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Dell Colludes With RIAA, Disables Stereo Mix
RCTrucker7 writes with a link to a Maximum PC story, which begins: "Details of Dell's surreptitious collusion with RIAA (Record Industry Association of America) have emerged. Apparently, the computer manufacturer disabled the Stereo Mix/Mono Mix/Wave Out sound recording function on certain notebooks to assuage RIAA. The hardware functionality is being disabled without any prior notice and one blogger has even alleged that he was asked by Dell's customer support staff to [shell] out $99 if he desired the stereo mix option. Gateway and Pac Bell are the other two manufacturers to have bowed to RIAA at the expense of their customers' satisfaction and disabled stereo mix without warning." (There are some workarounds posted in the comments of the linked article.)
I know it's fun to use hearsay and draw wild conclusions which make a boogeyman out of various unpopular (some rightly so) parties, but is there anything here besides a bunch of conjecture and reporting of anecdote as fact?
The MPAA has decided that asking large computer manufacturers to disable any Video Out options, so pirates are thwarted.
My UID is prime... is yours?
Is this to prevent home grown artists from recording their own high quality material?
Maybe it's time to boycott the RIAA.
I see this as a symptom of Dell's decline. There was a time when Dell would have told anyone other than microsoft to get lost if they tried to dictate how they should do business.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Dell colludes with MPAA, RIAA, and DRM activists -- removes CPU and hard drive to prevent copyright violations
Gateway and Pac Bell are the other two manufacturers to have bowed to RIAA at the expense of their customers' satisfaction and disabled stereo mix without warning."
Is that the Packard Bell that so many of us loved to hate? Really, did they even reach the technological prowess of having stereo recording in their systems?
I really thought their systems pretty well disappeared back in the mid to late 90s, and were buried in a junkyard with rusted-out Yugos somewhere.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Should this be in YRO? This is still a non-story regardless.
I hate the idea of giving companies like this any more business, at least until they become very repentant and remember their one and only source of revenue.
That said, I frequently get asked by relatives to recommend a computer they should buy. I've been in the habit of recommending Dell because they seem to be well built and inexpensive. I build all of my own because they are generally gaming machines, but it's just not worth it to build (and support to some degree) a PC for everyone that asks. And besides, I find that it's hard to beat the Dell deals any more unless you're building something special like a high-end gaming box.
Anyway, does anyone have suggestions of good places to get pre-built PCs without supporting this kind of anti-consumer behavior?
I think you mean "shell."
Well how very stupid. What exactly are they preventing people from recording? I mean, if it's internet radio (like pandora.com, aol radio, et al) you can just get something like Stationripper to record it. Or is this just to prevent people from recording their OWN CD's to a computer? Ummm.... isn't that a ok fair-use thing to be doing? Don't they have something BETTER to do then hassling legit uses of their music???
If this is true, what does the RIAA intend to gain from this? It won't stop or even discourage piracy. People recording streams or radio broadcasts do have easy access to simple tape recorders, and mass distribution pirates will simply use a different machine. All this does is annoy people and put a dent in Dell's sales. What is the point???
If Dell advertises "ACME sound chipset ABC123" but doesn't deliver all the features of that chipset, are they guilty of false advertising?
Just asking.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I bought a Dell XPS M1530 laptop back in February, it came with Vista and I couldn't use my brand spanking new laptop to record from my stereo mix into Audacity.
The only fix was to either use the analogue hole, install the XP driver for the sound card (which caused crackling in the speakers), or to upgrade to Windows XP, which I've been using for the last 3 months now... it's a whole lot quicker now!
I'm never buying a Dell ever again...
Scratching my head at this one. I can see that the Music Industry is still grasping at any tiny straw it can, but what gain for Dell? Did money change hands, or was there some coercion? I just don't get it. Any ideas on this.
http://slashdot.org/~twitter/journal/206773
Spread this far and wide so people know what he's doing!
This is the same dell that made you $200 more for a better video card that only coasted $100 more in a store video card upgrade in the past so it may be more of dell ripping you off then the RIAA.
Does anyone else think that at the rate things are going, it's going to be illegal to listen to anything, at all, anywhere? And that recording devices will cease to exist for the consumer?
Honestly, I don't see what the RIAA intends to gain from this. First off, there is always the analog hole, which makes DRM fundamentally impossible by principle. Secondly, you'd think that scandals like the Sony rootkit issue would make them realize that more restrictions hurt the legitimate consumer more than stop piracy. Thirdly, stereo mix recording actually has legitimate uses, and I've used it only for those kinds of purposes, personally.
Honestly, the MAFIAA needs to just suck it up and realize that they're never going to stop this, and they're just hurting more legitimate consumers along the way. "Piracy" has been around since the existence of recording and copying devices, just that it has become more prevalent recently.
There are mountains to cross for those that are willing.
"That said, I frequently get asked by relatives..."
Dude! where are your priorities? Family, or FOSS?
I joke with the above- really. However, if you CAN enlighten then,then why not?
The install of Ubuntu or (in my case) Kubuntu is both easier and faster than any version of Windows since Win 95. If you are unsure, then dual-boot is easy as long as Windows is installed first.
Dual boot is your friend...until you learn better!
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
I think that the KDE developers have been colluding with the RIAA for years. Their strategy in this case seems to be a "security through obscurity" approach. They don't physically prevent the user from doing anything, but the KMix dialog box always has a huge array of undifferentiated sliders and pushbuttons, different on each system, none of which are documented or clearly labeled. Over the years I've never been able to figure out how to do much of anything beyond clicking randomly until I hear some sounds. I certainly doubt that I would ever figure out how to make illicit recordings via the mixer hardware.
1. anyone committed to do music piracy will commit music piracy and any software or hardware hurdles you throw up cannot stop them
2. anyone committed to not do music piracy will be irritated by the software and hardware hurdles you throw up to stop music pirates
congratulations for punishing your paying customers and doing nothing to stop music piracy
fucking retards
your business model is dead
just die already
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I wish Slashdot had a mechanism to mod news stories into oblivion... Especially ones like this, with no real facts, and no basis in reality...
I've read Slashdot for the last 5 years, and now I start posting... Go figure
How often is stereo mix actually used? People are overreacting; they think recording is disabled. That's ridiculous: tons of people use microphones, for gaming, voice chat, they couldn't afford to turn recording off. What is disabled is some boolean in the driver, not in the hardware that allows stereo mix to work.
How many people even use stereo mix? You record what's playing through your speakers. Any decent sound editing program is going to have some kind of mixer that will combine your recording with whatever you were playing along with.
The only use I see is for a program like FRAPS, which records your screen and sound.
Is this to prevent home grown artists from recording their own high quality material?
Basically we are talking about Dell screwing up one driver to which people are ascribing various conspiracy theories. If you are actually read any of the blogs they are all just speculating and pointing to each other. Some of the more serious blogs outright say it is just random speculation, but that does not stop them from spreading the FUD. Something tells me if Dell made some secret deal, this would affect ALL of their computers, not just ones based on specific chipset. They wouldn't be selling alternative audiocards, and they would not be posting workarounds all over the place.I think that old variation of Occam's razor applies - "don't attribute to malice what can easily be explained by stupidity." Its not the first driver Dell screwed up - its not going to be the last. This one just happened to somewhat fit into a conspiracy theory.
-Em
RelevantElephants: A Somatic WebComic...
Just use the non-Dell drivers. If it's a Sigmatel, download a Sigmatel driver from somewhere else for the same chipset. Use Everest or something to report what chipset it actually is, and just go get someone else's driver. I've dived through the .INF files for some of these, and this kind of thing is something you can enable/disable directly within there, if you were so inclined and knew where to look (and had the time and patience to change it in about six different places in the same file). It's actually pretty easy to figure out if you're used to looking at config files, even if it really is a different beast.
Screw the rules, I have green hair!
Slashdot does have a way to moderate stories. I don't know if they would ever pull a story off the front page if it got a low enough ranking - not enough people use it to tell.
... that I encountered this issue just yesterday for the first time on a new Dell laptop (with SigmaTel sound) when I needed to record from the stereo mix -- for lawful uses, mind you.
I did some googling of my own and found other users who located a Dell driver (R171789) for XP that can be installed in Vista using the XP-SP2 compatibility mode option. I found this driver, installed it as prescribed, went into Vista's Recording Devices, told it to show and enable all disabled devices, and boom, there was my stereo mix. So far I have been recording without any issues.
So yeah, without question it sucks that I even had to go through that, but it took me 10 minutes of research and even less than that to enable and configure.
I hope this helps somebody.
This looks like they are going after people like me. I don't like buying CDs because the markup is absurd and I don't feel like contributing to that industry. When I like an artist, I will typically checkout things like their MySpace( or PureVolume if that is still going ) and listen to their songs. If I wanted to load that on to my computer or portable player, I simply fired up Audacity, selected the Mix as a source and recorded it as it played. Yes, I know that this will produce the lowest fidelity recording short of recording over a phone line, but for most of these songs I simply don't care. It is clear enough for my casual listening enjoyment.
Here is the kicker though; if I couldn't do that, I still would not buy the CD. On the contrary, being able to sample music like this brings me closer to caving in and buying a CD( but I typically only buy used CDs because I am more willing to pay the discounted, still marked up price when I know the profit goes to the small business, so suck on that secondary market RIAA ).
"Oddly enough the screenshot feature of Mac OS X is disabled when you are playing a DVD"
Indeed he did. What's with the all the Windows XP work-arounds? They're valid, mind you.. for Windows XP; but that's not going to help for OS X?
Yeah, I know, there's streaming audio rippers.. of sorts. Some of them actually -using- the stereo mix recording method themselves! ... I lost them at 'rip the audio', really.
The ones that don't aren't exactly user-friendly... and yes, from the viewpoint of my folks, hitting record in one app (Audacity, for the curious), then hitting 'play' in the streaming audio component on a website, makes tons of sense and is easy enough to understand. From there they can save to MP3, OGG, whatever.. without having, say, a nice copy of a realmedia file in realmedia proprietary format that then has to be fed through some command-line conversion utility and
Oh, and I've used it to record two-way voice communications in the past; nowadays apps tend to have functionality for that built-in.
Indeed he did. What's with the all the Windows XP work-arounds? They're valid, mind you.. for Windows XP; but that's not going to help for OS X?
OSX is going to be a bit trickier, because you're fighting Apple's DRM instead of some technical limitation as with Windows XP.
As a previous tech support agent - I've seen this in the field...
"why can't I record internet radio anymore on my new expensive vista system?"
"Well, lets take a look at the sound settings.
hmmm... Creatives driver gui (as one example) doesn't let you mixdown anymore. Obvious feature.
It seems you can't. Sorry. "
Dell doesn't write software and doesn't make the hardware.
Buy it Ubuntu anyways.
Calling /. 'editors' editors is like calling an eight year old with ADD a doctor.
My precision 390 was missing stereo mix and mic boost. I just downloaded the driver from the audio chipset manufacturer and was all set.
"AKAIK the DVD plays in an "overlay" layer... it's not rendered to the player's window like normal windows graphics but it's rather placed on top of it (in a similar fashion to directX, I assume). That would explain why screen captures (which must work at windows UI graphic level) don't capture DVD or divX frames." ...Yet, freeware/shareware utilities like Capture Me have no issues whatsoever taking screen shots of such content entirely at run time without requiring any additional drivers to facilitate this ability. It's not that Apple's screen shot tools can't/couldn't do this, it's simply been designed specifically not to do it as a trade-off for having an MPAA approved DVD player as part of Mac OS X.
8==8 Bones 8==8
> Nobody knows if the RIAA were even involved in this.
Yeah, but the RIAA is already boned because most of us have no trouble believing that they are due to all the crap they've pulled in the past.
After all, why would Dell disable this to begin with? None of this makes sense.
#12 actually. And thanks again...
The twitter monologues. Click on my homepage and be amazed.
I just got a new T61p through the upgrade program at work, and spent literally hours a few nights ago trying to figure out how to re-enable this function.
I use it for one reason only: I call into telecons from our VOIP client, and record them so I can post them online internally as MP3s (along with meeting minutes) for those that miss the discussion. I dial in from my phone, dial in again from the laptop, hit record in Audacity, and have the whole thing recorded and done.
I'm really quite annoyed because this simple function won't prevent pirates from pirating audio. Clever folks will always figure out a workaround.
And yep, I'm an IBMer. I work in Power Systems development (Power 575, 595, etc., NOT at Lenovo). There's even one or two random posts on our intranet message boards mentioning that folks couldn't get this to work on the latest systems, but no one's posted a solution.
This is a common problem on Analog Devices SoundMax Digital HD audio chips. I was able to modify the INF file for the SoundMax driver to give me the GUI option to record the audio, but when I select that device, it records nothing, so obviously something else isn't quite correct.
At least I'm not the only one with these problems. Hopefully if enough people make a fuss, AD will re-enable this function.
~ Mike
Michael C. Hollinger
No you're not. Quartz isn't that far removed from Windows GDI or X Windows when it comes to video overlays; they all use them because it's so much faster than writing pixels to a software window and then flipping the buffer.
Every modern video system uses hardware overlays to render video whenever its available, period. And since every video card since the mid 90s supports hardware overlay, there's little or no reason not to do so.
If they are selling machines advertised to perform X function and X function has been disabled (not a bug) then the FTC (WWW.FTC.GOV) and your state attorneys general have a big-fat deceptive trade practices action.
As I keep repeating time and time again, businesses like Dell depend on your money to stay in business. Therefore, when a business does something you appreciate, you should think of that business when you're on the market for whatever product or service it sells and support that business. And when a business does something contrary to what you appreciate, you should likewise do the opposite. It helps to actually write to the folks in charge of sales and marketing and let them know, politely, of course, the reason that you have purchased from their competitor.
McCain/Palin '08. Now THAT's hope and change!
Are you sure it wasn't collusion with Creative Labs rather than the RIAA?
This is simply a pointer - a giant, *&@off red neon pointer at that - to the fact that users need to be able to moderate /. articles up or down. If the body politic deems an article to have low 'truthiness' then it should say so in giant *&^@off red neon writing. :)
But perhaps our benevolent dictators would be scared of la revolucion?
!
I've tried a bunch of different drivers and choosen the "Show disabled devices" option in the audio settings. I still don't have wave out or "what you hear". Anyone got any idea how to fix that? Are there some beta drivers perhaps? All the other solutions seem to be related to other sound cards. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Dell XPS 630, Vista 64 Ultimate (All latest drivers and updates), Core 2 Duo E8500, 4GB 800MHz DDR2, SLI 8800GT, SB X-FI Xtreme Gamer
I have experienced a similar problem with an Asus W7J Laptop, that had a stereo mic input which was "transformed" to Mono after some Windows XP upgrades.
So I bought a Hercules USB sound chip which clearly advertised "stereo recording" (and had one stereo mic input), and of course it worked only as mono... That's just fscking great, ain't it? Crippled hardware, crippled software, and false advertising.
Nah, that would make Slashdot outright unusable. I mean, half the headlines would be identical then. Can you imagine trying to find anything? ;)
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
We have one hypothesis that fits the data.
Do you have a different hypothesis? Or just denial?
God forbid the RIAA should start browsing Slashdot for ideas.
The article was posted by Timothy, who is the same idiot who posted the article above this one on claiming but not claiming "criminal negligence".
The articles are pure flamebait, utterly stupid, typical of Timothy, and are simply sensationalistic crap designed to raise hit counts on slashdot.
Did your parents tell you why they named you Arithmetic Logic Unit?
Back then I had similar issues with my old Inspiron 8200 laptop. The default drivers weren't able to
- set the recording source to anything else than "Mic In"
- and routing the microphone input to the output
Similar to other posts the solution was simple: Find generic chipset/AC97 driver, install it, done. This even got me rid of much of the laptop's background noise as apparently Dell left some unused analog inputs at full volume and one was able to hear the IrDA port every few seconds.
Eventually I figured out the reason why they did this:
- If an idiot accidentally changes the recording source, (s)he will inevitably call Dell support with "my microphone doesn't work anymore"
- And if an idiot accidentally puts the internal mic to the internal speakers... Well. Go figure.
So Dell have been crippling their drivers for years now because some of that functionality may render your computer "broken" and they simply don't want the hassle.
And yes, that sucks, but this one time the RIAA definitely doesn't have to do with it IMO. :)
According to this thread http://www.dellcommunity.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=insp_audio&message.id=43688#M43688 the stereo mix drivers that Dell was supplied by SigmaTel (now Freescale Semiconductor) are being rejected by Vista on installation. The techs are working on it, but odds are SignaTel (not Dell) is being threatened by RIAA as not to supply the fix.
http://www.ideastorm.com/article/show/66120/Correct_Sigmatel_audio_drivers_Stereo_Mix#
http://www.dellcommunity.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=insp_audio&thread.id=40127&jump=true
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
I thought the expression was "shell out".
Dell Allegedly Colludes with RIAA, Stereo Mix Disabled without Forewarning
Slashdot:
Dell Colludes With RIAA, Disables Stereo Mix
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
I hope you'd buy a soundcard that doesn't blow to record your stuff. Internal laptop cards are noisy as hell. Get yourself a nice firewire card. Much, much, much better converters, and their drivers suffer from no limitations.
Seriously, while this is a dumb move by Dell, any righteous indignation by musicians tells me that either:
1) They don't know much about recording.
2) They are just generating false rage for the purpose of hating on the RIAA.
If I find that the RIAA has managed to outlaw soundcards with high quality inputs, I'll be right there with you in being angry. However as it stands any good 3rd party soundcard, even consumer grade cards from places like Creative, will record anything you like and will route signals digitally internally however you like.
So please, leave off with this. If it really is a concern for you as a musician, get an Echo Audiofire or an M-Audio Firewire Solo. After all, you spent hundreds, or more likely thousands (possibly tens of thousands) on your instrument, you can swing $200 for a good soundcard. If you are just pretending to get worked up to hate on the RIAA then stop. It is silly not only in and of itself but because, as noted, there's no proof they were involved at all,
n. A secret agreement between two or more parties for a fraudulent, illegal, or deceitful purpose.
That doesn't really sound like what's going on here. Maybe Dell relinquished a little more choice in the matter than they should have, but Michael Dell isn't sitting behind a curtain wringing his hands over this one. Try "cooperates", it's much less FUD-filled.
Can you imagine trying to find anything? ;)
Don't worry, you'll still be able to find what you're looking for using the tag system. /., that's the small word you see under the summary like "yes", "no", "..
Almost every article is tagged on
...well, ok. I see your point.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
given that my forgery was printed on normal paper, it was certainly not very convincing. The clerk at the grocery store accepted it (the 50 kr side) as payment until I stopped and told him to look once more.
Depending on where you live, that could be a very stupid idea, joke or not, regardless of whether you tell the person straight off. There's always going to be some kneejerk idiot who wants to shop you anyway (either they won't care that you told them, or they'll interpret it as you trying to get off the hook when you realised you'd done something stupid, or whatever) and a prosecution that will distort the situation and paint it as badly as possible so that you get 40 years under anti-forgery laws (reduced to 25 with plea-bargaining).
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Stop buying name Brands for love's sake.
They are simply cheaped out version of generics.
The same Asus motherboards and cards with swapped out or missing chips.
Go the extra mile and have one built or be adventurous and build one yourself, or find a 16 year old.
Use a Dell at work. Clones are for Homes.
And piracy sucks, just stop buying the crap, and when they start seeing the sales nosedive they'll lower prices so it's just more practical to purchase the real deal.
Cheers.
End of Line.
If they removed an advertised capability without notice, that's deceitful and arguably fraudulent, though probably not illegal. :)
Said options were disabled on my computer too. When I finally required its use, I got around to fixing it by going to SigmaTel's web site and acquiring updated drivers. The 'Stereo Mix' option then appeared and worked without issues.
s/pdif out to s/pdif in? :P
OK, here is ALL of the evidence that the RIAA has been strongarming Dell into this behaviour:
(from http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/aspnet/32286847/vista-audio-solution--wh.aspx)
"Many of you may have been as frustrated as myself by Micrsoft bowing to the RIAA
and pressuring the soundcard manufacturers to remove the "What You Hear" feature
from their drivers."
Oh, yeah, and there's the other article which points to it, on http://www.ripten.com/2008/07/07/bend-over-dude-youre-getting-a-dell/:
"Some believe that Dell, and several other computer manufacturers such as Gateway and Pac Bell, were pressured by the RIAA (Record Industry Association of America) into disabling the stereo mix functionality." ...
"So that we are all clear, the evidence points to Dell appeasing the RIAA by disabling hardware, only to have their customer service reps turn around and offer a solution to their consumers that reverses the alteration they made in the first place at a premium price."
Yep, that's it. One guy claimed it with absolutely no evidence, and so it's apparently true. Another guy wilfully misinterpreted some random tech support guy's suggestion, and now we have a collusion between Dell and the RIAA. Wow, this is investigative reporting at its finest!
My Dell laptop at work didn't have a way of turning off the damned 'tap to click' feature of the touchpad. I spent ages looking for a downloadable driver to make that feature work. Based on the rules of logic illustrated above, this is clearly a sign of collusion between Dell and Logitech.
Honestly, aren't there enough examples of corporate bullshit that we don't have to invent false ones?
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
If they had, I would have sued dell in a heartbeat.
This is an expected feature of modern sound cards and not to be fucked with.
This is getting out of hand and Dell and the whole board who decided this are COWARDS!
I guess no one has the integrity to stand up and say, enough is enough.
The RIAA is overstepping their bounds by miles here.
They're using their grammar skills there.
What is a "stereo mix option"?
Just guessing that it is mixer loopback. But, not being a Windows (tm) user, I don't know. I would have assumed that a "stereo/mono mix option" would be a 5.1/7.1 down-mix.
Please clarify (no, I am not going to turn in my "geek" designation -- I am just a Solaris/Linux user).
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
I routinely use Stereo Mix to save my voicemail to mp3 files. This is completely legitimate use that I find extremely important and the alternative is to dish out hundreds of dollars to shady "phone recorder" sellers.
RIAA can stuff it. I don't pirate music because frankly I don't like listening to it. Why should I have to pay a levy on CD sales (in Canada) and lose Stereo Mix when I rarely listen to music?
No RIAA collusion is evident. Sounds like a lot of BS being spewed because a driver has crappy setup parameters which can be fixed. The integrated audio chipset is used industry wide, which is why you see the issue on so many platforms. It's poor design, not conspiracy
Not shockingly, my 6 month old Vaio laptop is also incapable using Stereo Mix, which sucks because I bought it specifically to edit old home videos and archive them to DVD.
It'll just screen capture the screen like most DVD apps out there.
I haven't had a DVD screen capture issue since like, 1999. What's all the fuss about?
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
Someone above posted that you can use the screenshot widget.
I believe the XP sidetrack started out as a "See, Windoze does it too!!1121" comment; which then evolved into a discussion of why and how-to.
That just means you didn't use the gold-plated Monster cables. Silly audiophile. Copper is for kids! You probably also don't have a proper Ethernet patchcord for your PC. here, let me help you out. Kids these days. I swear...
Wouldn't you get the same functionality with a $1.50 cable connecting the output to the input.
you CAN scan and print banknotes from Photoshop 7!
Ask Me About... The 80's!
On purpose.
Anybody get this feeling from time to time? That the RIAA really isn't in the business of selling music, but is a front for some anti-music cult who's apocalyptic agenda is the demise of anything melodic?
No?
Thought I was on to something there...