly "uncompressed". Though there isn't any data reduction applied to the waveform, there's still level compression, in the form of a limiter and a clipper, that takes all the punch out of the sound to make it sound louder on portable CD players that use a cheap op-amp to drive the headphone jack. Google loudness race to learn more.
I don't even buy CD's anymore. It's not worth the trouble of wondering what it's going to do to my Windows machine, having to run downstairs to rip it on my Slackware box, or wondering if it's going to play in my DVD player or car stereo. Since I've managed to get to the point where I have enough accessories for my iPod that I can play that anywhere, even in the car, I just buy all my music from iTMS. I've had to buy a couple of things from MSN Music that I couldn't find on iTMS, but I just burn that to CD-R and rip it Apple Lossless and get the same effect. It's not perfect, but it's good enough for me.
Lately, I've been having trouble with a good percentage of DVDs from them. At first I thought it was due to the rotten local kids trashing the DVDs. But this DVD was *perfect* -- no scratches or anything. But vobcopy just barfs on it.
So I googled and found that Sony uses something called "ARccOS" as protection scheme -- intentionlally using defective sectors (a la the old DOS floppy days). I guess the new Windows-based copy programs get around it, but it seems I'm stuck.
Sure enough, Stealth is a Sony DVD. So back it went. If I gave a shit, I'd pitch a fit and try to get my money back (all $1.07 of it). Maybe I'll just quit renting from Redbox, or maybe I'll check to try and avoid titles by Sony now.
Anyone using a non-Windows platform able to get around ARccOS?
Method of processing duck feet
Ed Foster provides more information that allows us to make a "behavioral profile of Sony":
... before users can even say yes or no to accepting the Sony EULA,
MediaMax has already installed a dozen files on their hard drive and started
running the copy protection code. The files remain even if the user rejects
the EULA, and the Sony CDs provide no option for uninstalling the files at a
later date.
... an e-commerce revenue generation "feature of dynamic on-line
and off-line banner ads. Generate revenue or added value through the placement
of 3rd party dynamic, interactive ads that can be changed at any time by the
content owner."
Sony has other DRM software. Here are quotes:
MediaMax also "phones home" every time you play a protected CD with a code identifying what music you're listening to.
Ed Foster says Sony management has a "scum" profile. Quote: OK, so let's see what we've got here. A company that seems bent on sneaking files onto unsuspecting users' computers, pretending they've gotten permission to do so from a vaguely-worded EULA, transmitting a constant stream of usage information back to their servers, and using that information for who-knows-what revenue generating opportunities. Does this sound like a familiar profile to you? Of course, it's the profile of all the spyware/adware scum that have come very close to destroying the Internet just to make a few bucks peddling their trash.
Issues that remain concerning Sony's rootkit software and other DRM software:
As is shown by Ed Foster's analysis linked above, attacking customer computers seems to be the kind of thing that is part of the Sony corporate culture. There has been no apology, and Sony management makes statements giving the impression they intend to continue infecting customer computers.
A music retail store spokesman said that Sony's rootkit attack has become public just before Christmas. Customers can easily choose some other gift now that they are scared about computer attacks. Sony's attack has hurt the entire music industry, not just Sony. Also, the damage will continue after Christmas.
Few people are technically knowledgeable. The Sony rootkit CDs will be causing problems for many, many years, as they are traded or borrowed or sold to thrift stores.
The number of computers already corrupted by the Sony rootkit is probably far larger than the 500,000 quoted in articles about the Sony attack. That number is just the number of Domain Name Servers that show evidence that a computer has tried to contact the Sony phone home address. The average server would almost certainly service more than one corrupted computer.
Following Microsoft's lead years ago, some businesses treat all their customers as crooks so that they can stop a few.
DRM schemes such as XCP aren't about preventing piracy anyway, which is why it's okay that it's so easily defeated. Instead, today's DRM schemes are about indoctrinating the public, getting them so used to putting up with DRM that we won't complain loudly enough when the ultimate home invasion occurs - that is, when we all switch to digital TV, and their DRM finally puts a nail in the coffin of VCRs, DVRs, and that pesky Betamax decision.
Ugh? Gartner making sense? Oh well, it is bloody obvious what they are saying of course..
I see a market niche waiting to be filled:
/zing
The Shaft Key
Consider it an 'upgrade' to your shift key
Not only is it DMCA compatible, but you can give the RIAA
the "Shaft" everytime you put a CD into your computer
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Now we have to change from a marker to sticky tape... soon they'll probably make us get white-out as well to circumvent the next generation of copy protection...
I think sony has a secret alliance with office supply manufacturers - the losses in copyright material will be offset by increased furniture sales... :P
I am unique, just like you, and you, and you...
In the gartner report, the authors suggested two very disturbing ideas, no stand alone players and DRM installed, in all hardware pc. Failing this, or additionally, it is suggested that the RIAA go the legislative route to solving this problem. Given the that it is pretty clear, that they can not prevent technology from moving forward, I am sure that they redouble their efforts on a DMCAII.
It has been mentioned here before but the purpose of the government is not to save dying business models but to incourage innovation and jobs. The history of the 20th century is littered with businesses that have gone by the way side, telegraph, gas lighting, teletype machines are just a few. I am not one to argue that information is free but a new model is being forced upon the music/movie industry and hiring lawyers/lobbiest is not going to make the problem go away.
---
four industries that hate their customers: the airlines, the telephone companies, the music and movie.
Heck, I've been using a green marker around the edge of my CDs since the '80s. Softens those strident "1" bits (makes 'em less assertive) and rounds out the "0" bits (so they're rounder, like "o"). Sounds better, and no DRM either!
I really fail to understand what anyone hopes to achieve by any form of copy protection...
As far as I can tell, the only form of copy protection that can hope to work against any low-level data extraction tool is one that involves partially invalid data or unreadable regions. And even then, you can do a straight 1:1 copy, and whenever it starts having read errors, put a 0 or something in those bytes and skip them. That is easily achieved using a utility like dd. In many cases, you can also read the disc in a virtual PC (e.g. VMware), and save the audio output to a disk file - and then delete the virtual PC in case of malware installed by the CD.
Unless the disc is in a proprietary format which can only be read by a specific player, which has no standard output connections, you can copy anything that you can play, simply by plugging the output of whatever you use to play it into the line-in on your PC. If they somehow prevent that, you can still record anything using a microphone, as long as you can somehow get sound waves out of it.
Also, is it really right to try and stop all copying? I absolutely cannot stand any kind of data being held within a single physical object, especially such a fragile one as a CD. I keep most of my CDs backed up onto two locations, but I steadfastly refuse to play the music on more than one location at a time, or share it with a friend. There can't be very many people in the world who would want to rip the musicians off, and not posess the necessary technical skills to bypass copy protection. The slightest hint of copy protection on a CD in my posession prompts me to try and create a "pure" copy, just because I can't stand my data being defiled by such things.
Certainly, it is stupid to incorporate Windows trojans into the CDs. People trust the music companies; at least, they did. Things like this must really lower people's trust - especially since they try to disuade people from piracy by saying that pirate copies may contain trojans. I will certainly be very reluctant to insert a CD into a Windows computer without the shift key held down in the future.
I don't care what they say (SONY/RIAA) ... They have made it clear they think it is acceptable for them to screw with my computer. I will NEVER feel safe with CDs again, and it would be stupid of me to put my machine at risk. They have given me the gut feeling now that CDs are "tainted" .. (and they are)
The only solution for me is not to buy CDs, and I am actually fine with that.
Big nice music collections... at ~20,000 songs can easily be shared between friends, and will hardly ruin anyone in HDD cost. If it is a crime, then howcome I don't feel guilty?
Try a Sharpie!
Would it help to pronounce DRM to rhyme with "germ"?
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
What do I mean? Simple - even if some Linux systems could be infected with DRM, those systems are only one instance of software running on top of a Linux kernel. A kernel with different a different configuration might not be infectable. The same kernel but with a different userland might not be infectable. Unless Linus embeds a code-executing virtual machine (like a JVM or Parrot) inside the kernel, the same kernel + userland running on a different CPU might not be infectable.
There are just too many variables at play. If Red Hat could be infected with DRM, then switch to Ubuntu. If Ubuntu falls, try Debian on a PowerPC. You get the idea.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
I gather that twentieth century steel manufacturers in the US demonstrated the sheer power of obstinate arrogance to decimate a nation's industry. I'll be that would be dwarfed by the damage the honchos in the established recording/media industry could do if they continue to dig in their heels.
I do not believe that the RIAA members are hurt by piracy in any material way at the moment. I have indeed seen no evidence that is not better explained by other means including a lack of competitive content and a perception that they are anticonsumer.
The whole anti-P2P thing is not about cracking down on piracy. It is about cracking down on alternative systems of distributions that artists might buy into in order to compete with them without signing predatory contracts.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Sell him some "special" 00 grit sandpaper and tell him to scrub the labels off of his cds with it. Tell him that it'll make the cd lighter and the sound "clearer".
Make sure you get a good headstart before he destroys his cd collection.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Most people who have purchased affected CDs will never know, and never find out, that sticking a bit of tape on the CD will prevent the DRM affecting them.
This actually doesn't matter, as the vast majority of people won't actually be aware that there's any issue at all, and won't have heard of DRM. If they have heard about DRM from the tech guy at work, they probably won't care too much, figuring that it's only designed to prevent 'criminal' activity, and they're not criminals, so why should they care?
So, even though the DRM is 'crackable', it doesn't really matter as most people won't ever be aware of this CD mod.
With the Apple iPod digital music players really started to be popular and buying music in a file format becomes more popular too. The iTunes music store is quite likely to be the most popular internet music store among non-geeks. Could this lead to a larger drop in CD sales? Could this even end CD sales at all? If this happened than the last legal DRM free format would stop to exist. So will Apple kill DRM-free music?
The main reason I no longer purchase music CDs (at all) is I don't want to have to dick around with a CD like this in order to use it the way I see fit. Ironically, the industry's spending so much money and effort on what it thinks is the best way to preserve sales is actually causing it to die. It's rather remarkable that everyone plainly recognizes it except for the industry itself. I'm not complaining, mind you; the sooner the industry self-destructs, the better off music artists will be.
All computers must now automatically run any Windows executable marked with the Windows autoplay standard on a CD, and avoid any changes made by such program being reversed. It is illegal to disable this feature by any means - shift key, Windows Control Panel, using alternative operating systems (unless they are properly run all autoplay programs with the intended result of the program; wine probably isn't good enough), keeping regular system backups which may be restored to remove the software.
Microsoft reports that Windows Vista will include a special DRM system which enables CDs to automatically run or install any software without the user knowing.
Linux and Mac users will have to wait for someone to write a patch which enables this feature, including complete support for Windows executables, and translation of restrictions to native programs.
Also, a new generation of CD drives capable of detecting tape or pen markings on the disc, and rendering the content unreadable, is expected.
for those who don't understand Yiddish or - even more misleading - for those who do understand German (where both words have a very different meaning):
putz605413? Yes, it's a prime.
",,,has not yet demonstrated a workable DRM scheme for music CDs."
I am sorry to bust your illusions... but the very first CD specification did have a 100% foolproof copy protection scheme... the problem is that nobody in the industry wanted to use it.
Look at a real CD (not a writable one) and check: there is a barcode just beside the hole (the barcode is now used in the factory). The basic idea was to check the barcode, only a real CD would have a working barcode. Simple and elegant... who screwed up ? the industry itself... why ? too expensive... yes, it is the real answer, the drive manufacturers said that a barcode reader inside the drive would be too expensive.
In a related story, Sony DRM defeats Sony's efforts to gain good PR and convince the public that DRM is a good thing.
When asked for comment, Sony execs replied "Fair Use? HA! All of our customers are crooks. They have no legitimate reason to rip CDs to MP3s. Our wildly successful ATRAC players proved that consumers prefer closed, DRM-enhanced formats rather than open standards like MP3."
A known script kiddie was asked for comment on IRC channel "l337_haxx0r5" - he remarked "Sony DRM is teh r0xx0r5!!!11!! It's gr8! Thx 2 them I have 3000 z0mb135!!11!!!"
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
It must be a lot of fun to pull your leg, because this guy has been doing a lot of it...
Great men are almost always bad men--Lord Acton's Corollary
We had these conversations already. I thought this article was a dupe or that some sort of magic had happened since this thread and several others are almost carbon copies of ones from there...
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
Remember when they used to write unreadable corrupted data to the begining of the disk, and you could cover it up with a thin line from your sharpie marker and then be able to copy the disk.
although they eventually solved the problem with new burning software, I've seen this old trick before.
This has made it to slashdot, when i thoghut most people knew data tracks can be better plugged using a pen (I don't want tape comming off inside my player ta).
9 2
and the fact that the EFF is now pushing fully ahead with it's lawsuit against Sony has completely missed the news so far http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2005_11.php#0041
Aren't DVDs an example of draconian drm? The media has DRM and the players enforce it. By licensing the dvd decoding technology they can force all the licensees to enforce the drm. Of course, it is still the case that a savvy pro pirate can defeat the drm and the uninformed user cannot.
AFAI can tell the movie studios are doing very well with this setup as long as the price point on dvds doesn't get too far ahead of the cost of marketing the pirated copies.
It seems like there are nothing but a bunch of yes-men working on this copy protection. If you can hear music digitally, you can copy it digitally. Save your money and stop trying.
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
... is just not to buy any Sony CDs.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Is this why there's all those warnings on cases saying don't put tape on the disc? I wonder if the next DRM can be circumvented using direct sunlight?
This whole magnet thing sounds like a job for the Myth Busters!
There's no place like ~/
Tell me this all didn't happen, OK? Tell me this whole Sony fiasco was a story somebody told me when I was stoned.
What address does sony's DRM phone home to?
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
'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.'
Damn, you weren't supposed to tell them that. This was just starting to get funny.
From the article: "That [the tape, ndr] renders "session 2 -- which contains the self-loading DRM software -- unreadable"
.
I knew, I knew my '96 no-name OEM crunchy ATAPI CD-ROM reader (w/ a tray!) could still show anybody else it had A Place In The World(tm)
This story makes me more and more think of some Terminator movie(I confess, might have watched it).
Are we all going to have a trip to some dusty, post-battle corner of India, one day, to hunt for old Win311 486 laptops with no chance of connecting to anything, to find our way out?
something should kill it.
It's crossed my mind more than once: What if it finally came out that this whole thing was a crocked-up publicity stunt to get their lowest-selling artists some public exposure? It just all reminds me too much of the George Carlin joke about people who are against abortion being the kind of people you wouldn't want to "shpx"** in the first place.
*Wouldn't It Be Ironic?
**Rot-13. Rhymes with "luck".
Yes, with a higher resolution audio stream your bits and bytes do more closely resemble an analog curve. But they are not analog, merely a better approximation.
Many audiophiles refuse to believe this when pointed out to them though.
You're wrong. There are plenty of asymmetrical CDs available -- you can have them cut to practically any shape you want. And you think a little piece of tape is going to cause a problem?
Do not confuse 3M's DUCT TAPEs with Python's DUCK TYPEs... although it depends mostly on your accent.
I speak England very best
These aren't included in TweakUI, but they are some important settings in Windows 98 (joke)w photo.php?photo=612
http://www.dungeonkeepersdomain.com/PhotoPost/sho
We may experience some slight turbulence and then...explode. -Capt. Mal Reynolds
I was also thinking some one should explain to them what the V stand for in DVD.
Well, originally the "V" stood for "Video". That presumably made some marketing guy from some DVD Consortium company that made non-video devices unhappy, so it was renamed to "Versitile". After many more dollars spent debating this crucial issue, nobody could agree, so officially the "V" stands for nothing.
You probably think I'm joking; I assure you, I'm not, sad as it is.
I once had a boss that kept marketing people off of his back by generating busywork to occupy their time. Every time they had a meeting in which they wanted to influence anything technical, he'd bring up the fact that something lacked a name and emphasized how crucial it was to the product's success that the name be appealing. They'd vanish for a month. It was amazing to see this guy in action.
Of course, we had to put up with silly names as a result, but we didn't have to deal with technically broken things, so it was worthwhile.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
You can do DRM in Linux. You add the DRM code to the kernel, sign the kernel, and then use some sort of trusted hardware that checks said signature. It's somewhat dubious as to whether anyone actually wants this in a product (ESR mentioned that perhaps you could use this to avoid someone trying to Trojan your system), but Linux can, theoretically, support TCPA.
Now, obviously, you can use a system without DRM stuff added. However, if the media is distributed in some form of encrypted format that can only be decrypted with trusted hardware, then theoretically people using Linux without DRM would not have access to the content.
Trying to restrict people from playing data stored in an unencrypted format like Redbook Audio, however, is not going to work, as you pointed out.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Point taken, anonymous coward, but in this particular situation it really isn't all that complex. Sony made its customer base out to be criminals by default. There's no need to use crappy software to hide DRM when there's already an law (in the US, at least) that makes its illegal to knowingly remove/bypass DRM protection.
By virtue of them using crappy software, they showed negligence at a minimum and possibly committed a crime at the maximum.
I think I know where the RIAA will be turning their attention next in regard to copy protection.
DRM for office supplies.
Really, just read the subject. Go after the big game--sue the guy who _made_ the workaround for your product's protection scheme.
In the 1980s it was cassette tapes; now this! Can anyone think of a single kind of tape that isn't a potential threat to the intellectual property of America's great and prominent corporations? If so, raise a hand. No? OK ... we have our solution, then.
Breakfast served all day!
LET the cd install it's crap, just don't agree to thier EULA... But before you do, make yourself a EULA for your own machine, authorizing you to make unlimited copies of ALL music owned by any company and (put them up FOR SALE) if they write anything to your disk after you have *rejected* thier EULA. Then watch thier CD do exactly that, thus agreeeing to your EULA, and dance for joy know that you legally have the right to redistribute ALL sony music as you see fit, even for profit.
Why on Earth would anyone spend over $100 on one short cable is beyond me.
I've worked with stage sound for a while now, and I can tell you that we use no cables like these. Most of them are years old and still "primitive", but they still provide professional sound.
These "special" cables sound like a rip-off to me.
Dude, that is so like 1970's. I got the 5,000 lb slab anchoring my shit. NO VIBRATION !!!!!!!!!!
When the going gets tough, the tough get drunk
Back in the 1980's when computer game piracy was at its peak(?) I heard firsthand that copies of this game would deliberately reformat the disk they were on upon detection!
:(
As with the case of Lotus 1-2-3, a write-protect tab solved that 'problem' and a copy of this once-popular gamesim worked as normal.
After enough consumer backlash, game copy protection became more subtle or was somehow integrated into the gameplay of the games themselves somehow.
To this day, the best example of this I know of were the 'launch codes' from another EA hit game STARFLIGHT (I).
It's a shame Electronic Arts has devolved into a tool of major sports franchises and not as the cutting edge computer game company they used to be
with such releases like STARFLIGHT, its sequel, and the 2 'CONSTRUCTION SET' gamesims they put out for pinball and music composition....
Another major copy protect annoyance are the 'gotta-have-the-CD-in-the-drive-at-all-times' kinds of protection -- very lame and potentially destructive to your valuable investment in the CD game itself and CD-ROM drive it is spinning needlessly in....
The simple solution to all forms of media/IP piracy are low, competitive prices but that would conflict with the corporate duty to make as much profit as (legally?) possible. Because of this, we now live in a world filled with DRM, DMCA violations, and IP copyrights that will likely outlive everybody alive who reads this post....
The corporate stance of the media industry as a whole is essentially this: Your purchases have worn out and you want them again on 'replacement media' for a small replacement charge? Fsck that! Buy another damn copy at full retail price! (If it's still in print if you're lucky.)
This happened to me years ago when my cassette tape copy of John William's E. T. The Extra-Terrestrial soundtrack wore out from playing it constantly (and enjoying it). Fortunately(?), I was able to rebuy it again on CD. In a perfect world, the term 'out of print' would be unheard of and licensed media bought could be replaced for just 'materials, shipping, and handling'. But the industry model of artificial scarcity brings with it corporate greed and eventual subsequent consumer dissatisfaction. Notice how the advice nowadays is to wait for 'ultimate edition' DVD releases of favorite movies instead of buying the bare-bones release now and the 'ultimate edition' later if/when it comes out? Perhaps the 'shining' example of this 'atrocity' is the 'two DVD release' of KILL BILL as 'two separate volumes' instead of as one, complete 'set'.
Touching on DRM for a bit, look at the hypocrisy of USA government/big business persecuting 'DVD Jon' and that guy from Russia that cracked DVD Content Scrambling System and Adobe's protected PDF format respectively. Why is it, due to DMCA, legal to import strong cryptograpy into the USA to protect the secrecy of your own affairs but to reverse-engineer domestically created encryption schemes that 'protect media' for personal uses only is a felony offence worthy of serious fines and jail time? Has society come to the point that human life is so cheap that we can throw them away (in prison for 'minor', non-violent offences) and just make more in 9 months or less so long as the 'precious cash' keeps flowing between big business and big government here in the USA?
'Twould be nice if the USA copyright system went back to the original 14-year max format established by the Founding Fathers. If that were the case, these and other 'Slashdot Favorite Films' for example would be public domain by now....
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (1977)
Alien (1979)
Blade Runner (1982)
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
Aliens (1986)
Superman (1978)
Star Wars (1977)
The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Return Of The Jedi (1983)
The first six STAR TREK movies (1979,1
The non-ryhme is a joke (which you probably got, but just in case...)
I first heard it on an old tv show (martin and rollins laugh in??iirc) being recited by the guy that played the professor on Gilligan's Island.
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/kerberos/
~
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-- INSERT --
Wow, so there really is a use for a green marker on the edge of a CD!
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I am an audio engineer and have a (4 year BS) degree in recording.
0 81894-1600862?v=glance&n=283155&n=507846&s=books&v =glance
In college I specifically took a class about high-end audio. It was divided into critical listening and "audiophile" topics.
Essentially there are some differences in technology. ICs DO indeed sound more harsh and shrill than tubes which of course sound warmer but not as "bright". Also the quality of the internal components have an effect as well. This of course is in terms of an analog signal. Once a signal becomes "digital" then unless bits are lost, the components don't really effect the quality of the sound (assuming the D/A converters are not hosed).
CDs of course sound different than audio. This is primarily due to quantization error in the sampling process. Essentially they are only 16 bits which means 96 (or 98) dB of dynamic range. But there is also some distortion that happens which isn't directly audiable, but we do tend to "precieve" or "sense" it anyway. This of course assumes we are listening critically at it.
When CDs originally came out, they were still being mastered with the same technique as vinyl. Vinyl has the RIAA curve applied to it in order to save physical space on the platter and then the curve is de-applied upon playback with an RIAA approved device. Well, CD players don't have that reverse RIAA curve, so a lot of these first CDs sounded like ass because all of their low end was nixed. That tended to give a very very bad taste in the mouths of audiophiles.
I don't buy into the $500 cable thing, but it can be proven that you get what you pay for. If you use a $20 cable from radio shack it might not be as high as quality as a $40 or $70 cable. I have personally never heard the difference between a "professional" cable and an "audiophile" cable but I know people who swear by that stuff. The only thing I can chalk it up to is that maybe we don't fully understand how we precieve or sense audio and sound.
BTW, the book which was our "textbook" for that class at http://www.mtsu.edu/~record/ was The Complete Guide to High-End Audio:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0964084961/002-7
The book was half and half - half was a bunch of audiophile garbage, and the other half was fact and the science and technology of audio. A good read if you want to learn more about sound and modern audio technology.
Libertas in infinitum
Look up the Haas Effect.
In order to "fool" our ears things have to be under 30ms. We can "fool" our eyes at 41ms (1 sec divided by film - 24fps).
This means our ears are a lot more preceptive than our eyes are.
Libertas in infinitum
Similar to smell/taste, not everything can be completely quantified. Or perhaps we just havent understood how it works or have the current technology to replicate it.
I am an audio engineer, and yes our ears can only hear from 20Hz to 20kHz, when you put a brickwall filter at 20kHz and above, there are a lot of people in double-blind tests that tend to sense that "it doesn't sound right".
We can't explain it other than to say there are things about our senses we just dont currently understand yet.
Libertas in infinitum
I wrapped my viao in tin foil before I switched it on, *snort* pacheesh newb!!!11
But if I get a bad vibe from it I will saw it in half... along with my neigbours.
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com