Music Industry Forcing WMA standard?

CtrlPhreak writes "Cnet news.com has a story up stating that the music industry is considering having cds that contain the un-rippable tracks as well as the windows media formatted files with limited uses ala Microsoft's digital rights management. Just one more brick in Microsoft's continuing monopoly..." And another format that I can't play back. Hope this one dies fast.

WMA is a resource hog

[Red Aardvark House]

I have a somewhat old computer (Pentium, 233MHz) running with 256 MB of RAM. WMA lags, skips and generally does not sound good.

MP3, on the other hand, plays back clearly.

Just use Clone Cd

[cheekymonkey_68]

Use a bit by bit copier such as Clone CD if you use Windows.....

Anything burning software that copies the cd bit by bit should be safe untill they build copy protection into the cd burners. (a la macrovision on VCR's and even thats useless if you get a signal booster)

Anyone having problems doing backups should visit game copy world [gamecopyworld.com]

Ad Free story

[DickPhallus]

Advert free story:
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-202-7320279-0.htm l [cnet.com]

EULA for MediaPlayer

[dackroyd]

To use the 'secure' version of MediaPlayer you have to agree to Microsoft being able to install any software they like, and disable any other programs.

From the EULA agreement for MediaPlayer 7.1:

Digital Rights Management (Security). You agree that in order to protect the integrity of content and software protected by digital rights management ("Secure Content"), Microsoft may provide security related updates to the OS Components that will be automatically downloaded onto your computer. These security related updates may disable your ability to copy and/or play Secure Content and use other software on your computer. If we provide such a security update, we will use reasonable efforts to post notices on a web site explaining the update.

Does anyone else have a problem with this ? Every C.T.O. in the world should be alarmed at Microsoft being able to download and run any code they feel like, as well as switching any other programs off that they don't like.

Record companies will regret this

[Blue Neon Head]

Someday Microsoft will use this power to push around the record companies, just as PC manufacturers were bullied through oppressive contracts. Someone needs to teach them some history.

Tip of the iceberg

[nanojath]

This is just the tip of the iceberg - and demonstrates, among more positive things, that one thing all the little guys need is better methods of cataloguing and connecting music lovers to music they'll love. Nonetheless, if you're in the mood for a bit of an oddessy...

Australia: http://www.air.org.au/

New Zealand: http://unearthing.net/

European: http://www.shef.ac.uk/misc/rec/ps/efi/elabels.html

US: http://www.musicisland.com/home.htm

World, Roots, Folk, Blues: http://www.newpages.com/npguides/music.htm

A mixed bag with a little bit of everything: http://www.music.indiana.edu/music_resources/recin d.html

Just a whole big bunch of labels: http://www.insounds.freeuk.com/links.htm

A catalogue system for finding specific artists: http://www.pan.com/indie/

An independent media portal: http://www.digitalindependence.org/

Google's record label information directory: http://directory.google.com/Top/Arts/Music/Record_ Labels/

Labels of all shapes and sizes: http://www.bandguru.com/labels.htm

There's a book called The Ultimate Guide to Independent Record Labels and Artists : An A-To-Z Source of Great Music by Norman Schreiber

Otherwise, entering a favorite style along with the words independent record label is bound to get you somewhere. Or research who favorite major label artists were with before they got signed - a lot of musicians start with indies before they hit a big contract. Indies that distributed one artist you like may very well handle more.

Re:In my view, this boils down to "PR"

[isomeme]

Tape copiers are less dangerous for two reasons:

1. Tape copies are analog, so they degrade with each copy. Chains of three or more copies on standard consumer equipment result in sound quality poor enough that most people consider it unacceptable.
   
2. Sharing tape copies requires transfer of physical media. A single non-rights-managed digital file can be distributed to thousands of people in a matter of minutes, limited only by bandwidth. Tape copies, even with high-speed dupe decks and the like, take much longer to create -- and distribution is at the speed of face-to-face meetings or postal mail.
   

That's why tape copying is no longer seen as a threat, relative to the dangers of digital media copying.

Re:Do they know about MS DRM patent infringement?

[blowdart]

I've dealt with both Intertrust, Microsoft and Real for DRM solutions for clients.

Intertrust's solution doesn't work. At all. Killed off Windows 98 machines, needed a permanent TCP/IP connection when I looked at it, didn't run on Win2k and don't even think about Mac versions.

Real's protection code is floating around on the net somewhere.

MS stuff is easy to implement, but using Version 7 licenses, which are more secure, means ruling out playback on the Mac. Also due to weirdness in Mozilla's DOM support, license predelivery (pushing a license from a web page, not when the file is played) doesn't work. Works under IE, and Netscape 4. Intertrust's lawsuit is a last ditch attempt of a dying company whose technolody no-one uses.

Re:WMA is a resource hog

[tshak]

That's because WMA has VERY TIGHT compression which requires a LOT of work to decompress. It's definatly not a "hog" in the sense that it was poorly designed.

WMA wouldn't be so bad if it was submitted to a standards body. It's NOT windows only - hence why most modern digital music players have full WMA support. The only problem is that there's nothing for Linux, or MAC AFAIK.