Felt Tip Marker Defeats Copy-Protected CDs 434
We posted this story over a week ago but the mainstream media
has flooded us with stories about felt tip markers and
copy protected CDs so I figured I'd post it again since I'm really sick of
deleting hundreds of submissions from people who didn't read Slashdot on May 13 ;)
Basically you can mark the rim of some CDs and defeat the copy protection.
And we all know what the DMCA says about tools for circumventing copy protection.
Repeat (Score:3, Funny)
Ummmm nevermind
Ah I see (Score:4, Funny)
Where have I heard that before?
To be on the safe side... (Score:4, Funny)
-Berj
Just got back... (Score:2)
Re:Just got back... (Score:3, Funny)
Okay.
--Betty
tommorows headline: (Score:2, Funny)
Confused editor (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought the DMCA only stipulates laws for devices designed specifically copyright violation? A marker pen clearly doesn't fall into this category. Otherwise they could have outlawed CD burners, photocopiers and who knows what else by now.
Re:Confused editor (Score:3, Insightful)
Tell that to Dmitry.
Re:Confused editor (Score:3, Insightful)
But Dmitry's software was specifically designed to circumvent Adobe's (measly) ebook copy protection. Felt tip pens are not specifically designed to circumvent Sony's CD copy protection...
Re:Confused editor (Score:2)
Re:Confused editor (Score:5, Insightful)
Dmitry and Disney (Score:3, Insightful)
You know, I'm not kidding when I say that I accidentally read that line:
"Tell that to Disney."
It's really sad when when people have started to subconsciously associate wholesale abuse of the law and the public with the company which brought us Mickey Mouse and DisneyWorld. Wow. I guess the real question becomes--what have they done for us lately, versus what have they taken from us lately?
Draconian copyright laws designed solely to keep Mickey from becoming public property like he would have years ago, and to keep their artificial-scarcity DVD racket going. The shredding of tons of documentation to prevent the family of Pooh's copyright licensor from proving that they weren't given their contractual percentage of the incredible sales. Some "family" company it's become, eh Walt?
Re:Confused editor (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Confused editor (Score:4, Funny)
It will only have one button; eject.
The VCR/DVD/CD Player will be allways on and will have to be connected to the phone line in order to work (so that your listning/veiwing habits can be tracked).
In fact we can probably get away without the eject button, if we make all players one shot devices.
Re:Confused editor (Score:3, Funny)
DennyK
Re:Confused editor (Score:5, Interesting)
No. Read the DMCA. It outlaws devices which can be used for bypassing digital copy control mechanisms, regardless of possible legitimate uses. CD burners don't pass copy control mechanisms, photocopiers don't deal with digital media (unless it's a barcode or something...). But a felt-tip pen which is used to bypass the manufacturer's CD copy control mechanism -- that's illegal under the DMCA, and I hope somebody sues for outlawing these evil things, that should show 'em...
Re:Confused editor (Score:2)
Re:Confused editor (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Confused editor (Score:2, Insightful)
Otherwise they could have outlawed CD burners, photocopiers and who knows what else by now.
They are most likely working on getting those restricted at this very moment...
Next is the banning of uncensored Internet, shortly followed by requiring all the women to wear shrouds.
See you on the other side....
--
Being paranoid is FUN!
Re:Confused editor (Score:2)
Well, look to register to the Feds to obtain a Sharpie....
Re:Confused editor (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Confused editor (Score:2)
I seem to recall that in the latest 2600 DMCA appeal the judge basically said that when Congress passed the DMCA it intended to outlaw circumvention devices even if they had other legitimate uses. Sadly, I can't now find the link where I read this.
Re:Confused editor (Score:5, Funny)
Dual use (Score:2, Funny)
No more exports to Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Tajikistan, Vietnam, Burma, China, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), Haiti, Liberia, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan and Zaire.
Re:Confused editor (Score:3, Insightful)
Have you been paying attention? The DMCA is constantly invoked in legal threats against technologies that have legitimate uses. Poke around Slashdot's stories.
CD burners and photocopiers do not circumvent copy protection schemes. And that leads in to an interesting point.
DeCCS was an interesting example of a technology attacked with DMCA claims despite its claims towards the DMCA's own interoperability clause. Yet, to pirate a DVD, one simply needs to make a bit-for-bit copy of the DVD, leaving the CCS "copy protection" scheme in place.
Facts: DMCA 1201(E) prohibited devices (Score:3, Informative)
The third part is important and reads "No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title."
Cut out the guff not related to marker pens, and we get: "No person shall
In California I can't keep pet snails, molest butterflies or ride a bicycle in a swimming pool [legal-forms-kit.com] either.
Re:Facts: DMCA 1201(E) prohibited devices (Score:3)
Not so, you aren't allowed to tell people how to do it. You could say that somehow the marker can be theoretically used to get around the protection, but you can't demonstrate or tell a person how exactly to circumvent it.
Re:Confused moderator (Score:2)
Insightful??
I guess there's no "doesn't get the joke" category.
Horse's Mouth [Re: Confused editor] (Score:2)
`(2) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that--
`(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;
`(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; or
`(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.
Re:Confused editor (Score:2, Insightful)
While I do like the joke of the marker being used to circumvent the DMCA, I believe the
analogy is completely flawed. The pen is just a *tool* to create a particular *type* of circumvention device (in
this case a mark on the CD). For example, with DeCSS, your text editor (where you edit the C code)
or compiler are not circumvention devices, they are tools which allow you to create the device (
source code or executable code -- these both seem to be considered circumvention devices.)
An illustration: one could imagine a product which consisted of a mostly clear, CD-sized sleeve with a small
sliver of black on it which would do the same thing as this mark on the pen. It would be this sleeve -- which
one inserts the CD in -- that would be illegal, and not the materials that it was made out of. To conclude,
the resultant ink mark is the actual circumvention device, not the marker.
Re:What about CD markers??? (Score:2, Interesting)
Are news sites all in violation of DMCA now? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Are news sites all in violation of DMCA now? (Score:2)
While not actually precedent setting in the usual sense, people who might be charged in the future for DMCA violations could point to this type of story and the related lack of action as part of their defence.
Now I know you can't use "the other guy was speeding and he wasn't pulled over" as an excuse for breaking the law, but in this case you could say that "the other guy was going just as fast as I was, and he wasn't pulled over, and furthermore, think about how silly it would have been if he had been, so clearly I wasn't speeding either." There's probably a good legal way of saying this.
Also, "Your honor, this suit is clearly frivolous, if you decide to hear this case, then they could just as easily sue CNN for posting this story, and Sharpie for making these pens. Clearly this is not want the drafters of this law intended [and/or this would clearly violate other laws/rights]."
IANAL but I think that analogies like felt pens and post-it notes should be used in any future DMCA copy circumvention case even if all it does is plant a bit of doubt in a judge or jury. Preferably a real lawyer could find a way to make a legal point that sticks.
DMCA markers (Score:4, Funny)
Re:DMCA markers (Score:2)
Topic: "circumvention device" registration and licensing to protect the children.
Gotta love it (Score:2, Insightful)
Remember Dongles? (Score:2)
And, if the copy protection is so lame that it's trivial to break, doesn't that mean that general purpose things can be used to break the protection, and that's just mad. Think of password protected software... is a dictionary illegal since I might try to type in every word in it to gain access so I can copy it.
Stop the madness!!!
Back in my day (Score:5, Funny)
The EFF should sue Sanford over sharpie pens... (Score:2)
Seems to me that it would be pretty easy to show how bad the DMCA is by shutting down a mainstream source that many people would consider serious journalism, as opposed to trying to defend 2600, which many people seem to think is published by a bunch of anarchistic communists.
Re:The EFF should sue Sanford over sharpie pens... (Score:3, Funny)
What is that supposed to mean? Is it like Disorganized Labor? Central Lack of Planning? Freedom Under Totalitarianism? I don't get it....
Re:The EFF should sue Sanford over sharpie pens... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The EFF should sue Sanford over sharpie pens... (Score:2)
Depending on your viewpoint, 2600 WAS the ideal defendant. Well ok, as long as you're coming from the Suits' side. Take a relatively small, independent organization whose activites can be colored as questionable, and most importantly whose resources are limited then fall upon them like the wrath of God. Even if the case isn't watertight, the litigation can and often does become a matter of attrition. He with the deepest pockets will win most often. Once the aforementioned small group has been hammered, hold up the case as a precedent to make going after anyone else (ie those with possibly the means to defend themselves) that much easier. As a parallel to this strategy, consider the 'harmful matter' witch hunt that went on against Alternative Tentacles and Jello Biafra. Pick up one of his spoken word albums. He still can't shut up about it.
Re:The EFF should sue Sanford over sharpie pens... (Score:3, Funny)
What is that supposed to mean?
Maybe it was a mistype, it should have read "ANACHRONISTIC Communists." Maybe he's a member of the SCA's rival, the Society of Anachronistic Communists, who dress up in costumes and do public speeches by Marx and Stalin, et al.
(For the few of you who are uninitiated, the Society for Creative Anachronisms (SCA) dress in medievel garb and prance around with a bunch of nerf-esque swords and shields, and annoy the crap out of us ignorant white trash who are TRYING to have a barbeque in that public park, thank you very much!)
Re:The EFF should sue Sanford over sharpie pens... (Score:2, Funny)
If you see nerf-esque swords, that's not the SCA. (Its probably a LARP with boffer weapons.) Ours are made of wood, so its like getting hit full force with a baseball bat. Don't worry, though, we're probably just there to barbeque, too, with our pig on a spit, after we beat each other up.
Re:The EFF should sue Sanford over sharpie pens... (Score:2)
Deja Vu? (Score:4, Insightful)
I wonder how long it will be for the software copy protection to be broken. This took about 2 months? (3?) to do, writing a program will not take much longer considering how many people don't care about the recording industry and are dying for the chance to break the encoding and get their names in hacker legend.
DanH
Re:Deja Vu? (Score:5, Informative)
Compared to defeating actual copy protection schemes (as opposed to a simply malformed track) this is a walk in the park.
Re:Deja Vu? (Score:3, Interesting)
In fact, making a true bit for bit copy of the disc would likely thwart about every copy protection scheme out there, come to think of it, any that use computer software that specifically checks for the ATIP info prewritten onto all CDR media -- but then again your custom firmware could fix that also
~GoRK
Has anyone actually proven this? (Score:5, Interesting)
And then documented the crap out of it?
This all smells too much like the audiophile tricks of the 80's where coloring the outside rim of a CD was supposed to "trap stray laser radiation and improve the [clarity | transparency | imaging | other-nonsense-claptrap] of the music." (see the snopes [snopes2.com] entry on this one).
I ask because I'm really curious what the scientific explanation for this would be. It was my understanding that they (the infamous "they") did something to the actual track of the CD, with bad physical spacing, introduced errors, or something like that, but did it *throughout* the CD. How on earth would marking the inside of the CD fix that?
[okay, I just actually *read* the article.
Re:Has anyone actually proven this? (Score:5, Informative)
The "copy protection" is simply a means of preventing the discs from working in a PC. This is done by putting a phony "data" track on the outer rim of the disc. It's visibly seperated from the rest of the information on the disc by small ring between the data and audio sections. An audio CD player will never access this track, but a PC CD-ROM drive will always try to read the data tracks first -- since it can't read the data track it regards the CD as non-working and you won't be able to play it. Using a sharpie on the outer rim (from what I understand you make a diagonal mark along the data track that runs tangent to the seperator for the audio track, but does not actually mark over the audio tracks) you block out the data track, and as such the drive won't read it.
Reuters picked up the story and said that they tried it with success on the known Celine Dion non-CD.
Re:Has anyone actually proven this? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Has anyone actually proven this? (Score:2)
Damn... that whole joke just came off as lame, maybe a bit too contrived, oh well... it woulda been funnier had I told it. You gotta have respect for humor writers, it's tough to do and actually be funny.
Re:Has anyone actually proven this? (Score:2, Insightful)
actually works, and for which CDs?
why don't you try it yourself?
And what the heck is this "geek-written" vs. "mainstream" business? Did Mahir Cagri not show that everything on the Internet is mainstream?
Re:Has anyone actually proven this? (Score:2)
The cause may be good, but not good enough to justify owning a Celine Dion album.
Here's the idea (Score:2, Informative)
No idea if it works, however...
alt.music.what? (Score:2, Funny)
Maybe they'll just ban Prince. I think that would be one use of the DMCA that we could all approve of.
Ok, ok. Kidding. I know: DMCA evil. You guys are right. Now move along.
What about the green magic markers? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:What about the green magic markers? (Score:2)
You can have my Sharpie when... (Score:2, Funny)
Or...
When Sharpies are outlawed, only outlaws will have Sharpies
Re:You can have my Sharpie when... (Score:2)
Re:You can have my Sharpie when... (Score:2)
What about brains? I might use my brain to think up a new way to defeat copy protection. I guess I'll just have to report to the nearest re-education center to have that fixed.
DMCA jokes (Score:5, Insightful)
At this point, I long for the days of trolls posting haikus about a petrified Natalie Portman slathered in hot grits driving the Slashdot Cruiser over to a Beowulf cluster. At least those posts tended to get appopriately modded down as trolls rather than modded up as both insightful and funny.
The DMCA circumvention device joke has been made. Several times. Stop mindlessly repeating it like you're Raymond going through the Who's On First routine. Besides, I hear Amazon.com has a patent on the business model of mindlessly repeating a joke.
(I apologize for cluttering up the comments with meta-discussion, but I felt the point needed to be made. Also, since this is just a repost, most important points have already been made.)
Except that in many cases it's true... (Score:3, Insightful)
While Sharpie markers are not likely to be outlawed since they have known legitimate functions (whereas making a non-CD workin your computer is illegal), giving information on how to use a Sharpie marker to circumvent a copy protection device probably is illegal. That's the absurdity of the law and proof that the legislators responsible for the piece of filth known as the DMCA deserve to be shot. And stabbed. And beaten. And boiled. And whipped. And drawn and quartered.
Re:Except that in many cases it's true... (Score:2)
That's a good point, as it does bear some close resemblance to the Dmitry case. Unfortunately, that point is getting lost amidst dozens of people going on about Staples getting sued for distributing circumvention devices.
I'm not against people raising a legitimate issue. I'm just tired of people making the same cookie cutter DMCA joke (not even jokes, since they're all really the same joke).
Re:Filter (Score:2)
I keep kicking it up, but there's only so high it'll go...
"That rant got you some karma but it wont change \."
Nope, no karma. I'm already capped like quite a few other people.
"In all likelyhood 75% of those people thought they were the first to post what they said. The other 25% want to get on everyone's nerves and repeat crap endlessly. You just validated their existence."
I think you're selling people a little short, but there is that. Still, you're leaving out the moderation factor. If my rant causes people to think about just how repetitive the official DMCA joke is getting, maybe they'll be more likely to moderate it as redundant or trolling.
Re:Except that in many cases it's true... (Score:2)
You are being too kind to them. I admit that I would be reluctant to use even those gentle measures in person. But I sure wouldn't weep if worse happened to them. Personally I consider each and every one of them false to their oaths of office, and traitors to the country. I don't consider that they were taking bribes is any kind of a defense at all. And if they call it "accepting favors from a lobbyist", they just make it worse
The DMCA is no joke. (Score:2)
And yes, a paperclip could be considered a circumvention device. It enables you to unlock some CD drive drawers so you can keep trying low level circumvention hacks.
Re:DMCA jokes (Score:2)
One Beowulf cluster of DMCA circumvention devices to rule them all, one Beowulf cluster of DMCA circumvention devices to find them, one one Beowulf cluster of DMCA circumvention devices to bring them all, and a first post to bind them!
...amen
Re:DMCA jokes (Score:2)
Actually... (Score:2)
Re:DMCA jokes (Score:4, Funny)
slathered in hot grits driving
the Slashdot Cruiser.
Beowulf cluster
imagining it is a
Black Sharpie Marker.
The DMCA
circumvented by markers
Sony weeps openly.
Haiku just for you
all insightful and funny
Slashdot is ok.
Slashdot is guilty (Score:2)
apathetic journalism 101 (Score:2, Insightful)
Taco: Here's How to Solve Your Problem (Score:2)
I'm really sick of deleting hundreds of submissions from people who didn't read Slashdot on May 13
Taco, sounds like you have a problem here. One solution is to post a duplicate story. Allow me to suggest an alternative.
void processSubmission( char* submissionString, char* toExclude[], int toExcludeLength ) {
int x;
for( x = 0; x < toExcludeLength; x++ ) {
if( strstr( submissionString, toExclude[x] ) ) {
return;
}
}
askTaco( submissionString );
}
Of course, if you need a little more power, there's always regex.
Re:Uh-Oh... Non-standard C code? (Score:2)
for the Lameness filter, too...
You should know that the way you defined your arguments to processSubmission() is not canonical.
Here is a discussion:(Live link doesn't seem to work).
The perfered form would beAlternatively, you could have usedI don't think it matters much; isn't Slash written in Perl? (How does *it* pass the Lameness filter?)
Re:Taco: Here's How to Solve Your Problem (Score:2)
Slashdot is written in Perl, not C.
That's an entirely different problem that needs addressing...
"Not technically a CD" (Score:2)
Therefore, shouldn't there sales be discounted from the CD charts?
and Sony says??? (Score:2)
It works..It works.. Yeahh!!! (Score:3, Funny)
Here [cnn.com]
Following is purportedly what transpired in one of the RIAA + MPAA meetings.
Jack Valenti : Let me show you on the whiteboard how we plan to crush these individuals using Kazaa as a medium..
(Proceeds to the whitebard with a felt tip pen in hand)
Ms.Rosen (screaming) : Jack!!! Noooooooooooo.... For the love of humanity, drop that darned thing..
Read the DMCA (Score:5, Informative)
Specifically:
Felt tip markers are not primarially designed to circumvent access controls. Felt tip markers have lots of commercially significant purposes other than circumvention.
But, if you marketed a felt tip pen with the name CD Rip (TM) brand felt tip pens and included instructions for how to circumvent CD protection than you should expect a C&D letter.
It's the same situation as the fellow who's program unset the true type embedded bits [slashdot.org] and a generic hex editor. The first tool has one purpose, to twiddle embedding bits. The second tool has lots of commercially significant purposes many unrelated to any kind of circumvention.
Re:Read the DMCA (Score:2, Interesting)
I see there is an "or" between (B) and (C), but nothing between (A) and (B). Can I assume the absence of an operator implies "and".
If so, which takes precedence?
Is it ( A and B) or C
or A and (B or C) ?
Re:Read the DMCA (Score:2)
It's A and (B or C).
Re:Read the DMCA (Score:2)
The RIAA estimates "piracy" losses at $300 million a year or more. I'm not sure, but I suspect this could be a larger number than the market for felt-tip markers for "other" purposes. Admittedly, the other two conditions (A) and (C) above are probably not applicable, but this one could be (stupider judgements have been made) and it's an "or" clause.
Re:Read the DMCA (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Read the DMCA (Score:2)
As nice as it would be to use this to show the DMCA for the sham it truly is, this is not going to be the test case.
I would note that putting recording celine dion and putting her voice on a CD is a MUCH better effective control for protecting that work. I mean, I would never want to listen to that, much less put it on my HD or copy it...would you?
Jobs (Score:2, Insightful)
- oh yeah, and the pen thing? I've known for along time that pens are very dangerous. They allow people to express ideas, write encrypted messages (you can do simple encryption with pen, paper, and calculator) and even let people draw pornographic pictures (well that's pretty much all I did in art class). Pens and all other writing equipment should be replaced with government approved electronic note-pads that scan the user input for illegal ideas, and banned words and just delete them.
Congress acting (Score:2)
Felt Tip Marker Companies Get Sued Under DMCA (Score:2, Funny)
In other news, CNN is reporting that a Waste Minimization Assessment for a Manufacturer of Felt Tip Markers [epa.gov] has just been published, highlighting the many environmental dangers behind the production of Felt Tip Markers...
All over the country, newspapers and TV news stations are running stories about inhalant abuse [ca.gov], saying that "Inhalants are the third most abused substances among 12 to 14-year-olds in the United States, coming in right behind alcohol and tobacco." (emphasis in original)
Shop owners are being interviewed for upcoming movies which depict them as being devastated by marker graffiti on their shop windows...
And parents are complaining (on national television news, every day) that their kids are coming home covered in marks from classroom marker fights! [bbc.co.uk]
Visual demonstration of the technique... (Score:5, Funny)
Marker Method Illustrated [www.chip.de].
OfficeMAX Commercial? (Score:5, Funny)
Customer: Hi, where can I find blank CDs?
Employee: Making Copies. huh? They are on isle five.
If Life were like OfficeMAX:
Customer: Hi, where can I find blank CDs?
Employee: Making Copies. huh? They are on isle five.Right next to the felt tip pens which can be used to circumvent the copy protection of the CDs taht you may be copying. Here I'll print out the instructions for you. And here is my username and password to ftp.phat-warez.com
Here's an Idea (Score:3, Interesting)
The way that democracy and judicial system of yours works at the moment, just about the only thing that will get lawmakers to stick up for Joe and Jane is public outrage/ridicule.
Basically, I think the EFF should throw the DMCA at the people who make Crayola. Sue the pirating bastards.
Don't tell me that wouldn't make headlines. And headlines would raise public awareness of the DMCA issue.
If the DMCA is ridiculed in public over its potential uses, I don't think it'll last long.
Never mind whether the EFF would win or lose; the whole point is to showcase the idiocy of this law.
Anyone listening?
In related news... (Score:2)
Federal authorities also raided local Taco Bells today in seach for the terrorist known as 'CmdrTaco'. Unable to find the self proclaimed commander of the Tacos, John Ashcroft vowed to keep the search for the Taco Commander until he is found and brought to justice.
-Henry
Base (Score:2)
"all your marker are belong to us"
now those "CD Markers" you can buy which are sold for marking on your CD-Rs etc. are going to face the courts.. oh, no, i live in England so im safe from your pathetic laws
ThinkGeek (Score:5, Funny)
I don't know about the rest of you but I think that ThinkGeek should start selling DMCA Circumvention Devices. e.g. a Sharpie with a custom label with a caution symbol and the text "This object may be used as a device for circumventing copyright protection methods as outlined in the DMCA."
I think they'd sell. Who wants an entire office toolbox filled with copyright protection circumvention devices? I do, I do!
"And we all know what the DMCA says about tools" (Score:2)
It was bound to happen... (Score:4, Insightful)
This latest hack is a twist on that theme - the marked lines invalidate the disc track that's supposed to keep make your PC think it has a bad disc. If you kill the bogus track, the PC's CD-ROM drive can simply go on to rendering the next one, the real one.
No matter what you do in the digital world, there is still the possibility of ripping at the analog level. Standard consumer equipment exists that can make a really good A/D conversion and get a high-quality rendering of the audio content back into the digital realm without any DRM encumbrances. CD players exist that have digital output (S/PDIF) - run that output back into a sound card with matching inputs and you're done. Any of these so-called protected discs can be played, and ripped, in such a set-up. My goofy DVD/CD/MP3 player has such an output (yours too?). Once you have one digital copy, it'll show up on the Internet all over again.
Only by encrypting the data all the way to a closed rendering subsystem (decrypting speakers or headphones?) could you prevent this - and consumers will never stand still for that. Any solution that prevents consumers from getting their fair use out of purchased content, by that I mean the ability to play it wherever they want (iPod anyone?) is akin to handcuffing everyone in order to prevent crime.
This is a war that can never truly be won, the only solution is for the content producers to embrace the technology rather than trying to kill it. A new business model that exploits the Internet and its bandwidth and provides a reasonable exchange of fair value for goods received is the only way they can inhibit (not wipe out) piracy. If discs were fairly priced, rather than selling for 30 times their manufacturing cost, there would be little need or impetus for Joe-Sixpack to participate in piracy. If you could buy the songs you wanted, rather than pay full price for an album that has more filler than meat, that would also help.
I'd really like to see an unbiased, non-knee-jerk-reaction analysis of the so-called harm done to RIAA member studio profits by the file sharing. We've all read analysis that suggests CD sales were actually helped by the emergence of Napster. Recent downturns in the industry are more likely due to general lagging in the economy rather than lost sales due to piracy. Any 'solution' to this problem needs to take a cold, hard look at those facts, first.
I have a very curious view on this given that my 'job' for the last few years has been on the side of the protectors...
The Important Thing is that it Works (Score:5, Insightful)
The important thing is not whether felt tip pens will become illegal. It's that somebody figured out a laughably simple way to defeat something Sony must have spent a good chunk of money coming up with. I'm thinking meetings, demos, testing, approval, and at least one large congratulatory catered lunch. And now they look like idiots. Nothing, I mean NOTHING, upsets corporate management more than being made fools.
Right on.
CD Protection Strategy May Be Violating 1992 Act (Score:5, Informative)
Hoist by your own petard, eh? (Score:2, Insightful)
Given that Slashdot gets all of its stories from other sources, and that it (demonstrably) only runs stories after many submissions (so the "last" submitter gets his name on it rather than the first), and that the "editors" (I use the term loosely) very demonstrably don't even read their own stories, then this is just business as usual.
How about you change the site policy and actually go out and find stories yourself or even (gasp!) do some actual investigative journalism?
Re:The only bad thing about this... (Score:2)