Lawsuit Challenges Copy-protected CDs

acer123 writes "An article states that 'The five major record companies have been hit with a class-action lawsuit charging that new CDs designed to thwart Napster-style piracy are defective and should either be barred from sale or carry warning labels.'"

Big Hairy Deal

[hyphz]

In the best case: they spin out the suit, cost the people in the class action a load of money, then put a dinky little label on the back of the CD case in one corner. Joe Average, who owns a regular CD player, doesn't care or even notice, so the money keeps coming in. Fair Use is still dead on the format.

A better one was the business that they were getting sued for Trade Descriptions for describing the product as an audio CD when it did not follow Audio CD formatting rules - anyone know what happened with that? (That could have some interesting consequences for PC CD games with mangled volume tables)

i think that..

[paradesign]

the CD manufacturers are afrade that people will not but the CDs if they know they are fscked with. the only way this works without a large scale backlash is if people dont know whats going on untill its too late(or they cant eject their coaster) when was the last time you checked your CDs for their logo? this method capitolizes on the ingnorance and apathy of the average Us consumer.

insulting

[SirSlud]

This is insulting to a musician like me. To hear what constitutes 'right to protect my property' (nevermind it should only be mine for 14 years, not 70 years after the death of me .. oh wait, forgot I had to sell that copyright to a company in order to get it heard, anyways!) from the mouth of suits is just plain insulting.

Interesting note: It was pre-copyright times in which publishers owned the works. Now, with the big 5, you have to sign your copyright to them for them to publish. And the copyright law is now 70 years after the death of me. Its kind of ironic .. the biggest battle in the history of copyrights, and really, they are arguing in favour of nothing other than technologically enforcing pre-copyright law, where publishers held the copyrights, ad infinitum (well, 70 years past my death, same thing.)

I really wish people understood how 'copyrights' that labels are arguing they must be able to protect are not copyrights at all, but more akin to the Licensing act of 1722 where publishers held a monopoly in the distribution of cultural works. (Also worth noting that the Licencing Act was also the first law that allowed government, and subsequently printing houses to censor works deemed against the Church or State.)

At any rate, I sure dont need to screw up your CDROM to make a living ... although I wont argue that N'Sync and Nickleback or whatever already-well-off artist you love will make more money in the short term because of it!

The real truth

[Wrexen]

CDs designed to thwart Napster-style piracy...

These CD's aren't about stopping Napster/Morpheus/Kazaa/etc, they're about taking away our right to time shift and give the record companies the ability to charge us over and over again for the same music.

Software Developers

[jcast]

From the article, quoting Cary Sherman:

Motion picture studios and software and video game publishers have protected their works for years, and no one has even (thought) to claim that doing so was inappropriate, let alone unlawful.

I suppose that's why every single real copy protection for software has been abandoned, right? Anyway, the Jargon File defines copy protection as:

copy protection n.

A class of methods for preventing incompetent pirates from stealing software and legitimate customers from using it. Considered silly.

I think Sherman's claim is pretty specious.

If the RIAA wins...

[st0rmshad0w]

and "protected CD's" become more common, will they be giving up the recording media tax? The original assumption behind it was that blank media would be used to copy copyrighted works, but if the works in question are "protected" from copying, then they no longer have a case for the media tax, correct?

I wanna see how this plays out and I hope someone finds an angry grandmother type who doesn't take any guff to be the posterchild for this.

Sue the copy protection companies instead.

[Thag]

Granted, the record companies have the big bucks if you want a cash settlement, but if you want to stamp this kind of thing out, I'd think you'd be better off putting the Macrovision-level companies out of business instead.

Once a few of those companies have been sued into smoking holes in the ground, their surviving ilk should be hesitant to repeat the same mistake.

Jon Acheson

Won't this protection hurt the record industry?

[bsharitt]

A recent trend seems to be having the PC as the center on a digital entertainment system. If the PC can't play the CD, and it's the primary CD player, wouldn't people possibly buy from other labels? I know my parent's only CD player is the one in their computer, and I use the one in my computer quite often in stead of my music only CD player because it is more convenient.

I'm No Lawer, But...

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems to me that Phillips who owns the patent on CDDA had said that the record companies cannot use the official CDDA logo on these copy protected CD's since they technically break the standard. So a case could be make that no matter what the label (warning or otherwise) that they shouldn't be able to make and try to sell an audio CD that's not actually an audio CD by the Phillips definition of what an audio CD is.

heres a suggestion

[paradesign]

since these are technicle not Phillips (red-book) compliant CDs, retailers technicly should not be able to sell them in the CD section. it is false advertising. so maybe the suit should fall on Best Buy or Wall Mart, to force them to separate the two disks (CDs and Copy Protected Optical Audio Discs) on the sales floor.

Unlawful?

[Kiaser Zohsay]

Sherman said. "Motion picture studios and software and video game publishers have protected their works for years, and no one has even (thought) to claim that doing so was inappropriate, let alone unlawful."

Never mind the fact that the software industry has pretty much given up on copy protection in favor of hardware keys and activation code methods. No it was never unlawful, just a PITA for users who paid good money for software.

The music industry however is trying to forget the Home Recording Act of 1992, where they promised not to copy-protect CDs in exchange for a "royalty" on blank CD media. As far as I know, they are still get the royalties.

It's the abuse of language I hate

[dunstan]

From the article: "Music creators have the right to protect their property from theft, just like owners of any other property," Sherman said.

Where do I start?
a) It's not the music creators who have put "copy protection" on, it's the music publishers
b) Whether it's the creator or the publisher, the creation is not "property". If it were there would be no patent or copyright law
c) Illegal copying isn't theft, it's illegal copying
d) What they're doing isn't like any other property, and asserting the opposite doesn't change the facts

If the context for this sentence related to the theft of a truck full of CD's then it would be correct. But I somehow don't think that's what he means.

Dunstan

Re:Hopefully this'll work...

[bucklesl]

Those Mature Content stickers are everywhere... who notices those anymore?

They should be forced to print something like "This CD WILL NOT PLAY in a computer" all over that plastic wrap and associated sticker. So while they are trying like mad to open the CD, they'll at least read what's all over it.

Frivilous?

[shawnmelliott]

"Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America, issued a statement calling the lawsuit "frivolous" ..."

Suing a toy company for not putting labels that a teddy bear is not edible is "Frivilous"

Suing McDonalds for not warning you that coffee is hot is "Frivilous"

Suing somebody because you broke your leg while attempting to break into their home is "Frivilous"

I hardly see suing somebody because they sell a product with no warning that it is defective ( and yes, they are defective by definition of the CD format ) and that it won't work in your PC, MAC, DVD etc. In fact, these things have been know to kill Macs ( Celine Dion anyone? )

So no, I don't see this as being any more frivilous than the class action lawsuit againsts Firestone for their tires being defective.

Wouldn't be a problem if properly labelled

[DunbarTheInept]

The less-functional CD's wouldn't be a big problem if they were actually *advertised* as such. Hiding the product in the trappings of an ordinary CD, without any external indication that it isn't, is false advertising, plain and simple.

Now, IF they had made a new name for their not-quite a CD, instead of trying to lie to customers and call it a CD, that wouldn't have been a problem - it would have been a case where the buyer has to decide if having the music is worth having it in a less useful format that might not even work at all on his machine.

Re:Dungeon Siege is copy protected?

[pogle]

Indeed, if you take a look around planetdungeonsiege.com's forums, you'll see a wealth of people have had installation problems in the past. I'm at work and can't go browsing game sites, or I'd link a few threads.

This is the US version I'm referring to, so I believe there is probably a difference. Copying was near impossible for a while, until someone released a cracked ds.exe file. Even then it was hard to find (not that I was looking, it was a friend at work, honest).

3 of us purchased the game, one person's worked fine in his computer, the other two of us actually exchanged the game because it did not work on a total of 6 cdrom drives between us. After the exchange, there were still problems, but after a long fight I got it installed. On my computer at work it installed fine. It just depends on the CD drive, but there are an awful lot of non-compatible drives out there for this game. Its disturbing that my newish Sony DVD-ROM wouldnt install this, and my 6 year old Ricoh CDRW would. Of course, since the CDRW is a 6x read, it took an hour for a full install.

As it is, I'm afraid to try and install it again...dont feel like dealing with the PitA that it is, despite it being a fun game. Fortunately, I got it for $20 at Best Buy, when it was still retailing for $50 on average, so I'm not worried about letting it gather dust.

Re:It's the abuse of language I hate

[shotfeel]

You forgot to mention that most of us aren't allowed to "protect" our property in a manner that can cause damage to thief and non-thief alike. For example, the city won't allow me to run a high-power electrical fence around my yard, even if I do have a warning sign. Of course any real thief would have some insulated wire cutters. Its only the neighbors' kids that have to worry.

Repeat something enough times...

[Thenomain]

The old adage came to mind, today, when reading through all the Slashdot comments about how the words this man is using are lies, damned lies and misinformation.

"Repeat something enough times and it becomes true."

The RIAA is quite obviously using this tactic. If they repeat how something is "theft" and "copyright infringment", then more and more people (both Joe Public and Mr. Congresman) will think of this not as "something that I don't know very much about" but as "truth". After all, thinks the uneducated public, these smart people who are in charge of this industry is calling it theft then, well, it must be so! (I'm not implying that the public is stupid, just ignorant; there is a difference.)

Nevermind this is complete and utter bunk, but repetition of a lie to make it truth is the Orwellian reality.

I just hope everyone who sees lies where they are don't just come here and preach to the choir.