Universal Music Prepares for Copy-Protection Complaints

tregoweth writes: "Universal Music Group is preparing for the onslaught of complaints about their copy-protected CDs. They've launched a customer support site, which includes a FAQ ("Can I get a copy of this CD without the copy protection?"), tech support ("Why can't I copy the disc to my hard drive?", which they don't actually answer), a description of the reasons that you can get a refund (including some playback "issues" I hadn't heard about), and the fearsome legalese covering the audio player and compressed audio files included on the CD." Our previous story has more information.

Philips

[macdaddy]

Is Philips still planning on not letting Universal us the standard audio CD logos on their CDs because of the Red Book compliance issues? To me that's a very strong statement.

Here's how to screw the man.

[!ramirez]

Buy as many CD's as you can afford at the time, open ALL of them, and take them back immediately. Retailers don't like to take back opened merchandise, and will quite often (from what I understand) charge back a small amount the the distributor, which will then pass the cost upwards. While some may consider this approach stupid/ineffective, think about this: enough people buy these "CDs" and return them, and retailers will think twice about buying them or moving them into the retail chain.

Non-Transferable license?

[PolyDwarf]

Doesn't the bit about the license for the player being non-transferable violate the doctrine of first sale?
I can sell my regular CD's to the guy next door, and they can't do a thing about it. Now, if I sell these silvery things to the guy next door, he can't listen to the stuff on his computer???
Or does doctrine of first sale trump such restrictions?

No answer to "Can I listen on my MP3 player?"

[egburr]

3.Can I listen to the songs from this CD on my MP3 player? As with all computer software there may be incompatibilities with some computer systems. The CD is designed to play on PCs. The current version of the copy-protection technology does not allow you to copy files from the CD into MP3 format. UMG is currently making every effort possible to upgrade our available technology to add new features and increase playability.

If they're are working to make it possible to rip the songs to MP3 to be copied onto an MP3 player, what's the point of the copy-protection in the first place? First, they add copy-protection, then they plan to add even more features to work around the copy-protection.

Of course, their answer didn't really say this is what they are working toward, but it sure seems to be trying to imply it.

OMG

[jgerman]

You understand and agree that any unauthorized use of the Player or Content would result in irreparable injury to us and/or our affiliates or licensors for which money damages would be inadequate, and in such event we and/or licensors, as applicable, shall have the right, in addition to other remedies available at law and in equity, to immediate injunctive relief against you. Nothing contained in this paragraph or elsewhere in this document shall be construed to limit remedies or relief available pursuant to statutory or other claims that we, our affiliates and/or licensors may have under separate legal authority, including but not limited to, any claim for intellectual property infringement

Irreparable?? That's quite a strong term to use in this case. Especially if they don't know you did it it doesn't hurt them at all. That pretty much rules out irreparable in my book. Also I'm not sure how they can be damaged so that monetery reparations would be inadequate. They are a corporation, they are only there to make money, I don't think they can take you to court on the basis of emotional damage for non-compliance. Just what do they expect to do to you for copying this cd?

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless us and our agents, employees, representatives, licensors, affiliates, parents and subsidiaries from and against any and all claims, losses, demands, causes of action and judgments (including attorneys' fees and court costs) (collectively "Claims") arising from or concerning your use of the Player or Content and to reimburse them on demand for any losses, costs or expenses they incur as a result of any Claims.

Ok so not only can I not sue you for any reason whatsoever, but you can charge me money if I try anyway. Basically this whole thing says if you buy this cd you are fucked, we can do whatever we want to you and you can't do a thing, but if you have the audacity to listen to this product in a way we don't approve of, we can sue you file injunctions take away your dog, or whatever we feel like.

Since when did consumers lose all of their rights as a result of buying a product?

Re:In other words...

[corbettw]

"At the risk of stating the obvious; the only way to make an impact on them is NOT BUY their product."

Actually, a better way is to buy it, then return it. Since returns are only authorized for "defective" CDs they'll be able to see exactly how many people are screwed by this technology based on the returns.

Re:Philips

[atathert]

It may be a big thing, but think about it this way: When you go out and buy a new CD, and peel off the wrapper, do you bother to look at it to see if the CD logo is on it? I don't. The consumer is not going to care one iota about this, so long as it plays in device X when he/she puts it in there and presses the play button. The real thing to look at is the fact that the music company is addressing this by incorporating a player to handle their encrypted music formats, so that to Joe Consumer, they can put the disk in their computer, and it plays, no questions asked. Maybe not the CD audio track, but Joe isn't going to know that.

Re:Return Policy

[Gavitron_zero]

Ummm..if UMG is making every effort to eliminate those problems...won't they be defeating the copy protection that they just implemented?

Check out these licensing terms...

[punchdrunk]

"We hereby grant to you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to use the Player and Content on your personal computer solely for your own personal, non-commercial use."

"You understand and agree that you may not reproduce, modify, display, distribute or otherwise use the Player or Content except as expressly provided herein, and you may not attempt to separate the Player or Content from the CD on which you received them."

So it is illegal to make a backup copy of the computer-playable audio files. It is also illegal to try and play them with any other app (or on any OS other than Windows). Plus, since it revocable, you can retroactively take away the right to play them AT ALL on a computer.

At least they specifically mention that the non-transferable clause does not prevent you from re-selling the CD.

Yeah, so who do they charge in the end?

[Slashdolt]

This seemed like a good idea to me, too, until I started to think about the idea that in the end, they just up the price of CD's, and we end up paying for it.

CD's are extremely costly, in my opinion. And why are they still more expensive than cassettes, when cassettes are apparently more difficult to manufacture?

I'm thinking that contacting my state's attorney general and complaining MAY get a response, if enough people do it. Hey, the states went after Microsoft, after all! When you see commercials (Philips, I believe) where the guy is mixing his own CD's, at that point it should be considered a general expectation of purchasing a CD. If you purchase a CD, you have a reasonable expectation that you'll be able to mix the songs with other songs of your choosing, and put them onto a newly mixed CD. They are taking that away. Something about harming the consumer comes to my mind, and believe it or not, state attorney generals like to get involved in that sort of a thing.

-Slashdolt

Doesnt have to be this bad ... instead do this.

[TheViffer]

Go in and buy one cd, take it home. Next time you come back complain that the cd is defective and ask for an exchange. Do this often and regularly at store X when different people are working. Again telling them they are defective.

The point is, "returned" merchandise might just get re-shrink wrapped and thrown back on the shelf, where as you state it is "defective" it will more then likely be returned back to Universial or whereever.

The obligatory "What about us Canadians" post

[GreenCrackBaby]

License. We hereby grant to you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to use the Player and Content on your personal computer solely for your own personal, non-commercial use. You understand and agree that you may not reproduce, modify, display, distribute or otherwise use the Player or Content except as expressly provided herein, and you may not attempt to separate the Player or Content from the CD on which you received them. You may not authorize, encourage or allow the Player or any Content to be reproduced, modified, displayed, distributed or otherwise used by any other party, and you agree that you will take all reasonable steps to prevent any unauthorized reproduction and/or use of them. Nothing herein is intended to prevent you from transferring the CD you purchased to another person who will be bound by these terms and conditions. Except as expressly provided herein, no other licenses or rights (including rights to maintenance or updates) are granted, expressly, or by implication or estoppel.

In Canada (as in some other countries), we pay a levy on all blank CDs (something horrible like 50 cents per). The levy is sent, courtesy the Canadian gov't, to the members of RIAA. In exchange, we are allowed to copy a music CD legally. I can borrow Joe's copy of Brittany and make myself a copy without legal ramifications.

However, now they put this "player" on the CD and I cannot help but think that Univseral will claim the levy does not allow for the copying of these CDs because the "player" is not musical content.

LAME

[Tom7]

From their legal page, it seems that their encoding software apparently uses LAME. Isn't that kind of sad? A nice free piece of software used for such evil?

Re:Here's how to screw the man.

[limber]

Unfortunately, some retailers will simply respond by changing their return policy in general. In fact, this behavior is interpreted as you taking the CDs home, burning them, and then returning them. (I trust that's not what you're advocating by 'screw the man'?)

For example, HMV [musicbusinesscanada.com] no longer takes back unopened CDs.

You can see the change in attitude about the policy in this interview [robmagazine.com] with their president, printed just a couple weeks before they modified the policy. That is, you can tell how they are rationalizing that permitting opened CDs to be returned is no longer effective for their business practice.

So I disagree with this approach, as it basically only winds up screwing people who legitimately want to return their cds. (by legitimate, I mean within the original intent of the return policy to maximize customer satisfaction)

Re:Return Policy

[Anonymous Coward]

This was funny. All the things listed are obviously cases of the pruduct you have bought (the CD) being faulty and in most countries you can always return such items (or rather, you can demand that the shop fix it or give you a w orking copy and if they fail you can demand a refund). There is no need of any authoring to the shop they are allready required by law (in many countries at least) and weather you have broken the package or not is in that case irellevant.

Re:Simple response ( here's mine )

[CoreDump]

To: [e-mail]
To: [e-mail]

To Whom It May Concern,

Hoping that you are motivated by more than sheer greed, I'd like to
voice a complaint regarding the Live - V CD that I received as gift
at Christmas this year.

I work as a computer programmer, and as such spend a lot of time at
work, using a computer. I have a collection of about 300 CD's at my
desk at work, that I listen using the CD-ROM drive of one of my computers.
I run several operating systems, including Linux, Solaris,
FreeBSD on my Intel PC's. I also have several Sun SPARC workstations.

When trying to play the Live - V CD, I receive an error message upon
inserting the CD that says 'Cannot run 16-bit application'. I have
serveral other 'media players' including WinAMP, Musicmatch Jukebox,
etc. These attempt to play the CD, and do play the first half of the
CD fairly well. However, the latter tracks on the CD hiss, pop, and
crackle to point that the music is no longer enjoyable.

I've been a fan of Live for many years now ( since Mental Jewelry
came out ), and have purchased all of the other albums, as well as
gone to several concerts featuring Live.

As a consumer who pays for his music, I feely completely shafted and
disenfranchised by Universal's decisions to "Copy Protect" their CD's.

I do not know for certain whether any copy protection was used on the
Live - V albumn, as there is nothing on the CD artwork, jewel-case,
or packaging to indicate such.

I do know that I will be throwing away the albumn as useless, and
will no longer purchase any further Live cd's that come out on the
Universal label.

So, you win. I can't copy the CD so that I can listen to it in my
car on the way to and from work. I can't "burn" it to MP3 format
to listen to on my MP3 player. Nor can I listen to it on my preferred
CD-Player ( which happens to be a PC ).

I will be fucked if I'm going to go buy a standalone CD-Player for
my office, just to listen to music.

You choose to cripple your CD's. I choose not to buy them.

Reference the Universal Music website regarding this at:

http://www.musichelponline.com/TechSupport.asp

I will still pay money to see Live in concert, but I will no longer
pay for Live CD's published under the Universal label. ( Or any
other music I like that comes our on Universal ).

Sorry guys from the band. It's nothing personal against you, and I
am not trying to "steal" your work from you without compensation.
Universal has chosen to make it personal against me.

I wish you all the best of luck. Keep making great music, and visit
Chicago on tour often so I can hear your new stuff ( since I cannot
listen to it on CD ).

Respectfully,

Re:Philips

[ToLu the Happy Furby]

Is Philips still planning on not letting Universal us the standard audio CD logos on their CDs because of the Red Book compliance issues? To me that's a very strong statement.

Do we really need to wait for Philips to decide this issue for us?

The thing is, the circular platters they are selling are NOT CDs. They are a new format, designed to be partially backwards compatible with certain CD players and not compatible with certain other CD players.

Just because they store information on a thin 5.25" circular platter does not make them CDs. VideoCDs, SuperAudioCDs and DVDs also store information on 5.25" circular platters, but they are not CDs. Only Philips can sue Universal for trademark infringment on the term "CD", but we can all sue them for misleading labeling.

Or, more properly, we should pressure the retailers. After all, Universal is doing something by putting a warning label on these platters; it's the retailers who are inviting confusion by (presumably) marketing and displaying these platters in the same way that they do actual CDs.

We should be pressing the record stores to create new categories if they want to sell these platters, e.g. a "Not-A-CD" section for all Universal disks, just as they have seperate sections for DVDs and, if they sell them, SACDs or VCDs. (Or perhaps "IncompatibleCD"; "ICD" for short.) Hell, they have seperate sections for SACDs, and those *are* completely backwards-compatible with the CD standard!

If you invent a new and incompatible standard, you don't get to market it by inviting confusion with the dominant standard. That is illegal, even if the trademark holders of the dominant standard don't bother suing you for it.

Here's a limited boycott listing...

[cleetus]

From the umusic.com site:

A3
A*Teens
Bryan Adams
Alice Deejay
All City
All That
Gary Allan
American Hi-Fi
Ametria
Angela Ammons
Angelfish
Marc Antoine
Aqua
India Arie
The Art of Noise
Artful Dodger
Vladimir Ashkenazy
Ask Me
ATC
Avant
AZ
Backbone
Erykah Badu
Balfa Toujours
Marcia Ball
John Barry
Cecilia Bartoli
Beautiful South
Beck
David Benoit
George Benson
Leonard Bernstein
BG
Big Audio Dynamite
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy
Big Tymers
Bilal
Black Eyed Peas
Black Grape
Black Indian
Black Lab
Blackstreet
Everton Blender
The Blenders
Mary J. Blige
Blink-182
Rory Block
Bloodhound Gang
Blue October
Blue Hawaiians
The Blue Mondays
Blues Traveler
Bobs
Andrea Bocelli
Bon Jovi
Bond
Tracy Bonham
Barbara Bonney
Chris Botti
Bottlefly
Boyz II Men
Boyzone
Brave Combo
Michael Brecker
Alfred Brendel
The Brian Setzer Orchestra
Brill
Foxy Brown
Ruth Brown
Buffalo Nickel
Jimmy Buffett
Burlap to Cashmere
Burning Spear
Daniel Cage
Caleb
Canibus
Cap One
Cardigans
Vanessa Carlton
Richard Carpenter
Case
Caviar
Celeda
Riccardo Chailly
Charlatans U.K.
Boozoo Chavis
Cherry Poppin Daddies
Chosen Few
Chumbawamba
The Churchills
City High
Terri Clark
Eddy Clearwater
Co-Ed
Cold
Collapsis
Colony
Common
Chris Cornell
Julian Coryell
Elvis Costello
Neal Coty
Counting Crows
Tina Cousins
Cowboy Mouth
Cranberries
Sheryl Crow
The Cru
Crucial Conflict
The Crystal Method
Cyclefly
D-12
Days of the New
DBA
Deep Blue Something
Def Leppard
Del Amitri
Geno Delafose
Depeche Mode
Dirty
Dishwalla
The Dismemberment Plan
DJ Clue
DJ Encore Feat. Engelina
DJ Rogers Jr.
DMX
Placido Domingo
Dope
doubleDrive
Will Downing
Dr. Dre
Drag-On
Drain STH
Driver
Dru Hill
Dub Pistols
Charles Dutoit
Eiffel 65
808 State
Eleven
Alecia Elliott
Emily
Eminem
EPMD
The Ernies
Erykah Badu
Melissa Etheridge
Eve
Factory 81
Jayo Felony
Fenix TX
Kim Ferron
Ivan Fischer
Fisher
Five Easy Pieces
Flaw
Renee Fleming
Fleming & John
Rosie Flores
Juan Diego Florez
Folk Implosion
Robben Ford
Willa Ford
Eboni Foster
Four Letr Word
4th Avenue Jones
Kirk Franklin
Freight Hoppers
Nelson Friere
Full Devil Jacket
Funkmaster Flex
Funky Derrick
Funky Green Dogs
Peter Gabriel
Gabrielle
Gandharvas
Garbage
Genovese
Valery Gergiev
Kathie Lee Gifford
Vance Gilbert
Vince Gill
Girls Vs. Boys
God Lives Underwater
Godsmack
Matthias Goerne
Goldfinger
Jeff Golub
Matt Goss
Amy Grant
Grenique
Patty Griffin
Lee Griffiths
Grinspoon
Guns N' Roses
Guy
GZA
H2O
Charlie Haden
Sammy Hagar
Aaron Hall
James Hall
Tom T. Hall
Hampenberg
Hanson
PJ Harvey
Imogen Heap
Eric Heatherly
Helmet
Jimi Hendrix
Tish Hinojosa
The Hippos
Christopher Hogwood
Hoku
Hole
Jennifer Holliday
David Holmes
Honeydogs
Shirley Horn
Hot Boys
House of Llama
Rebecca Lynn Howard
Ray Wylie Hubbard
Enrique Iglesias
IMx
Incognito
Injected
Insane Clown Posse
Isle of Q
Allen Iverson
Ja Rule
T.D. Jakes
Al Jarreau
Jay-Z
The Jazzyfatnastees
Jane Jensen
Jimmie's Chicken Shack
Beau Jocque & the Zydeco Hi-Rollers
JoeE
Joi
Shae Jones
Montell Jordan
Leila Josefowicz
Ronnie Joseph
Judds
Jurassic 5
Juvenile
K-Ci & Jo-Jo
Sammy Kershaw
Killah Priest
Killing Heidi
B.B. King
Kiss
Jordan Knight
Alison Krauss
Smokin' Joe Kubek
Fela Kuti
Femi Kuti
Patti LaBelle
Lamb
Jonny Lang
Murphy Lee
Lefty
Ute Lemper
Crystal Lewis
Laurie Lewis
Lifer
Lil' Troy
Lil' Wayne
Limp Bizkit
Live
Live
LLCool J
Local H
Lisa Loeb
Sinead Lohan
Alan Lomax
Longview
Traci Lords
The Love Dogs
Lyle Lovett
Nick Lowe
Lowpass
The Lox
Radu Lupu
Kami Lyle
Claire Lynch
Shelby Lynne
Natalie MacMaster
Majusty
Mamma Mia!
Marilyn Manson
Market
George Martin
Kathy Mattea
Del McCoury
Reba McEntire
Connie McKendrick
Connie McKendrick
Brian McKnight
Holly McNarland
MDFMK
Melky Sedeck
Method Man
Methods Of Mayhem
Mighty Mighty Bosstones
Mikaila
Lynn Miles
Minibar
Shane Minor
Tonya Mitchell
Molly's Yes
Mona Lisa
Monifah
Monster Magnet
Monster Magnet
Moody Blues
Chante Moore
Allison Moorer
Bill Morrissey
Mr. Cheeks
Ms. Toi
Mulberry Lane
Viktoria Mullova
Samantha Mumba
MXPX
Mya
Mytown
Leona Naess
Nelly
Willie Nelson
Ann Nesby
Never The Bride
New Radicals
Carrie Newcomer
Nields
Nine Inch Nails
98 Degrees
Nirvana
The Nixons
No Doubt
Noa
Johnny Nocturne
Jessye Norman
NRBQ
Jamie O'Neal
Ocean Colour Scene
Oleander
Evan Olson
One Way Ride
Onyx
Joan Osborne
John Oszajca
Other Star People
Seija Ozawa
Pastor Troy
Rahsaan Patterson
Ellis Paul
Luciano Pavarotti
Rod Piazza & the Mighty Flyers
The Pilfers
Plastiscene
Playa
John Popper
Possum Dixon
Post Stardom Depression
Powderfinger
Jesse Powell
Andre Previn
Kelly Price
Primer 55
Primus
Prince Quick Mix
The Prissteens
The Prissteens
Proffesional Murder Music
Profyle
Public Announcement
Puya
Que Bo Gold
Queen Pen
Queens of the Stone Age
R Angels
Rahzel
Jason Raize
Rakim
Ram Squad
Rammstein
Marky Ramone
Ramones
Rasheeda
Red Five
Redman
Reel Big Fish
Relative Ash
Remy Zero
Nadine Renee
Res
Reverend Horton Heat
Calvin Richardson
Kim Richey
Lionel Richie
Riders In the Sky
Andre Rieu
Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys
Rival Schools
Smokey Robinson
Rocket from the Crypt
Pascal Roge
Roomful of Blues
The Roots
Michael Rose
Rosey
Diana Ross
Christophe Rousset
Ruby Horse
Ruff Ryders
Thomas Rusiak
Rusted Root
Matthew Ryan
S Club 7
Safri Duo
Philippe Saisse
Saliva
Sauce Money
Scarred for Life
Bob Schneider
Andreas Scholl
John Scofield
Seahorses
Semisonic
702
Shades Apart
Shades Apart
Shaggy
Gil Shaham
Shuvel
Beanie Sigel
Tommy Sims
Sinisstar
Sisqo
Sister Hazel
Six By Seven
Roni Size/Reprazent
Skycycle
Slash's Snakepit
Smashmouth
Stephan Smith
Snot
Snowpony
Soca Boys
Sir Georg Solti
Sonic Youth
Sonique
Sons Of The Desert
Soul Decision
Sparkle
Speak No Evil
Spin Doctors
SPM
St. Lunatics
Garrison Starr
Keith Stegall
Stella Soleil
Sticky Fingaz
Sting
Phoenix Stone
George Strait
Stroke
Stroke 9
Jimmy Sturr
Sublime
Sum 41
Supergrass
Supersuckers
Super Trans Atlantic
Suzanne Palmer
Sweet 75
Takacs Quartet
Susan Tedeschi
The Temptations
Danny Tenaglia
Texas
The The
Jean-Yves Thibaudet
IIIrd Tyme Out
This Means Raw
Irma Thomas
3 Doors Down
Toadies
Tonic
William Topley
The Transitions
Tony Trischka
2pac
Shania Twain
Twisted World
Twiztid
Twysted
U2
Mitsuko Uchida
Ugly Duckling
Unamerican
Unified Theory
Unwritten Law
Suzanne Vega
The Wallflowers
Toni Lynn Washington
Russell Watson
Russell Watson
Weezer
Gillian Welch
Mike Welch
Weston
Cheryl Wheeler
The Whispers
White Zombie
Dwayne Wiggins
Hank Williams
Lucinda Williams
Mark Wills
Bebe Winans
Witness UK
Lee Ann Womack
Stevie Wonder
Chely Wright
Wylie & the Wild West
Wynonna
Trisha Yearwood
Ying Yang Twins
Young Turk
Rob Zombie
Zoppi

Re:NO! Better response

[Rude Turnip]

Don't forget to put the CD's on your credit card. This will give you two advantages:

1. You'll be able to buy more CD's than you could with cash.

2. If the situation arises, you can dispute the charges since you were sold defective merchandise.

Re:Here's how to screw the man.

[Leven Valera]

Nah, do this. Buy as many CD's as you can afford to on a Visa/Mastercard. Then, take home, and what a surprise, they don't play. Bring them back, and tell the counterjock that you've never recieved "fit-for-service" goods and that if you don't get a refund, you'll call Visa and tell them to stop payment. Then do so.

LV

It's already hosing people

[kawika]

Some XP users have noticed [google.com] that their CD/DVD just falls out of DMA mode and starts using PIO. This seems to be because XP backs out of DMA mode [google.com] if too many errors are recorded on the drive, figuring that something is wrong with the DMA implementation. Guess what? Reading just one copy-protected CD can cause enough errors to do this.

What this will actually do

[Snafoo]

...is provide a powerful enticement for consumers to purchase their music from "real" pirates. Why buy that copy-protected crap at full price when your Uncle Toby knows this guy that can get you a real CD of anything for a fraction of that?

IMO one of the most important reasons that Napster didn't obliterate the music industry overnight is that CDs are basically Good Enough. CDs provide an entire album in a nice (erm) compact package, with high fidelity to boot. This is *STILL* impressive, folks. Who cares if you can save twenty bucks by spending a couple of hours hunting down the dozen new songs by your favourite artist? Many people are simply too lazy and too rich; they just buy the goddamned CD and get it over with. (Besides, it comes in a pretty box.)

However, if commercial CDs suddenly become a big pain in the arse, you can bet your booty that alternatives will spring up.

Although consumers won't find it convenient to pirate stuff all by themselves, I imagine a full-scale bootleg distribution system will spring up fairly quickly. Although compared to Napster this structure has the disadvantage of reducing the number of actual pirates to prosecutable levels, basic economics tell us that so long as the demand is there, the supply WILL try to meet it. As with the 'war' on drugs, once can therefore expect many police hours (and therefore, tax dollars) to be spent finding and squishing a never-ending procession of infinitely-replaceable suppliers. What a pain! What an expense!

Re:Philips

[kilgore_47]

Can I listen to the songs from this CD on my MP3 player?
As with all computer software there may be incompatibilities with some
computer systems.
The CD is designed to play on PCs. The current version of the copy-protection
technology does not allow you to copy files from the CD into MP3 format.
UMG is currently making every effort possible to upgrade our available technology
to add new features and increase playability.

Thats where they lost me. The above (from the linked site) implies that mp3 compatibility is on their todo list. What the fuck would be the point of copy protection if you could still rip to mp3? I really doubt "increased playability" with this technology will ever be extended to mp3, so I can only assume the above statement is there to mislead people. Does anyone know if there are any sort of consumer protection laws that might apply here?

They're not in it for the money

[hether]

You understand and agree that any unauthorized use of the Player or Content would result in irreparable injury to us and/or our affiliates or licensors for which money damages would be inadequate,...

My unauthorized use will cause them so much harm and injury that even money will not suffice??? Isn't the whole reason they are doing this to make people buy more cds (because you can't make copies so yours don't get scratched, stolen, etc.) and disallow the use of the cd to burn MP3s so that they can make more money?

Stupid. I'm going to try and fashion some sort of letter to the editor to let people know this is going on. I told me dad, and he was quite concerned. I think that other non-technical types who haven't heard about this will be as disgusted as we all are. I know our local paper won't provide any info about this.

BTW, one cd that's not on the list provided but that we bought that certainly had problems playing in many of our players (old car cd player and old home cd player)is Warren G's Return of the Regulators, put out Dec. 11 by Universal.

http://www.fatchucks.com/corruptcds/ [fatchucks.com] is a another source for lists of copyrighted cds, not just the ones by Universal.

CD-Now certainly thinks so

[inaneboy]

Just take a quick look at cdnow.com they advertise 'Fast and the Furious' on CD.

'CD $18.97 List $ 18.97 Add to Cart'

Sounds like a good place to start complaining.
I'm sure Amazon is doing the same (pesky work firewall).

It would seem to me that this is false advertising on their part. But hey....what the heck do I know?

My correspondence with UMG

[epeus]

I have posted [blogspot.com] my correspondence with UMG on the topic - I'm awaiting a further reply.
I wrote to Universal's new address asking why they were going to stop making CDs I could play on my Mac. Here's the response I got, annotated:

On Wednesday, January 9, 2002, at 12:51 PM, MusicHelpOnline.com Support wrote:

Thank you for your feedback regarding copy protected CDs. We
appreciate your opinion, as the consumer experience with the music we all
love has always been a priority at the Universal Music Group.

I don't 'consume' music. I listen to it. It's still there afterwards (though I get the impression that you'd like it if it wasn't).

Unfortunately, over the last few years, the music industry has been faced
with a growing problem of unauthorized CD "ripping" leading to illegal
Internet distribution of music - a practice that is hurting everyone from
recording artists to songwriters to record stores. This illegal copying is
taking place on a massive scale, with literally millions of copies being
made without any compensation to the creators of the music.

Interesting progression of words here. The ripping is 'unauthorised'. Who needs to authorise it? Some ripped files have been illegally distributed, I'll grant you that, but then you say that 'copying' is illegal.

Under the Audio Home Recording Act, ripping and copying are not illegal at all; they are expressly permitted. You are confounding the legal acts of copying and ripping with the illegal one of distributing your copyright content without your permission. You are applying technology to attempt to prevent the former, instead of legal prosecution to prevent the latter. This is your mistake.

Your second mistake is take the word of someone that they can stop CDs from being copied. If someone can play your CD, they can redigitise the output, and rip that, and distribute it online. Its not worth my time and effort to fiddle around to rip the CDs in this way, so I won't buy them, but I'm sure the illegal distributors will work this out.

Net result: you have a lot of fed up former customers, and your music is still distributed online without your permission. Fewer people pay to listen to it, you get less money, and the illegal distribution goes on unchecked.

If a way is not found to protect the music from these abuses, recording artists,
songwriters and many others will be deprived of their livelihoods. The
changing economics could cause fewer new artists to get a chance to find
their audience.

The music is not being abused. It is being listened to. It doesn't need protection.
Or do you mean 'protection' in the sense of 'protection racket'?

Courtney Love wrote a very well-reasoned essay [salon.com] on who is abusing whom in the record industry.

Universal Music Group is committed to protecting the rights of our artists,
songwriters, and copyright holders, and, like the rest of the entertainment
industry, is evaluating emerging technologies to assess their viability while
also attempting to maximize the consumer experience. In addition,
Universal is exploring new ways to make music available in a variety of
online formats. We are also working with technology companies on new
offline formats that appeal to consumers.

Uh huh. Let me explain again. I have an iPod [apple.com]. (125,000 other people do too, and its only been on sale two months). It lets me carry around about 120 CDs worth of music at a time, in a package about the size of one CD box. I like this. I'm listening to more music than I was before because of it, and I will continue to buy CDs to rip and put into my iPod. If that isn't an offline format that appeals to consumers, I don't know what is.

However, you are explicitly working to stop me doing this. When I buy CDs at the moment, I look at the artists name, not the record label. Now I'll need to check that its not a Universal CD, in case you have 'protected' me from listening to it. This is one way of building awareness of the Universal brand, but probably not a useful one.

We have licensed copy protection technologies developed by others and
are experimenting with the integration of those technologies into some of
our CDs as a first step in measuring their effectiveness in an evolving
marketplace. While the CDs with copy protection may not be playable in a
limited number of CD players, UMG is currently working with our
technology providers to achieve 100% playability. We also hope to
include Macintosh-based playability on copy-protected discs in the future.
We have not finalized our plans for 2002 nor have we made a commitment
to put copy protection on all of our CD releases.

You hope. I'm supposed to buy your CDs on the basis of a hope that you can kludge something together? Let me make it clear. I want Red Book Audio CDs, the gold standard for Audio Quality. I don't want CDs that break this spec, with an extra data track that includes some ghastly software player with a clickthrough licence you have bought from some software snake-oil salesman.

I have some very nice software to play CDs, thanks. It also helps me organise my collection, and move it to my iPod. I don't want to run your software.
I trust that these corrupt, Red Book violating CDs will be clearly labelled as such, so I can tell not to buy them? Otherwise, I'll just have to avoid all Universal CDs until you commit to shipping Red Book ones again.

UMG has also established www.musichelponline.com to provide
consumers with support and to answer any questions you may have
concerning copy protected CDs.

We appreciate your business, and your support for the musicians who
bring so much to all of our lives.

You evidently don't appreciate my business, as you have gone out of your way to stop me playing your CDs. I'm sure your support for musicians is just as sincere.

Re:GPL'd code

[leastsquares]

Okay, in a few moments of boredom, I sent the following email. I'm interested to see what response I get (although judging by my previous experience of American company's email-based customer support/service, I won't get any response).

Dear Sir,

I am eager to exercise my right to examine and modify the source code of your GPL-derived CD playing technology[1]. I am particularly interested in the modifications to the vanilla LAME source in the product you ship[2].

In order to exercise the above right, I obviously need access to the source code of your product[3]. As a matter of urgency, please provide me with the details required such that I may obtain a copy of the source code for your GPL-derived CD playing technology, specifically including your modifications to the LAME codebase.

Yours faithfully,
Stewart Adcock.

[1] From http://www.musichelponline.com/legal/
"The Content has been encoded using software that incorporates the LAME encoder; more information about the encoder is available at http:// www.mp3dev.org."

[2] From the GNU General Public License, as persuant to the LAME encoder:
" 2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion
of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and
distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1
above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:

a) You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices
stating that you changed the files and the date of any change.

b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in
whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any
part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third
parties under the terms of this License.

c) If the modified program normally reads commands interactively
when run, you must cause it, when started running for such
interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an
announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a
notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide
a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under
these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this
License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but
does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on
the Program is not required to print an announcement.)
"

[3] Also from the GNU General Public License, as persuant to the LAME encoder:
" 3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it,
under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of
Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:

a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections
1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your
cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete
machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
customarily used for software interchange; or,

c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer
to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is
allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you
received the program in object code or executable form with such
an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
"

Re:personal use?

[someone247356]

I think that most people here are missing the larger picture. When you but a copy of something, that's what you have bought a copy. You OWN that copy. You didn't license it you bought it. Universal is trying to get people thinking that they can only license music. In this country (USA), there is this little thing called the "First Sale Doctrine". Basically, once a copyright holder sells you a copyrighted work, barring copyright violations, what you do with it is none of his concern.

There was a judge who recently ruled for a man who was unbundling the software that is shipped with hardware and selling it separately (was it on here?) The judge basically said, if it looks like a sale, smells like a sale, feels like a sale, then it's a sale, NOT a license ( I realize that I am paraphrasing badly.) Just because Universal throws a proprietary windows player to play their proprietary audio format doesn't turn buying audio CD's into licensing audio CD's.

An audio CD-ROM is like a photograph, or a book. You don't by a license to listen to it, you buy it. Try this mental exercise;

2. USE OF THE BOOK
* No Additional Charge. There is no additional charge to you for the Book.

* Privacy. No personal information about you is collected by or through the Book.
* Responsibilities. You are responsible for all use of the Book you have purchased. You may only use the Book pursuant to these terms and conditions.

* Book. The Book comprise intellectual property owned by us and our licensors, and they are protected under international law, including patent, copyright and trade secret laws. Your use of the Book is governed by the terms and conditions set forth herein. All title and ownership rights in the Book remains with us and our licensors, as applicable.

* License. We hereby grant to you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to use the Book on your personal computer solely for your own personal, non-commercial use. You understand and agree that you may not reproduce, modify, display, distribute or otherwise use the Book except as expressly provided herein, and you may not attempt to separate the pages from the BOOK on which you received them. You may not authorize, encourage or allow the Book or any pages to be reproduced, modified, displayed, distributed or otherwise used by any other party, and you agree that you will take all reasonable steps to prevent any unauthorized reproduction and/or use of them. Nothing herein is intended to prevent you from transferring the BOOK you purchased to another person who will be bound by these terms and conditions. Except as expressly provided herein, no other licenses or rights (including rights to maintenance or updates) are granted, expressly, or by implication or estoppel.

* No Reverse Engineering. You may not attempt (or authorize, encourage or support others' attempts) to circumvent, reverse engineer, decrypt, break or otherwise alter or interfere with the Book.

3. MAINTENANCE AND UPDATES
* We do not provide maintenance or updates for the Book.

....

7. REMEDIES
You understand and agree that any unauthorized use of the Book would result in irreparable injury to us and/or our affiliates or licensors for which money damages would be inadequate, and in such event we and/or licensors, as applicable, shall have the right, in addition to other remedies available at law and in equity, to immediate injunctive relief against you. Nothing contained in this paragraph or elsewhere in this document shall be construed to limit remedies or relief available pursuant to statutory or other claims that we, our affiliates and/or licensors may have under separate legal authority, including but not limited to, any claim for intellectual property infringement.

8. INDEMNITY
You agree to indemnify and hold harmless us and our agents, employees, representatives, licensors, affiliates, parents and subsidiaries from and against any and all claims, losses, demands, causes of action and judgments (including attorneys' fees and court costs) (collectively "Claims") arising from or concerning your use of the Book and to reimburse them on demand for any losses, costs or expenses they incur as a result of any Claims.

9. TERM AND TERMINATION
The term of this agreement shall be for so long as we and/or our licensors own any intellectual property rights in the Book. You may terminate this agreement at any time by returning to us the BOOK you purchased.

Did that make any sense to you? That's where Universal, Disney, Sony, and the rest of the entertainment cartel would LOVE to be.

I think any letters we should be writing to Universal (and to our congressmen) should be along the lines of;

"Dear Universal,

I currently purchase audio and video compilations produced by various artists and marketed by your corporation. Notice I said purchased. I resent the attempt your company is making to unilaterally redefine the nature of my purchase in a transparent attempt to circumvent the traditional limitations imposed on your conduct by copyright law, the first sale doctrine, and the first amendment.

Including a "player" on an audio CD-ROM does not change my purchase into a license. If you do not want to sell your player, then please feel free to remove it from the CD-ROM.

In the same manner that you can not legally enslave me with a one sided license, you can not deprive me of the protections of the above mentioned law and statues.

I will be properly ignoring your blatantly illegal ploy and strongly suggest that you rethink this entire matter."

Lol, learning from the DVD crowd...

[SmurfButcher Bob]

FOR ANY DAMAGES THAT RESULT FROM YOU USING THE PLAYER OR CONTENT, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY INFECTIONS OR CONTAMINATIONS OF YOUR COMPUTER OR DAMAGE...

So, they can include a free trojan that whacks your existing mp3 library, installs a sniffer, keylogger, and hooks into Quicken... and they can do it accidentally, or they can do it as a "hack back".

Meanwhile, you are not allowed to reverse engineer or circumvent anything - meaning your AV software would be in violation of the agreement, because it would impede the action of the virus (which you've agreed not to do, since by definition it is part of "The Player" until explicitly disclaimed as otherwise by Universal. Also, until separated from "The Player", said trojan/virus would be protected from thrwarting / AV by the DMCA, since "The Player" is a DRM). You'd also not be allowed to audit your box for any impact "The Player" has had on it, since that'd constitute reversing as well.

Be funny if a disk with an "accidental virus" included a Mac version before the Mac's player was even out 8)

- SBB

Already happened (thanks to the BBC!)

[mattbee]

Anyone want to take bets on how long it'll take before some "news" show does an "investigative report" on "broken CDs" and tells the average consumer to look for the CD-DA logo to ensure that the disc will work in their car, DVD player, and CD-compatible game console?

Yes, it happened last week but unfortunately it was BBC fucking Watchdog [bbc.co.uk], the most ineffectual consumer affairs programme in the entire universe because they're more concerned with doing witty set pieces and puns than any research. The presenter, Nicki Campbell is a goon who just spouts the scripts he's given without any kind of insight into what he's actually saying, and his fearsome band of reporters look and talk like they're from a teeny-bopper tribute band. The whole experience is broadcast live, a completely crazy decision because none of the presenters are up to much more than following their autocues. Okay, so I enjoy sitting and getting apoplectic at the television once a week, my girlfriend loves it, but this was symptomatic of the approach of the whole program: they spent a good 3-4 minutes of prime-time television asking consumers in London whether they could tell the difference between copy-protected versions of Natalie Imbruglia, and the 'real McCoy', and concluded their report by saying that, well, the record company will replace copy-protected CDs with 'proper' copies if anyone has any complaints. Hoorah. Did they mention the issues raised by MP3 ripping? Fair use? The dilution of the CD standard? Hardly, it was mainly just a few minutes of moaning how the latest pop won't play on laptop CD players, but as with every issue they cover, they never like to rock the boat too much, or attempt any insight into what these complaints might be a symptom of.

Seriously, you guys (who weren't in the UK) should have seen the piece they did on Windows XP [bbc.co.uk]. That half-hour weekly slot has so much potential to become a fearsome adversary to corporations, but what they always do when somebody complains about a product to them is to show the product's advert in full, as they did with XP, and then invite some rep from the company to come on to answer some previously-scripted 'hard-hitting' questions about the product. What usually happens is that the smart company rep defuses the question in about the first five seconds, then proceeds to use the prime time television slot to gush about the product's benefits. As happened, expertly, with the Microsoft rep. The presenter occasionally interrupts to repeat the question, which, we suspect, they don't always entirely understand; there follows another five seconds defusing, followed by more minutes of sales patter. Total whitewash; I'm surprised companies are queuing up to have their products 'savaged' by the BBC. In the case of XP, what do you think they were grilling the guy about? A few total mongs who'd queued up outside PC World at midnight to pick up their copies of XP suddenly couldn't connect to the internet after installing it and had to install some extra software to get their computers working like they used to. Well if they liked their computer so much as it was, and relied on them so much for their vital work, why risk the upgrade? Seriously, it's common fucking sense that most of the Watchdog complainants lack, and Microsoft took full advantage of the opportunity these moaners had provided to sell their product; you'd think the Beeb would have brief their presenters on what a Windows XP actually was :-)

Look, in case you haven't got the gist of this show, bear with me here. They had an item last week as well where a few people were complaining about British Gas putting their prices up for the second time in the year. Now the situation with gas suppliers in the UK is that British Gas used to supply everybody, and now the government split the people that supply the gas and pipe it to people's houses from the people that actually charge for, send you the bills and do all the admin. They compete on that part, right? Everybody gets the same gas, from the same company, no matter who bills them, and the billing companies can compete on special offers with similarly deregulated electricity deals. British Gas used to have everyone in the country as their customers, so they had their prices capped at a minimum during the initial couple of years to compensate for their unfair advantage. This minimum was recently lifted, they presumably still have a fair proportion of people that haven't switched from them, so they raise their prices because they're allowed to. Many many people were interviewed on the programme and said that this was a problem, that they couldn't afford to keep the heating on for more than 10 seconds a day etc. etc. Nicki Campbell, hard hitting as ever, asks the head of the independent gas regulation department whether they're being 'totally ineffectual'. The head of the gas regulation department points out that people can switch gas companies with just a phonecall, and that this has been well advertised. Nicki Campbell hits back with "well what about all those people we interviewed who like things the way they are?" Huzzah, the British consumer psyche in a nutshell. Total waste of time, and proof that a prime piece of television that claims to be helping consumers is just the Brits' favourite pastime (moaning loudly about things without wanting them to change) rearranged into a telly program with some goofy presenters and a catchy beat.

Sorry. I'm sorry for this rant. But to get back to the point: I think what Watchdog shows about the CD protection thing is that the vast majority of people just don't give a shit about the wider issues involved, and won't do until knackered, or WMF-encoded CDs are the norm and suddenly nobody can remember what the 'old' technology was like. But as you might have gathered it bugs me that such a good opportunity for a consumer affairs programme on UK television has been wasted so badly, and badly shakes my faith in people wanting to change these things (says Matthew, posting his detailed moan on Slashdot, a site much-read by BBC programme producers, before going for another beer and a few games of Crazy Taxi.)