Sony Music Testing New Copy Protection 426
RandyOo writes "According to this Reuters article, Sony Music is about to start testing a new type of 'copy protection' in Germany. It looks like they'll be releasing multi-sessioned discs with normal audio in the first session, and compressed, DRM'ed music files in the second session, as well added 'extras', including access to exclusive online content. The article explains that the disc's audio can still be copied, and there's a hilarious quote at the end by a BMG spokesman: "All copy-protections can be hacked, but if (we) give people what they are asking for in terms of value, they won't go out and steal it. It's called trusting the consumer." "
Re:Not new.. (Score:4, Informative)
Better article on The Register (Score:5, Informative)
The Register also have an article [theregister.co.uk] today on the subject.
According to the article in The Register, the old discs where unpopular with consumers because they could not be played on PCs, or riped to portable music players.
The new discs will have a second session, containing encrypted audio data, that can be played on a PC, using Sony's software (On supported platforms, non lintel users need not apply). The audio can also be copied to a portable music player, but only sony players are supported.
In conclusion, I would say that while sony have listened to consumer complaints about their last copy protected disc, their solution is hardly any better. Even John Q Public will see these new discs as no better than the old ones if he owns another brand of portable music player.
Re:so now what, (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I've stopped buying copy-protected CD's (Score:3, Informative)
You're missing the point. (Score:5, Informative)
Ripping a CD to any desired format for use in a personal mp3 player, or on the computer or for any other purpose is clearly covered under fair use. There's no reason someone who purchases a CD should be additionally limited by some hackneyed copyright scheme.
All the RIAA is trying to do, is make someone click 'ok' to some licensing terms when they copy music from a CD, so that when their watermarked copy shows up online, they don't even have to -prove- that it ever got traded, or even got traded outside fair use guidelines. its mere existence is proof of guilt. (lower legal burden of proof)
no copy protection scheme will ever stop hackers, and they know this - but they're trying to leverage an inconvenience against all their -paying-customers- to try to make life easier for themselves in punishing the few criminals.
it is however, a self-fulfilling prophecy for the labels. the more they sue customers, the more they illegally fix prices, the more they monopolize all methods of distribution and cripple their primary product -- the more customers they'll lose.
they of course will only interpret this as being 'due to filesharing', and in a sense they're right. but to be complete, it's due to their -response- to filesharing.
beyond all that, there has never been any data to prove that downloaded material online represents lost sales. CD sales rate fell well within the bounds of every other industry who has been taking a hit in the economy -- and only knocked sales Ffrom their -all-time-high- in 2000. (pre bubble bursting, post napster)
the RIAA is simply fighting to maintain their distribution monopoly. they aren't worried about losing customers - because if they win, you'll have no choice if you want music (as now). but if they lose - they'll cease to exist.
Re:Thieves Hate Locks (Score:3, Informative)
DRM doesn't stop music copying - all it does is make it inconvenient for honest people. As you say. So those who are whining about it are exactly those who are being inconvenienced.
The pirates don't give a damn, 'cause all of these 'protections' can be easily circumvented with a bit of tech (eg linux+cdparanoia, cdplayer+optical out, etc.).. People who download music don't give a damn either, because they can just as easily download this music too (see previous sentence.)
Frankly I have no idea why the recording industry people do it. It doesn't achieve their stated aim, and just pisses off the very people who spend money on music.
Re:Clever (Score:5, Informative)
This could actually have a very pleasant side effect working in favor of the free world, if those files contain DRM (which they most certainly do)...
The collective thought process of the file sharing world will become: ".WMA files are broken,
I don't know about you, but I'd be happy to see DRM and WMA become hated among non-technical users. It would be great to see the user community truly revolt against closed technology for the same reason us open source geeks do.
Re:so now what, (Score:5, Informative)
Music can be losslessly compressed to about 1/2 of the original size on average, depending on the source material. There's a slight difference in size and speed when using FLAC vs. Shorten vs. Monkey's Audio, but nothing too significant. But most people are going to stick with the 10:1 compression offered by mp3 and vorbis since few care about the additional quality offered by an exact copy of the original.
Re:You're missing the point. (Score:1, Informative)
Exactly. What's more, THESE are the people who are breaking the law.
Ultimately the people downloading the music don't know who hold the copyright on each piece of music or what the distrubution terms are (since the files no longer bear a copyright notice). They are not explicitly bound by any law or license that prevents them from downloading things.
The people who pay for the CD, then make and distribute copies know who holds the copyright and are bound by it. THEIR actions are illegal. (and most CDs carry a notice that makes this very clear.)
Realistically, the person downloading the mp3 usually knows that it is not being legally distributed there, and there's probably some lawyeresque term for that, but that's not necessarily the case and that doesn't mean the person who put the files there is in the clear.
Yet another reason to buy a Mac or run Linux? (Score:3, Informative)
It seems that any computer running Linux would be able to bypass this scheme easily enough, simply by force-mounting the appropriate (music) session and ripping from it. And on a Mac, multi-session CDs mount all sessions as separate disk images, so the user should be able to rip to MP3 or AAC from within iTunes. So unless the record label does something to break these CDs on Mac OS X and/or Linux, they should rip and play just fine on those platforms.
Re:Place your bets! (Score:2, Informative)
The firmware on a multisession capable drive reading a non-conforming disc may not be able to find the audio tracks, which is the entire point of Corrupt Disc copy prevention measures. Some drives, as Man Eating Duck pointed out below, do come with utilities to tell the firmware not to look at subsequent sessions.
Re:so now what, (Score:2, Informative)
Erm, I hate to say it, but all of these formats are lossy. Apple touts them as "CD quality", which is probably true, but data is lost when converting to them and the original cannot be recovered.