BMG Stops Producing CDs 659
An Anonymous Cow writes "The register has a new story about claims by Bertelsmann that they'll stop manufacturing uncrippled audio CDs. More can be found on Bertelsmann's own site (info by region, Europe only). Trouble playing it in your car stereo? According to BMG the error is your player's, and not their CD's. Quote: 'As far as we were advised, our copy protection is according to the Red Book Standard as well as all labelling on the cd.' In English: they don't even find it necessary to indicate on the CD cover that it's copy protected, nor do they think it advisable to listen to Philips' objections against using the CD logo on crippled discs, instead there's a label claiming that the CD is fully Red Book-compliant. It looks like this is a test case, because only all European CDs will be crippled."
Interesting Article (Score:5, Funny)
The correct term is "differently abled CD's"
: )
CD sales decreasing? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:CD sales decreasing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's make this more than I joke. I just wrote to BMG and said, because of your stance I will not buy your product. I want a fully versatile CD and you are committed not to deliver.
And I will back this up with actions. Eventually I suspect I will have to transition to all independent producers. When I do so I will let them know why I decided to start investigating their product base. If something I want to purchase comes out on BMG I will contact the artist and tell them why they lost a sale.
The major recording labels see lost sales in unencumbered CDs. Whether this is ultimately true or not is not relevant. Unless they start seeing and hearing about lost sales because of Digital Rights Management they will continue on this course.
Universal got the same letter from me a year ago. I haven't purchased a product from them since.
Re:CD sales decreasing? (Score:3, Interesting)
Two Words... (Score:4, Insightful)
How about BMG create their own standards and call it something else?
I am sure this will lead to more sales, because everyone knows when you spit in the customers eye and take away their ability to do that which they did before, they always reward you for it.
--Joey
Re:Two Words... (Score:4, Insightful)
In the case of entertainment and technology, the sarcasm of your comment is lost to the truth of your comment. How many times have we seen Microsoft TELL their customers how to modify their buying habits. 90% of the technology consumer crowd are led like lambs to the slaughter. Unifrtunately, those of us in the know tend to post our objections in rooms full of people also in the know leaving those 90% to support the thugs we protest.
HA! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Even better solution ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Fine for pirates ... (Score:3, Insightful)
To make matters worse, if what you say is true (and I have no reason to doubt it), I won't even be able to play the songs on my music system as the CD player clearly isn't 'standard' (though I fail to see what's more 'standard' than a mid-range Sony deck).
This leaves me with two options:
- Buy a new (crappier) CD player that only has analogue out. Copy my lovely digital CDs via analogue to my portable MD/computer thus loosing all the crispness of the original music.
- Skip buying the CD and just download the tracks via KazaaLite/Gnucleus. I get the same quality as 1) but save 12 quid each time!
What a brilliant business move! They'll be depriving me of high quality music, and themselves of any revenue! I wish I had an MBA and could think of such award winning ways of increasing shareholder value!Re:Fine for pirates ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Send it back.
And I don't mean the CD.
Send your CD player back. The entire thing. Send it back to Sony/Philips/whoever and say that your new BMG CD won't play in it, and that you want them to fix it. Tell all your friends that the BMG CD doesn't work in Sony's CD players. To be honest, no matter what we do as individuals will affect BMG. Sony, on the other hand, have very big legal teams, and wouldn't particularly like BMG telling people that their products are broken.
Re:Even better solution ... (Score:4, Informative)
What these schemes will accomplish is allow the industry to say to Congress, "Look, we tried copy prevention on our own, it didn't work, we need new laws that require DRM chips in everything."
(incidentally, Barbara Simons mentioned in a DRM session at Siggraph that she believed the DVD CSS cipher was deliberately made easy to break, as a similar form of entrapment)
That's okay, P2P will save me... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:That's okay, P2P will save me... (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the points that I made was that I want to listen to CDs that I purchase on a computer, on an iPod, on my own compilation CDs for the car. This is all covered by fair use but the record companies have their heads buried so deep up their arses all they can think of is piracy. Yet by preventing legitimate use they dissuade me from buying their broken product and drive me to the file sharing that they're so shit scared of!
Re:That's okay, P2P will save me... (Score:5, Interesting)
1000 users with 500 different versions of the music.
1000 users with 100 different versions of the music.
The later scenario provides five times as many sources for the same version album, so you will find it will become easier and faster to get the album, due to many more sources of HASH compatible files! Go BMG!
Record (CD) Club (Score:2, Funny)
If so, then all of a sudden I suppose my e-mail program will now be unable to display their message (even though it's just a standard e-mail).
When will you people learn? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you stop paying for their products, the RIAA and MPAA won't have money to pay congressmen/women for laws like the DMCA.
Re:When will you people learn? (Score:5, Insightful)
They win either way.
Re:When will you people learn? (Score:5, Insightful)
They win either way.
No, they only win if we buy their CDs. Laws by themselves don't make them money.
Last time a CD came out in the Netherlands that didn't work well on a PC (in fact it crashed Windows - insert joke here), there was a huge uproar from consumer organizations, and the CD was pulled in a few days. People will notice that these CDs suck. That means Bertelsmann will have to leave this plan rather quickly.
Re:When will you people learn? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:When will you people learn? (Score:3, Informative)
There are many resources to discover not only non-RIAA music but GOOD music. Webcasters, college radio, epitonic.com (one of my favorites and they stream 128kbs), USENET, the music listings in your local paper, etc. The information and easy access to it is there, the question is whether the RIAA complainers will use it or just continue to copy and trade top-40 music thinking they're sticking it to the man.
When will you people speak up? (Score:5, Insightful)
But if you don't TELL them you've stopped buying their products, they assume it's just a sales slump, and devote more time, energy, and most of all MONEY to passing bad laws and trying to enforce copy-protection. After all, they already KNOW what causes sales slumps -- piracy and P2P applications. (Never mind the facts, they know the truth.)
So as I've said before (and nobody, apparently, was listening), it's not enough to just stop buying [slashdot.org]. You have to tell them about it, too.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:When will you people learn? (Score:3)
I don't think that's what he means..
What he means is:
Last year, the record companies had their best year, but it wasn't as big as they'd hoped, so they blamed P2P, instead of the fact that the economy is in the toilet.
Now, sales will actually fall, so they will use that as "proof" that P2P is hurting their business.
At least that's how I understood his statement.
Re:When will you people learn? (Score:3, Interesting)
Copyright is forever, effectively, in the US. Trademarks are forever, as long as the company protects the trademark. A patent is the only thing with a reasonable time limit, and that is probably what you meant is going to run out.
Still, Philips should be able to fight BMG based on copyright of the CD icon and trademarks which they own. BMG putting the CD icon on their works would violate copyright (of the icon image itself) and trademark (associating the broken disk with Philips's reputation).
As per usual... (Score:2, Interesting)
Piss Me Off! (Score:4, Interesting)
Does this mean that I cannot listen to CDs on my computer without being concidered a consumer without respect to listening pleasure?
"In the long term, massive copying deprives music-makers of their very livelihood.
I prefer listening to musicians who play music because they enjoy it, not for the money. As for the veri livelihood, I'd say that the ability to sample non-mainstream artists without having to stand in line at my local music store has made me by more CDs than ever before. I suggest that this assumption is down right wrong.
"...this decline is attributed to a large extent to unauthorised CD-R copying."
Or perhaps due to a downwards tendency of the entire economy. Sales will fluctuate, so don't blame the customers, make new and better products.
Re:Piss Me Off! (Score:5, Funny)
Or borrowing a friend's music, or video, or book? Or supporting those bastions of evil, the "public" so-called libraries? Or recording a TV show or movie in some way that would let you "deep link" to the filler in between the commercials, instead of seeing it the way the copyright holder intended?
Don't you understand that going a day without buying a music disk is depriving artists in the music industry (CEOs, accountants, auditors, etc.) of the income they're entitled to?
Don't you know this so-called "Internet" is really
Re:Piss Me Off! (Score:3, Informative)
More importantly, if this was happening in the U.S. it would definitely have a smell of a class action lawsuit against both sides - BMG and CD player manufacturers (including CD-ROM). Look at it from consumer's point of view:
"This CD player, or CD-ROM, or PC I bought has a CD logo on it... This CD I bought from BMG also has a CD logo on it. Then why in the hell can't I play this CD? Somebody must be lying to me and ripping me off! I'll let the judge decide."
Where are the consumer protection groups in Europe? Anybody awake?
Could Philips sue for Trademark infringment? (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't know if Philips has enough interest in doing so, though. After all, removing the mark from these "discs that kind of look like CDs" would probably make zero difference to the buying public, but would in fact remove a (probably small) revenue stream for Philips (BMG would no longer need to licence the trademark for their packaging).
Re:Could Philips sue for Trademark infringment? (Score:5, Insightful)
In addition, due to the left-leaning EU policies, BMG may be pretty soon recquired to put a special label on CDs, indicating that the CD is crippled. Consumer protection is much stronger in Europe than in the US.
In fact, I would say it's in the best interest to do so; otherwise the BMG logo itself would soon serve as an indicator of a crippled CD, and they would never be able to sell normal CDs again, in the case their policy backfires and they change their mind...
Re:Could Philips sue for Trademark infringment? (Score:3, Funny)
Might I suggest a 3" x 3" bright red skull and crossbones?
Re:Could Philips sue for Trademark infringment? (Score:5, Informative)
Just bought the new Bond CD. (Universal, not BMG).
Popped it into my Mac. The CD mounted, but wasn't recognized as an audio CD, so it wouldn't open into iTunes and I couldn't transfer the songs onto my iPod.
Scanned the CD case and discovered that the CD logo was nowhere to be found. I guess I should have checked for that first...
The funny thing is, all the tracks showed up as AIFF files, so I copied them all to the HD. Double clicking them opened them up in iTunes. A quick convert to MP3 format and I was all set! Yay, Jaguar!
Shhh. Don't tell the RIAA about this...
Re:Big difference (Score:3, Insightful)
damaged error handling, incompatible discs, yay! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:damaged error handling, incompatible discs, yay (Score:5, Interesting)
Sounds like they want stem piracy and to increase cash flow by resales because of "SCRATCHED" CDs. That's what they liked about vinyl. When you just can't stand the POPS & SKIPS on "Dark Side Of The Moon" any more, you buy another copy. How did you think it stayed on the Billboard Top 100 for over 10 YEARS! Damn those seeds!!!
It also reduces the second-hand CD sales like Half.com. Some indipendent music stores were being pressured by the record companies not handle "Used CDs" (...or is it Perviously Owned?).
Any way you look at it, increased cash flow is the main motive. Buy once, buy often.
Re:damaged error handling, incompatible discs, yay (Score:3, Insightful)
It is a widely recommended practice for parents with a small child to burn and use copies of their CDs, and keep the 'master' (the original CD) in a safe place.
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
"All out books are completely normal and qualify for Library of Congress cataloging... we've simply removed the text as a precautionary measure to defeat the thieving scum of the world." says spokesman Yanash Smythe.
Re:In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
When contacted for comment, Addison Wesley CEO Marcus Ardaile added that any reported incidents of people not being able to properly read the new books must be caused by "faulty eyes" rather than any inherent problems with the textless printing process.
They're sabotaging everything (Score:5, Interesting)
I suspect they're engaged on some wacko conspiracy: "Do as much as we can to lose money and then blame it on customers. And then, once we've reached bottom, we'll ... um ... well, we haven't figured that part out yet. Our goal is to simply piss off consumers, hit bottom, and then blame folks."
What's interesting is that three years ago I was an active CD buyer. I was constantly buying stuff at Best Buy, was a member of all the CD clubs (even though that wasn't making anyone much money), and buying CDs on-line weekly.
Now, I've stopped. I won't buy another CD because I have no idea whether or not it will play in what I want to play it in, and I have absolutely no desire to try to bring it back to a place like Best Buy or send it back to a place like CDNOW or Amazon.com.
Instead, I'm enjoying my "old" CDs, installed my old Technics phonograph, and actively search out obscure stuff -- mostly CDs, some vinyl -- in local record stores. My music listening experience has gone way, way up, and I'm spending less than ever -- but finding stuff I like.
And I'll occasionally drop into Kazaa to listen to new stuff and try and determine, say, why Justine Timberlake is putting out new albums that sound like vintage Michael Jackson or why U2 and Aerosmith insist on putting out a new greatest hits album every other week or why Bob Dylan's *old* stuff is far and away better than anything he's put out since Infidels (which was, IMHO, the last good Dylan album). But that's about it.
So, yes, to the RIAA I say this: if your goal is to piss-off customers and lose them permanently -- congratulations!
Re:They're sabotaging everything (Score:4, Insightful)
1) Buy out all the radio stations
2) Raise the barriers to artists who don't "sell out"
3) Screw over the consumers
4)
5) Profit!
Re:They're sabotaging everything (Score:3, Interesting)
And about a year and a half ago, I just stopped. All at once there were companies getting sued for trading music internally, CDs were crippled, Napster was crushed. I haven't really expected much from my boycott. Consumers just seem way to sheep-like. But I'm not buying shit from these greedy record-company whores. What's amazing is, if they gave me some sort of all-I-can-listen-and-download deal, they'd probably make a fortune off me. I've been a netflix subscriber for like 4 years, and I probably get a movie every month or so (making it slightly cheaper than when I tried to rent from Blockbuster
I did buy DMB songs at a concert. I'd hate to have to give up DMB. I'd hate it. But what can I do? I don't have a CD player. Seriously. I don't own one. I have a computer, and a Nomad. I drive about an hour a week, if that, so the car CD player is out. So selling me a crippled CD is like selling me a ticket to see the band in Alaska. Not likely to be used. And so I won't buy them.
However, I am going to send $100 to Rick Boucher. And I'll do the same if my own newly elected Texan Senators do something to reign in out of control companies. I think nothing would benefit the US more than a big fat slap in the face of record and movie companies, who have all become the American iteration of kieretsu, or who are actually willing to take Microsoft and deal with it as the gigantic business-crushing consumer-screwing rapacious beast that it is, instead of letting it off easy for the _second_ time in an Anti-trust suit. Oh, well. Third time's the charm, eh? Maybe as Adobe dies, they'll really get broken into little bits.
Re:They're sabotaging everything (Score:3, Insightful)
I suspect they're engaged on some wacko conspiracy: "Do as much as we can to lose money and then blame it on customers. And then, once we've reached bottom, we'll ... um ... well, we haven't figured that part out yet. Our goal is to simply piss off consumers, hit bottom, and then blame folks."
Don't kid yourself, they're not that dumb. In fact, they're pretty damned smart people, regardless of what we'd like to believe.
First, their goal isn't to drive customers away, their goal is to stop piracy -- not the piracy that exists now as much as the massive piracy that they can see coming as inevitably as sunrise. They realize that the actions they're taking may drive customers away, but it's impossible to be completely sure, and it's really okay either way. Why?
Well, if the stuff they're doing stops piracy (or even keeps it from increasing) without alienating all of their customers, then they're in good shape. Particularly since these non-CDs are more fragile, which should increase purchases. They'll get back one of the things they liked most about vinyl and shellac.
On the other hand, if it doesn't work out like that then they'll run to the various governments, starting with the US, show their blood-stained balance sheets and claim that they're being put out of business by piracy and that they need legislation to protect them. If the governments oblige them by passing something like CBDTPA, they are suddenly in an incredibly powerful position, where they have more control than they have *ever* had, maybe more than they've ever dreamed. Suddenly, they become able to effectively write copyright law the way they want it. If they were also to get government authorization to act as the copyright police (c.f. the recent bill that would authorize the RIAA to proactively shut down file-trading networks), then they would be lawmaker, policeman, judge, jury and executioner with regard to anything that touches on music. Think there's an opportunity to make a buck there?
And, even if they only get part of the governmental support that they want, they may still end up with more power, control and cash flow than they have ever had.
On the other hand, they're smart enough to realize that trying to adapt to the "new reality" will spell a vast reduction in their power and influence. In a digital, networked age, distribution is a non-issue. If artists don't need the record companies to handle that huge and difficult job, what do they need them for? Venture capital? Not really, at least not for production, since a high-end PC with a professional-quality sound card pretty much eliminate the need for a multi million-dollar sound studio. What's left? Promotion. They fully recognize that becoming a specialized appendage of the advertising industry won't make them a tiny fraction of the money they make now.
And, finally, they realize that even if their anti-piracy measures fail, and their legal maneuvering fails, they can still fall back and become promoters, which is where they'll end up anyway. Sure, their actions will get them to that ignominious (from their point of view) end faster than doing nothing, but their actions create other possibilities, all of which are better (for them) than the pre-Internet era and some of which are hugely, unbelievably better.
Astute readers will note that in my summary of the above calculations nowhere was the interest of the artist mentioned. That's because it's not relevant, except as a second-order effect. Artists are the product, and every businessman knows that having a product does you no good if you can't sell it.
What's the right solution to make sure that artists are protected and paid so that we continue to have a flow of music and other entertainment? No one knows. It's clear, though, that the status quo is doomed. In 20 years, high-speed Internet connections will be as common as telephones are today. It will be possible to download a full album of music, or even a full movie, complete with cover art and extras cheaply and easily. That's a fact. Society will have to discover as time goes on just what that fact is going to do, and what kinds of business models can succeed.
Take 'em back (Score:2, Insightful)
I was under the assumption that Sony and Phillips owned all the rights to the use of the CD Logo and the right to claim that a CD is Red Book compliant. I'm sure Phillips will file suit against this.
This is all just an attempt by a dying industry to save itself. With the advent of P2P file sharing services and the now defunct Napster, people don't NEED record companies any more to distrinute their music or to give them their music.
In my ideal world, the music would be available for download from some web site by an artist and then a CD/DVD is made with lots of value add stuff, such as 5.1 surround mixes, possible music videos, etc.
Will hurt online sales (Score:2)
BMG will NEVER do this.
This is what intel tried with RDRAM. The market corrected them quickly and they suffered tremendously for it.
Ah well. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't buy CDs anymore... (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you?
Re:I don't buy CDs anymore... (Score:2)
It has happened... (Score:4, Interesting)
Watch as a new generation of young people (ages 6 through 16) hit Kazaa. Then Gnutella when Kazaa shuts down. When Peekabooty when P2P is getting hammered by **IA.
It's great news! I'm not being sarcastic. When they have to go to such lengts to protect a dead business model, all we have to do is sit back and laugh. And teach our familes how to use WinAmp or iTunes.
They FUNNY SHIT is this... I'd gladly pay PER SONG for an OGG download. But $20 for crap on an obsolete medium (CD's)? HA! Never...
Again, in short, they are dying and this is the first sign. enjoy the ride, you'll tell your grandkids about this.
*adds BMG to the "Companies to boycott"-list* (Score:2)
Language (Score:2)
European? (Score:3, Interesting)
Simple (Score:3, Insightful)
Better than deciding your scheme works in the US and hitting a brick wall in Europe.
Only choice is to boycott (Score:3, Insightful)
If they continue with the plan, I guess we all just have to find a way to rip them onto a cdR that isnt crippled so we can use what we own in the car, at work, etc..
If we dont stop it, then the others will follow suit shortly afterwards.
I wonder what Phillips has to say about this whole thing.
Re:Only choice is to boycott (Score:2)
Standard (Score:2, Interesting)
Furthermore, does BMG really think that producing "crippled" CDs will bring an end to CD burning and ripping. I for one have a Sony audio CD player connected to my sound card and if I cannot rip or burn a CD due to "crippling" I just pop that CD into the Sony player and rip it from there. It works great and has not flawed yet.
Customers, what customers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Markers? (Score:3, Informative)
Exactly how does this work, slashdot wants to know. Do you lose part of the first track, and just how wide does the marking have to be? If I can read between the lines, the "crippling" involves munging the TOC data in some way? If it can't read this bogus data, I guess the player just starts playing tracks at the point it can read, thus treating it as a read error, and recovering the stream if it can. Is that about right?
Doesn't this also mean that you can still read off the disk as data (computer CD player), and ignore the bogus TOC data? Windows probably won't cooperate, but other OSs should, right?
Re:Markers? (Score:3, Informative)
The second (third, ...) session contains bogus data, TOC entries that are outside the physical CD, (insert your favorite way to irritate CD drives here). So drives trying to read those sessions will hang up, think the CD is damaged or whatever (depending on their firmware).
Now, when you black out the outer regions (containing the later sessions), the drive can't find them and only uses the data in the first session, making the CD appear perfectly normal. As for "how wide the marking has to be", this depends on the size of the sessions. It's a question of fractions of millimeters, so it's a little hard, but manageable. The German IT magazine c't demonstrated it about a year ago.
This description may be a little simplified, but at least it's the basic principle.
Re:Markers? (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, claims that protected discs and unprotected discs take different amounts of Beating is FUD.
The TOC on audio is read without the audio player looking for additional "Sessions" (mind that CD-DA is a SINGLE SESSION standard, and that "sessions" is something different than "tracks"). This is why regular Audio-track-first Mixed mode CD's work in your sony discman in the first place.
So it doesn't go out and try to read the second session. And it works, because the first session is a completely standard CD-DA session.
The Computers CD-Rom player (and your mom's SUV's player) has firmware and drivers (mostly firmware) that tell it that a disc can contain multiple sessions. This means that it will try and look for those. Then it will bump into the "corrupted" session (the lead-in for that being pasted AFTER the lead out for the CD-DA session) and bum out.
If you mark out that whole session on the outer edge, it won't find it and you can copy and use your disc as normal. Simple as that.
So basically Sony and BMG (the Evil Empire) spent countless MegaDollars on research that resulted in a broken mixed mode disc. How fucked up is that? They deserve bankrupcy for their stupidity.
Another thing is that the first lead-in and lead out that form a TOC on a CD take 25 Mb off the disc. Then, every added session takes 15-20 Mb of space in TOC information. This means if artists start cranking out 74-minute CD's, the record companies won't have space on the physical medium to actually copy protect it AND be able to play it in a normal audio player.
DumbA$$e$.
That's ok! (Score:5, Funny)
Us consumers in the US can look to our government to stand up to this overt attack on our rights! Politicians in Washington aren't going to let these big record companies galavant about stomping on our rights!
After all, this is our culture that we're talking about. Surely the music of the time belongs to the people, right!? It's ours to share, the same as our wisdom and our stories, with each other freely. We all know that the progression of culture depends on the constant cycle of old becoming new, new artists seeking inspiration from those that went before.
I'm confident that the new government in Washington will honor these sacred things. We're all in good hands now!
Let's all have a glass of Victory Gin!
Re:That's ok! (Score:3, Funny)
S CLUB 7, HEAR'SAY, BACKSTREET BOYS, N SYNC, BRITNEY SPEARS...
If this is our culture, it's about time somebody put a bullet in it's head!
Stupidity or Strategy (Score:4, Insightful)
An analogy. You try to get a restraining order against some guy. The judge throws it out of court for lack of grounds. So you keep crank calling him, and egging his car, until he is so ticked off that you actually do need the protection.
What really bothers me about this... (Score:3, Interesting)
I know we'll eventually find a way around this copy-protection, I have no worries about that. What bothers me is the "Suck It Down!"(c) attitude BMG is taking on forcing people to buy new hardware if the disc doesn't work. I think they have the relationship between consumer and manufacturer switched. It's not like they are gracing our lowly presence, the hoi polloi, with goods they toss to us like slop to pigs.
"Here, this should be good enough for all of you. Too bad if you don't like it. Sooooooooooouuuuuuuiiiiiiiii!"
And yet they seem to act that way when trying to herd us all into something like this. I am a consumer, dagnabbit! I should be telling these companies what I want, and make sure they give it to me. It is the consumers who should be dictating where the market goes. But who is still listening to us? When did things change? Consumers have rights, use them!
In other news.... (Score:5, Funny)
as far as I can tell... (Score:2)
The solution is simple: don't buy their stuff. Or, if you do, just capture it into a more convenient format through an analog channel--even with a simple setup, you get quality that is basically indistinguishable from the original. And I wonder how many people will end up returning the CD after making a copy...
Bummer (Score:4, Insightful)
This is just getting more and more stupid. I'm not going to go download stuff from Kazaa just get, for one the effort it'd take to get it going in Wine combined with the general nastyness of the software and illegallity of it has put me off until now. I'm waiting for (and soon hopefully doing something about) the gift economy as a new model for music distribution, but there are quite a few technical and social hurdles to overcome first.
How long can the music industry keep this up though before what happened to Microsoft with Linux happens to the RIAA - the little people come out of the woodwork and come up with something new? Not long at this rate. Not long at all.
If you have a problems playing the cds... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:If you have a problems playing the cds... (Score:3, Interesting)
Frankly I don't care if the new CD of Abba covers from whoever won the 25th series of Popstars is copy protected, but if say Radiohead refused to produce more albums on a label because they crippled their cd's then some parts of the music industry will take notice.
Taking the Radiohead example further, their last two albums went straight into the charts at number 1, despite both being available on the net 4 weeks before their release. So I'm sure they know what mp3s can do for them.
I've just had a thought. Does anyone know how the supposed fall in CD sales breaks down between original albums and compilations? If all the drop in sales is attributable to the drop in sales of Now 78 etc. then that may actually be due to people burning compilations and/or piracy.
Bad move (Score:2)
does anyone else find it ironic... (Score:2, Funny)
(link on register site, near the bottom)
The use of lies to state their case... (Score:5, Interesting)
Two years ago, on a worldwide basis, one digital copy was made for every three music CDs sold. Last year, that ratio had shrunk dramatically to one-to-two. In 2001, for every CD album sold, one copy was burned.
Actually the statistic I read is that in 2001 for every CD album sold, one CD-R disc was sold. Obviously we can't assume that every single CD-R disc sold in the world was used to copy a copyrighted CD. Based on my experience in statistics and research methods regarding sampling and surveys(Psych major),I'm fairly confident that no one will ever be able to claim how many CD-R's were actually used to copy copyrighted material, so any numbers they throw at us should not be believed.
My personal theory is that the surge of independent music(which is easily accesible on the internet)is really why the major labels sales are down. Not only is independent music usually better, but it's available for free on P2P's all the time(which is why killing Kazaa/Gnucleus/etc. would seriously hurt the independent musician, and give more power back to major labels). I guess I'm preaching to choir here at slashdot though.
This is what I do (and I live in Europe) (Score:2)
When I buy a CD, I explicitly ask if it will play on my computer because I don't even *have* a regular CD player (because I don't need it, and I'm a student so don't want to spend money on things I don't even need..). Usually I directly rip 'em to ogg, nowadays.
If they tell me it will play but it doesn't I return it and ask my money back (btw. the smaller music stores usually don't lie about this anyway, so it's not a problem). Before I buy an album I usually have listened to it on MP3 anyway, so though luck for the artists I wanted to sponsor...
If they tell me it won't play, I don't buy it, but download it instead - you get what you deserve, after all, Record Labels!
Sign this petition (Score:3, Informative)
yipiie (Score:2)
maybe all the idiots listening to britney spears and all the other teen hookers (hello christina aguilera) though will get annoyed enough and stop buying their CDs.
maybe we should start a movement or sth.: buy any copy protected cd, 30minutes later return it saying it doesnt play in your car player. take another copy protected cd instead, and 30minutes do the same. come again the next day, and the day after and maybe someday your friendly clerk will be annoyed enough and will stop ordering them.
buy then why should we have the work when it seems that BGM has already dug their own grave! relax everyone, soon everything is over
They'll make it stick (Score:5, Insightful)
No? Look at the aggressive line that they're taking. "These are RedBook CD's and the problem is in your player". You can bet your life that they'll pass this position on to retaillers and make it 100% clear that they won't be accepting "bad media" returns on these disks.
So try taking one of these crippled music disks back to MonstroMart and claiming that it doesn't play in your CD player. Last month they'd have taken it back (maybe), and that cost Bertelsmann money. This month, they'll trot out the "the fault is in your player" line like the loyal little appendages that they are and stonewall you, because of two things. One, they know that it's not like you've got a choice in how you obtain music in the future, because every store will be carrying crippled disks, and two, if it turns out that your daddy is a lawyer, they can always point the finger at Bertelsmann and claim that ze vere only obeying orders.
Those people predicting a drop in sales that will scare off other music behemoths need to take a clue pill. Mandy Music Buyer doesn't read The Register or Slashdot, and she won't know about these crippled disks until she buys one. She'll buy the disk, then find out that it's crippled. Sure, she'll be pissed off if she can't play it in her mom's SUV's CD player (Mandy Music Buyer is 12-18, remember), but what's she going to do? Stop buying music disks? Friends, if she's still buying them today, she's not going to switch to kazaa or gnutella tomorrow. She's going to keep buying them and whine at her mommy that the man at the music store said the SUV's CD player was broken.
And heck, let's say I'm wrong, and sales do take a noticable dip. What are BMG going to blame it on? Their own greed and stupidity? Hahahaha! I'll give you short odds on "global economy" or (more likely) that this proves that people are thieves and criminals, and that we need Fritz chips right now to preserve Truth, Justice and the American Way. It's win-win for them, and all our outraged ranting won't make it otherwise.
There Is One Way They Can Lose (Score:5, Insightful)
You are right, our outraged ranting on slashdot won't make it otherwise.
However, our outraged ranting to our families, our friends, our coworkers, and our business associates (over beer, after work, etc.) will make all the difference in the world.
I have already shocked, appalled, and outraged numerous people simply by telling them what has been going on. It is particularly effective when it is done in response to "I think my PC is broken, it no longer plays my music" (oops, you saved your music in windoze media format and didn't unclick the DRM option. You won't be able to forget to do that in the next version of windows, because there won't be an option to unclick, everything will be 'protected.'
I have educated a pretty large number of non-savvy people about what is going on with the DMCA (Sklyrov, etc.), the RIAA (Janis Ian, Prince, etc. al documenting the recording industry's rape of artists AND consumers, etc.), and the MPAA (Fritz Disney Hollings et al), and they are pissed. Not at me, for ranting about technical issues they don't care about, but at these organizations and our hopelessly corrupt, wicked government. They are pissed because it has become painfully obvious that we do live under the tyranny of evil men, with apparently no way out, and they are sick of giving money to such.
So now they buy less CDs, attend less concerts, and go to less movies than before. Not a complete boycott like myself, but they are spending less and they are much, much more aware.
Which brings me to the the point of all this: there is one way in which WE, not THEY, can and should win:
Simply stop buying their crap.
Like music? Listen to independent artists ONLY. Do not buy any CDs from any record company, buy them direct from the artist or not at all. And if they are crippled, return them and publicly blacklist the artist for what they've done.
Like movies? Go see independent films only. If you cannot get over your pathetic addiction to the mindless bread and circuses of Hollywood, at least avoid seeing movies during the first two weeks of release (when most of the revninue goes to the studios), instead wait and see the movies in third or fourt weeks (when most of the revinue goes to the local thatre). Not as good as a proper boycott, but better than following the stampede.
In the end, though, is to simply be unforgiving of such people. Don't buy their stuff now, and don't ever buy it again. Get enough of your friends to feel likewise, and they will falter, even ultimately perish.
No one likes losing their freedom, and everyone sees it happening. Until now, they've only had the vague notion that 'the government' is taking away their freedoms and 'it doesn't seem to matter who we elect.'
Now there is a specific target for that ire, for that anger, a specific, relatively small group of companies that are actively, methodically, and deliberately stripping us of our freedoms, and use government collussion or, at best, apathy go do it.
And, unlike (most) governments, companies are something we as individuals can topple.
Re:They'll make it stick (Score:3, Interesting)
You're missing the point - they're trying this in Europe, where we have substantially stronger consumer rights than your side of the pond. If I get sold one of these discs, I'll simply return it as "unfit for purpose" under the (UK) sale of goods act for a full refund - and if the shop tries to refuse that, I'll bring a small claims court action against them (which is cheap and easy) and I'll win.
The only way shops could avoid this would be by clearly labelling these CDs as "This 'CD' may not work correctly in computers, in car CD players, and some audio CD players', and you can imagine the effect a label of that kind would have on sales... and even then the courts might still rule that they should accept returns.
The exact statement from BMG (Score:4, Interesting)
CDs by Independent Artists (Score:5, Interesting)
It's the best record store I've found anywhere. It's full of independent artists in every genre you could want. They have a sweet feature where you search for a band you like, say Limp Bizkit or POD, and it gives you independent artists like Stink!#Bug or Burning Edge. All the albums for sale have at least half of their tracks available to listen to before you buy.
If you aren't happy you can send your CD back for a full refund.
They even have a wide selection of jazz and classical performances.
I guess the artists get a pretty fat percentage of the profits from the CD. Much more than they would get if they were signed with a major label.
I'm not affiliated with CD Baby in anyway except as a very happy customer. Super happy. Happy happy happy. I've never been so happy about my relationship with a business.
If you are like me, you love music but don't support the rape of artists by major labels. CD Baby is the best place I've found to satisfy my cravings for great tunes. All of the CDs I've purchased from them played on my computer just fine, and ripped to ogg with no problems.
Recession (Score:5, Insightful)
"World music sales for the year 2001 fell by 5% in value and by 6,5% in units."
Blaming that music downloaders where the reason for the fell. I wonder if they remember that there was a recession in 2001, IT bubble broke and almost all industries fell into downswing. It would've been a miracle if CD sales hadn't dropped at all and 5% is LITTLE compared to the bankruptcies that other industries had to deal with.
(It's amazing that restaurants don't blame home cooks for the recession, stealing the recipes that they use, and using them free at home! can you see the analogy?)
Email Sent to BMG copy control (Score:3, Funny)
thankyou for clarifying the situation for me. My CD player cannot play the copy protected CD's and, due to poor labelling on CD's, I have had a lot of trouble knowing which CD's I shouldn't buy.
Now that I know all BMG produced CD's in Europe are to be copy-protected, it makes my purchasing easier; I'll stop buying CD's altogether. It's no hardship really, as the content on most of these CD's is not worth losing sleep over.
Yours sincerely
Ask the CD store for a guarantee (Score:3, Insightful)
I haven't bought many CDs in recent years, but I was just about to start again. I probably will buy one or two in the next weeks.
When I'm buying my CD, I will explain to them about this, and I want to know for sure that my computer can read it (it's the only CD player I have). I want a money back guarantee from them, or at least the right to swap my CD for another if it doesn't work. And if they refuse, I'll take my business elsewhere. It's not much, but there aren't many stores that don't care about selling stuff.
I want the stores to know that they're missing revenue and exactly why that's happening. They might ask their distributor for non-crippled CDs. That way at least my 'boycott' just might make some people aware of the quality of this idea.
A better solution (Score:3, Insightful)
What are the reasons people currently make illegal copies of music:
1) CD's are too expensive.
2) The artist only sees a fraction of the price of a CD.
3) It is illegal, which makes it more attractive.
4) It is possible.
CD manufactures currently try to attack only the fourth reason instead of focusing on the other three (well, perhaps the third reason is hard to remove). Besides, when my ordinary CD player can read the disk, the CD player in my computer can do it as well, but maybe it requires a firmware upgrade.
A better solution would be to focus on the other reasons and change the business model used to sell CD's. For instance, I think it would be really great to surf the net, download music from the artist's website, pay a honest fee for it and burn it to CD myself. I believe there are many other people who download music in this fassion if a fair price was asked.
Of course, you still have the problem that music can be copied, but it is impossible to change that. The only thing that can be done is make it more difficult, but once someone circumvents the copy protection, it is totally worthless. Instead, music makers should focus on bringing the prices of music down and improve the experience people get while buying music.
Stupid. Just plain stupid. (Score:3, Funny)
Analog degradation less than MP3...so why? (Score:5, Interesting)
The audio degradation experienced by ripping a CD via analog means (by either plugging in a cable into the line-out of the CD player and recording with any PC recording application, or using the 'Rip to Analog" feature of Musicmatch) is far less than the degradation produced by MP3 compression.
Since six years of MP3 has shown us that for the vast majority of people, even 160kbps MP3 encoding is "good enough," how will this stop their music from being pirated?
Very few people actually rip and upload...Gartner and Forrester both agree that 95% of mp3 content on P2P and other filesharing systems comes from less than 10% of the community. All you need is one guy to rip the content to analog, then upload. BMG will see no net reduction of pirating of their content.
Irnonically, the only ones to suffer from this inane decision are those who legitimately purchased the "CD." They will be plagued with a hobbled, limited-use product, which may actually convince them that P2P is actually a more convenient choice. No one else will even notice, as they will continue to download the content.
Rolling Stones tell people like this to fuck off (Score:3, Informative)
Excerpts from the letter:
"Because of you, my kids will stop wasting time listening to new music and seeking out new bands."
"No more harmful exposure of thousands of bands through Internet radio, either."
"Don't worry, computers are just a fad anyway, and the Internet is just plain stupid."
Copying CDs is a right in some countries (Score:3, Interesting)
What burns my britches is that this decision is in direct contradiction with well-established consumer rights in some countries.
For instance, in Cananda, I have the right to make verbatim copies of any media I want, as long as I am the owner of the original and do not allow more than one copy to be used at the same time. I'm pretty sure that I could legally burn 10,000 copies of any BMG title and use them to shingle my roof if I so desired (I wouldn't, but I could).
I'm also pretty sure that BMG is not allowed to restrict these rights.
The problem is that even though we have these pretty strong consumer rights in Canada, interest in protecting these rights by the government has eroded to the point where it is just a funny funny joke.
Another problem I have is that I do not buy CDs at the "big" stores. I purchase from a local music dealer who I have a good relationship with. If it was HMV I'd just return the CD and say "it don't work". I don't give a shit if BMG isn't going to reimburse HMV, because I'll stand there and power pout until I get my fscking way. I won't feel so good about doing that to a smaller retailer.
This actually happened recently when I picked up the latest "Queens of the Stone Age" and the CD wouldn't mount in my iBook. I wasn't even ripping or burning it. I was fscking trying to listen to the CD at the coffee shop. No, we can't have that, so it locks up the iBook CDRom player so hard I have to reboot to read any CD. I want to return it, but I'd feel bad going back to this great music store I found.
If I was feeling paranoid, I'd suggest that this tactic also has the effect of hurting smaller retailers more, leaving BMG, HMV &etc. with an even bigger share of the CD retailer market.
Reading this article has reminded me how much people suck. Grumble. Bitch. Complain.
Sue the CDDA logo owner (Score:3, Interesting)
Red Book standard compliance (Score:4, Informative)
Philips wants five thousand dollars for the Red Book [philips.com], and requires that you sign an NDA. But if you want to learn the details you can buy the actual international standard, IEC standard 60908 [www.iec.ch], for CHF 226 (about $156).
Other good sources of technical detail about the CD Audio format are:
- The Art of Digital Audio [amazon.com] by John Watkinson
- Principles of Digital Audio [amazon.com] by Ken Pohlmann
Both of these books provide fairly detailed explanations of the data format, but for the actual physical specifications you have to refer to the standard.Re:This bites (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:This bites (Score:3, Insightful)
I've never purchased an audio CD in my life -- I don't own a single one (well, except for a hybrid CD, Marathon I, that also has the game music in Red Book).
I was thinking, recently, about possibly purchasing one, though I'd lose my reputation, but the rapid elimination of CDs has solved this at two levels -- I have far less interest in a CD-like device with no error correction, and even in the unlikely case I did purchase one, it wouldn't be a CD.
Re:This bites (Score:4, Insightful)
The same goes for CDs. The specification doesn't neccessarily mean that the CD will be playable - only that it has certain features and is encoded in a certain way.
Nick...
Re:This bites (Score:5, Informative)
The red book standard is as naked as it can be. Basically it provides for:
1) A TOC. Table of contents containing information on track start and stop time. Generally a lead-in and lead out apply, taking approximately 25 Mb space on the disc. The rest is reserved for the body of audio data.
2) Digital wave info. A 44.1 Khz stereo wave recorded digitally onto the CD's surface. This is done in a non-encoded (let's not get caught in the semantical discussion on digitising vs encoding, please... ) way. There's not even any ECC or EDC information in that scheme. The CDDA red book standard is a butt-naked RAW audio data standard.
The Red-book standard technically does not allow for fancy schmancy stuff such as mixed-mode discs, multiple sessions (which is how mixed mode is made) and such.
Adherence To The Specification WILL mean that a CD will be playable in any CD-player that has been made since 1981. Period. This is a non debatable point.
Re:This bites (Score:3, Informative)
Actually there is some encoding done, but not for protection reasons. EFM (Eight-to-Fourteen Modulation) represents every byte as a 14-bit number. The bits are arranged to maximize bandwidth usage and more evenly distribute the bits (so you don't have stretches where there are no pits/bumps on the disc).
The encoding is as simple as a lookup table, and is again designed only to maximize bandwidth. You can actually fit more data using 14 bits representing each byte than you can with 8, simply due to the physical characteristics of the media. Found a link with a bit of info [discusa.com]. I guess technically Modulation is the word, but it is a form of encoding.
And there is some error correction in this (CIRC), also described at the link (not in much detail though).
I agree with your other points, though. These CDs can't be redbook compliant. I believe the redbook standard covers all aspects of the CD, from the data itself to the physical medium, though I haven't researched that in quite some time...
On that note, some newer Sony car stereos (two I have experience with, one from 1997 and one 2001) still have a very difficult time with burned CDs (yet I can play an audio CDRW in my $25 portable). Only if I burn at 2x and on particular brands of media (oddly, Sony CD-R's aren't one of them) will they play reliably.
I'm sure these "copy-protected" CDs would have trouble with these Sony units as well. I would have thought Sony of all people would have more robust CD units by now, but apparenlty they're using cheap (out-dated?) components... most CD/DVD players sold these days will read anything you can throw at them.
Re:Title incorrect (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Title totally accurate (Score:2)
Once you break that standard you cant use the term, thus they arent "CD's" anylonger.
Donno what you call them.. besides incompatible garbage.
Re:Title incorrect (Score:2, Funny)
Re:This is a good thing! (Score:5, Informative)
BMG U.S. Latin
Buddha
BMG Asia Pacific
J Records
Yclef Records
Logic
RCA Records
RCA Victor Group (includes Private Music, RCA Victor, Red Seal, and Windham Hill)
Robbins Entertainment
Zomba Label Group (includes Brentwood, Jive, Jive-Electro, Reunion, Silvertone, and Verity)
They also distribute ATO, Kinetic Records, Milan, Razor & Tie, Restless, Santuary Records Group, V2 and Wind-Up.
And I'm sure I've missed a few....
Kierthos
There's around 200 of them (Score:2)
There's about 200 of them all told. This is a HUGE company. The major subdivisions (just in the record division, they own a lot in other areas too) are Arista, J Records, RCA Music Group, and BMG Asia, Latin, Europe, Music Publishing, and Distribution. I couldn't find a thorough listing of their 200+ front labels, but I think that if you look at the fine print they'll all say something about being associated with Arista, J Records, RCA, or BMG something or other...
Re:simple economics (Score:3, Insightful)
Which group is going to buy more CDs? I'd wager that group two is nearly as large as group one, and group three is really quite a small minority. Further, group three is far more likely to download copyrighted songs from the internet, further decreasing their CD spending dollars.
So, the plan was to interfere with group three while keeping one and two as customers. This plan, however, is mighty in its foolishness since it will convince group two to avoid BMG CDs while group three will continue as it always has. Rather than affect the criminals, they treat a large segment of their customers as criminals while the law breakers carry on unhindered.
If that isn't a plan put into action by fools, I guess I'll start believing that making guns illegal will mean that nobody has guns.