Universal to Copyprotect All CDs 887
angkor wrote in with a link to a story about how Universal Plans to
copyprotect all CDs which
will render them unplayable on Macs, DVD Players, PS2s, and some CD Players.
And it won't even stop people from ripping MP3s I bet.
Hi read the article (Score:0, Informative)
Universal won't be copy protecting all of their CD's. Just one. Please read the articles before linking, thanks.
Re:Obvious solution to this (Score:5, Informative)
I've made my call to the Federal Trade Commission. Have you?
Re:Hi read the article (Score:3, Informative)
Yes they will. Please read down to paragraph 5 before posting, thanks.
"Universal Music is the most aggressive in its anti-piracy efforts, saying that all of its CDs will be copy-protected by mid-2002."
Re:Hi read the article (Score:3, Informative)
What part of "Universal Music is the most aggressive in its anti-piracy efforts, saying that all of its CDs will be copy-protected by mid-2002." do you not understand?
That is a dirrect quote from the article that you claimed to have read.
heck no (Score:5, Informative)
1.) The thing is labeled as CD Digital Audio (CDDA), which is in violation of logo, because in order to be CDDA, it must be red-book compliant, (or whatever book it is), and this copy protected CD is most definately NOT compliant.
2.) The CD is "defective" because it is labeled as CDDA, but does not play in a CDDA compliant player, ie my DVD player, my computer, etc etc.
Re:No they won't (Score:1, Informative)
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,49201,00 .html [wired.com]
It seems like SSSCA is just taking a breather, for now. You overestimate the influence of IT in our "bread and circuses" democracy. Remember, Hollywood provides the circuses....
Re:I don't understand something... (Score:3, Informative)
The standards are referred to as (I believe) "red book" for audio and "purple book" (or perhaps orange?) for CD-ROMS. Could be vice versa...
It works like this.... (Score:3, Informative)
Higher end CD players as well as CD-ROM drives, actually perform some type of Error Correction as it reads the data. A CD-ROM does this, because it must read the data correctly, or its useless as data storage. High end CD players do this, to correct for scractches, dust, etc etc.
Copy-protected CD's have deliberate errors in the error correction, so that the CD-ROM drive and high end CD-Players will think it just read unrecoverable errors.
Re:Obvious solution to this (Score:5, Informative)
Funny you should mention that [wired.com].
Quoth Wired: "Jack Valenti predicts that Congress will require copy-protection controls in nearly all consumer electronic devices and PCs."
Quoth Tackhead: "Jack Valenti can take a long, hard suck on my arse."
The scary part is the article's title: "A Call to End Copyright Confusion". I don't see any confusion. I'm sure Jack isn't confused either.
Right now, ripping is legal. Distributing ripped MP3s isn't. Jack wants to make sure that ripping is also illegal, so he can sell us the same movie twice - once on DVD, and once on our PC. Just like Hilary wants to sell us the same music twice - once on copy-crippled CD, and once-per-listen on our PCs.
The other scary quote from the Wired article: "'I am openly, unabashedly in support of the government stepping in to set standards,' said Preston Padden, head of government relations for Disney."
1) Head of government relations. Nice title for your business card. That's right. Walt Disney, the cute little mouse company, has a position that might as well be called "Ambassador". No fucking wonder they get the copyrights on the Rat extended on demand. They've fucking got an embassy.
2) The word "standards", and all that implies.
I think we can see the spin for SSSCA right now. Existing copyright laws are somehow confusing. Existing copy control technologies are broken because they're not standardized across all devices. We therefore resolve the "confusion" by having the government adopt Jack and Hilary and Mickey's "standard" in all devices.
If you make hardware that doesn't meet the standard, you're guilty of making things "confusing" for the consumer, and nobody will buy your product. (And men with guns, "empowered" by the new law, will "protect the consumer" by taking your hardware off the market.)
Oh yeah, for every Slashdot reader (Score:5, Informative)
SPREAD THE WORD. Evangelize at your local record store. Bring it up in conversation. Dangle CDs from your car mirrors and prepare a 10-second explanation that you can deliver at stoplights. Tell your aunt blabbermouth, make sure she's got the facts straight, then let gossipnet take over.
Sony (Score:3, Informative)
IANAL, but wouldn't that open them up to some sort of legal action, since they also sell some of the devices that get broken by this?
Re:Obvious solution to this (Score:2, Informative)
I can't say what's what in the US, but in the UK the core consumer protection is the notion of something being `fit for the purpose for which it is sold'. If it won't play on standard CD playing equipment (eg a DVD player) it's not a CD, so they had better take it back or expect a visit from the local trading standards officers.
To get around that they would have to put up a bloody big sign saying `some of our so called CDs are not real CDs and will not play on some equipment', which itself might make them a bit pissed off with the manufacturers.
Re:Use their best weapon against them (Score:5, Informative)
:-)
Go to Coconuts TODAY.... (Score:2, Informative)
It also mentions WHERE you can get it:
So I did a quick lookup on cdnow.com and it appears the CD is being released today (Dec 18)
Here is my suggested plan of action:
- Go to Coconuts or another respective music retailer.
- Specifically ask the clerk for Fast & Furious -- More Music
- Immediately purchase the CD. - Walk outside.
- Unwrap the CD, throw away shrink-wrap (this is key, I'll explain in a bit.)
- Maybe even perform a little cosmetic damage on the jewel case (nothing serious, a scratch here or there, dog, cat, or even human saliva can really add to the effect.)
- March back into the aforementioned retail store.
- Furiously demand a refund.
- Receive refund.
By taking the shrink wrap off of the CD case and roughing the case up, you force Coconuts to pay some clerk to re-package, and/or possibly send back the product.
So my point is this: The more time Coconuts or whatever retailer spends on dealing with your refund situation, the less patience they will have when dealing with similar situations. The less patience they have with similar situations, the less likely they are going to advocate CD-crippling.
Go do your job, fellow fair-use advocates (remember that concept?) and return a Fast + Furious CD today.
--Fred
Re:Obvious solution to this (Score:5, Informative)
You missed the really scary quote from that article:
Need we say more?
Re:Use their best weapon against them (Score:3, Informative)
It's called an implied warranty of merchantability (see Uniform Commercial Code section 2-314) [cornell.edu].
I take no position on whether "you win" or not, but that's what it's called.
Record Labels UNDERNEATH Universal Music Group (Score:5, Informative)
Just saying you won't buy from Universal isn't enough. Here's the list I found:
A&M Records
Decca Record Company
Deutsche Grammophon
Geffen Records
Interscope Rercords
Island Def Jam Music Group
Jimmy and Doug's Farmclub.com
MCA Nashville
MCA Records
Mercury Records
Motown Records
Phillips
Polydor
Universal Records
Verve Music Group
I also went through their list of artists, and saw a shocking number of artists that I either currenly own CD's from, or want to purchase some or all from their discography.
My next quest is to find landmail addresses for all the record labels *and* the Universal Music Group, plus the RIAA, as well as the artists of UMG's that I listen to, and start writing a lot of letters stating my disappointment at what they're planning to do, and how it stands to completely wreck my ability to purchase and enjoy their music.
I don't have a "regular CD player". Not _one_. The CD player in my car is based on CD-Rom drive technology. I listen to my music on my computer, or I pipe the audio out straight to the stereo and listen on the big speakers. I listen to my headphones at work while I do my design documents, and that's to MP3's I ripped from CD's that I purchased.
Frankly, their decision sucks if they want me to keep purchasing music from their group. Simple as that.
Re:Obvious solution to this (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Refund idea probably not that effective (Score:3, Informative)
A company with a sufficiently large number of returns has to set up a reverse supply chain. This can mean new computer systems, managers, re-packaging equipment, procedures, lawyers etc. It costs a fortune, and even worse can take up valuable senior management time which cuts down their ability to react in the marketplace.
Therefore most companies don't bother. They take the return as a loss and/or sell returned product at a mark-down price. Plus there's the additional store and supply chain staff needed to physically handle the returns and issue refunds.
Believe me, returns hurt the bottom line either way.
Example: One retailer I worked at reckoned they lost 40-50% of the sale price for every item returned. This was more than their margin, so they most certainly made a loss. I don't think this is untypical.
Basically, if retailers started seeing a significant number of return on copy-protected CDs, they would start to worry, and start to ask questions. Their buyers (the reccord companiesw customers, remember?) will most certainly take action if their boss tells them to "sort out this returns problem with Universal CDs".
Basically, I think the returns option could work if you manabged to add a few percentage points to the return rate. Difficult given the number of sheep out there, but if enough people were willing to put the effort in......
Re:Obvious solution to this (Score:2, Informative)
Re:This works quite well (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Obvious solution to this (Score:4, Informative)
Picture this scenario:
The artist is in hock to the record company for a few hundred thousand dollars. This is typical, and pretty lowball, actually. The way the artists gets out of debt to the company is through royalty rates: Out of the sale price of the CD you've bought at Tower, Tower gets a cut, the distributor (possibly a shell company owned by the record company) gets a cut, leaving the wholesale price for the record company. Let's say that's $10, just to keep the numbers easy.
The songwriter must get paid, by law. Last I checked, it was
The rest of the musicians in the band get $0; they don't get paid until they are out of debt to the record company. Out of the $10 wholesale, they get say 6%, and the hundreds of thousands they owe the record company are made up out of this 6%, not the wholesale price of the CD.
The record producer gets paid by the company. He probably has a 15% cut of albums shipped. So he gets $1.50 for the CD whether you bought it or not, just because it's at the store. So the company is down $1.50 per cd for the producer, right? Nope. That expense goes to the artist to be recouped from their royalty rate.
The artist also gets to pay for packaging out of royalties. This is an absurd amount, like $1.50 - $2.00, more than I pay to do it myself in my room, and way more than an independant would pay a pressing factory. There's also a deduction for breakage that's around 1%, I believe. Also, the 6% they get is not actually 6%, since the record companies even in this day and age consider CDs to be 'expirimental media', and they pay about 1/2% less on CD sales. Let's say they bump this figure up to 1% because of this radical new anti-pirate technology.
So, along comes you, returning your shitty copy protected CD to Tower.
Scenario 1: Tower puts it in its cut bin. Record Company gets paid, producer gets paid, distributor gets paid, Tower gets paid, albeit at a lower rate than normal. Songwriter does not get paid, royalties on sale are not credited to band.
Scenario 2: Let's say Universal refunds the wholesale price to Tower and to the distributor. First, the distributor is probably Universal itself, so the difference between the wholesale and the distributor's price is still in Universal's hands, but written off as a loss to be deducted from the band's royalties. Universal is now in posession of a number of "defective" CD's. They could:
This is the kind of creative accounting that goes on in the record industry. I guarantee that the copy protection WILL be used to justify paying artists a lower royalty rate on the front end, and to further reduce payment to them on the back end. That's just how they work...
Re:Obligatory Warning (Score:2, Informative)
1)Why should I care about the low-level workers at some gigantic corporation? You don't have any positive effect on MY neighborhood, but frequently mom-and-pop-store owners live IN the neighborhood and therefore do.
2)A straw-man. Nobody cares whether you are evil.
3)My mom owns a business. Among other reasons, she has it because it gives her the freedom to NOT JUST look out for profit. She cares about her customers. They come to her because she treats them well and sells a good product. She won't sell a shoddy product. And incidentally, she's been in business for well more than 10 years. Businesses succeed and fail for MANY reasons, not the least of which is how they contribute to the community. Amoeba Records, for example, gives free live concerts inside their San Francisco store. How often does that happen at Amazon.com?
Re:Then it ain't a CD (Score:3, Informative)
ISRC codes are increasingly necessary to get a song on the radio in ANY circumstances- some stations won't even deal with you unless you have ISRC codes. It's also possible to take the audio and the ISRC code, and produce a degenerated copy of the audio that has the ISRC codes, normally not part of the audio stream at all, watermarked into it. This is not only for 'tape off the radio' controls, but also to automate royalty calculations- it's being pioneered in Japan, who are well ahead of the curve on this. Europe has followed and the USA will follow, and you won't be able to deal with radio at all without ISRC codes.
Here's the interesting part: ISRC codes are an ISO standard, not some record industry ploy. In the USA, the RIAA administers them- and you have to go through the RIAA to get an ISRC identification for your record label- but they do not charge for this, or demand an affiliation with an RIAA label.
I know, because I have an ISRC code for 'Airwindows' records. It is 'WA5'. I gave my home address on the form, and under 'distribution' I put 'Ampcast'. The guy at the RIAA I talked to, Marquette Mathis, was quite friendly. He wondered what 'Ampcast' was, and I explained it was an online burn-to-order hosting service that was able to handle true Red Book audio, hence my need for an ISRC code. He wondered if I knew how to use an ISRC code, and I replied "yeah, it's the Q subcode" which instantly told him I knew what it was. Now I just have to produce some CD masters in Jam (which I'm getting for Xmas!) and keep a good record (on paper, not just computer) of exactly which codes went to which individual songs- and if I can ever get my music 'on the air' in this new world of automated RIAA royalty payment, I will have tapped into THEIR mechanisms for royalties- and I'm the contact person for Airwindows.
There's life for indies and the underground in the old Red Book Audio CD format yet...