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Music Media

RIAA Plans to Allow Portable MP3 Players 178

Posted by Hemos from the mmm-corporate-planning dept.
Bocephus writes "CNET news.com reports in this story that the RIAA, despite its Secure Digital Music Initiative project, will allow MP3 to continue to exist so that portables like the Rio or Nomad may play MP3s. However, MP3s ripped from new CDs will be unusable if downloaded from the Net. " Yeah, essentially the RIAA is saying that current players can still play ones, even the existing illegal ones, once specs from the recording industry has been made. I wonder how long it's going to take them to figure out that they lost.
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RIAA Plans to Allow Portable MP3 Players More

RIAA Plans to Allow Portable MP3 Players

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  • This would require a new file format, but how hard would it be to make players use a new format.
    Actually, you shouldn't need a new file format, just some clever compression algorithm that knows how to losslessly recompress the signal.
  • I won't comment on the subject itself (musicians need to be paid for their music), altough I don't agree with you. Now maybe you had a good point in your post, or maybe not, but do you think you're going to convince anyone if you just keep insulting him?
  • This point has been made before, however not all musicians can tour and not all musicians can afford to put out a free album. Where does that leave them? How many musical projects can survive with no possiblility of making back money spent in the studio? I will tell you one thing.. studio time is not a couple of bucks an hour. Your idea is seriously flawed because it will create an endless loop:

    I have this music...but I cant afford studio time unless I tour, if I tour I will most likly not make any money because my name isnt big because I cant afford studio time.

    Too many people think that musicians should give away their services free after they have spent THOUSANDS or in my case 10s of thousands of dollars on education and equipment. I am lucky that I have the money to own my own studio. But I dont do music for a living any more because MOST PEOPLE THINK MUSIC IS NOT WORTH PAYING FOR. This is happening to just about every musician I know. And it has nothing to do with good musicianship or creativity...HELLO NIRVANA.

    Its time for some of you to realize that musicians need money too, especially if you expect a good product. Thats exactly why the record industry took hold... to allow good acts with no money to be heard.

  • Well within their rights (Score:4)

    by slim ( 1652 ) <johnNO@SPAMhartnup.net> on Wednesday May 26, 1999 @05:17AM (#1878663) Homepage
    I reckon they're well within their rights; they can distribute CDs with whatever copy protection they choose, and we should respect the licence under which they choose to distribute the music.


    In turn, we can choose not to buy their CDs, because we are not happy with the licence -- and instead listen to those artists who realise they no longer need major record labels in order to reach an audience, but who publish straight to the net.


    I'm looking forward to the day when alternative music radio DJs (i.e. the ones who aren't already part of the Sony/Warner/whatever hype machine) start discovering legal MP3s on the net, playing them on the radio, and paying the artists royalties.
    --

  • I disagree. The article certainly does not adequately explain the way these objectives will be accomplished.

    New CDs could be tagged with a watermark, as has been previously pointed out. I'm guessing that newer encoders will use that watermark and some unique ID from the computer that does the encoding to prohibit playback on any other machine. This presents two problems. First, a portable MP3 player isn't the same machine, so logic says the MP3 won't play here. Secondly, what do I do when I upgrade my box? If I go buy a new machine, I expect my existing music to play. If it doesn't, I'm not going to be happy!

    If upgraded MP3 player software follows these rules and won't play illegal files, I won't upgrade my player.

    If I don't upgrade my player, I can't play the new audio formats. Well, this is fine with me, I'd rather buy a CD anyway so I can play the disc in my car or on my home stereo. I can still use the same encoder I've been using all along to produce the same MP3 files I have now and play those with my existing player. I can give those files to a friend and he can play them with his stuff, too.

    What's the definition of legal here anyway? Isn't a song I rip from a CD I purchased legal? The bits don't change when I give it to a friend, but now it is illegal. How is software supposed to know the difference?

  • "Bob, I've heard about this nasty computer thing people have started using that's been sucking some of our revenues off. I have a solution."

    "Yes sir?"

    "Yes. I'd like you to create a virus that destroys the computer if you try to do that, you know, the mp3 thing..."

    "Uhhh, I don't think I can do that."

    "You can't make something that perhaps just flashes a message or sends us a note or just locks up? What kind of techincal advisor are you??"

    "Well sir, I'm not sure you understand all the technical details of implementing..."

    "Nonsense. I saw it on that 'Hackers' movie, and they had some report on the news last week. You just don't know how. You're fired. I'll find someone who can do this job..."

    And on down the line, until some clued-in exec looking for a vice-president seat says, "Yeah, we'll get right on that." And calls up some other poor schmuck to make _him_ do it.

    And all the while, management is whipping themselves into a storm because of all the maintstream media stories they're starting to see about this method of Reducing Their Profit Margin.

    I gotta tell ya, it's times like this I think the technologically elite of this world should form their own class and rule as the 'Priests of All-Knowledge'. Think about it, you and most of the geeky people you know would be way better at it than some glorified CEO who knows diddly and is essentially someone's glorified rich little boy...
  • With the system described in the article, the RIAA cannot directly defeat the MP3 market. If they were to change the nature of audio data on CDs, they'd break every single CD player on the market (god knows how many millions of CD players there are. I personally own about 10) They cannot force people to use a specific MP3 ripper/encoder/player, either. Or can they? Imagine this scenario: The RIAA develops a series of encoders/players that support their new "architecture." This includes storing a fingerprint on the CD itself. Their software does everything described in the article. Then, they convince Diamond, NEC, and all of the other portable player manufacturers to use _their_ format, as well as the existing MP3 format. Diamond, etc, would agree to this with no problems at all. It would end the dispute between the RIAA and the manufacturers, and the manufacturers would lose no business. Now, the kicker. FLOOD the market with this software. Right now, the MP3 market is relatively small.
    The RIAA knows they can't convert existing MP3 users, so they have to go after the people who have no concept of online music. How do they flood the market? Store the player/encoder in a data track on every CD released. Think about it... they don't need a distribution model, because they already have one IN PLACE. So now, johnny and davie, who have never seen an MP3 player before, get a copy of this neat new whiz-bang thing with every CD they buy. All they have to do, is pop the CD in their computer and go. THIS is how the RIAA will put down the MP3 revolution. It's all marketing. Damn.





    Copyright 1999 by Scott Crosby

  • Re:Are you sure they've lost? (Watermarking) (Score:5)

    by Vryl ( 31994 ) on Wednesday May 26, 1999 @06:14AM (#1878668) Journal
    I can defeat digimark entirely withing photoshop using digimark.

    The Tao Of Hacking Digimark

    1. filter/noise/median until the watermark is defeated. Actually, anything will do. Sometimes I do an add noise as well. Basically just defeat the water mark at this stage.

    2. Add a new watermark at the highest setting/lowest image quality

    3 superimpose over the top of the original, adjusting the opacity until you get a near perfect picture with no watermark


    simple really, with nealy indistinguishable results. picture looks great, no watermark, takes about 5 minutes, and a little bit of judgement.


  • I wish companies that declare themselves to have arbitrary authority weren't able to keep people (and themselves) fooled for so long. Sort of like Nintendo, whose "policy" it is that emulators are illegal. At least RIAA is kind enough to let us wayward consumers hang onto our immoral MP3 technology for a while.
  • RIAA has missed a very lucrative ride. They should have watched Rykodisc, who is selling MP3s for $0.99 a song. That means I get all the Zappa I can handle, legally! www.Goodnoise.com --very cool, very cheap and very legal. I hope RIAA gets there $@#! together....
  • has anyone really put some thought in to what the RIAA wants to do? they have come up with these ideas for technology like sdmi and watermarking(well.. they didnt come up with it, they just decided on the scheme), but they havent produced anything. i have yet to see any sdmi format songs. they have everbody and their brother jumping on sdmi (like justin frankel of winamp, and i think the mpg123 guys), but there is no format!! sdmi dosent exist yet.

    the riaa can release as many press releases as they want, but until it actually exists, i really could care less about it.
  • I kind of got a kick out of buying Public Enemy's new release for 8 bucks in mp3 form off of www.atomicpop.com yesterday. They have a pretty smart approach- instead of purchasing it directly online you download an application where you put in credit card info and it unlocks the files. They didn't have an app for unix users though, so you have to have a mac or windows box at this point to purchase it.
    As for the mp3 player and RIAA's position on it, I could really care less. That organisation has no interest in protecting artists rights, only label's royalties; labels are put in the position they are now in by trating their artists work like proprietary bigmacs- they don't care about music for arts sake, they care about cashflow. I can't recall hearing any artists complain about mp3 (enlighten if you know different) - in fact the music community seems pretty into it, so screw the RIAA.
  • Screw hard drive sizes, bandwitdth is the issue. At least 50% of people I know who do lots with mp3 are running on ISDN or slower. Now many people with dsl and up just trade cd images and burn them. College students are starting to push this now that they all get ethernet access to the net. The RIAA is gonna lose out not to mp3, but to cheap DSL and cable modems when people just start swapping entire cd's online.

    And I just can't wait!

  • Re:Are you sure they've lost? (Watermarking) (Score:4)

    by Betcour ( 50623 ) on Wednesday May 26, 1999 @05:28AM (#1878675)
    Problem is, you can't put a different watermark on every CD you produce. Since all CDs are perfect copy, they would all carry the same watermark. So what this watermark would be good for ? To know that a MP3 files has been ripped from a CD ? You already know that. Even if the watermark is different for every CD, there will be no link between the watermark and the CD buyer, so you can't use it to prevent piracy.

    To me watermarking is only good when selling music online, because you can put the name of the buyer in the watermark. But for CD it is really useless.
  • "However, MP3s ripped from new CDs will be unusable if downloaded from the Net." I'm not sure how that's supposed to work. Can't I just buy a new cd, rip it, upload it, and anybody in the world will be able to download it and play it in winamp or their Rio? Clarification? Ian.
  • Getting all of the free/share/GPL encoders to do this is easy, just threaten and sue the authors of these encoders with BS laws/copyrights/patents/etc.. and they will have to comply. It doesn't matter that it doesn't have an ounce of legal merit, just as long as you can draw out the court battle long enough to bankrupt your opponent. The RIAA has shown that they are quite willing to do this to get their way.

    The final result probabally won't be exactly MP3 anyway, at least not once MS gets done with it. You can bet it will be slightly incompatable and undocumented (value adding indeed) so it will be broken with existing players. Maybe they'll change the header to make it look like a wave (oops, someone already did that) or modify the internal structure slightly to break it on older players (and maybe add some invalid assumptions to be sure it breaks on big endian machines or something).

    MS has used MAC addresses for tracking purposes? That's surprising since the vast majority of home PCs don't have ethernet cards.
  • >RIAA will somehow manage to add a tariff on HDs,
    >tapes, floppy disks, RW CDs and MO media, etc.
    >for copyright infringement "reimbursement", or
    >increase the ones they have in place already.

    And this will just make pirating worse. After all, who will agree to pay for a CD if they already "paid for it" when they bought their magnetic media?
  • What's this "allow" stuff, as in, "We will allow MP3s to exist?" I think it's like King Canute "Allowing" the tide to come in.
  • Language evolves. Verbing nouns happens all the time.

    I think that its rediculous that your complaining about this when the general populous is so lazy with there writing. There are definately writing errors that are more painfull to view.
  • The RIAA is such a joke...I wonder if they actually think anyone is going to support SDMI when supporting MP3 is far more commercially lucrative. I must give mad props out to the guys getting paid 6 digits to blow this kind of smoke up the record label CEO's asses.

  • CD Watermarking & Defeating (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Now, there are ways for the RIAA to add watermarking to a CD signal where you're not going to hear it - I'm sure some people will complain, but superimposing a sine wave into the digital signal at a super-high-frequency that most people can't hear is trivial to do.

    What happens is when you run a compression algo on the music, this sine wave (or whatever) will show up when the signal is transformed into the frequency domain (using a fourier transform, for example). This can then be looked for by the portable players, and if the music doesn't have it, they won't play the song. This is similar to what is done in a JPEG - you can hide craploads of information in lossy compression; In fact, there are programs that do this (quite well!).

    Unfortunately for the RIAA facists, this information needs to be the same. Comparing two different CD's and running their FFT's should make their little watermark stick out like the red armband that it is. You then apply something along the lines of stickItToTheMan[RIAAFreq] = 0; to the signal and away it goes. Enjoy. :)

    None of this changes the fact any EE can make a mp3 player with a DSP chip. There's many kits and plans now.

    The RIAA makes me sick. I will lose all respect for any hardware manufacturer that knuckes under, GO DIAMOND!. Steve smanley@nyx.net

  • I don't see how the RIAA is going to enforce their new stuff. If there is even one machine in the new crop of MP3 players that will allow the playback of non-RIAA-approved MP3s, their entire effort will fail. For example, I would expect whatever device I eventually buy to play all my current MP3s. Well, I still have all the programs I used to encode those (that were mine, anyway), so if the machine will read old files, it's going to have to read new files coded the same way.

    The only ace I can see up the RIAA's sleeve is Sony. They seem to be the only member who has the know-how to make anything decent. But who would buy something that doesn't work with existing MP3s? Especially knowing the type of people who use MP3 -- Slashdot types and other college students with fat pipes (Ethernet, of course, not crack pipes...) -- who seem to hate the RIAA and what it stands for. Even the casual MP3 listener will be infuriated when, after spending $150 on that new Sony MP3 player, he finds all his MP3s are useless because of the RIAA.

    The RIAA seems to thrive on making enemies. Personally, I don't think I'm ever going to give up CDs in favor of MP3s. I can still hear differences between the original CD and the MP3, even encoded at 192, sometimes even higher. I've downloaded plenty of songs, and the ones that I like I eventually buy. The ones I don't like get trashed, and the "ehh" ones linger around my HD for a while before eventually being tossed. I think MP3 is the ultimate try-before-you-buy for music.

    If the RIAA was REALLY worried about MP3, why don't they just lower the prices of CDs? If they cut the average price of a CD from $18 (or whatever fscking ridiculous price it is nowadays) to something like $8, there would be a huge buying spike. If they'd stop being so greedy they might be able to save themselves. But, of course, there's little chance of that happening in an organization comprised of such behemoths as Sony and Columbia (same company?) and the other record companies.

    And it'll be their downfall, I tell you.

    -----BEGIN ANNOYING SIG BLOCK-----
    Evan

  • Ok - perhaps...

    I really didn't care that much about that particular word - it just didn't sound right to me...

    However, the rest of my comment still stands (anyone wish to comment on it?)...
  • Yup. I think it's just about time for me to start saving up for some minidisc hardware. Preferably one with a built in CD-to-mini ripper.

    This whole MP3 thing is getting too controversial to trust.

  • When you hear about "watermarking", bear in mind: like the tamper-proof smart card, it doesn't work. See Petitcolas, Anderson, Kuhn, "Attacks on Copyright Marking Systems":
    http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~fapp2/papers/ih98-attacks /
    --

  • Nena ("99 Red Balloons") and Jean Michel Jarre ("Oxygene"/"Miami Vice" theme) were also among the musicians speaking out against MP3.

  • "riaa will allow mp3s to exist"...

    bwahaha! Yeah right, and I'm going to allow everyone to keep reading slashdot.

    reload ... cock ... bam! riaa blows off other foot....

  • I don't believe most people are anywhere near as stupid as you believe. People tend to get whipped up into a frenzy as soon as they believe their privacy or pocketbooks are on the line, and I can't imagine they'll take kindly to RIAA's Orwellian ideals.

    Furthemore, this whole hare-brained scheme relies on lockstep acceptance on the part of the entire industry. I don't know about you, but the music I listen to isn't really pop-culture, big-business fare. Perhaps Columbia and Epic will buy in, and I really couldn't care less, they pretty much suck imo, but indies like Touch & Go, Dischord, AmRep, Quarterstick, Kill Rock Stars, Trance Syndicate, etc., will not touch this garbage with a ten-foot pole. I'm sure of it. It is just not part of their mindset. I think of what one of the major indie guys, say Ian MacKaye (Fugazi frontman, owner of Dischord), would do when presented with this, and I just laaaaaaugh. It seems to me that, by and large, the level of disenchantment by recording artists with their labels is at fever pitch of late. If the labels keep through their weight around, they'll soon have no one left to dictate to, as there ARE other options for musicians today.

    Perhaps the RIAA initiative will have some measure of success, perhaps not. In the end, though, this farce will be unceremoniously cast onto the ash heap of history like so much other garbage, and that's what really matters.

    Adeiu.
  • No, I never heard of Pearl Jam putting up MP3s. But if you go to this site [fivehorizons.com] they have some great live MP3s.

    But Pearl Jam had their well-known battle with the other evil music institution -- Ticketmaster -- so maybe one day (hopefully soon) they (or some other well known artist(s)) will push their stuff on the web. Artist contracts are not forever, are they? Why don't bands, once they become famous, let their contracts run out and push their stuff over the net? I mean, they've got plenty of money at that point so they don't need whatever money the label would be paying them.

    Of course, if Pearl Jam was just doing its Ticketmaster thing as a publicity stunt, I doubt they'll ever be giving away free singles or anything like that.

    But like Tom Petty said on Letterman a couple of months ago, the artist doesn't really make any money off radio play anymore, it's all about the publicity the radio gives. So why not just give it away? But like Tom said, the suits didn't like that idea.

    Maybe we should combine the "Music" category and the "Almighty Buck" category to create an "RIAA" category.

    -----BEGIN ANNOYING SIG BLOCK-----
    Evan

  • I suspect that what the RIAA is talking about, in their Dave Matthews Band paragraph is that if a song in ripped with a non-phase 2 product, that the p2 players will allow it to run (where before RIAA said it wouldn't).

    However, if you rip something with a new phase 2 product, then it'll not work in any p2 device. Presumably, there would be a way to let it work on yours.

    So this implies that you can side-step this if

    1. Use an older encoder.
    2. Use a non-p2 player.
    3. All "pirates" use the same ID on the players and when ripping the song.

    This is just silly, in my opinion. The new p2 players would have to be superior to the non-p2 player for people to want to buy them. I'm willing to bet that even after "p2" you'll still find people selling non-p2 players and such.

    I sure am not going to throw away the mp3 stuff I have now and re-invest in new p2 players and encoders. My current stuff works fine, sounds great.

    Is this stuff even enforcable? I don't think it is, but IANAL.

    Ciao!

  • Actually You are right on with where I am at. I do application management during the day. I do music for myself. I am really excited about MP3s in the industry because I dont have to sign away the rights to my work! MP3 has totally changed what I view as the music world.

    I have seen way too many of my friends who cant do anything else struggle to the point of just doing covers and making a measly living. I make it a point to help artists of ANY kind by purchasing when there is an asking price as I am sure many people do.

    My complaint is that a lot of people in this world think that ALL music should be free and that is great. Except that recording studio time for those who cant afford it is almost impossible to obtain.

    My point that I continue to make to some of these people is that SoMEBODY has to pay for studio time. If a working musician cant afford it. There will be no music from them distributed. Sadly most people do not take garage tapes serioulsy. How many times have you had somebody listen to your tape that you made, and only mentioned the fact that the sound quality is terrible when its just a "sketchpad recording" ? I would go as far as saying most people when not confronted with the musician standing there,wont listen to it.

    I have personally seen people trash music because the sound quality isnt pristine. It happens by the same people who say they would listen for its musical merits. To a non musician, it means "does it have a good beat and can I dance to it?"

    I will be checking out your music... I will be releasing my entire CD on MP3 when we are finished... It will prob be 1 track at a time since my entire band works for a living. There isnt much on the site yet but keep checking within the next month if you want.

    Check it out at http://www.javacat.net/
  • Why on earth would anybody want to "upgrade" to this "phase-two" technology that actually limits your choice of music ? And how are they going to prevent people from ripping their CD's with other software ?
    Ripping CD's will probably not work anymore with the rippers the RIAA wants us to use, but what is to stop anybody from writing or downloading another one ? Music is by definition an analog signal, which can be encoded digitally in a multitude of forms. So once the music from a CD is decoded into an analog signal, nobody can stop anyone from re-encoding it in a different way.

  • It seems like the RIAA had intended to create software that would "trap" or not allow the download of "illegal" mp3s. I'm not sure how they plan to implement this software, but its gonna be hairy. Do they plan to have it automagically install with certain common multimedia packages? The only thing I'm sure of is that if this software were to be installed on my computer without my knowledge/consent, there's going to be a lawsuit coming there way for tresspassing.

    On top of that, when are they going to realize that no matter what they try, SDMI is a failure, and has been from the start? The public has clearly choosen the music format to lead us to the next level of audio online, and the RIAA has flaty choosen to ignore it.

  • You're the one fooling yourself if you think that musicians somehow work harder and spend more to obtain their skills than, for instance, a skilled software author. Yet some of us actually write software for the good of software because we consider it more akin to an art than to a job.

    Maybe it's the ultimate irony that "geeks" who give away software for art's sake are fighting with musical "artists" who can't stand the thought of making beautiful music without being financially compensated.

    MJP

  • Are you sure they've lost? (Watermarking) (Score:5)

    by Rayban ( 13436 ) on Wednesday May 26, 1999 @05:00AM (#1878699) Homepage
    Hmm... I'm not totally sure that the RIAA has lost in this case. Watermarking CD's is a VERY effective way to superimpose information on top of a song without it being audible, and without compromising the information if the song is encoded into an MP3 or whatever.

    I tried playing around with various methods to defeat JPEG watermarking, but even stuff like embossing a picture doesn't get rid of it. The only way to beat it would be to go back to the FFT of the image and attempt to restore it.

    The audio watermarking is similar to this and won't be easy to defeat. Someone will have to write a program to actually go and remove the FFT components that they've stored the information in.

    If you have a chance, use Corel Photopaint to load a JPG and use the watermarking feature and take a look at the FFT of the image before and after. You can see the spectral components of the information fairly easily.

  • Wrong (Score:2)

    by Roofus ( 15591 )
    The RIAA wants to target the 15-30 year olds. They are the most active buyers, and they are the ones who illegally obtain music. This digital security crap is not needed for the mainstream public. It's needed for punks like me who don't feel bad about ripping off a huge company that robs artists blind.
    The RIAA has stolen more from musicians than all the MP3philes ever will.



  • The Bladeenc home page [cjb.net] claims that the source will be available with the next release.
  • This is all guess work but I think I'm close.

    First... They must be talking about a new header for the music file that is burned on the CD you buy from the store. Once ripped to your harddrive I can't think of any reason that this header could not be re-written.
    Second... If the software that loads the music to the player is upgraded so that you can't play mp3's that you DID NOT rip then why would anyone upgrade.
    Third.... I don't think they have a chance of control over what software you use to load your players. They can't keep there id system secret for long.
    Forth.... What is to stop someone from re-recording the mp3 through a analog interface. This would be a easy way to cut out any embeded signal that was in the mp3 maybe as a added audio source channel.

    Seems very flawed...
    I still think the best thing the music industry could do it to sell music by the song. let us make the choice of what songs are on the CD's we buy.

    I really don't think that stealing music with mp3's is right. I think in the long run. The only way a band will make real money will be by touring. I'm sure this will mean a increase of at least 15 dollars per ticket. That could be a average of 40 dollars for lawn seats.

    A little something for everyone to think about...



  • Consider the script kiddie phenomenon. If there is one person who can figure out how to bypass the copy protection, It is already done for everyone. You no longer have to be a "techie" to do things that were traditionally techie territory in the past. The "technical battle" will be over before its started.

    I'm guessing "Remove RIAA Watermark" will probably be a button in your favorite mp3 player.
  • Even if some software/hardware will only allow transfering / playing new mp3s that would have the special watermark, and block the others, It can't work...

    What if I want to download a audio stream compressed in mp3 that is *not* music???
    It won't have the watermark, and it will not be illegal!
  • I believe that the main thing we have to consider here is that the MP3 format has awoken a new market -- the market of "geeky" computer users. People who are using a flavor of unix are used to getting many utilities and software for free -- where the stuff the use everyday is produced by a group of people writing software for the better-ment of the entire society of computer users. By tapping into this market, they've effectively unleashed the "GNU" spirit. In the world that we live in today, there are companies that write write software for profit, and in the same way, everyone in the music industry would love to make more money on their goods.

    The music industry is in a way like Microsoft -- they've been doing something all along to make money, and it's always worked for them. Then, with the increasing popularity of the internet, they are facing competition with all these new faces of technology. Both the music industry and companies like Microsoft are having their goods pirated. Also, they both are facing the challenge of competing with free music: The music industry has to compete with new smaller music groups whom the music industry's publishers had not even considered publishing. Microsoft must contend with the free software available, such as Linux.

    It seems as if the internet is filled with people with a view of "the greater good" in mind. Almost like Marxist philosophies, these people believe in the equality of all people, and idealize everything.

    The music industry also fails to see the advantages of the MP3 format -- if I hear a song I like, I go and buy the CD, because it is true that an author should recieve whatever credit or royalties they want for a product. The biggest problem for the music industry with the MP3 format is that fact that soon bands and music groups will be able to circumvent the music recording industry and be able to sell directly to consumers, avoiding the middle men. The direction of the capitalist market today seems to be moving away from a "middle man" type price barrier -- I believe that it is only a matter of time before the recording industry dissapears into oblivion, being only a necessity of the past. After all, direct consumer sales is the product of the internet, is it not? Just look how well amazon.com is doing...

  • New CDs vs. old CDs... (Score:3)

    by Rob Parkhill ( 1444 ) on Wednesday May 26, 1999 @06:02AM (#1878706)
    So let me see if I have this straight...

    Sometime in the future, the RIAA is going to force labels to actually change the way that CDDA is written to a CD. Somehow they are going to tag the CDs that you buy at the corner store as "secure" CDs. This will have to be done so that the new CDs will play on old CD-players. Perhaps an extra track at the very end of the CD with a small amount of data on it (hell, if they are going to do that, then I would also like to see them include the track and CD info, ala CDDB, right on the CD!)

    The new ripper software will detect this tag on the new CDs, and will only allow the audio to be ripped to a 'secure' format. More than likely, this secure format will be tagged such that it only plays on a single device, so you would need to re-rip the audio if you have multiple devices.

    The devices which incorprate this SDMI technology would be able to play MP3s, as well as this new format, which the RIAA is calling MP3, but really isn't (unless I am mistaken, there is no provision for encyption or locking in the MP3 spec...)

    So this requires that the CD makers, the CD-ripper makers, and the MP3-player makers all sign up for this plan.

    Perhaps if you use an all-in-one solution that comes with your portable MP3 player, this would be feasible. But if you continue to use any of the freely available CD-rippers/MP3 encoder solutions that are around today, this just can't work.

    Anyone else have an idea as to how they plan to make this work?


  • Compression never becomes obsolete. People are still using PKZIP, Info-Zip, GZIP, LHA, LZX, StuffIt, etc. even though 2400 bps modems and 40 Meg HDs are history. Have you seen any signs of this changing?

    With a 56k modem, it takes about 13 minutes to download a 4 Meg file. Let's say that in a few years, it will take a typical user 13 seconds. Do you want to download the 4 Meg MP3 in 13 seconds, or the 4 Meg IFF or WAV in 130 seconds? A few years later, and it's 1.3 seconds. Want the MP3 in 1.3 seconds or WAV in 13 seconds? No contest.

    And remember: when the Terabyte disks are out, the 2 Terabyte disk will cost $100 more than the 1 Terabyte disk. Some people will want to save the $100. And also remember: that same hard disk is going to have to hold your movie collection, so it's not as big as your think.

    Wait for another revolution so that 100 Terabyte disks are common? Fine. But your music and movies are still going to be competing for space with your holo-movie collection. Hopefully, there will be some good compression available for the holo-movies so that you'll be able to hold all the episodes of Hogan's Heroes 3D: The Next Generation.

    Compression will always be useful.

  • Eventually there will be uncompressed audio. (Score:3)

    by Paul Carver ( 4555 ) on Wednesday May 26, 1999 @05:55AM (#1878708)
    It may take 5-10 years, but storage capacity keeps growing. When you have multi-terabyte hard drives and portables with gigabytes of RAM compressing audio won't be an issue. The 44/16 660 MB CD is unlikely to change unless humans suddenly evolve better hearing. The 96/24 format on DVD is wasted on most people. Right now putting 600+ MB of wav file on your hard drive for every hour of music is unthinkable. Once you spend $300-400 on the new 1TB drive are you really going to worry that it only holds 1700+ hours of uncompressed, unencoded wav files? Are you going to mp3 them so that you can fit 17,000 hours on that drive?
  • I long for a world without the RIAA and recording artists in general. No more Spice Girls, or similar groups that can only put out 3 minutes of acceptable audio if you lock them in a studio for a whole day.
  • (on my category of unsigned artists publishing MP3s to the 'net)
    The point is that _most_ of those artists that fit your category suck.
    Sure. Most CDs stink too, but we have a reviews system (magazines, radio, etc) which feeds us recommendations.


    I can't currently sort the wheat from the chaff on, say, MP3.com -- but hopefully one day, someone like John Peel (look him up on Everything) will do that sorting for me, and play the results on the radio.
    --

  • What's this "allow" stuff, as in, "We will allow MP3s to exist?"

    Does the RIAA have governmental powers? Can they actually compel anyone to do anything? No, I didn't think so.

    This is the whole part of the thing I don't understand. RIAA is not an arm of any government, so there is no reason why a hardware manufacturer can't tell them to fsck off.

    Not only is what RIAA wants technically impossible, but it's also contrary to the spirit and intent of digital media, which was designed into it from day one: Costless, limitless, perfect copies. This is the reality of digital media, and no amount of whining is going to change that.

    As for "lost revenue," if the profit margins on your wares are 1800% (one thousand eight hundred percent), and you're still losing money, then I think you're more likely to find your real problems staring back at you in the mirror, rather than on the Internet.

    Call to Hardware Vendors

    The RIAA is not a governmental agency. They do not have the power to draft and enact policy. As such, they are relying on your cooperation to further their ends. If their goals don't match yours, ignore them.

    Schwab

  • the way i understand the liscense of MPEG, they must treat all users of the liscense fairly. the owners of the MPEG codecs can charge reasonable amounts of money of the users of the codec, but they can't flat-out deny usage, or anything like that.

    according to that, doesn't this mean that the RIAA essentially has no power over mp3 player makers? they shouldn't be able to threaten them with anything, since the MPEG liscense itself says that they can't deny usage to anyone.

    you could maybe argue the same thing about the "country codes" that DVD player makers are forced to implement. But sense the DVD hardware may not itself be included as part of MPEG-2 that may not apply. But i'm sure that simply creating a portable mp3 player is something that the RIAA has no right to even comment on.

    and does it seem to anyone else that "secure digital music initiative" has the same kinda feel to it as "information purification directives"..?

    -mcc
    who is worried that /. won't accept his password
  • It's not poetic license. I've seen each of these errors on slashdot this week. I've seen some of them several times.
    I don't read alt.usage.english, but I do find the frequency of these very basic errors to be, well, "ludicris."
    BTW, you also missed "populous."
  • I don't understand these people either. I'd like to ask them, "Why they think they can control anything". They sure aren't the nra and like everyone else, If I want to play mp3's, I'll play mp3s. And here's a question for someone who has more knowledge of this..

    "If these jokers start selling some uncopyable audio format, what's to stop anyone from copying it. It would after all be just bits."

    Rob, I think you should have an area on slashdot for topics that are beat to death and/or just plain dumb, so we can all stop flaming. RIAA and the MS/Linux issues can be the first contestants.

    _\m/

  • The announcement is essentially conceeding defeat.

    Yes the new protection is probably defeatable. There will probably be several ways to do that including patched firmware and programs that alter the protected files.

    The most important part is that they have finally realized that they cant kill MP3 and that they'll have to accept that some bands will bypass them entirely. They are agreeing to get out of the way of things that are none of their business and just concentrate on what is their business (they have every right to include protection on THEIR product, and that's what they're going to do).

    It's a big win! If you don't like their proces, go to MP3.com and pass on RIAA's offerings. That's the way the market is supposed to work.

  • First off, I'm most thrilled that the RIAA will "allow" MP3's to continue to exist. Gee, thanks.

    Can anyone think of a copy-protection scheme, software, hardware, data, or music that can't/hasn't been broken? Floppies can be bootstrapped, serial number formulas can be broken, hardware chips (ala PSX) can be tossed in, executables can be hex edited... I honestly can't think of one.

  • "Maybe they'll change the header to make it look like a wave (oops, someone already did that)"

    What's that?

  • So? (Score:1)

    by Andy Dodd ( 701 )
    How can they do this without breaking the MP3 format? It's a standardized, well-defined format. Anything else is not really MP3.

    CDParanoia + BladeEnc + x11amp (or mpg123 or freeamp or whatevere) = Goodbye RIAA.
  • And why would Bladenc or any other currently existing encoder or winamp/x11amp or any other currently existing player care? I don't think any of this "fingerprinting" code exists anywhere. So what part of the code is going to deny you the music?

    Also, where is a computer's fingerprint stored?
  • Well, I make music for fun, and allow people to download MP3s of my music and/or buy whole CDs of my stuff, and I've got a proper day job as well!!!! I have a lot of musical ideas myself, and I'm not exactly a trained musician, but I make music I can't afford studio time either, but that's OK because I just don't use a studio!!!! I haven't toured yet, as I haven't even began to think how to take my music into a live "gig". I don't make any money, but I've got money from my day job, and I make music for... (Check this original concept out, ShadowWalker) for enjoyment!!!!


    I perfectly understand your point that if you're wanting to make a living from being in a band, you're going to have to draw the line somewhere between giving away stuff and charging for it, but firstly I don't think the RIAA is entirely interested in that- secondly, places like mp3.com [mp3.com] give lots of exposure to countless thousands of really good bands/artists who have no record contract, and is thus a potential benefit to the music industry!!! If the RIAA is trying to curb open standards like MP3, what on earth is going to happen to sites like this? And what about people like me who do music for a hobby?


    I know quite a lot of musicians myself, and they're impressed with the possibilities of the legit mp3 scene, particularly mp3.com's idea of letting you sell CD albums online (without needing a record contract...), and the people I talk to regularly on the mp3.com bbs are generally very aware of the various business and promotion issues involved in the music business...


    OK enough talk, check out my music at http://www.mp3.com/asm/ [mp3.com]!!!! ;)

    Old Fart!

    ===
    Old Fart!!! Of tha SENIOR DADS!!!!!

  • Stealing via mp3 is a good thing. Remember, most bands HATE record companies. They get 80 cents an album, most of which ends up right back with the label to payback production of the album and the video. If bands start losing money to mp3, they might just start to sell albums online (like public enemy is doing for other reasons) for a lot less. Which would you rather do? Download an album in the next big kick ass format of cd quality for $5 bucks, most of which goes right back to the band, or continue to pay 12-18 dollars to record companies.

    think about it....
  • Not sure what the "hell no" applied to or I'd answer you!

    You are the exception to the rule. I read the other day that they had already sold 100,000 Rio players.

    Your arguments are 100% valid. The analogy would be cable descramblers and other broadcast theft devices and plans. Is it a huge problem? No! It is annoying to the manufactures and media distributors? Absolutly!

    They haven't gone out of business yet. Sure they'd like to crush everyone, but there are acceptable losses. The same will happen with music.

    Someone will alwasy exist who can "get" the goods for free. If they make it hard enough for Joe consumer to do it then they've won the $$$ war and that's all they care about.

    Remeber that multiple formats for video and audio have been killed because anti-pirating devices couldn't or wouldn't be built in by the manufactures. This applies to the USA only, but you will never be able to market (above ground) a MP3 player that subverts the RIAA copy protection. It will not be a legal device to sell, just as selling cable descramblers is not legal (yeah, yeah, except for "test" purposes.)

  • Well, comparing two CDs gives you the difference between how your CD and the next were encoded and yeah - you can pull it, or at least create something that could've come from any one of a number of different copies.

    But... why bother? I mean - how do they even know who -has- the original?

    What I'm still waiting to hear about is someone coming up with a good scheme for processing audio in such a way that it compresses -horribly-. If you've ever heard Enya, Sara McLachlan, or even a flute done with MP3, you know the format (or the encoders) are far from perfect just yet. I wonder if you could do something to reinforce this shortcoming on commercial CDs.

  • ...when I give a resounding (and pardon my language, but I feel it's appropriate) "FUCK THAT" to that idea. I hated the DIVX idea from the get-go. The notion of somebody charging/tracking/regulating etc. my music is so grotesque that I can barely comprehend it. The only thing that makes DIVX less bad than the suggested Music-DIVX scheme is that I don't watch movies that often. 75% of the time I'm in my room, I'm listening to music... grr. What a horrible idea that would be.

    But I'm sure they'll try it soon enough. Lawyers started DIVX, lawyers'll start this too.

    -----BEGIN ANNOYING SIG BLOCK-----
    Evan

  • Yeah. With any luck it will be as difficult to crack as that allmighty P-III id number thingy.

    Give me a break. If it can be (cr)(h)acked. It will be. Biggest difference being, that instead of doing warez, where people tend to crack only things for whatever their primary os is, this mp3 'fingerprinting' thing will be something that will affect every mp3 user, across platforms. Forces untie!

    Or unite.


    Wheee.

  • no sorry try again. First... I never said sombody was more skilled than sombody else.. just that they have spent their entire lives doing this .... Learn to READ.

    Second.. After School, after all the equipment for programming has been purchased... Does it cost the independant artist(software programmer)upwards of 50,000 for a great program? NO!!! The biggest expense is time to code. For musicians.. after they have purchased their rigs(computers), School(school) they STILL have to pay out to have their ideas recorded. You need to keep quiet when you dont know all sides
    Please dont comment on recording when you dont know anything about it.

    And BTW... I and One other band member are financing the entire album, then releasing it for FREE on the net, thank-you....

    This will be a 100% loss of thousands of dollars if you look at the financing.. we do it because we love music. If we make money.. thats great. How much will you lose if one program you write for free isnt utilized?

    THINK before you speak.


  • What if the encoder embeds a fingerprint into the mp3 file that is tied to the PC (e.g., using the Ethernet card's MAC), and the player is rigged to require a handshake with the PC before downloading, confirming that the fingerprint matches, meaning that the file is being downloaded from the same PC it was created on? That would work, assuming that they could force everybody to use those encoders and players. (yeah, right, though as pointed out above, they can require the handshake on any device that also plays SDMI.)

    There's not even any need for the CDs to be watermarked, but maybe the watermark is to distinguish protected material from other audio sources -- that way, even their encoder would make "free" (like speech) mp3s if desired if you use it to encode your own recordings. (That would actually be a "genuine" concession on their part toward the community, though not nearly enough, IMO.) Otherwise, I can't really think what purpose watermarking the CDs would serve -- if the idea were to make watermarked mp3s regardless of the encoder, I don't see how they could be linked to the PC.

    Assuming I'm right about the fingerprint tied to the PC, what we need is an argument that even they can't refute (though they'll doubtless ignore it instead) as to why they have no moral right to do this, independent of the moral status of their entire position. How's this:

    What happens when I buy a new computer? All my mp3s that I ripped (legally) from my own CDs will suddenly stop working because the fingerprints won't match anymore. The only solution would be for me to re-rip them from the original CDs, right? What if they have gotten irreparably scratched or otherwise damaged, or I've lost them or thrown them away? The whole point of ripping them was that mp3s are more convenient than CDs, as well as being my "backup/archival copy", right? besides, even if I'm able to re-rip, why should I be so inconvenienced by their system, when my use has been completely legal?

    David Gould
  • If you don't upgrade your MP3 player software you won't be able to play legal songs in any format.

    So I just have one upgraded player and one non-upgraded player. Now I can play legal and illegal mp3's. Big deal.

  • "incentivize"? What the hell kind of word is that?

    [flipping through the dictionary]

    I don't see it...

    NitpickMode = 0;

    Hmm - it seemed that the article hinted that in some manner new CD's would be encoded in such a fashion that even after ripping, a decoder (presumably a new one, properly programmed - hold on to all your old MP3 enc/dec code, everyone!) would be able to figure out this, and display a warning message. I don't quite know how this could possibly work given the constraints of the format (mainly the fact that it is lossy in various ways imperceptible to the human ear - perhaps this will be the key to the whole sceme, though).

    With the new SDMI format, it would be easy to do, since the format would allow for it. Either/or, I don't put it past the RIAA to get something to work, esp. when the head of the SDMI is largely responsible for MPEG.

    But I have faith that a way around all the schemes will be created - these kinds of locks are always broken - this "new" one will be no different.

  • DIVX has not been broken. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    However, since it is strong encryption it cannot be exported from the US (this is helping to kill the format). If US crypto export restrictions are dropped, we could end up with real working copy protection schemes. See? There *is* a bad side to free crypto? :)
  • You people kill me.

    You are fooling yourselves if you think that not paying for music will make music some how better. The exact oppisite will happen. How can you expect artists to spend thousands of dollars in education and training knowing that they will have to give away thier product when they have created somthing wonderful. Unlike other skills that you can learn in a few years... most good musicians have to put MANY MANY MANY years and more money than I think you are aware of to be able to play like they do. How dare anyone to think that musicians skills are not worth paying for. If musicians stop getting paid for using their skills, how will they support studio work? A good album costs more than you think to record.

    If you think that you shouldnt pay for music.. dont listen to it... If you think thats harsh, just remember that you dont pay their bills and you dont pay the recording costs. There are NO decent FREE studios that I know of.

    Believe me, I had to get a regular job along with thousands of other truly talented people because I wanted to own my own music equipment, be able to record, live in a house, not a cardboard box.

    A frustrated artist.
  • Watermarking CD's is a VERY effective way to superimpose information on top of a song without it being audible, and without compromising the information if the song is encoded into an MP3 or whatever.

    What if you superimpose your own information using steganography software [tripod.com]? That would overwrite anything that was already stored in the low bits.

  • > For instance, the Playstation crack: You need to install a new chip into the Playstation, about as complicated as you can get. How many people actually do that?


    Actually, you can now get a device that plugs into the back of the unit - no soldering required. My brother ordered one a few days ago and we'll see how it works.
  • I've seen a lot of discussion about the possibility of fingerprinting/watermarking a CD and or the MP3, but doesn't this allow only a single system to later play this MP3? This would mean you couldn't upgrade PC's, use it on your roomate's PC, or even transfer the file to the latest/greatest portable you just got if I'm understanding it correctly.
  • I can't recall hearing any artists complain about mp3 (enlighten if you know different)


    'K. There was a conference a couple of months ago, where, um, the Corrs, Robbie Williams, and some others I think, "spoke out" on internet music piracy.


    Record company pawns, the lot of 'em, of course.
    I didn't see Mark E Smith among them....
    --

  • >Are you going to mp3 them so that you can fit 17,000 hours on that drive?

    probably.
  • Is there any encoder source code available? GPL? Bladenc is an excellent encoder, but I have not seen the source for it.
  • Quote: "For example, if a user downloaded an illegal copy of a song before the phase-two technology was available, it would still play on the upgraded device. But if the user downloaded an illegal copy of music the band released after the technology was available, the upgraded device would recognize it as pirated and would not play it."

    Anyone know how this could work? how can a device tell the diffenence between an mp3 i encode one day, and one I encode the day after?

    I think they just clutching at straws.

  • Analog step (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    What can RIAA do to stop an analog step in the process. Sure, you lose a little quality, but I actually like a few odd sounds. Recently, my Rio has been filled with stuff off my LPs. So, can't I just plug my Discman into the same audio-in I have my turntable in?
  • Breaking Divx isn't worth the effort; the format will die of starvation soon enough, it doesn't need to be helped along.
  • I'm glad that the newest branch of our government is out to protect us from the nasty business of dealing with those evil, virus-ridden, mp3 files. I'm glad someone with common sense has stepped up to "stop the madness" when it comes to piracy. I'm glad that big brother RIAA is interfering with this dangerous "free" market system of ours, and is setting us right as to the technology we are allowed to use. I'm glad to live here in America where, if you have a good idea for a product, someone's always around the corner to sue you for inventing it.
  • What if it were encrypted with that key??
  • "...the industry seems to be realizing that it is here to stay, at least for the moment."

    What part of this statement makes sense? Why do journalists write statements like this. It's stupid. If something is here to stay, that suggests longevity. The phrase "for the moment" suggests the opposite. This reporter has very eloquently said jack-dookey. One often finds this in reporting. eg. "All hackers are dangerous, though a minority of them are not." Reporters actually say things like this.

    Personally I think all reporters should be shot, while some, like our own Mr. Katz, should be spared.

  • Here's how it will work (Score:3)

    by D-Fly ( 7665 ) on Wednesday May 26, 1999 @05:58AM (#1878754) Homepage Journal
    A few thoughts on RIAA's inititiative.

    This is actually their smartest move yet, when you think about it for a minute.

    They are going to allow us to play MP3's on the machine. And they are going to push it really hard to manufacturers of recording equipment--the big ones, like Panasonic, Sony(who have proprietary tech, but might abandon it) and Phillips. And believe me, the RIAA has some pull with these guys. So all the big consumer electronics guys will release these devices.

    And we will buy them, because they don't threaten our beloved MP3 collections.

    More importantly, the general public will probably end up buying the RIAA approved devices in far greater quantities than old stuff like the RIO, etc, because the big boys (Sony, etc)have marketing budgets several orders of magnitude beyond. Their manufacturing and design abilities are also much better (admit it, the Rio is an ugly, badly built piece of crap compared to a Sony minidisc player), so the RIAA devices will be spiffier and work better too, meaning even those of us who generally hate all things RIAA will probably buy the Sharp or Sony model.

    So, now they have all the market share, and everything is groovy for MP3 lovers too.

    But my bet is that the new SDMI spec will end up sounding a hell of a lot better than MP3.

    Which basically sucks, if you want my opinion, or if you don't just siddown and play a tune ripped at 128b versus the same song off a CD for yourself, back to back.

    My guess is that the SDMI spec will be close to CD or ATRAC-6 MD quality. So people will play free MP3s, but buy SDMI versions of songs they really like.

    There is really no reason for the watermarked CD option RIAA is pushing, except that somebody would probably figure out a way to open up the SDMI algorithm and rip their own without watermarked CDs.

    I don't even think this is such a bad scenario overall. (except that like most of you I would like to see the music industry crushed beneath the heel of the music-buying public. I just don't think that will happen.)

  • there could be a fingerprint encoded into the mp3 based on the computer it was recorded from, and if the software used to rip/transfer songs to the player detects that the fingerprint doesn't match 'this' computers' fingerprint, then it would refuse to transfer the file. also, 'new' CD's could also have a fingerprint in them for the 'phase 2' checking.
  • Stage 1

    Your hardware player plays all MP3s, RIAA continues preparations of stage 2.

    Stage 2

    Most new CD releases are watermarked. SDMI-format starts becoming widely available. If you want to play SDMI format you must upgrade the PC software that communicates with your player. Upgraded software accepts SDMI but rejects watermarked MP3s with the exception of files you ripped for personal use on your player only.

    This "solution" concentrates on the PC software which downloads files to the player. This means that they will try to keep the communication format proprietary and won't be very cooperative with anyone who wants to write download software for a different OS.

    But, of course, the communication formats for the common players will eventually be reverse-engineered and download software which ignores fingerprints will be available for all important OSs at a mirror near you.

    I must say that I am surprized but this proposal is actually quite reasonable and everyone gets what they want: The RIAA lawyers get their fig leaves and give the go ahead for SDMI, making online distribution an option for the mainstream. The hardware manufacturers don't need to add complex algorithms and make their devices more expensive because it's done on the host. We get something which is easy to reverse-engineer and override because it's in software on the host rather than inside a tamper-resistant chip.

    Now if only more commenters actually had read and bothered to understand the article before posting dumb comments...

  • They can yell, they can threaten, they can even file suit. But eventually, they have to convince a Judge to agree with them.

    The probability of that happening in this case is very very close to nil.

    The only argument they have to stand on is contributory infringement, and that is shaky ground at best. The Sony Betamax case of years ago pretty much slam-dunked that one in favor of the hardware manufacturers.

    Basically, RIAA will need to argue that the substantial purpose of MP3 players is to "steal" (to use their inaccurate terminology) music. This argument simply will not stand scrutiny, just as arguing that the purpose of consumer cassette tape decks is to "steal" albums.

    The vendors of MP3 players should simply take courage from the fact that they're right, and just ignore the RIAA. In the final analysis, they are inconsequential.

    Schwab

  • It's not that hard to do that; in fact I think it already exists. However, the problem with recompressing already-compressed audio is that artifacts will get much worse, and the quality will worsen noticeably. It's like recompressing JPG images as JPG; the quality degrades significantly.
  • It seems they are slowly (quickly?) retreating from each position they take. They say something, the techs or Net at large says "no way", they retreat a bit. Repeat.

    It's actually kind of funny to watch. I'm just worried that they will succeed, not with the tech, I don't think the market will let them, but with legislation. The RIAA has already gotten laws passed that are favorable to them for streaming media (by favorable I mean limiting distribution thus controlling their oligopoly) By making certains type of MP3 "paraphenalia" (sp) illegal or even certain uses of it, they might retain control.

    Personally I am against ANY and ALL limits on my ability to copy and use digital data that I own, probably why I hang out here. :)

    LONG LIVE DIVX!!!
  • All of your comments make sense, but how can they really control that kind of thing? I already own a current version of an MP3 encoder, so there's no way for them to put in the "extra feature" of watermarking/fingerprinting and force me to use that one, right?

    The MP3s I make will continue to be made the same way with the same software. And if I owned a Rio, and didn't install flash updates or software updates, wouldn't any MP3 I made with my current software still work?

    Am I missing something?

    Ian.
  • Here are the high points of the article:

    New CD's will be encoded so that the MP3s ripped from them will be "tagged" somehow.

    Upgraded software for MP3 players will not play the "tagged" MP3s.

    If you don't upgrade your MP3 player software you won't be able to play legal songs in any format.

    If you still have questions read the article, it's pretty straight forward.

  • RIAA sees the light? (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 26, 1999 @05:43AM (#1878767)
    I have no contacts inside RIAA or member companies, but this sounds an awful lot like the following happened:

    1. They saw their golden empires are being challenged by MP3, so they knee-jerked and took a hardline stand against it, including the failed legal efforts to block MP3 players. The people who made those decisions had no clue about the technology involved, so they naively thought they could stop it.

    2. Some of the more technical people at these companies informed the decision makers of the realities of the situation, i.e. MP3 is here to stay, and RIAA has already lost, so to save face and avoid an even bigger debacle, they decided to "allow" MP3's to co-exist with their standard.

    BTW, I think this was NEVER about stopping bootleg copies, and was entirely concerned with outside, independent artists who were satisfying the listener's demand for new music and keeping the customers from spending money on new CD's. I know that since I started downloading files from mp3.com, my CD purchases have flatlined. I listen to music all day while I work, and it's about half CD's I bought months (or longer) ago, and half MP3 files.

  • You people don't get it (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Any software copyright protection can be broken. Yet most people don't pirate software and software companies aren't broke.

    99.99999% of people who listen to music have cd players and radios, and don't have portable MP3s
    and don't listen exclusively to MP3s.

    The market the RIAA is addressing is the mainstream digital music market. Your MOM.
    Your MOM won't use MP3Spy to find illegal warez sites and download music.

    Your MOM will be marketed to by record companies, and will recognize name brand secure music download sites and primarily go there to purchase music.


    You know, patents don't mean shit, and anyone can export contraband software. So why isn't *EVERYONE* and I mean *EVERYONE* using encryption everywhere?

    Because most users don't waste time trying to find and setup illegal or contraband stuff. Most people don't steal cable tv either, even though anyone can buy a box to do it.

    Put two and two together and figure it out.

    (incidently, for the same reason, it is not "inevitable" that Linux dominate and win the Desktop from Microsoft. )

  • That is just FUD and bullshit (Score:3)

    by Hobbex ( 41473 ) on Wednesday May 26, 1999 @12:50PM (#1878781)
    I don't believe that one second. Redbook CDs still have to follow the same format or old players won't play them, and that format has no copy protection.

    Booby trapping encoders and decoders is a joke, because its not like they can make existing MP3 encoders and decoders "go away" if the new ones won't do what people want them do to. Sure they can watermark (at the cost of sound quality), but what are they going to do, burn the CD with my name in the watermark AFTER I purchase it?

    The RIAAs only hope is that they develop a copy protection scheme for the SDMI format that is 10 x smarter than anything that has been done before, and that people actually let themselves be fucked over by the new format.

    Did I say I doubt it?
  • I wonder would this happen: music industry become an industry like academics, that sharing knowledge and idea (here the music) freely with recognition of the author (the musician).

    So, the new industry have recording companies, whose role is just like the academic journals in academics, publish music for musicians. Of course, there're cost for music lovers to search for the good music, and so the recording labels basically provide some information on the music. If you love certain kind of music, like R&B, maybe you would like to subscribe to a R&B labels by small annual fees, and you get the music downloaded. You can distribute it freely as long as you're not making money on it.

    I guess, this would kill most of the current industry and force them to do very specialised kind of music for small number of audience.

    Similar to academics, many musicians won't be happy with this new industry... shouldn't we subsidised musicians like we subsidised universities to promote creativities?
  • Nope, I think it's the RIAA thing again : "we can control things". They still don't understand that you can't control MP3 because it is a basic and "open" (ahem) technology. Any decent programmer can make a ripper or port it's own version of the reference ISO MPEG encoder. Then the results is just a file you can save/archive/upload/download on other open medium such as HTTP or FTP.

    So there's no way they can enforce their system. As long as music is made of sound waves, it will be possible to record it, compress it and distribute it digitally, without any control. For the RIAA scheme to work, they would have to control one part of the MP3 chain :

    - sound source : at one moment or another it still is plain sound (digital or analog), so even if it is crypted/signed there's always a way to get it "in clear". Beside, rippers still work on 100% of the audio CD on the market at this time, which still leaves a huge quantity of unsecured audio
    - encoder : the source is public, even if patents are in it, you can still make an illegal one or distribute it in a software patent free country (see BladeEnc). Beside, other format than MP3 could be made as audio compression is more and more mainstream
    - storage : hard drive/CDR/tapes, no way to control that
    - distribution : FTP/HTTP are not controllable
    - players : the source code is out too, so anyone with decent programming skill can make one

    So I don't see how they can stop anyone from ripping CD's a trading MP3. Illegal as it is, it is impossible to enforce.

  • When are they going to get it? (Score:3)

    by threedays ( 16600 ) on Wednesday May 26, 1999 @04:47AM (#1878787)
    "riaa will allow mp3s to exist"...

    When are they going to get it? This is exactly the type of mentality that will ensure they loose.

    As long as physical media exists, we will be there making mp3s. They cant force another format on us. Itd be one thing if we didnt know how to make the mp3s ourselves. Who do they think made all the mp3s that are already out there? We did.

    You can shove that liquid audio right up yer @#$)@#($
  • Except for one little detail: The article appears to state that the "phase two" technology will also allow you to transfer the ripped songs to a Rio-type device and play it there. Only network distribution is prevented.

    I can't think of any way to do this without requiring that you register every MP3/SDMI playback device you own with the encoder. Before you rip. If your Rio falls down a well and you buy a new one, you'd have to re-rip everything.

    Anyone got any other thoughts on how this could be done?

  • I suspect that they're talking about some kind of "watermarking". So you can kiss goodbye to "CD-quality sound" if they go ahead to this - anything that can still be recognised after MPEG layer 3 encoding is likely to be easily perceptible as distortion.
  • JPEG watermarks can be defeaated...
    unZign [altern.org]
    or
    StirMark [cam.ac.uk]
  • Using the new PIII Official Big Brother Serial Number that seems to scare so many people that forget NICs have unique MAC addresses that could have been used all along for tracking purposes.

    Throw MS into the mix who has used MAC addresses in their tracking methods, and introduce them both to the RIAA.

    The only trouble is how do you force all the free/shareware/GPL existing encoders to do this? YOu can't. Therefore they'd likely have to add something proprietary which would make it non-mp3

  • Copy Protection in this case: Impossible (Score:5)

    by Jerf ( 17166 ) on Wednesday May 26, 1999 @05:44AM (#1878818) Journal
    No one needs 100% copy protection. Most people are happy with 99%. For instance, the Playstation crack: You need to install a new chip into the Playstation, about as complicated as you can get. How many people actually do that? (Considering you're a Slashdot reader, the answer may well be "All my friends", but Sony is more worried about the general public, not a fringe group they can't stop anyhow).

    In the Playstation case, the difficulty is to crack a system. The difficulty that the RIAA faces here is that once a song is cracked, that song can be distributed endlessly, through already established channels. Moreover, there is a huge established demand for this. I really don't see how they can prevent the MP3 community from making illegal copies of music using already capable hardware. Since you can't mandate the replacement of the millions of CD players out there, what can you do?

    Finally, it is virtually certain that cracking these things will be a matter of running something through some program written by a cracker after ripping it with one of the millions of CD readers that can currently rip CDs.

    The cat is out of the bag, and they could only have what they want if they can go back in time and modify all the hardware. It's too late to implement a new hardware standard (years too late), and all software can be cracked, probably relatively easily. In fact, I bet there would a race of sorts amoung the ripper-programmers to see who could be the first to get the crack in.

  • I'm glad I'm not the only person thinking like this.

    In the near future, the compressed audio battle will nothing but a memory and we'll be talking about compressed video.

    Like everybody else, I'm a consumer of video and audio. I believe in the right of artists to be paid for their work. I pay my share every time I purchase a CD or DVD. All I want for my money is high quality digital sound or video that I'm free to manipulate and play back on the equipment of my choice. Why doesn't the music and video industries cater to my needs? A lot of people who are like me are the best customers of these industries!

  • Perhaps a slight flame, but this reminds me of the disaster recovery group at my own company. You have people who are completely non-technical trying to drive technical solutions. In this case, the RIAA wants all sorts of ridiculous things. What we see is the stuff that is halfway filtered after the technical people they consult say "that's impossible". I'm sure the raw and uncut demands going around inside the RIAA are even more amusing.


    I had to vent a little there, sorry. The point being that these 'solutions' are not being technically driven, and they are trying to fix something that, from the broad perspective, only they think is broken. But it is everyone else who they have to change to scratch their itch. The mindset seems to parallel with the people who want to censor the Internet.

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