I agree with you. I'm sure there's a fine line between the coders on slashdot's sense of sanity, and adding stupid features.
At some point, you just get burned out and say, come on... the site works, can't people enjoy using it now? What, you want to change the default colors to your liking...ARGH!:)
Okay - This suprises me. Considering that perfect data is a requirement for data CDs, I would have thought audio CDs would also be bit perfect.
One thing to keep in mind is that Music CD's and CD players were MADE to play with errors. Unlike data files, where one bit could screw up a Word Document header making it completely worthless, if that same bit was wrong in a music cd... what are we talking about? One small pitch of music in a nano-second part of the song? No need for the cd to quit playing music. Just ignore it, jitter correct for it (guess) and keep playing the music. Our human ears won't even notice it.
The same techique was used in most rippers, because how annoying would it be to try and rip your CD collection back in 1999 and have it stop just because there was a small scratch on the CD. A scratch that was so tiny, and can't be heard by your ears. And could easily be guessed at what the bit was suppose to be...
Okay. It's an overgeneralisation.
I probably shouldn't have even brought that up. I think what's more important here is the sheer number of different encoders out there, not to mention different software versions of the same encoder. Bitrates look downright common when compared to encoder version.
Only due to recent development of the absolute best encoder (LAME) have people even started moving to a common encoding technique. But even then, there are two versions worth using 3.90.2 and 3.92, and different extensions to use: -alt set standard,
-alt set extreme,
-alt set insane,
and the new -Z suffix one could add.
I digress. I just wish TB sized hard drives were a nickel, and I could just go with FLAC, and everyone set up a eTree.org type MD5 checksum database, and traded perfect-sourced FLAC's instead by snail mail DVD-R's.
True. But then again swarming isn't that popular yet. Downloading from a single source is still popular. (IRC, NG's, FTP, most P2P apps)
Also, if we did use a non-used ID3v2 tag field, then the RIAA would just go ahead and ignore that field in their hashing technique, since it's located in a specific part of the file
The problem with letting the whole world know about a technique like that, is that the RIAA is part of that world.
Besides, this whole MD5 checking & database the RIAA may be assembling doesn't really amount to much. It's just an added extra. They can still (and will) go after people who are distributing files. MD5 doesn't matter here.
You still have the right to go spend your money on acquiring this "culture" on CD from the stores.
You can also go to the library and check out any of those old jazz cd's that you want
This idea that we have the 'right' to do it faster doesn't really make sense, since the world was able to survive 10 years ago, 50 years ago, without Kazaa.
You're barking up the wrong tree. But there are plenty of trees to bark up to. RIAA & MPAA are well known to crush technology in pursuit of their own profits. That is wrong. Being able to buy off congress to make their own laws. That is wrong. Making artists into indentured servants, wiping out alternatives to radio, monopoly of distribution, the list goes on.
The RIAA may bring that stuff up for the media. But in the courtroom, they are only going to bring up the fact that she was DISTRIBUTING said copyrighted works.
The reason? Every law pertains to the illegality of distributing copyrighted materials without the copyright holder's permission. It has nothing to do with acquisition.
Don't get me wrong, I don't want to go to court and find out if acquisition is legal. But every lawsuit so far is only about distribution.
It is generally believed amongst file traders that it is legal to download an mp3 for a song, when you own the CD. In other words, you don't need to rip and encode songs from your own CD. However, this may not be true (I am not a lawyer).
In multiple articles over the years, RIAA spokepeople have mentioned that this IS illegal. (To download mp3's of songs you even own)
However, you can't believe their FUD at face value.
It has (obviously) been mentioned that downloading copyrighted works is illegal. However, I have yet to see a link to a law that mentions this! The only links out there, and the only lawsuits we've seen have pertained to DISTRIBUTION of said copyrighted work.
It's something to think about.
I completely agree with your assessment that their MD5 hash FUD is just used as PR. They are just combatting the lady's claim that they were her innocent mp3's from her own collection. For the media, you will see this stuff. But in the courtroom, the only thing they'll bring up is that she was distributing this stuff to the world. (And whether she owned the CD or not doesn't even matter!)
I'm not familiar with k-sig (i'm checking it out now) but the lossless community definately keeps track of their MD5 hashes so that people know they're getting perfect rips. Such as E-Tree
I kind of wish someone would do the same for non-boots, but then that would be "illegal" activity.
Many people will produce a file by ripping straight from a CD, which , given the same CD, will result in an identical source file.
No!! That's definately not true. Making a perfect rip is something you have to WORK at, which not many rippers do. Especially years ago. Check out ChrisMyDen's Uber Network on a detailed guide on how to make the 'perfect mp3'.
You need to use something like EAC's secure mode. It rips the cd twice and compares for exactness. Only then can you be assured your wav file has no errors.
Even if you can convince people to use the best mp3 encoding techniques (LAME 3.92 or LAME 3.90.2 -aps) I have still seen people refuse to use EAC, instead enjoying cdex, audiograbber, or (gasp) jukebox due to 'ease of use'. These ripper DO NOT make perfect rips, and will almost always make a different wav file each time due to the way it tries to make error corrections. Most people will not ditch their source either, even if there are errors. And everyone has a different scratch on their cd's.
Almost everyone encodes at 128kbps
This isn't true anymore either. Considering most of the lazy people out there download mp3's instead of make their mp3's, many of the rippers today do care about quality, and will rip in VBR or at 192. Release groups (where I would imagine most of the new stuff originates nowadays will rip at 192, 224, 256, or 320)
I don't think you could prove that there weren't errors in the mp3. EAC's whole 'perfect digital rip' relies on ripping it twice and checking for errors, no?
Without the source to compare to... you have no idea if the mp3 you have contains errors (besides the major jitters, etc)
I agree with your circumvention techniques. And by all means do it. However, the RIAA hardly needs to do any exclusion, since 95% of the people they're looking at don't bother.
Since the RIAA is most likely automating most of their fishing expedition, I'm sure they don't care about the 5% of the people who are using PeerGuardian, retagging, etc. If they ran across someone like you, I'm sure they'd dump and move on.
If, for some reason, they personally wanted to get you, then yes I'm sure they could manually bulid a case anyway. You'd have to be a special case, though. Like a known seller. Or maybe if you're leetHAXORjoe with 40,000 songs shared, and they wanted a big headline.
If both ripped the mp3 perfectly by using EAC.. and both used the best mp3 encoder (LAME 3.92 -aps) and both used a retagger (grabbing the id3 tags from CDDB or freeDB) then wouldn't the MD5 tags be the same?
Also, what about the other articles we're reading where we hear that the RIAA is able to spoof MD5 hashes? I can't remember exactly, but i think it had something to do with eDonkey, and that it only used hash functions on part of the song.
Is the RIAA using MD5 hashes on the full song?
I wonder how many of my 2,000 albums I ripped back in 1998 are circulating out there?
I agree that except for worthless quotes from the RIAA, and misprints in articles, I have yet to see where it says downloading is illegal.
I have seen news articles about the same event say "this person is being sued for sharing X files" vs. "this person is being sued for downloading 1 file!". The media is just paraphrasing. But if you behind these articles at the source, in all the cases so far, and all the laws pertaining to the subject, all I can find is 'distribution of copyrighted material' as being illegal. Not downloading.
If anyone has any information to the contrary, please share your links!
Amen. Also, maybe a long printout of publicly available documents showing all the cases the Music Cartel has been proven guilty of Price Fixing & Price Inflation.
Re:It's more about awareness than technology
on
Diamonds & the RIAA
·
· Score: 1
At least I self learned something today about SoundExchange. I was unaware of half of what I linked to.
Speaking of alternative measures.... What's it going to take for big-name artists to jump RIAA ship? According to the infamous Steve Albini story (and others) it sounds like almost all artists are getting screwed financially in the end. Is the gold carrot so enticing? Or is it that the alternative "indie" route is so non-inticing?
Re:It's more about awareness than technology
on
Diamonds & the RIAA
·
· Score: 1
This is absolutely untrue. You are misnterpreting the guidelines for royalties
It looks like if you are willing to make deals with EVERY artist(copyright owner) of the music you want to play, then yes, you don't have to pay the new fees that were forced upon webcasters. So it's true, you have come up with one situation where my statement could be false. But that doesn't mean what I said was "absolutely untrue". Webcasting was really catching on, and it got kicked in the nuts. Especially with the backpay.
The sad thing is, we DID come up with a great alternative. Not perfect for every situaiton, but streaming internet radio was a great way to get around the ClearChannel monopoly.
Unfortunatley, the cartel stomped on this and made sure it was not economically feasible to run, unless you were "BIG"... which leaves just the ClearChannel types again.
A fee for each song for EACH listener was imposed. Even if you weren't playing RIAA music!!! What a crock.
Re:It's more about awareness than technology
on
Diamonds & the RIAA
·
· Score: 1
What's sad is we DID create a viable replacement for radio. Not perfect, but streaming internet radio was pretty cool in the right situations. But the cartel put a kabosh on that. Even if you don't play RIAA-backed music, you still have to pay $0.0X per song PER LISTENER. Scandalous.
Read the book, it's much better. And not in the book elitism crap you hear all the time. (From my cousin: Oh, I just HATED "Congo". The book was soooo much better!)
Slashdot Mirror
At some point, you just get burned out and say, come on... the site works, can't people enjoy using it now? What, you want to change the default colors to your liking...ARGH! :)
One thing to keep in mind is that Music CD's and CD players were MADE to play with errors. Unlike data files, where one bit could screw up a Word Document header making it completely worthless, if that same bit was wrong in a music cd... what are we talking about? One small pitch of music in a nano-second part of the song? No need for the cd to quit playing music. Just ignore it, jitter correct for it (guess) and keep playing the music. Our human ears won't even notice it.
The same techique was used in most rippers, because how annoying would it be to try and rip your CD collection back in 1999 and have it stop just because there was a small scratch on the CD. A scratch that was so tiny, and can't be heard by your ears. And could easily be guessed at what the bit was suppose to be...
Okay. It's an overgeneralisation.
I probably shouldn't have even brought that up. I think what's more important here is the sheer number of different encoders out there, not to mention different software versions of the same encoder. Bitrates look downright common when compared to encoder version.
Only due to recent development of the absolute best encoder (LAME) have people even started moving to a common encoding technique. But even then, there are two versions worth using 3.90.2 and 3.92, and different extensions to use:
-alt set standard,
-alt set extreme,
-alt set insane,
and the new -Z suffix one could add.
I digress. I just wish TB sized hard drives were a nickel, and I could just go with FLAC, and everyone set up a eTree.org type MD5 checksum database, and traded perfect-sourced FLAC's instead by snail mail DVD-R's.
Also, if we did use a non-used ID3v2 tag field, then the RIAA would just go ahead and ignore that field in their hashing technique, since it's located in a specific part of the file
The problem with letting the whole world know about a technique like that, is that the RIAA is part of that world.
Besides, this whole MD5 checking & database the RIAA may be assembling doesn't really amount to much. It's just an added extra. They can still (and will) go after people who are distributing files. MD5 doesn't matter here.
You can also go to the library and check out any of those old jazz cd's that you want
This idea that we have the 'right' to do it faster doesn't really make sense, since the world was able to survive 10 years ago, 50 years ago, without Kazaa.
You're barking up the wrong tree. But there are plenty of trees to bark up to. RIAA & MPAA are well known to crush technology in pursuit of their own profits. That is wrong. Being able to buy off congress to make their own laws. That is wrong. Making artists into indentured servants, wiping out alternatives to radio, monopoly of distribution, the list goes on.
The RIAA may bring that stuff up for the media. But in the courtroom, they are only going to bring up the fact that she was DISTRIBUTING said copyrighted works.
The reason? Every law pertains to the illegality of distributing copyrighted materials without the copyright holder's permission. It has nothing to do with acquisition.
Don't get me wrong, I don't want to go to court and find out if acquisition is legal. But every lawsuit so far is only about distribution.
In multiple articles over the years, RIAA spokepeople have mentioned that this IS illegal. (To download mp3's of songs you even own)
However, you can't believe their FUD at face value.
It has (obviously) been mentioned that downloading copyrighted works is illegal. However, I have yet to see a link to a law that mentions this! The only links out there, and the only lawsuits we've seen have pertained to DISTRIBUTION of said copyrighted work.
It's something to think about.
I completely agree with your assessment that their MD5 hash FUD is just used as PR. They are just combatting the lady's claim that they were her innocent mp3's from her own collection. For the media, you will see this stuff. But in the courtroom, the only thing they'll bring up is that she was distributing this stuff to the world. (And whether she owned the CD or not doesn't even matter!)
I'm not familiar with k-sig (i'm checking it out now) but the lossless community definately keeps track of their MD5 hashes so that people know they're getting perfect rips. Such as E-Tree
I kind of wish someone would do the same for non-boots, but then that would be "illegal" activity.
No!! That's definately not true. Making a perfect rip is something you have to WORK at, which not many rippers do. Especially years ago. Check out ChrisMyDen's Uber Network on a detailed guide on how to make the 'perfect mp3'.
You need to use something like EAC's secure mode. It rips the cd twice and compares for exactness. Only then can you be assured your wav file has no errors.
Even if you can convince people to use the best mp3 encoding techniques (LAME 3.92 or LAME 3.90.2 -aps) I have still seen people refuse to use EAC, instead enjoying cdex, audiograbber, or (gasp) jukebox due to 'ease of use'. These ripper DO NOT make perfect rips, and will almost always make a different wav file each time due to the way it tries to make error corrections. Most people will not ditch their source either, even if there are errors. And everyone has a different scratch on their cd's.
Almost everyone encodes at 128kbps
This isn't true anymore either. Considering most of the lazy people out there download mp3's instead of make their mp3's, many of the rippers today do care about quality, and will rip in VBR or at 192. Release groups (where I would imagine most of the new stuff originates nowadays will rip at 192, 224, 256, or 320)
Without the source to compare to... you have no idea if the mp3 you have contains errors (besides the major jitters, etc)
Since the RIAA is most likely automating most of their fishing expedition, I'm sure they don't care about the 5% of the people who are using PeerGuardian, retagging, etc. If they ran across someone like you, I'm sure they'd dump and move on.
If, for some reason, they personally wanted to get you, then yes I'm sure they could manually bulid a case anyway. You'd have to be a special case, though. Like a known seller. Or maybe if you're leetHAXORjoe with 40,000 songs shared, and they wanted a big headline.
I'd rather put up with your crippled post and your slight pain of re-editing your post, than put up with 100's of ALL-CAP newbie posts.
Also, what about the other articles we're reading where we hear that the RIAA is able to spoof MD5 hashes? I can't remember exactly, but i think it had something to do with eDonkey, and that it only used hash functions on part of the song.
Is the RIAA using MD5 hashes on the full song?
I wonder how many of my 2,000 albums I ripped back in 1998 are circulating out there?
I'll believe it after FORD endorses an electrical car, or we finally get our hovercars.
I have seen news articles about the same event say "this person is being sued for sharing X files" vs. "this person is being sued for downloading 1 file!". The media is just paraphrasing. But if you behind these articles at the source, in all the cases so far, and all the laws pertaining to the subject, all I can find is 'distribution of copyrighted material' as being illegal. Not downloading.
If anyone has any information to the contrary, please share your links!
Amen. Also, maybe a long printout of publicly available documents showing all the cases the Music Cartel has been proven guilty of Price Fixing & Price Inflation.
Speaking of alternative measures.... What's it going to take for big-name artists to jump RIAA ship? According to the infamous Steve Albini story (and others) it sounds like almost all artists are getting screwed financially in the end. Is the gold carrot so enticing? Or is it that the alternative "indie" route is so non-inticing?
Webcasters of a certain size
Noncommercial stations pay 2 cents per song per listener.
SoundExchange in charge of collecting all copyrighted works (even non-RIAA)
It looks like if you are willing to make deals with EVERY artist(copyright owner) of the music you want to play, then yes, you don't have to pay the new fees that were forced upon webcasters. So it's true, you have come up with one situation where my statement could be false. But that doesn't mean what I said was "absolutely untrue". Webcasting was really catching on, and it got kicked in the nuts. Especially with the backpay.
Unfortunatley, the cartel stomped on this and made sure it was not economically feasible to run, unless you were "BIG"... which leaves just the ClearChannel types again.
A fee for each song for EACH listener was imposed. Even if you weren't playing RIAA music!!! What a crock.
What's sad is we DID create a viable replacement for radio. Not perfect, but streaming internet radio was pretty cool in the right situations. But the cartel put a kabosh on that. Even if you don't play RIAA-backed music, you still have to pay $0.0X per song PER LISTENER. Scandalous.
You've never seen breast implants before?
Read the book, it's much better. And not in the book elitism crap you hear all the time. (From my cousin: Oh, I just HATED "Congo". The book was soooo much better!)
Your stereotype is lacking. You needed to end it with "and beat your wife", or something.
I hope no one is text messaging how bad The Hulk's science was. The MPAA will say it's the reason for lack of sales.
Well, you number wouldn't be illegal, but wouldn't the code you posted after it be illegal since it's used in relation to the decoding of CSS?
Good point. I guess the RIAA hasn't been killing people for profit lately. Good thing, otherwise, they'd sue anyone that was trying to cut in...