More Copy Protected CDs? 406
Mahonrimoriancumer writes "There are a lot of CDs that have been released recently which can't be played on the computer or *laugh* ripped. Apparently only a few markets have the 'copy protected' CDs while the rest don't. Here is a list of some that are 'protected.' Does anyone know of other CDs with this problem?" I own at least one CD on that list and it ripped just fine, so perhaps that are different versions of the CDs on the market
I heard of Sting (Score:3, Insightful)
The 'anti-rip' technologies all work by exploiting bugs in the CDROM drivers that cause the ripping software to break. If the CDROM drivers start to break on large numbers of CDs then the manufacturers will be forced to fix them.
I suspect that Amazon and the like will find these CDs unecconomic to sell as the number of returns is going to be high. The CDROM driver bugs are not going to be unique to CDROMs. Expect Amazon to start pro-actively warning customers that certain CDs have a very high rate of return.
Re:I heard of Sting (Score:1, Insightful)
Stop using the phrase Copy Protection... (Score:5, Insightful)
This has a number of advantages:
- copy protection implies that copying is bad (which it is not)
- copy prevention implies that the music industry is preventing me from making a legitimate copy. (which it is)
- copy prevention (somewhat) signifies that it is futile to prevent people to make copies. They can try and they might stop 90% of the people but it just takes 1 person to get this on MP3 and upload it to the net for the cat to be out of the bag
.
Re:Stop using the phrase Copy Protection... (Score:4, Insightful)
Amen, amen to that, try also "copy interference". Because they're not preventing any copying, they just make you do it differently.
Or heck just "intentionally damaged" or whatever, anything to get away from their terminology.
Re:running list (Score:2, Insightful)
This is the way to go.. (Score:3, Insightful)
2. Don't buy the music. Remember, while we may be able to vote in elections every 2-4 years, we vote daily with our money. If they don't have your money, the labels will (probably) be smart enough to stop pulling this kind of stunt.
This is the way to go. This is "speaking the right language". Don't whine about this - do something about it.
Don't buy Sony electronics for example; it's wrong to think "what difference can I make" - you really make the difference.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Stop using the phrase Copy Protection... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not flawed if people keep buying CDs (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm surprised that retailers... (Score:3, Insightful)
A lot of the big retailers for music - Best Buy and the Wiz come to mind - are also electronics retailers. Besides selling conventional CD players that may not be able to handle the "protected" CD's, they sell PC's with CDR's, CDRW upgrade drives and digital music players. In fact, with conventional CD players having become a commodity, digital music is probably an important source of profits for retailers and manufacturers. If enough of these "protected" CD's get out there, it's going to start spooking consumers; how can a retailer convince customer to buy a CDRW drive or a dashboard CD player that will read CDR's if half of that customer's music collection won't work on one of those. No customer wants to get "betamaxed" again. Instead of being able to profit by selling both the software (the music) and the hardware (playback devices), retailers are going to find out that spooked customers aren't buying either.
Worse still, a lot of digital music hardware may become the target for false advertising lawsuits. While retailers may not lobby the record companies on behalf of consumers, I'll bet you they will on behalf of their own profits.
Re:Class Action Suit (Score:5, Insightful)
Wha??!!!?? One of the reasons that I am completely against closed source software, cd copy "protection" , and the whole anti-DeCSS thing is because I believe that when I shell out my hard earned cash for something that means that I have the right to do whatever the hell I want with it because IT'S MINE!!!!!!
That's why whenever I am presented with a EULA I respectfully click "I do not agree". I will not enter into any "user agreement" with any company. If I buy something I reserve the right to do whatever the hell I want with it plain and simple...
With one minor exception: taking credit for the work.
I can not copy a book and say I wrote it. That's playgarism and is not fair to the author. But I can give that book to a friend when I'm done reading it because it's mine, I payed for it and I can do whatever I want with it.
--
Garett
Re:CD rips (Score:3, Insightful)
Somehow, a SoaD CD with copy protection just seems a little oxymoronic. "They're trying to build a prison for you and me....."
Re:Those CD's are crap anyway. (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't have any favorite bands on big labels? This may not even matter after a while, either, because (as I understand it) there are a lot of smaller labels that are members of the RIAA as well. They might get bullied into copy preventing their CDs too.
I sure hope this doesn't happen. It would render my Nomad near useless.
Re:A working system? (Score:3, Insightful)
The biggest problem is that it would require mandatory registration, which the paranoids would never go for (what if I lose my card? To get a replacement, I would have to identify myself).
There are also other problems: everthing would have to have a card reader, suddenly making all your stereo equipment obsolete. You can't sell your music media like you can with CDs. You can't mail-order music.
The biggest problem, though, is who wants to carry around a freaking key? If I leave it at home when I go to work, I can't listen. If my wife wants to listen to music while I'm at work, we have to buy two different copies? I don't think that's going to fly.
Re:one more thing to do (Score:5, Insightful)
Household CD Player +
pair of phono to quarter inch jack +
Decent soundcard +
Computer +
WAV Recorder +
WAV -> MP3 converter
= circumvention device.
How about :
Radio + Cassette tape + a bit of patience = circumvention device.
How about :
Sky Satellite dish + Digital box + The Box (music channel) + Decent TV Card + computer
= circumvention device letting you get music videos as a bonus
Think that the computer is the common denominator? How about:
Home CD PLayer +
Phono leads +
mp3 recorder
= circumvention device
Hmm... maybe ban phono -> jack leads?
finally:
Home CD player +
Speakers +
Microphone +
Computer +
WAV Recorder +
WAV -> MP3 convertor
So it looks like the only way to get rid of all circumvention devices is, in fact, to ban computers, leads, speakers, microphones, mp3's, wavs, and, just to be on the safe side, let's lock up anyone who happens to hum whilst walking down the street, just in case they are humming copy-protected material.
Re:Stop using the phrase Copy Protection... (Score:1, Insightful)
Although so many in the Slashdot crowd love to make fun of RMS for his use of better terminology, (and yet simultaneously you use GNU software and the GNU GPL), GNU has you beat here. Check out these words to avoid [gnu.org] and you'll find some nicely worded reasons to avoid propaganda terminology like "copy protection".
Re:A working system? (Score:2, Insightful)
That's different. People don't object to that because they're getting a higher quality product. You're not going to get people to ditch their old equipment simply to prevent something that most people don't want to prevent. The only purpose of which is to enrich the RIAA.
If anyone actually believed that the RIAA would lower the price of CD's if piracy was eliminated, they might go for it. But no one believes it.
Pricing of CD's and DVD's has almost nothing to do with cost, and almost everything to do with what the market will bear. In other words, we'll charge as much as we can get away with. That's not evil, it's standard economics when competition is removed from the equation. And there isn't competition. If you want a particular song, there's only one company to get it from.
Also, look at the price of DVD's vs. the price of tapes. Tapes cost more to manufacture, and yet DVD's cost more. Why? Because people are willing to pay more.
More importantly... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you can't rip it, it's defective and you should have the store replace it. If the repalcement can't be ripped there's something wrong with the production run and you should demand a refund.
If every slashdot user stopped buying CD's today, the industry would note a certain percentage downturn in sales and mark it up to the economy.
However, if every slashdot user returned every unrippable CD we get to the store/vendor, the stores would start wondering why the hell certain CDs are getting returned all the time and start complaining to the labels. Then the labels would have their sales channel angry with them and would be more likely to have to do something about it. A returned CD is an expense to the store: they have to store it until they have a batch to go back, and then return it to the label and wait for a refund or credit. If they start getting a lot of returns on one album they'll pull it from the shelves. (Hasn't that already happened once with Tower Records?) The stores will put up with much less nonsense than the labels are willing to either deal with or create.
And, of course, we could have the correctly mastered CDs which give us no problems, which really we have no gripe with in the first place.
I do, however, also recommend learning about your local musicians and independent musicians who may pass through your area. In the last year I've bought maybe a dozen CDs, just about all of which were purchased directly from independent musicians, and I must say I'm much happier with that music than with any of the commercially produced garbage they play on the radio these days.
Re:All Universal CDs? (Score:3, Insightful)
That CD was released last month, not this month. My Mac (iTunes) read it just fine, and CD Paranoia on Linux also read it.
However I'll warn you it isn't much like the other Garbage disks. You may not like it a whole lot.
Plus I think the best thing to do with factory damaged disks is to buy and return them. It may work better if you have a laptop so you can take it to the store and show it not playing. Even better if they only want to swap you for another of the same disk, play the next one before you leave the store. Insist they refund your money or change it for the next one. It might be worth $20 to run through their whole stock. Definitely worth it if you can run through the whole stock and get the money back.
Re:It is NOT legal to rip CDs, but not illegal... (Score:4, Insightful)
Your argument runs along the opposite line, that if copyright law doesn't say you can, then you cannot. Again, if you believe the rhetoric of the "intellectual property" cartels, sure. But if you believe the people who founded this nation and the ideals embodied in the U.S. Constitution, then that view is clearly incompatible with freedom.
This is the insidious nature of the re-education effort being undertaken by media publishers, the BSA, etc.. The criminalization of copyright infringement (before it was a civil matter), the outlandish extension of copyrights, the aggressive litigation, the shift from sale of a product to a license, and the broad use of terms such as "stealing", "piracy", "protection" are all part of this effort. And people have integrated these ideas into their worldview. People are shifting to a "it's only legal if the shrink-wrap license says it's legal" mindset.
Re:Class Action Suit (Score:3, Insightful)
No one owns creative works. Their very nature causes them to be intrinsically unownable. Hence the need for a special set of doctrines and laws collectively known as copyright, when notions of property date back to time immemorable.
Like a lot of people you're confusing the copyright -- which is an optional, owned, temporary, limited, grant of monopoly to an author by the government if it desires to so make a grant -- and the work -- which is the actual story, or whatnot -- and the fixation -- which is the medium within which a work is carried, and which is ordinary property.
It's really a bad idea to even imagine for a moment that artists (I'm an artist, btw) are entitled to squat. Copyrights are gifts. They are in fact, very, very conditional gifts, and the practice of giving them really is in order to satisfy interests that don't necessarily coincide with our own at all.
For example, you mention Fair Use, (but not very accurately -- what's this "loan" B.S.?) but wrongly think that it is an agreement between authors and readers. In fact, it is a condition of the gift imposed by the government. Authors can rant and rail against fair use and be squarely opposed to it all they like -- but they have no say in the matter. (aside from ordinary democratic processes, natch) Copyright is simply limited from the get go, and it is the government, not any private parties, that makes the rules, and even decides whether or not copyright will exist, and if so, whether or not it will exist for certain things. (e.g. go back to ~1950 and discover that software is uncopyrightable; go back to ~1800 and discover that paintings and songs are uncopyrightable)
Simply buying a copy of a work doesn't necessarily mean that you can do whatever you want with it, provided that it is still copyrighted (public domain works are wide open of course) BUT it is not the author's place to make that decision, unless it was required prior, and as a condition of receiving, the copy of the work.
(e.g. publishers cannot require that used books be sold for a particular price, or not sold at all, unless that was a condition of getting the books in the first place.)
Re:How to copy a MediaCloq protected CD (Score:3, Insightful)
It is imperative now to rip and place on the internet EVERY track from EVERY protected CD. I dont care if it's crapola music, it has to be done. The only statment that these morons that run the record companies can understand is a marketing trick (and that is all that this is) is a miserable and complete failure.
The ripping ratio of these "protected" CD's must massively exceed that of normal CD's. It needs to get the attention of major media, and needs to make the idea of audio CD protection look like a really really stupid idea to the general brain dead american. (97.6% of the population)
Re:More importantly... (Score:3, Insightful)
No, they won't. They're too arrogant for an admission like this. Instead, they will hang a downturn in sales on so called pirates and say it's because the cds were copied illegally, thus affecting sales. Then they can justify more copy prevention schemes.
Re:Class Action Suit (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm actually a musician. And a free software developer. I would like to think that what I create is "of value".
I agree with you that the words of the author are the property of the author. But the book as a whole that I payed for is mine and no one is going to tell me what I can and can not do with that book.
Similarly, the same applies to a cd. If I want to rip a cd that I own I have every right to do so. I may not have the right to re-distribute the songs that I ripped since I don't own the songs themselves - just the cd. But I can do whatever I want with the cd. I can give it to a friend; I can make copies of it; I can play it in my computer, car sterio, dvd player, mp3 player, toilet, microwave, vacuum or whatever else I may want to try and play a cd in etc. No one will take that right away from me because I payed for the damn thing.
...They will try though. I just hope for everyone's sake that they stop before they run out of money.
--
Garett
Re:More importantly... (Score:1, Insightful)
Buy from a store that's on your way to work. Return the CD daily until the store figures out that they either shouldn't sell to you, or should sell you better product.
Cost to you: Minimal.
Cost to the store: $20 a day.
Re:This is the way to go.. (Score:1, Insightful)
Also, make sure you make your purchases with your _credit card_ which universally offers return protection. The store _has to_ accept your return.
With enough slashdoters and supporters doing this, the RIAA/music studios will feel a hard punch in the stomach.
The is the perfect way to vote: with your credit card, which has a louder voice than cash . :-)
MoeJoe
can't.remember.the.darn.passwd.for.now
Re:More importantly... (Score:2, Insightful)