EMI Considers Abandoning DRM on CDs

jOmill writes "EMI Netherlands has announced that it is considering no longer using DRM on CDs, because it isn't worth the cost. According to Reuters the company is still reviewing the decision. From the article: 'Critics have argued that the system has not worked as consumers could be driven to illegal sites to download music to the popular iPod instead. A spokeswoman for EMI said it had not manufactured any new disks with DRM, which restricts consumers from making copies of songs and films they have purchased legally, for the last few months.'"

Good...

[daveschroeder]

...because when any "DRM" is used on audio CDs, they're technically no longer even "audio CDs"...at least, they don't officially conform to the Red Book Audio specification [wikipedia.org], and can't even use [wikipedia.org] the familiar "Compact Disc Digital Audio" logo. While certainly they're intended to be purchased and used as audio CDs, and everyone would still refer to them as such, they're at most an "audio disc resembling a conventional audio CD," or "audio that is incidentally stored on CD media".

Intrinsic to a Red Book Audio CD is the ability to extract the audio in its pristine digital form. While content owners may not appreciate that in today's digital marketplace, that's what an audio CD is. If labels want to add DRM or anything else not in the Red Book Audio specification to these discs, they are obligated to make it clear that they're not really audio CDs, and indeed, consumers have found the belated warning that they "may not play in all CD players" only too true, resulting in practical decisions like this one from EMI Netherlands. This is what you get when you screw with established international standards.

Especially humorous is that, any amount of DRM aside, all of this music will always be widely available on file sharing networks, mostly as lossy MP3s. Who is affected most, then, by not being able to extract audio from discs within one's own physical possession, given that the music is invariably already available any number of file sharing networks many times over? The individual consumer who simply wants to enjoy his purchase on another device, such as a computer or portable music player. While DRM is intended to prevent or reduce casual copyright infringement, it never will stop content from being copied, and DRM on "audio CDs" is just one of those wrongheaded ideas, given that it toys with a standard that has already been established for two and a half decades.

Until someone figures out how to alter properties of nature in such a way that physical property of audio or video being able to be in an analog state via sound waves or the electromagnetic spectrum can be eliminated, there will always be mechanisms for those who wish to violate copyright to violate it. In the meantime, DRM will mostly affect and inconvenience legitimate, paying consumers of content.

Re:Good...

[Mateo_LeFou]

"DRM is intended to prevent or reduce casual copyright infringement"

I'd like to point out -- though most people here probably know -- that casual copyright infringement very likely improves the bottom line of the music publisher. E.g. my friend casually gives me a mix CD of tunes he thinks I'd like, I'm X% more likely to buy one of those artists' discs later. That X% increase has a monetary value in the aggregate. I'd love a link to a scientific study of that value.

Re:Good...

[Monkelectric]

Preventing casual infringement also depends on your definition of infringement. I bought the new David Gray CD. It wouldnt play in my computer for some reason, so I bought another copy. Then I found out it was copy protected. I don't *OWN* a cd player and I couldn't rip it.

I have two copies of the album and to this day I have only heard it via an mp3 downloaded illegally. In this case they just prevented me from legal fair use and its the last sony album I'll every buy.

Re:

[Storlek]

Just curious, why didn't you return the first copy to the store? Most places at least allow exchange for the same title if your copy is defective.

I pulled a stunt with a DRMed disc once by returning it to the store several times, claiming it wouldn't play (which was the case... on my computer, which is the only CD player I have). It took seven returns before anyone at the store even considered it may be a DRM issue and not a manufacturing defect, but they eventually gave me store credit for another title ju

Re:

[Monkelectric]

I generally buy large orders of cds, 50 or 100 at a time. I spend a lot of time on the road and a lot of time listening to music at work ... so if I buy a cd it might be months before I listen to it, and it is not going to be returnable at that time ;)

Re:

[metamatic]

In some locations, you can demand your cash back. For example, in the UK, consumer protection law states that if the product is unsuitable for the purpose for which it was sold, you can get a refund. No store credit. In this case, if you're sold something under the pretense that it's a CD, and it turns out it won't play in some CD players because it doesn't meet the CD specifications, I think it would be an open and shut case in small claims court.

Re:

[porpnorber]

So they got your money twice. Score!

I have long suspected that the motivation for DRM on 'CDs' was to exploit people in your very situation (even a music exec cannot be so stupid as to imagine that you can prevent copying without preventing playback; even the most conservative recording industry insiders know about concepts like 'cables' and 'tapes'). The cost, to them, of selling coasters in CD boxes is that the third time this happens to you, you stop buying music on silver discs altogether. So why would

Re:

[Gulthek]

It doesn't matter if piracy is good for them. Even if casual piracy makes them millions or billions of dollars, it's still within their rights to prevent you from doing it. Which means it's still illegal. Whether or not you think that it's immoral depends on your views on the laws of human society.

I didn't say it was legal.

[Mateo_LeFou]

But I do think that their investors should know they're spending millions trying to prevent something that might conceivably be driving profits *up.

Re:

[mobby_6kl]

So, you don't actually have any references to back this up? If I were making the opposite point, everybody would be screaming how "most people here probably know" isn't good enough.

Re:

[Mateo_LeFou]

There are studies "proving" that downloads hurt sales, and other studies that "prove" the opposite. There are so many variables at work that a short-term study will never suffice. By that I mean a study over filesharing patterns over less than 10 years.

I don't claim that my experience/anecdotal research constitutes "proof" that filesharing enhances music sales on a global scale. That would be silly -- almost but not quite as silly as the assertions of the "content owners" that this casual infringement cost

Re:

[Maxo-Texas]

As a result of casual copyright infringement late last year, I went to a new band's concert and bought two T-shirts off their web site.

Re:

[Technician]

they're technically no longer even "audio CDs"...

I hope they start putting on the Compact Disc logo so I can find real CD's again. Hopefully they won't be over compressed to sound loud. How about some SN ratio and Dynamic range?

Some good music should help too.

Re:

[neuro.slug]

You know, I've found that the reason most CDs don't sound that great is because the recording itself sucks, the mixing sucks, or the CD player sucks. Unless the label is known for producing decent recordings (Telarc, Chesky, Proteus, etc.), then there's a darn good chance that producing hi-fi grade music isn't their highest priority.

If you're looking for a good "budget" CD player, might I recommend the AH! Njoe Tjoeb [hifi-notes.com], as it's made CDs sound.. so.. much.. better. :)

You *can't* make an exact low-level audio CD copy

[Dogtanian]

Intrinsic to a Red Book Audio CD is the ability to extract the audio in its pristine digital form.

(Disclaimer: I am not an audio or CD technology expert. Take the following with a pinch of salt.)

My understanding is that audio CDs can't be copied exactly because the lowest-level information stored on the CD cannot be returned directly by existing recorders.

Bear in mind that the files which *can* be copied exactly to and from CD-ROMs sit on top of several layers of encoding. Even though you can make

Re:

[jZnat]

I think the important part here is that you're getting the intended audio (i.e. the PCM data that was originally pressed at the factory from the master copy) rather than the potentially-scratched probably-incorrect-in-some-places PCM-like data from the disc.

Re:

[Dogtanian]

No. I understand what you meant, and that was the point I made regarding CD/DVD-ROM filesystems.

With audio CDs one can't guarantee an exact copy of the PCM audio because the lowest-level info we can extract may already have been *transparently interpolated* at a lower level.

I've ripped audio tracks via the two different DVD drives in my PC, and they came out very slightly differently. (Can't remember if the length was different, but the md5 sum definitely would have been). Clearly, one or both was not

Re:

[Dogtanian]

Sorry, I should have made clear that this *implies* that we don't know if we're getting "perfect" PCM (i.e. the PCM which was originally encoded/written to the disc) or PCM with error interpolation.

I also don't know how much hidden information isn't ripped, nor if a "perfect" CD may return different PCM (other than that which was originally written) in any particular drive.

Even if it were theoretically possible to extract all the relevant, unmodified bits from the CD, another issue is that the pits/land

Re:

[FireFury03]

I've ripped audio tracks via the two different DVD drives in my PC, and they came out very slightly differently.

The CDParanoia FAQ explains this [xiph.org].

Basically, you cannot seek accurately on an audio CD - you can ask to seek to a specific frame and the player will land you somewhere in that frame, but not necessarily at the beginning. So 2 rips of the same track may be absolutely identical except for the fact that one starts a few samples earlier than the other. To compare them you would have to align the trac

Re:Good...

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

While DRM is intended to prevent or reduce casual copyright infringement...

I disagree with this. In my opinion DRM is intended to prevent lawful use of copyrighted material and motivate people to buy multiple copies of the same work by intentionally breaking interoperability with other devices. That is to say, content producers would like their customers to buy one copy for their home CD player another copy for the tape player in the car and another copy for their portable player. The industry is used to income from people periodically re-buying their favorite media in the new format or to replace the copy they have broken. They are terrified of the idea that a person could buy one copy and use it forever, handing it down to their children.

Media companies claim that they are trying to stop illegal copyright infringement, but they also claim accidentally posting a song on a file sharing network costs them hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenue, and if not for file sharing networks 90% of the gross national income would be spent on music. Why anyone would believe such obvious liars is beyond my understanding.

Re:

[bill_mcgonigle]

While DRM is intended to prevent or reduce casual copyright infringement,

That's just the excuse. DRM is intended to control how, where, and for how long you have access to a piece of data, hopefully generating future sales through such restriction.

Since reality conflicts with the PR, I'll err on the side of reality.

Re:

[Gr8Apes]

How do you really know what their concern is? I bet it's not the single "perfect" copy. It's being able to copy copies forever perfectly. And, DRM only affects the initial copy, after that, it's non-DRM'd, and copies can be made from copies perfectly.

Since the core issue with audio is to provide as good an audio source as possible, DRM'd or not. With the high quality of audio recording equipment available, even an initial analog recording of a DRM'd work will be very very good, arguably so good that only th

Re:

[It'sYerMam]

Of course, it's still a PITA to copy all your music at play-speed, which is this prevents your casual user from doing what is his right, but goes no way to stopping a rigorous copier from doing what he wants.

Re:

[Stormwatch]

Also, there concern is 'perfect' audio copies. Something that is difficult to do reliable after the disc has been decoded.

There ARE lossless compression formats, you know.

Re:

[jZnat]

He might be referring to the fact that all the sounds are downsampled to 2-channel 44.1 kHz 16-bit PCM audio rather than the audiophile favourite 5.1-channel ~2 MHz 192-bit HD audio. The fact that the audio is compressed at all after it's done being mixed (or in any step of the process) will incite an audiophile to denounce the format.

Re:

[twistedsymphony]

Are ANY audio studios actually mastering in 5.1 for music intended for purchase? Movie soundtracks not withstanding.

Well what about SACD and DVD-Audio, DualDiscs, and DTS CDs, etc... I have a few Nine Inch Nails Dual Discs mastered in 5.1. The Downward Spiral re-mixed and re-mastered from the original tapes, and another one: With Teeth, which apparently was written for 5.1 from the get-go and then flattened for the regular CD release. I've seen other Surround sound releases in these "next-gen" audio format

Great Day

[Mateo_LeFou]

The second-greatest day will be when they report that sales dropped off not the slightest bit b/c of this change DRM only annoys purchasers. Not "pirates"

Re:

[VEGETA_GT]

Ok seriously I want to look through there collection of Music and see if they have anything I would like. I would love to send a message to the RIAA that people well support non DRM material.

Good, also

[Mateo_LeFou]

Subscribe to emusic. Download plain old mp3s and do what you want with ' em.

Re:

[cayenne8]

Has anybody actually bought a CD that they could not rip?

I've never seen one that I couldn't easily rip songs from....

Re:

[TheRaven64]

Not that I couldn't rip, but I have bought a CD that, due to DRM, my mother couldn't play on an older CD player. I didn't send it back, because it was a gift and she was happy to only play it in her main HiFi (it didn't play on the one in her dining room, but it wasn't really the kind of music you'd listen to over a meal).

Would the DRM have inconvenienced pirates? Not the slightest; iTunes happily ripped it without complaining. Did it inconvenience real users? Definitely.

Re:

[bensafrickingenius]

"but it wasn't really the kind of music you'd listen to over a meal)."

Mom's into Rob Zombie, is she? :)

Re:

[MarkGriz]

"but it wasn't really the kind of music you'd listen to over a meal)."

Mom's into Rob Zombie, is she? :)

Since *when* isn't Rob Zombie dinner music?

Re:Great Day

[arivanov]

Yes I did. 5 months ago. 3 CDs from Virgin records via Amazon.

The wife wanted to listed to them on the MP3 player in her car and her Mac at work. None could play them. Even the "proper" Sony CD player had problems with 2 out of 3.

I ended up researching the matter and buying a DVD rewriter model with a known firmware bug (or feature depends how you look at it) which can rip through most current DRM with flying colours. So the "could not rip" lasted for 3 days in total. After that it was ripped and encoded in the suitable formats for usage on the devices used for listening in the house.

Frankly, Virgin and Macromedia can take their DRM and shovel it where sun does not shine and rotate it at 48x CD speed until they the torque pushes their heads out of their arse. What really pissed me off was the fact that I have purchased it legally, 2 out of 3 had a "CD digital audio" on them and they were unuseable on all devices in the house.

From the point of view of the average consumer this is perceived as "shitty and unuseable product" so I am not surprised EMI is considering abandoning the practice. It is costing them lost sales and handling returns from pissed of customers who after that go to "illegal" networks or AllOfMP3.

Re:

[Dogtanian]

You bought a DVD recorder simply to rip copy-protected CDs or were you buying one anyway? That having been said, out of curiosity, what was the drive?

Re:

[arivanov]

Check the Wikipedia article on Macromedia DRM. It describes the types of drive which you need to investigate. I got the right drive on the second attempt. The first one could not do it so make sure you get them from a shop which allows you to return stuff with no questions asked (UK mail/internet order laws come quite handy). You also need to rip with -libparanoia, not the default schilly transport library.

As far as buying a DVD +/-/bla/bells/whistles/dual layer recorder just to be able to rip CDs - yes I d

Mod parent up

[Godji]

Frankly, Virgin and Macromedia can take their DRM and shovel it where sun does not shine and rotate it at 48x CD speed until they the torque pushes their heads out of their arse.

That is a memorable quote! Thank you!

Re:

[Pollardito]

if i were you, i would have just had your wife use her Mac at work to rip it. most of these protected discs use windows-only autorun software to protect them

Re:

[arivanov]

I am aware that the lamp-style iMac (and later) superdrive is one of the drives that can rip nearly anything. Unfortunately her Mac is rather old and does not have it.

As far as windows autorun software - I could not care less. The last windows machine in the house met its demise in 1995 (it was a 3.11). Unfortunately it was not just autorun, the tracks were intentionally corrupted with the ECC wrong (Different versions of Macrovision). On two of them it was to the point where normal CD players did not want

Re:

[arivanov]

yes, thanks for the correction. It is Macrovision.

Re:

[badasscat]

Has anybody actually bought a CD that they could not rip?

I've never seen one that I couldn't easily rip songs from....

I think some people are missing the point of your question, which is that CD-based DRM is trivially easy to defeat. So the only people it hurts are those who just want to play the CD and can't, because it doesn't conform to spec.

I personally only own a couple DRM-laden CD's (I didn't know before I bought them, but I probably would have bought them anyway). Neither gave me any problem whats

Re:

[heroofhyr]

I think it depends on which DRM system they use, but I'm pretty sure all of them can be circumvented.

I came across a CD with the CDS200 DRM mechanism on it a few days ago. I had no idea it was even copy-protected until I tried to play it in the computer and none of the tracks showed up in /dev. I mounted it and found a bunch of typical DRM software installation files for Windows, so I rebooted and loaded it in Windows, and it prompted me to "install some necessary programs" before I could play it. Now, b

Foo Fighters: One by One

[norminator]

Has anybody actually bought a CD that they could not rip?
I've never seen one that I couldn't easily rip songs from....

I had a Foo Fighters CD that I got as a gift which was labeled as an "enhanced" CD. The first time I put it in my PC at home, I forgot to hold down the shift key, and I wasn't able to rip it on that computer (although the software on the CD wanted to "give" me a set of protected files for all of the songs, which I would only be able to listen to with their proprietary player). I ripped the CD under Linux on my laptop, then again on my work PC in Windows. Also with this CD, it was supposed to have some kind of bonus content that would connect to 'somebody' over the Internet to authenticate the CD in order to unlock the bonus content. That never worked on any PC I tried it on, the authentication always failed.

So there were two disappointments on that disc: 1) If you don't hold down the shift key, you won't be able to rip it (under Windows) and 2) the broken bonus content. I like the music on the CD, though... it's too bad that they have to muck it all up with DRM under the guise of extra features that don't work.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed I have purchased a CD that I could not rip. In fact, it was an EMI published CD, and the last CD I ever purchased.

Everyone here knows the cat and mouse game that has existed between consumers who want to exercise their fair use rights, and publishers who want to prevent "casual copying." For years, none of this affected me. I purchased CDs on occasion, a couple a year usually. I've even purchased a few "copy protected" CDs with the bullshit data track. These methods were laughable. Despite this

Re:

[babbling]

I haven't, but I have avoided buying CDs because they used "copy protection". I didn't even bother downloading the music, either. I was in the shop, ready to make an impulse buy on a CD I felt like listening to at the time, but didn't because I wouldn't have anything to play it on.

Me too

[metamatic]

Not only did I avoid buying copy protected CDs, but I also wrote to EMI in Germany giving them a list of the CDs I hadn't bought because of the copy protection. (I haven't received a reply yet.)

I also told them that there was an upcoming boxed set I was interested in buying, and that if they put copy protection on it I wouldn't buy it, so it was up to them.

Re:

[Gr8Apes]

That would require them to have "good" artists.

The primary reason that people stop buying new CDs is because there are no good CDs being produced. I'd have lots of trouble naming 1 great CD that came out in the last 6 months (even though I've bought a couple).

There's Lots of Great Music These Days

[Petersko]

The primary reason that people stop buying new CDs is because there are no good CDs being produced. I'd have lots of trouble naming 1 great CD that came out in the last 6 months (even though I've bought a couple).

If you think there's a lack of good music being produced, you're simply wrong. There's tons of it. You might have to do some searching, but no matter what your taste you will eventually be satisfied.

This "no good music these days" attitude is just the usual unnecessary and unwarranted elitis

Re:

[Gr8Apes]

Let's rephrase it then - there's no good music being publicized out there. It's all crap. I look at the new releases by the major labels and generally wind up groaning every week. Even the indies are dissappointingly down and out.

Granted, there's more likley a problem with the music scene rather than the artists. What I consider good artists seem to have disappeared, while crap is available everywhere and being promoted like today's U2, Pink Floyd, Beatles, Stones or whatever band from yesteryear or yesterd

Yay!

[SatanicPuppy]

Maybe the rest of the damn CD makers will follow suit, and I can go back to using my Sharpies to scribble on the front of my CDs!

Re:

[MindStalker]

Quote from Boing Boing article "This means that at the moment, not a single record company releases CDs that are protected against making digital copies, says the international industry-magazine 'Billboard'."

So apparently they all have. But this is one of the few to be talking about making it "official".

Which is it?

[Aladrin]

TFS says they are considering stopping, and then says they stopped months ago. Could we make up our minds please?

Re:

[Rogerborg]

Look on your CD player. See the buttons marked pause and stop? Figure out the difference.

Riiiiiiight, downloads...

[pla]

Critics have argued that the system has not worked as consumers could be driven to illegal sites to download music to the popular iPod instead

Who needs to illegally download? DRM'd "CDs" have a much more serious flaw, from EMI's perspective - They don't actually stop anyone from ripping them (and as a perk, they don't play in some audio CD players, particularly car CD players), meaning users need to rip and reburn them just to use as intended.

Good to see them giving up, though, regardless of the reason

Re:

[DaveCar]

I haven't found any CDs that wouldn't happily rip with cdparanoia on Linux. Ergo DRM CDs are pointeless as it only takes on smartarse with a free OS to flood the P2P channels with decent quality rips.

A colleague had a couple of CDs, one being by the Beatles, which appeared to have a second data session containing compressed versions and some Windows/Mac driver type stuff on it. It wouldn't rip in his Mac, he claimed - I don't know if this was some rootkit type setup. No problem extracting the CDDA which I g

Re:

[DaveCar]

OK, I have found some CDs which won't rip all tracks perfectly - old ones which are scratched or have genuine manufacturing defects (real defects, that is, not deliberate copy-protection type ones) but those CDs don't play properly on a straight audio CD player anyway.

I probably haven't come across any with the error-detection/correction deliberately messed up (I wouldn't buy them in the first place :) but the data-session type ones are a joke. I don't suppose it would be too difficult to mark the corrupt s

Re:

[morgan_greywolf]

Very true. I haven't encountered any DRMed "CDs" that I couldn't extract on my Linux box, but they would not rip on any of my Windows boxes. However, I've encountered some that refuse to play on truck's in-dash CD player.

BTW--I noticed in your TFA quote that it references "illegal sites". I'd just like to point out, that, AFAIK, the P2P technology itself is still not illegal in any jurisdiction that I'm aware of, it's only the use of them for distributing copyrighted material that is illegal.

Re:

[mangu]

they don't play in some audio CD players, particularly car CD players), meaning users need to rip and reburn them just to use as intended

And, since they now have a working copy, they can return the defective original to the store and get a refund...

I know it has been cold outside recently...

[symbolic]

But did hell freeze over?

Finally, they're starting to get a clue. I do not advocate pirating music in any way. However, I think it's equally, if not more insidious, that commercial interests are making it very difficult for consumers to *want* to do the right thing. This is a step in the right direction. *AA....are you listening?

Re:I know it has been cold outside recently...

[LWATCDR]

Well they got a clue but not the one your thinking of.
1. DRM costs money.
2. Current DRM didn't stop the music from showing up on file shareing networks.
3. Current DRM is a waste of money.
4. Stop paying for DRM that doesn't work.
5. More Profit.

Now if they ever get effective DRM it will be back.

Which will come first?

[soft_guy]

Which will come first?

Effective DRM
An end to Spam
or the release of Duke Nukem Forever?

Re:

[paeanblack]

Which will come first?

Effective DRM
or the release of Duke Nukem Forever?

The current problem with Duke Nukem Forever is the DRM they implemented on the master disc. The actual game has been finished for quite some time now. The reason you can't find it in stores is because the cd manufacturers haven't figured out how copy the master without Duke showing up and putting his boot up their ass. It truly is the world's first kickass DRM.

DRM...the only way to win is not to play.

Re:

[jZnat]

Now if they ever get effective DRM it will be back.

Which is effectively impossible to do with CDs. [Audio] CDs follow what is known as the Red Book [wikipedia.org] Compact Disc Digital Audio standard. This is where the CDDA [wikipedia.org] trademark we all know and love from CDs comes from. Said standard does not allow anything but PCM audio data, thus it is impossible to create a CD that both contains "effective" DRM as well as follows the Red Book standard (which is required in order to use the CDDA trademark on your CDs).

I've notic

Re:

[Generic Guy]

Sounds points, but I think the most important one missing from your list is simply:

6. Dealing with more product returns which often cost more than the original distribution cost of the CD in the first place.

All because these whackajob DRM controls prevent real customers from playing the disc in a number of 'normal' players.

Re:

[Skinny Rav]

5. More Profit.
Now if they ever get effective DRM it will be back.

No, they have just realised that getting favourable laws passed and enforced is cheaper and effective.

Cheers

Raf

Re:

[marcosdumay]

That is the kind of clue that most people expect from them.

And there is no such thing as effective DRM.

Re:

[LWATCDR]

"And there is no such thing as effective DRM."
Yet...
Still not not keep them from trying. I haven't seen any ISOs for the 360 yet so Microsoft's for the 360 is effective for now.

Re:

[Belial6]

The 360 has been cracked for a while now. They cracked the drive's bios instead of the main system bios.

Re:

[marcosdumay]

Those are good news. I didn't know it was cracked either.

Duh

[_PimpDaddy7_]

"EMI Netherlands has announced that it is considering no longer using DRM on CDs, because it isn't worth the cost.

We could have told you that, but since when did you guys ever listen to your customers?

From the article: 'Critics have argued that the system has not worked as consumers could be driven to illegal sites to download music to the popular iPod instead. A spokeswoman for EMI said it had not manufactured any new disks with DRM, which restricts consumers from making copies of songs and films they have purchased legally, for the last few months.'"

Did you ever think we, as consumers, when buying a CD, want to make backups, import the CD to our Ipod or other MP3 player?

It's amazing how management runs these companies. How can you deliver a product your customer wants when you don't even listen to what they WANT?

Re:

[clickclickdrone]

I'd just have loved to be a fly on the wall when Senior Exec #1 and Senior Exec #2 had a chat along the lines of 'you know that DRM thing which all our customers said was a dumb idea but we did anyway?'

Re:

[GigsVT]

Salesmen.

Managment listens to these stupid sales pitches for products like this, and buys into the promises.

Salesmen (especially software salesmen) are more dangerous to a company than any competitor.

Let's think of the consequences here...

[active1x0]

...and the poor software pirates who are quickly being putting out of business. How are they going to put food on the table if they don't have anything to crack? Let's do the right thing and think of their needs, people!

In other news...

[e4g4]

...EMI has announced they are discontinuing the release of new albums on standard Audio CDs and will now be selling Audio HD-DVDs complete with fingerprint scanners and GPS transmitters and facial recognition software. Any AHD-DVD found to be played by a user other than it's owner (or within hearing range of a non-owner) will self-destruct, and any AHD-DVD found outside it's allocated region will explode.

In other, other news, numerous airlines worldwide have banned the usage of all media disks during flight.

Perhaps Forced By Globalization?

[blueZhift]

In the article, it says that the DRM'd CDs were sold primarily outside of the U.S.. I suspect this was because of the headaches and lawsuits they knew would likely plague them in the United States. But now with the globalization fueled by the internet, I can imagine that more and more U.S. consumers were importing these DRM'd CDs perhaps after discovering a foreign artist via their music downloaded from the internet. If that's even partially true, then it would be more proof in support of the notion that "sharing" music over the internet is actually growing the market. Making music easier to get legitimately will be a win for the music industry in the long run, if they can get over their CD and DRM fixations.

EMI Artist list

[jimstapleton]

List by sub label. Taken from http://www.emirecords.co.uk/loader.html [emirecords.co.uk]

*NOTE: The site is flash so I can't copy and paste, these are hand copied, sorry for misspellings* ::EMI::
Auf Der Maur
Badly Drawn Boy
Beth Orton
Captain
Corinne Bailey Ray
David Gilmore
Faith Evans
Faultline
FischerSpooner
Hot Chip
Iron Maiden
John Cale
Kate Bush
Keren Ann
Kraftwerk
Pink Floyd
Radio 4
Robbie Williams
Saosin
Shawn Emanuel
Sigur Ros
Starsailor
Telepopmusik
The Aliens
The Concrete
Vincent Van and the Villans ::Heavenly Records::
Dove
Ed Hardcourt
The Little Ones
The Magic Numbers
The Vines ::DFA Records::
Black Dice
Delia Gonzalz & Gavin Russom
The Juan Maclean ::Positiva:: ::Positiva::
Deep Dish
Ferry Corsten
Paul Van Dyk
Soul Avengerz
Soul Seekers
The Shapeshifters ::Positiva:: ::Additive::
Remy

Re:

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

This list is missing:
Frank Sinatra (all of his classic 50's output was for Capitol, an American label owned by EMI)
The Beach Boys
and the group that many think was the best of all time:
The Beatles

Re:

[Mister Transistor]

I think "was" is the operative word here.

The Beatles formed Apple records and broke away from EMI, and later that freak Michael Jackson bought their whole catalog at one point. I remember being sickened by the thought. I think Jacko had to sell the collection to pay for his legal troubles, if and to whom I don't know.

I'm pretty sure the list given is just current (living) EMI artists.

I believe the Rolling Stones used to be one of theirs, also.

Re:

[JustNiz]

>> if and to whom I don't know.

Sony

Re:

[jimstapleton]

This was the list on their website, as the other reply said, not a full historical list of everything they've done.

Re:

[JKConsult]

I own every Concretes album ever released, and I've never had the remotest issue ripping them. I'm curious as to what the DRM on those CDs was to begin with.

Logical

[Jugalator]

So they're making a definity imnprovement of the product availability to their customers, making a definite cost reduction, with only a theoretical risk of noticeably increased piracy? Yeah, that sounds logical here too, and I wonder what took them so long. Pirates aren't those crying out at DRM, they use BitTorrent or other P2P nets. That's the biggest design hole of DRM, IMHO. Maybe the point was to not have a single pirate be able to rip (one is enough) that protection or gain it from other sources where it's not protected (or before it is), but all I can say about that idea is "dream on".

a DOH! revelation in the netherlands

[swschrad]

do please find sanity elsewhere as well, industry.

I think they pretty much given up a few years ago

[TAZ6416]

I posted about this earlier on http://www.groklaw.net/ [groklaw.net]

Ithink that the last major UK EMI release with DRM was Coldplay's X&Y back in 2005, any other releases I noticed on EMI was on the budget/reissue EMI Gold label, which was usually sold at about £2.99 in the bargain bin's at Sainsburys (a posher version of Walmart for our American chums ;) )

Why they kept it on the cheap stuff and not the latest releases I don't know, I suspect they were trying to see how many returns as "faulty" they would get on the budget range, maybe it was too high a percentage and they decided the cost of the returns on a big selling CD was too high.

They used to have a pro-drm site at http://www.emimusic.info/uk/ [emimusic.info] printed on the DRM'd CD's but they seem to have pulled it.

Funny to see how cocky the record companies were back in 2002 compared to now - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/11/21/all_cds_wi ll_be_protected/ [theregister.co.uk]

Jonathan

Swift, like buffalo; cunning, like microwave.

[Gulik]

EMI, in a recent press release, has declared that water is wet and the Earth is very likely in orbit around the sun.

"We're as surprised as anyone," said one EMI representative.

Just as a reminder

[ms1234]

Lets remember Tommi Kyyräs comments on playing cd's: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050922-5339 .html [arstechnica.com]

Maybe they realised...

[beezly]

Maybe they realised it was a waste of time because it doesn't work.

This may just be my experience, but I haven't come across a single CD (including some which are explicitly marked as having some sort of "Copy Protection" on them) which didn't rip first time in my PC. There's nothing special about my drive (I've used an old Matsushita DVD drive and a Plextor DVD Re-writer). Maybe it's because I am running Linux, but as far as I can tell, CD-Ex on Windows would work equally well as anything I am using under Linux.

because modern CD players are DATA players

[apodyopsis]

as pointed out before the Red Book specification describes audio CD's.

but data DVD has sectors and format information in the data on top of the red book specification.

and the Orange Book specification give details of multisession formats.

most of the "copy protection" systems used worked by wrapping the session information to impossible combinations that were impossible to read. or degrading the galois based CRC information that was used to recover bad data. neither of these methods were fatal to a Red Book player that only played audio disks as it ignored all other formats happily.

but these days most CD players can play MP3's also, and hence are data players not audio players - this means they are exactly the systems that the copy protection was designed to disrupt.

so the CD manufacturers found themselves in a situation where the new hifi's being built were being disrupted by they copy protection and hence unable to play any of the CDs. its a question of the physiscal data path built into the decoder IC on most MP3/Audio CD players.

in short, I'm not suprised they stopped including it - I'm just suprised they waited so long.

history repeats

[geoff lane]

Some record companies claimed that allowing radio stations to play records would damage their profits.

As it turned out they were talking rubbish.

Record companies trying to spindoctor the truth...

[thrill12]

...at least in some of the newsreports I saw, in which they stated that "it was not feasible to use a DRM system as the system was hacked every time", rather than (the truth) "the consumer and CD license holders (!) have fully rejected the protection systems we have devised, because they hamper fair use - especially in the area of simply playing out the CD (not even copying it) on normal consumer-grade playback systems and even outright violate consumer rights (sony rootkit)".

Considering. Hmm.

[Ed Black]

Well talk is cheap - speaking as someone who stopped my 3 CDs a month habit when CD copy protection became widespread, It's going to take more than "considering" to get me near their coasters again. To be honest, the idea of giving money to them at all doesn't sit well with me with the way record companies have behaved over the last few year - it just feels more like paying a ransom to suited mobsters than buying music. Ah well, there's no good way to pay the artists and not the record companies I suppose

EMI stops DRM in the Netherlands!

[Guppy06]

Non-Dutch music shoppers still up a creek!

(or, alternatively...)

Continues to fund RIAA lawsuits!

Yea i noticed that no-drm thing too actually

[unity100]

I bought a classic music set (2 sets, 6 cds per set, best classics vol 1 and 2, spectacular) and when my 6 cd changer part of the music set that dates 1991 have (understandably) broken down from continuous playing and changing, i was able to rip them to mp3s without any problems, and with quality. now i connected a stereo line out cable to the music set's amp, and it is playing via winamp perfectly.

this is the way to make a happy customer.

Maybe they're wising up a little

[ScrewMaster]

Most other businesses, large and small, realize the essential fickleness of the customer. That means that any barriers you place in his way will result in his finding another way. Now, that doesn't matter when the customer has no other way to get what he wants: that's how it was in the music industry for a long time. All that changed with Napster and the succession of sharing protocols and applications that have come along since. Yes, they tried (are still trying) to use the courts to suppress that "other w

Yes and no

[geekoid]

DO you mean legally? then it would depend on treaties.
If they show that th cost of DRM is more then the cost of actual loss, then it could spread because of market forces.

Re:

[hesiod]

Yes, because of course the omission of the word "any" completely changes the meaning of the line and makes it unintelligible babble.

Re:

[Kadin2048]

Are precedents global? I mean will one country follow suit solely because another has seen the light?

What are you talking about? EMI is a large corporation, based out of the Netherlands. Whether other multinational companies follow suit is totally up to them.

Based on previous behavior I doubt Sony will ever publicly renounce DRM in any form, but I think most of the major players will just stop trying to put it on CDs, because it creates more problems for them than it solves.

Naturally, the music companies ar

Re:

[j00r0m4nc3r]

How about ditching all these lame attempts to stop 'casual copying' like CSS, DVD regions and macrovision, and then pass the savings on to the customer?

But then how will the poor Macrovision execs buy more Ferraris?

Re:

[ebuck]

DRM has always been copy protection. It's just a nicer set of syllables that don't adgitate nerves as badly as copy protection enforcement.

That's why it's in so many things. Download a song, you could make a copy of it, so you need DRM. Transfer songs from an IPOD to a computer, need DRM. Transfer songs from a computer to a CD, DRM. Copy a file, need DRM in the OS.

It's an interesting idea, that a copy of a song exists as a single entity which should not reproduce. Unfortunately, many aspects of comput

DRM != Copy protection ?

[ratboy666]

"When did people start equating rudimentary copy protection with Digital Rights Management?

The term has lost all meaning."

DRM is not Copy Protection. It is Copy Prevention under defined circumstances (most of them)*. Copy Protection is Copy Prevention under all circumstances. Rudimentary Copy Protection is -- my guess -- Copy Protection that doesn't work.

Anyway, that all means that "Copy Protection == DRM for original media".

* DRM defines a series of "rights" you have to the content. Each application of a "