CD Copy "Protection" in California 377
Tabercil writes "According to this New Scientist article, the SafeAudio system has been employed here in North America in an unidentified CD which has already sold 100,000 copies." It'll be interesting to see what CD it is. My biggest concern is the car CD players that actually are computers not being able to play these discs. Presumably the copy protection will be broken soon enough, so thats not really an issue.
People need to be educated about this (Score:2)
CD Audio Out --Line IN = Already Broken (Score:4)
Re:It must be... (Score:2)
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Re:It must be... (Score:3)
Even if they make something that my cd-rom drive doesn't like, I can still just connect the digital out on my cd player to the spdif in on my sound card. WHOOPS, did I just get a perfect digital copy? MY BAD!
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Re:It must be... (Score:3)
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heh. (Score:3)
it's sorta like saying "okay, you can LOOK AT this bag of dog shit, but you CAN NOT make more bags of dog shit and give them to your friends."
oh darn.
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Doesn't sound too heinous (Score:3)
If memory serves me correctly, programs like CDParanoia already interpolate across unreadable samples when ripping a CD. It seems simple enough to check for "obviously" bogus samples and weed them out. Viola - end of copy protection.
OK, now someone who knows what the real deal is can explain to me why this argument is complete hogwash
Re:Doesn't sound too heinous (Score:3)
Re:People don't care? (Score:5)
When *I* was in college, around 1975, a high-priced LP was in the $9 range. Using the Cost of Living Calculator at http://www.newsengin.com/neFreeTools.nsf/CPIcalc?O penView we find that $9 in 1975 is the equivalent of $29.44 today. In other words, if a CD today costs $15, then its about HALF the cost of a music recording in 1975.
...phil
Re:It must be... (Score:2)
Analog Rips? (Score:2)
DAE provides a staic free copy-- the best possible staringpoint for a Vorbis or MP3 encoder.
Re:People don't care? (Score:2)
CD's cost me $15-17 at the time.
Today I buy them for $13-15.
I don't know about cost of living, but that isn't a price increase in my book.
Can holder (Score:2)
But then you must find another place to leave your beverages.
__
Nope... (Score:2)
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Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:How about ripping in Analog mode? (Score:2)
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You know, you gotta get up real early if you want to get outta bed... (Groucho Marx)
Re:Could this be considered fraud? (Score:4)
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You know, you gotta get up real early if you want to get outta bed... (Groucho Marx)
Re:Can holder (Score:2)
Actually. . . The lab consultants always used a particular workstation at the front of the room. Since there was a consultant there 6 - 12 hours each day, that workstation got hit the hardest, including the CD-ROM drive, which blew a gear or something sometime during the second semester, so it stopped working. One day I jimmied the tray out and set my Coke can on it (it's not like I was going to break it, right? And the Coke was still sealed, so it wasn't going to spill.) One of the other consultants came into the lab, took one glance, and colapsed on the floor laughing. Good times, those.
-"Zow"
Re:It must be John Tesh! (Score:5)
My vote is definitely for John Tesh (I got a good laugh out of the ad he did for that new show on Comedy Central).
Back in college I worked as a consultant in the undergrad computer science lab (only CS students had accounts). Like most CS labs, many people brought in CDs and listened to them on their headphones using the CD-ROM drive on the machines. Ocassionally someone would forget their CD when they left, but we'd just put them next to the machine and they'd be back for them. One time someone forgot their John Tesh CD. We put that one up next to the blackboard with a big arrow and something like "Whoever forgot their John Tesh CD it's right here->".
Nobody would claim it.
It sat up there for the next month until the semester was over and the CD was, presumeably, discarded. Hence my vote is for John Tesh all the way!
-"Zow"
Where were you buying records? (Score:3)
Were were you buying records? Sam Goody? Mall chains? (Where, incidentally, most CDs sell for $17 in-store today, not $15. They're $15 online, where the difference is mde up in handling fees.)
By my calculations, an album that ran $8 in 1983 is $14 and change in today's dollars. Which is about right at most of the places I shop--independent record stores.
However, inflation has just gotten us there. By my reckoning using the same calculator, CDs should have been selling for $10-$12 ten years ago if they were priced to mirror vinyl pricing. And since the early '90s, CDs have been much cheaper to produce and distribute than LPs, and are less vulnerable to heat and water damage or breakage while in transit.
Slashdot should be completely behind this... (Score:3)
Prehaps the CDs we're been buying all along have had this protection.
With 100,000 CDs sold and no large scale complaints, it may be the case that this new form of copy protection is exactly the same as having no copy proection at all.
Score one for the RIAA!
Re:US Constitution a common law document? (Score:2)
If I remember correctly, Louisiana law was originally based on the Napoleonic Code, owing to its status as formerly French territory. The only notable differences that I know of are in the areas of estates and inheritances and stuff like that...
Re:violate fair use? (Score:2)
Apparently you have forgotten the golden rule of car audio: All cassette car stereos shall eat 50% of all cassettes placed into them, without fail. It's funny we talk about this because one of the benefits of the CD revolution is pollution wise (well...apart from the fact that billions of cassettes were dumped in the garbage, cast off as obsolete): I remember being younger and quite frequently you would see several hundreds yards of tape floating down the street, or a case smashed into a million pieces, etc. Because of the "stereo must eat cassette" cardinal rule people were often quite frustrated and hurled the result out the window.
Re:violate fair use? (Score:2)
I have to admit that I have never dropped a CD in the car, and I haven't had a CD that was so scratched that it was unplayable since the sunrise of the CD revolution (when I was a little less careful).
Cost-wise I don't know if I agree with your assertion: You're talking about a dupe, so given that we should compare a CD-R to a good blank cassette - Here in Canada I'd say that a 100% quality CD-R is about $0.70 CDN each, whereas a good quality cassette (it's been a long time since I bought one) is about $2.50.
Re:How about ripping in Analog mode? (Score:2)
Yup, you're right. :-)
In a humorous coincidence I was actually just coming on here to post a follow-up correction: My memory was spurred when I pulled up IMDB to check if the consensus opinion on 13 Days was as bad as I found it to be.
Re:How about ripping in Analog mode? (Score:5)
They state that it doesn't prevent analog copying, so yes you could copy the analog signal.
Copy protection is not what most "everything for free" Slashdotters think it is: It is not black and white, and just because a techie with a lot of free time can "break" it doesn't mean that the protection is a failure. It doesn't have to be 100% effective to be effective.
All copy protection has to achieve to commercially protect a product is that it makes the process more inconvenient for the average Joe/Jane than simply going to the store and picking up the CD: Whether it degrades the quality enough that they are willing to just buy a copy, or it makes the process inconvenient enough (i.e. The deCSS process in the early days was ridiculously inconvenient for the average Joe, which is why they sought to squash it in the early days before it becomes a Windows "wizard" to rip a DVD to a MPG), or it takes too much of their time: For the $15 level that we're talking about it's a very small "nuisance factor" that will lead most average citizens to just go buy the product rather than waste their time. I've ripped MP3s just because I can go in and select a track (and through IMDB instantly it's even titled correctly and everything), and it automatically pulls an MP3 copy. If, on the other hand, I had to sit here pressing record and stop at the right moment, and prune off the ends, and live with a degraded copy (all audio-in channels on the major soundcards are garbage), and manually identify each track: There's no way I'd do that, and while there's lots of little kids with nothing better to do who are willing to, a large majority of the consumers would rather part with $15 than deal with the hassle.
It's similar to the software market: There are warez channels on IRC, and to most people that is the downfall of the software industry...then after a couple of 1GB+ downloads which were corrupt you give up and never touch warez again. Even if you duped the CD off a friend, often you need a crack and most people are extremely wary of cracks (trojans, viruses, etc.), so they'd rather just buy the product that endure the risk.
Re:violate fair use? (Score:2)
There is case law. The Betamax case is the most famous, but there's also some that relate to video games (maybe modchips) I think. Actually, now that I think about it, the Audio Home Recording Act is a "fair use" law.
however, it is completely legal for companies to use technical measures (but not legal measures) to try to prevent you from doing those things. this btw, is precisely why dmca is so dangerous: it turns any technical protection measure into a legal one as well.
You sound confused. If DMCA turns a technical protection measure into a legal one, then by your previous sentence this means that companies can't do it. That would actually make DMCA a good thing.
You've stuffed up somewhere in your logic, but I'm not sure where. I think it's where you draw a distinction between technical measures and legal measures. I don't think there's any such distinction, and the laws apply to any measures (legal or technical) which restrict fair use rights. The more interesting question is has fair use been restricted if technical measures prevent lossless duplication, but allow lossy duplication?
Re:It must be... (Score:3)
~GoRK
Re:Doesn't sound too heinous (Score:2)
A trick which game software companies have been using for some time, which is trivial for existing software to already work around. Hardly safe from ripping, though presumably you'd need more sophisticated software.
Re:Intentional degradation of audio... (Score:2)
If they added crap to the audio stream, they really slit their own throats with every audiophile.... but then they might just be doing this to rap and grunge.. then noone will notice that anything was done to the audio.
Could this be considered fraud? (Score:4)
First, they aren't mucking with the TOC, but putting delibrate errors in the data, and mucking with the ECC
However, they are still selling CDs which aren't standards compliant. This leads to a rather interesting question: If you sell a "CD" that purposely doesn't conform to the standard, is it fraudulent to sell it as a CD? It could be possible to claim that as their CDs don't have the proper ECC, they are lacking a standard feature present in all other functional and non-damaged CD's, and the manufacturers are knowingly selling a defective product.
I doubt that they could be hit under fair-use laws, but if the packaging of the CDs claim that they are normal CDs, without mentioning the copy protection, they might be liable under consumer protection laws.
Re:It must be... (Score:2)
There's linux sound drivers on the site as well.
Pan
Re:It must be... (Score:2)
Re:Actually, it's ... (Score:2)
No its not (Score:5)
Re:violate fair use? (Score:2)
The reason for your lack of power is that you are apathetic. You say that other people do not have the power to change the world, but that is not true. You can not deny that change happens. And it must always start with an individual.
But you attempt to discourage others from working for change, so that they will become impotent like you. You are using what little power you have to try to make this negative change occur. That's not a very nice thing to do.
-=Ivan
Re:A shot in the foot! (Score:2)
Tan.
Re:violate fair use? (Score:2)
Re:violate fair use? (Score:2)
Actually, it's ... (Score:2)
According to this [zdnet.com], someone's already posted mp3's of the tracks, but the label denies that the copy protection was truly circumvented.
And, incidentally, this looks like old news--the press releases I saw were dated in May.
Re:violate fair use? (Score:2)
(FWIW, I've been collecting CDs since 1985 or 1986 when my father got his first CD player. Single disc JVC. ~$400, marked down from $700.)
Re:violate fair use? (Score:2)
If I sue Sony in small claims court and win, great. But there is an up and a down. Up is, I win, and it wasn't too expensive. Down is that there really isn't any precedent that is applicable to you (unless you live in Charles Co. MD, USA)
But, it probably won't happen. From what I heard somewhere (and not only am INAL, I'm Not a Good Listener:) Sony will likely try to get the case moved to some larger court.
Okay, let's say that it goes to a larger court. I need a lawyer to make my $15 claim. He doesn't want to do work for a contingency fee of $5, so he says "how 'bout a class action?" So we get a bazillion people to sue Sony. Sony says no, but really means yes (to the class action, that is). We're going to pay the same amount of lawyers (companies like that don't have small court cases) and take care of a bazillion cases. So immediately, they have saved a bazillion*(number of cases-1) dollars.
So, I win my $10. I may or may not have to pay my attorney's fees. And my attorney gets fees + bazillion*$5 (he's getting a contingency on all members of the class).
So, 'my' attorney wins, Sony wins, and everyone else loses.
Pretty shitty system, huh?
(Of course, there are many other ways that this can happen, but Sony knows that the real costs are attorneys, not plaintiffs. If they want class action, or a quick settlement, it should automatically mean that that is not in your favor as a plaintiff.)
Re:violate fair use? (Score:2)
Don't expect this to last, though. Sooner or later, Congress (and/or the courts) of the US will change this to saying that you did NOT buy the tangible property, you merely licensed the data on it for specific uses.
Re:Price drop! (Score:2)
LOL. Hahahaha! Man, that is the funniest shit I've heard in a long time.
Re:violate fair use? (Score:4)
You ripped a perfect copy. If you burn the copy, warts and all, wouldn't it still play identically to the copy that you bought? I haven't read the article (unusual on
It's like some of the old copy-protection schemes for computer games: if you copy the disc, warts and all, you were successful (Yes, I remember that sometimes that only worked on REALLY good floppy drives, and under some other circumstances, but the last ditch effort in copying a game was just to do a damned good bit-by-bit copy)
Re:How about ripping in Analog mode? (Score:2)
Well for one thing, steganographic signatures can be overlayed on the music which, while not discernable by the human ear, can be detected by analysis, even after a sample has been "degraded" by the analog conversion. Expect steganographic signatures to become very widespread on music distribution media soon. MP3's would be traceable to the source they were copied from.
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Thats not an issue anyway (Score:4)
I'm tired of hearing the same old tired argument of "so what if they implement stuff like this, somebody will just crack it anyway". The implicit message is that it is acceptable behaviour for companies to implement any level of copy "protection" that they want. It isn't - the message that consumers should be sending is "it is not acceptable IN THE FIRST PLACE", not "it is acceptable, go ahead, somebody will crack it". The former approach deems the RIAA's behaviour "good" and the crackers' behaviour "bad". The latter approach deems the RIAA's behaviour "bad". This is a very important distinction. Whether or not someone will crack it, "somebody" shouldn't have to crack it in the first place.
And I don't disagree that recording companies should be allowed to protect their IP - those who push this argument are missing the real motives of the recording companies, which is not just to protect their IP, but to monopolize content creation and distribution channels, as well as to eventually implement pay-per-view ubiquitously (with elimination of fair rights use being a side-effect).
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Re:Did you read it? (Score:2)
When the drives switches to data mode, a single bit can kill a program. In this case, heavy ECC is called for. CD rippers work by reading an audio CD in data mode. The 'burst of sound' are designed to confuse the ECC algorithms. The answer is new firmware or a driver that will disable the ECC routines of the drive.
Re:this is HORRIBLE! (Score:2)
Is this technique only effective when a disk is encoded as an MP3 or other lower bitrate format, or does it corrupt the actual raw CDA audio stream?
The difference is important, because with storage becoming so much cheaper over the next few years, I expect more and more people will simply either copy the CDA files, or "rip" to WAV format anyway, eliminating the MP3/vorbis/whatever encoding step entirely. Would that buy you anything in this circumstance?
Any insights?
Price drop! (Score:5)
Also, since this wonderful copy protection prevents piracy, will the cost of a CD go down because of the increase in revenue on more sales of "originals"?
--
Charles E. Hill
Re:Macs are different (Score:2)
Oops, my bad. It just means the conversion occurs closer to the speakers, so you (theoretically) get better sound. The inside of your computer is electrically noisy, so it's best to keep things digital while they're in there.
I'm not too sure about the details here, but I knowApple switched CD playback mechanisms with a fairly recent OS release (either 8.6, 9.0, or 9.1), and I know it went from analog-out from the CD drive to digital-out. Why did they do it? I'm not entirely sure--I can only guess. At least it doesn't suck much CPU time (1.5%).
Macs are different (Score:3)
Ever since MacOS 9 (I think), the MacOS has handled CD audio digitally. The digital data goes into memory (DMA, I hope), and is converted into analog by the sound chip as with any other digital sound signal. The advantage is that, if you have digital speakers, there's no unnecessary D-to-A conversion.
Macs will either be able to rip these CDs, or they won't be able to play them. Seeing as Mac users are a particularly rabid bunch (perhaps even more rabid than Linux users), it will be funny to see what happens when they Mac-attack the big recording studios.
It must be... (Score:5)
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Wetware protection (Score:2)
Xix.
It's a Charley Pride CD (Score:3)
http://www.secinfo.com/d1157k.43b.htm [secinfo.com]
And, of course, here's a link to buy it at Amazon [amazon.com].
Not really... (Score:2)
Not really.
If they were smart, they'd only replace samples where the typical interpolation done by CD players would hit the original sample value on-the-nose, or close enough as not to matter. There should be PLENTY of those.
Might be interesting... (Score:3)
It might be interesting to institute a suit to block any company producing copy-protected CDs from receiving their share of the "tax" money. B-)
Re:Did you read it? (Score:2)
Heh, Macrovision says it's not discernible.
Funny that Macrovision's video "protection" is quite discernible...
Re:US Constitution a common law document? (Score:2)
Re:Doesn't sound too heinous (Score:2)
I burned a CD designed for multisession only and hence didn't allow you to burn the TOC in the normal place (?). My computer read it just fine, but my CD player refused to see any tracks...
Re:This protection has no future (Score:2)
I'm not a pro by any means, but I can hear most little inconsistancies in my music. I wish I knew which album they encoded so I could try to find it and try this myself.
Save yourself 50c (Score:2)
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Something I don't understand... (Score:2)
It looks like this scheme will only stop you ripping the CD to a WAV file (eg for MP3 encoding). It will still be possible to make 'perfect' (errors intact) copies of the CD.
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violate fair use? (Score:3)
I don't go making copies of CD's for friends, but if I want to make copies so I don't scratch the heck out of my originals isn't that something I should be allowed to do?
I can't think of the copyright provisions that grant me this right off the top of my head, someone help me out here.
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Re:It must be... (Score:2)
I'm surprised they didn't give the name of the CD, though; the sales would be through the roof. I bet most of the sales of the Charlie Pryde CD were from hackers feeling as though they had been challenged.
Re:violate fair use? (Score:2)
Why is it a Crime to break into someones house and steal their stuff?? I never do that!
It's also a crime to shoot people who walk down the sidewalk next to your house because they might have been planning to break in.
Why is it a Crime to kill people? I never hurt anyone!
It's also a crime to punch anyone who comes near you because they might have been planning on killing you.
I know, I'm pushing the bounds a bit there with my counters, but my point is that stopping something that is illegal is fine, but when it steps on the rights of people who aren't doing anything illegal, it becomes a problem.
In my opinion, that is what this does. (Except that I don't think it actually will stop anyone, from what the article described.)
--Ty
Re:give me a break (Score:2)
Interesting. I would how a digital console would react to such an incoming digital signal. The desk might balk and not recognize it at all.
It would be interesting to try this.
Rich...
Re:violate fair use? (Score:2)
Not illegal, fraud. They wont tell us the name of the CD because they fear a class action lawsuit ... How would you like your money back and 100$ in punitive damages x 100,000 people?
The idea that a copyright holder is legally obligated to produce a work in a form that is compatible...
Once again -- they can release their work in whatever format they'd like, but if they market it as a CD it damn well better be a *fully compatible cd.* Second of all, corporations do not have absolutle power over their works *by law* so get that out of your head. The act of selling a work alone reduces their rights -- if they want COMPLETE control then they musn't release the work.
Re:violate fair use? (Score:4)
Up to including music CDs with microbursts of static interspersed with the music.
This is also wrong -- the cd has errors on it on purpose *to undermine fair use*. I open each of my cds exactly once, make mp3s of it, and then the cd goes in a box in my closet -- I listen to all my music on my computer or my mp3 player. I don't even own a cd player. *THIS I PERFECTLY LEGAL.*
The fact alone that they are unwiling to say what cd(s) are copy-protected is essentially an admission of guilt -- they are *misrepresenting the CD* and this is fraud.
Idea time.... (Score:2)
If this new protection scheme doesn't work in car radios, can I "protect" a few of the cd's owned by the little thug-wannabes in my neighborhood?
Re:violate fair use? (Score:3)
Fair use does NOT give you any rights. Rather, it makes it so certain things are not copyright violations, so if you do them, you can't be sued for copyright violation.
Nothing in there says the copyright owner has to help you do them, or can't take steps to stop you from doing them (or can't refuse to sell you the copy unless you contractually agree not to do them, although this generally won't happen for music CDs).
Re:Yes, but.... (Score:2)
Re:violate fair use? (Score:2)
Re:Did you read it? (Score:2)
Re:People don't care? (Score:3)
Re:violate fair use? (Score:3)
I agree the DMCA may not hold up in the long run over this, but I'd not want to be one of the first few tried against it.
Re:violate fair use? (Score:3)
Perhaps you should read it in depth youself, particularly the part right here [cornell.edu] where it says:
That certainly seems to suggest that there is a loophole written into the law that says that personal, non-commercial use of such devices is specifically allowed. There is also no mention that the rule is changed if the recording is switched from one format to another, so this applies not only to copying from one CD to another but also to converting CDDA tracks to MP3s so that you can play them on your portable MP3 player.
Re:violate fair use? (Score:3)
But you can argue the flip side as well. The requirement for copy protection schemes mentioned in the same section also applies only to digital audio recording devices/media, so one is not legally required to implement them on computers. IOW, making MP3s on your computer is either specifically protected because they're for non-commercial private use or is specifically exempted from the need for protections altogether because the computer isn't an audio recording device.
This is the essential issue in the Diamond Rio case. By copying music onto a hard drive, it ceases legally to be a digital audio recording because it is no longer stored on a digital audio recording medium! While this seems to be ridiculous, that is exactly what the Appeals Court ruling [bna.com] concluded:
Thus, it appears that there is a specific legal precedent that allows circumvention of serial copy managment just by copying the data onto a computer hard drive, as it then ceases to be legally considered to be a digital audio recording. And the Appeal Court ruled that this was not only true by the language of the law but also by its legislative history:
That appears to me to be a pretty strong argument that making MP3s so that you can take them with you is legally protected.
More directly... (Score:3)
1. The copy protection scheme is ineffective.
2. They've been lying about the costs of piracy to extract more money out of us.
Re:error correction (Score:3)
Yes, it means that you'll be "ripping" at 1x, but 1x is infnitely faster than 0x.
Ian
Error Correction? (Score:4)
Re:I'm no expert but... (Score:3)
this is HORRIBLE! (Score:5)
A question I have is, what if the CD gets scratched? If the error correction is already strained by having to interpolate between their deliberately induced data corruption, will audible distortion occur sooner when the medium is actually damaged? And since you now have no way to make a backup copy.....
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Re:How about ripping in Analog mode? (Score:4)
Tell that to the Napster Judge [slashdot.org].
Just a thought... (Score:3)
--
Garett
Re:back to the store (Score:3)
DAMMIT! Why didn't they tell us that back in January?
This protection has no future (Score:3)
Is it one of these schemes where an ultrasonic component is added to the sound that confuses MP3 encoders and generates low-level lound beat frequencies when played back ? Well, whether it's that or not, here's what's going to happen : people who have an ear for musical quality (such as music professionals) won't like this at all, and may actually be able to hear distortions in the masters.
As for the rest of us who can't really distinguish between a 128kbps MP3 and the original on CD and really want to create an MP3 version of they CD to play on their MP3 player, they'll just bypass the protection by playing the original, filter it with a low-pass analog filter of some sort, re-digitize it and MP3-encode it (the hardware to do this is a PC with a full-duplex sound card, and 50c worth of electronic components anybody with two hands can solder together). Most likely, most people won't hear much of a difference in terms of quality if the process is done right, kind of like a watermarked JPEG that's blurred, sized down a little, then resized up, to remove the watermark : sure, the photo isn't as good as the original, but it's good enough if you're not a professional photographer.
All in all, a hassle for everybody courtesy of the copyrighted music mafia.
How about ripping in Analog mode? (Score:4)
(Aside from the completely ODIOUS idea of deliberately introducing distortion, of course...)
--Brandon
Re:Intentional degradation of audio... (Score:3)
1) People are catching onto the fact that the CD only costs ~$0.80 to make, and they have been raping us in higher costs, and
2) because CDs and MP3s get along so nice, they are a menace to profits, and finally,
3) they want everyone to replace their entire CD collection with the new DVD-audio, which has built-in encryption.
It is actually a pretty good plan: screw up the CD, so the audiophiles move onto the DVD-audio, and the MP3 problem with everyone else dies off.
Re:Doesn't sound too heinous (Score:3)
You can only interpolate across sectors that you can identify as bad. If the sector reads correctly, but the error correction says it's bad, then most players will "correct" it anyway, while most computers will read the sector as OK. In other words, CDParanoia won't realize it's an obviously bogus sample. And it doesn't have to be white noise, it could be a click, pop, or even a sour note.
IF you had access to the raw data as it came off the head, then silliness like this would be a minor software upgrade - but the average consumer doesn't have access to the raw data, and has to make do with the "corrected" data. Personally, I want the raw bits, or rather, I want the option to get them raw. I can do my own processing, thanks.
Overall, I'd say this is even more doomed than Macrovision was - it makes the music sound worse, (even if only a little) it doesn't stop anyone from distributing copies once they make that first one, and it prevents users from making personal copies for download into their RIO, unless they pirate them.
i.e.
Re:violate fair use? (Score:5)
THEY OWN THE COPYRIGHT. That means they have the right to release the information any way they want to. Up to including music CDs with microbursts of static interspersed with the music. In fact, an attempt to prosecute them on a fair use claim would be in violation of their First Amendment rights.
Fair Use is a real protection - they can't stop you from ripping your non-protected CDs because it's perfectly legal to make copies to shift formats, make it more convenient to use a product, or as a back-up against breakage or degredation. But it doesn't stop anyone from making a product that copies poorly. Your beef in this case is with the creator for producing a less useful product... unfortunately, whoever is responsible for the information on the mystery CD lost control of their product as soon as they signed their contract - making the de facto creator the company, and giving the right to fuck up their product any way they want - including replacing their music with meaningless bursts of noise.
Funny thing, if I were a musician I would object to that. I wouldn't sign with a major label. I'd get a day job and work with really intelligent people on cutting out the middleman of industry entirely, understanding that compressed song-file trading is like free play on the radio, and selling CDs is still a perfectly viable business plan for the independent musician decades to come.
Oh wait, I am... and I do... and I won't... and I do...
Re:It must be... (Score:4)
1) 14 year old girl wants the CD "Dudez-A-Plenty - Baby I wish you were my Baby"
2) 14 year old girl searches Aimster or whatever the hell 14 year old girls use to trade files.
3) 14 year old girl gets no matches as CD is protected.
4) 14 year old girl gets easily manipulated 14 year old nerdy guy to help her (weren't we all that desperate?).
5) 14 year old guy instantly realizes what's going on, alerts message board, and suddenly we aren't having this arguement.
Nah, I'll bet it's some new age crap, Christian Deathmetal, or Country/Western.
Re:It must be... (Score:4)
Re:I thought it was Charlie Pride... (Score:4)
And this is old news, here's when I first submitted it:
2001-05-15 14:01:23 Copy Protected CDs Arrive (articles,news) (rejected)
Re:I'm no expert but... (Score:5)
if we can play it on a computer why can't we write a driver that captures the data going into the sound card, (like a screenshot or in this case a "SOUND SHOT")?
It's because the audio is already analog by the time it hits your sound card - your system never sees the bits. The cd-rom drive contains the hardware to act as a player, and outputs analog audio on a separate wire to the sound card, which plays the analog audio directly. Whatever cd-playing software you use merely acts as an interface to the cd-rom drive, and doesn't manipulate the signal at all.Here's the CD title for you. (Score:3)
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Intentional degradation of audio... (Score:5)
The company claims that no one can notice the difference, but I think their test group was too limited. I have a friend whose wife will only use fresh VCR tapes because the distortion caused by reusing a tape is noticable to her. She also can tell the difference between CDs and analog sources, such as cassette tapes. Again from the article:
But this doesn't placate hi-fi buffs. "It's a dreadful, dreadful thing to contaminate the sound deliberately, says Martin Colloms, a British hi-fi expert whose columns are syndicated around the world. "We all hate piracy but the idea of mucking up the sound of a recording is reprehensible. It's like slashing paintings in a gallery to stop someone stealing them."
Take it back. (Score:3)
If it doesn't play right in your car, return it.
any senseable person would agree that the CD has a defect if it does not play as you expect it.
If enough people start doing this, The record companies will get the idea that this is unacceptable.
I suspect it will be broken (Score:4)
> Its going to be very difficult to break "protection" on a CD that won't even be recognized by your CDROM drive as a real CD.
I can see how computer CD software might not recognize it as being a "good" format, but I can't see how the hardware would fail to read it, since the essentially same drive hardware is being used in both cases (the consumer black-box audio device and the computer). So breaking it would just be a matter of writing some software.
Now, this may be a problem since only major corporations can write software and none of them would be motiva--oh wait, I forgot, some scattered individuals write software too. So yeah, I suspect it will be broken.
-- MarkusQ