Record Companies Sued Over Charley Pride CD

DevNova writes: "This posting describes a woman in California suing Fahrenheit Entertainment, Inc. and its label Music City Records over CDs she has purchased which use a proprietary music encoding scheme that prevents them from being listened to without the user identifying themselves. These CDs won't play on standard CD players, are not encoded in the popular MP3 format, and will not play on a computer until the user enters personal information. A large part of the suit is that Fahrenheit discloses none of this information on the packaging."

Re:That will be short-lived

[Anonymous Coward]

Bad analogy. DIVX wasn't supposed to take the DVD market directly. It was supposed to kill blockbuster and rental places.

Who do these people think they are?

[MatthewLovelace]

It's one thing to sell CDs that require that the user identify themselves. However, if you're going to make such demands of the customers, at least have the decency to warn them before they purchase your product. What ever happened to the concept of informed consent and truth in advertising?

A little off

[Sawbones]

These CDs won't play on standard CD players, are not encoded in the popular MP3 format, and will not play on a computer until the user enters personal information.

Actually the suit says that they won't play in standard Audio CD drives in computers, not that the CD won't play in a stand alone CD player. I should hope that the music stores them selves would refuse to carry something that won't even play in a regular CD player.

Summary not correct

[Hieronymous Coward]

The letter makes no mention of the CD not working in normal audio players. Apparently the CD will not work in CD-ROM drives, but allows the user the ability to register with the record label and download a proprietary encoding of the song to play on their computer.

So?

[smarner]

Read between the lines. The cd works fine if you just want to listen to the tunes. If you want to get some EXTRA features that are included at no extra charge, you have to give up something in exchange. What's wrong with that? If you don't want to listen to the extra encoded stuff, don't.

Re:So?

[smarner]

Geez. I hate to correct myself, but....
The disc works fine in a stand-alone cd player. The plaintiff (and CDNow) claim that the disc can't even be listened to AT ALL on a computer though. I presume this could be fixed by turning off auto-run, but who knows? Even forcing someone to take this step seems a bit over the top though.... Guess I jumped the gun a bit on my post. Sorry.

Re:nope, sorry.

[corky6921]

"There is definitly no way that any company should be able to collect information about a person that has purchased their CD. If this was a promotional CD I could see the point but if you purchase something it becomes yours (and you are free to do w/it whatever you wish) you paid a fee to give you rights. They are invading your privacy."

Ahem...

"There is definitely no way that any company should be able to collect information about a person that has purchased their software. If this was demoware I could see the point but if you purchase something it becomes yours (and you are free to do w/it whatever you wish) you paid a fee to give you rights. They are invading your privacy."

Damn. :( [cnet.com]

So will CDs come with end-user license agreements now?

Re:jury trial...

[smarner]

This will never go to a jury. There are no readily apparent major issues of disputed fact - - the questions are all legal. In that case, the matter is unlikely to even go to trial. Assuming no settlement is reached, the case will likely be decided -- by a judge -- at the summary judgment stage.

Re:A little off

[AT]

True, but some high end stand alone CD players play CDs just like computer CD drivers. This means the CDs won't work in some stand alone players either. The publishers make a huge assumption about how each kind of equipment decodes the CD.

There are published standards as to how CDs work, and this particular CD don't follow them. Period.

Re:Who the crap is Charley Pride?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.topblacks.com/entertainment/charlie-pri de.htm

What you can and cannot do

[mr_vauxhall]

CDNOW says: One non-musical caveat: The CD is copy-protected, and cannot be played by anything but a standard audio player. If you wish to use your computer to listen to the music that you purchased on CD, you'll have to go to the website of the company providing the protection technology and download, one at a time, Windows Media file versions of the 15 tracks (and if you own a Mac, you're simply out of luck). Intellectual property holders have legitimate concerns about piracy these days, but this is a ham-handed and unjustifiable response to the problem So it will play on a standard audio CD player. How long before CD-Drive manufacturers add a "pure audio" mode to drives?

Re:How dare she!

[sensate_mass]

Deep irony.

plutocracy (pl-tkr-s)
n. pl. plutocracies
Government by the wealthy.
A wealthy class that controls a government.
A government or state in which the wealthy rule.

Oh, never mind.

Misunderstanding

[virg_mattes]

> it makes me a touch ill that included in the lawsuit is
> the fact that the encoded version of the CD is NOT mp3.

This is a bit of an overextension of what was said. The gist of the suit (on this point) is that due to the fact that the CD is unplayable in a computer's CD-ROM drive, they decided to provide encoded files that the purchaser can download to listen to on the PC (a good thing). However, their encoding on those audio files is proprietary (a bad thing, since they can't be used on a personal MP3 player) and they require entry of much personal information to get the files (a very bad thing) and they don't bother to tell anyone about this issue before they buy the CD (a very, very bad thing). She's not insisting that the company make the files available in MP3 format. They are (by the wording of the suit) allowed to do just what they did. The reason for her suit is that they didn't notify her that they were doing any of it, and because of it she was unable to make an informed decision about whether she wanted to buy the CD in the first place.

Virg

Re:Summary not correct

[schon]

If I'm not mistaken you do not "own the CD"

You are mistaken.

When you purchase a CD, you are buying it. Period.

This is why it's legal to give it away, or to sell it to a used cd-place when you grow tired of it, or if you don't like it.

If there was some clear sign at the store that said something like "you are not buying this CD, you are licensing it, you have no rights, you are a corporate puppet." Then the argument that "you are buying the right to listen to it" might apply (and I say MIGHT, because contract law implies an agreement negotiated between two parties, and there is clearly no negotiation happening.)

Of course, if there was such a sign, I'm sure that there would be a public outcry.

A better solution

[Wesley Felter]

Use a CD player with digital out and a sound card with digital input.

Package warnings

[bigdavex]

For the interested, the outside packaging of "A Tribute to Jim Reeves" says this:

This audio CD is protected by SunnComm MediaCloQ (TM) version 1.0.

It is designed to play in stardard Audio CD players only and is not intended for use in DVD players.
Licensed copies of all music on this CD are available for downloading.
Simply insert CD into your computer to begin.

On the inside, there's an insert that says this:

Thank you for purchasing Charley Pride's "A tribute to Jim Reeves." This product is protected with SunComm's MediaCloq (TM) Digital Content Cloaking Technology designed to prevent unauthorized duplication or distribution of Digital Original(TM) audio files. To listen to "A Tribute to Jim Reeves" on your computer,

1. Log on to the internet.
2. Once you have established your connection, insert cd
3. MediaCloQ (TM) will do the rest.

Re:Summary not correct

[terrymr]

I think the issue in question is "what devices do you have the rights to listen to it on?"

On any device displaying the "Compact Disc Digital Audio" logo which includes cd-rom drives - look on the box or in the manual for the drive - it'll be there somewhere.

Re:let's join the underground

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because that's not what She wants; She wants people to love her, She wants notoriety. You can tell that based on how she worded her statement. She wants people to give her attention, the best solution is to ignore her, and make her go away; She'll eventually realise the stupidity of her mentality, or lack thereof and move on. She's not a musician in the true sense, but merely a searching pop-hopeless.

Let the dogs die.

Re:Stupid lawsuit

[ryanwright]

Moreover there is likely no representation that the CD will play on a computer 'anonymously'.

You mean 'at all'. The CD won't play in a computer, period. The registration is to allow you to download the song in Windows Media format, not to allow the CD to play. As for no representation, you don't think the CD logo on the disc qualifies as representation? This indicates that the CD complies with the red book standard, which should be playable in any drive that can read said standard. Since it won't, it's technically broken.

Keep in mind that this lawsuit is about disclosure, not money. She's not trying to win a million bucks here.

If you're going to put out a CD that does not comply with the standards, you have an obligation to warn consumers. I would be pissed if I bought a CD that didn't play in my CD-ROM, my car, etc. (car stereos that read MP3s are technically CD-ROM drives and will not read these "encrypted" discs, either. Many higher end home CD players also have CD-ROM drives in them and will not read the discs).

Re:A Possible Precedence here?

[foxwitt]

No.

The whole point is that you can't rip a CD like this with ease on a computer. It has corrupted data that will sour your rip. When playing a CD, your computer or CD player averages the data, and you don't notice the corrupted bit, but when you play the ripped version digitally, you no longer average data, so the rip doesn't play correctly. The only way to make an mp3 of it is to take the analog input from a player and convert that to digital before encoding.