New CD protection won't play on PCs

[Calhoun07]

From MSN.com:


Israeli security company Midbar Tech is releasing 1 million copy-protected CDs in Japan as part of an aggressive push by record labels to curtail digital piracy.
Midbar said Monday that Avex will be the first Japanese label to issue copy-protected CDs using its technology, dubbed Cactus Data Shield. Avex said only some of the tracks on each disc will be protected with Midbar's technology; unprotected songs will play on computers. The discs, scheduled for release this month, will carry a label informing consumers of the technology.

Record labels are frantically seeking to end consumers' rampant digital copying of CDs, a practice unleashed by the MP3 format, the Internet, and file-swapping services such as Morpheus. Currently, CDs can be played on computers and "ripped" into perfect digital copies that can be traded online. Record labels blame dwindling sales on such actions.

We had talked about our reactions to what they had to say about the Grammys about MP3s in a previous thread, and now this comes down the wire. I cannot go on long enough about how wrong this really is and how it won't help solve anything.

[ButteredToast]

I give a couple of months before someone codes something that gets around this protection. If I buy a CD, I reserve the right to rip it all I want. Nobody else is getting to use those files but me.

I personally blame dwindling sales to the fact that most of what they're producing is... wait for it.......

CRAP.

[Joe Tully]

I really hope that this doesn't make it to America. I honestly don't think it would be very long before people would come up with some way to bypass the security measures, for one thing. And for another, I listen to most of my CDs on my computer. I think that these measures keep the CDs from being played on more than just PCs too. I remember reading that car CD players might be affected, for example.

Bad, bad idea.

[Calhoun07]

ButteredToast is right....I have every damned right in the world to make copies of my own music. What if I want to put together a compliation CD for listening to in my car? That is what I use MP3s for most of the time anyway. And I will, from time to time, put about 14 or so CDs on one CD just so I have them all together, but that is also for MY PERSONAL USE. I understand if they feel that the music industry is bleeding money because people are not buying music because of MP3s, but they have been making this argument ever since recordable tape was around and easilly accessible to customers. And if it was cassette tapes in the past, and now MP3s and CD-Rs in the present, they will find something else to complain about in the future. And I really don't know what they are complaining about because aren't they already charging companies like Mawell and Memorex and others a royalty fee to make up the losses they incur becuase of home taping and burning of CDs?

[Joe Wagner]

Too late, it's already here - if you buy the More Music from the Fast and the Furious soundtrack you'll find this protection software. The cd will only let you play it with it's own jukebox and a lot of cd players and newer cd players have computer pieces and therefore can't read the cd. Another factor is that the cd can actually "fall apart" - basically the cd isn't as sound as it would be without the protection software. I usually copy my cd's and put them in my car or take to work with me, this way I don't destroy my good copy and don't have to fork out an extra $20. By doing this type of protection they are actually selling us a product that isn't as good as previous ones were, have a significant lack in audio quality and also takes away from our right to protect ourselves from having to buy a new cd everytime we get a scratch or something. I wrote a philosophy paper about this subject last semester and my teacher agreed with me that this type of coding is completely wrong. I think the music execs need to realize that a) people will buy cd's if they are offered something exclusive with it and b) people don't like being told what they can and cannot do with the merchandise they buy.

-Joe

[Failure]

I read that a company did in a small-scale, possibly out in Cali, if I remember correctly. There was a huge customer uproar over it, because it was so limiting as where you could play the CD, so the company stopped making the copy-protected CDs.

All in all, this is a really, really stupid idea. As consumers we have the right to listen to our cds anywhere and make copies of them if we please. I don't think this is gonna fly in the US, consumer backlash is gonna run rampant. Damn, greedy, record company bastards. (Couldn't resist taking a potshot at the bigwigs :mad: )

[Feslmogh]

Here are some web sites about this scheme...
http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/supergeek/story/0,24330,2391656,00.html

http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/0112/19.audiocd.php

More to be added later....

Simplest way... Use line out from player to line in to computer!

[The Dork Knight]

I too burn my own CDs. This really s*cks though. I knew this would happen sooner or later.

- Foley Is Good

[BLACKHEART]

I do exactly what Spider does. I buy a cd and rip the cd to make copies. I have a cd booklet I leave in my car of the cdr's that way the original cd's are not harmed. Do you have a car cd player? Then you know what damage they can cause.

I also like to play around and make mixed cd's.

I make cd's and leave them at work.

Furthermore consumers have a right to backup all software and that includes music cds.

I have Window's XP and it's got this feature where you can protect the song on your own. That way it only plays on your computer. What the heck kind of crap is this? I don't plan on installing any upgrades with XP. Who knows what they will try to sneak in.

[Psycho Fox]

All this will do is inconvenience the consumer. Bootlegers can get around this by simply using old CD copiers since they are not PCs odds are they will still work or for MP3s hook up a CD player to the audio input of their PC and do it that way.

[Evil Dr. Reef]

People will find a way around this little protection, just like they always do. One thing that any company worried about piracy is going to have to learn is that people are smart bastards. We find ways around stuff.

[Calhoun07]

I found an article about CD sales vs DVD sales and how DVD sales have taken off while CDs and cassettes are declining. CDs declined 6.4 % from 2000 to 2001, while cassettes dropped in sales 40.8% in the same time period (they still make those????) DVD Audio units shipped (and that's shipped totals, folks, not sold totals) a staggeringly bad total of 300,000 copies, a far cry from the success the music industry was predicing with the format.

But DVD sales are up. Both DVD movies and DVD music video sales. And it got me wondering...are people just buying the DVD format more because of it's bang for the buck it delivers? I would personally rather buy a DVD I will watch repeatedly over a CD I am not so sure about, and I sure as heck would rather own a music DVD of my favorite music videos than own a best of CD by the same band. And DVD Audio is just alienating, both in price and packaging. The price is staggeringly high over CDs and I don't believe you get that much offered on a DVD Audio disc except improved sound quality, do you? Like music videos and such?

Another reason DVD Audio may have stalled at the music stores is because I don't believe you can copy them as easilly. People can't make back up copies of their music, or take favorite tracks and burn them to CD for travelling music. That's my theory, of course, not a response from the music industry, however. And I know you can't easilly rip the music tracks from a music video DVD, but I still think you get more for your money for a music video DVD over a regular CD.

So what does the music industry offer as an alternative to the slagging sales? They blame MP3s rather than the fact that people are now spending their money on DVDs more than on CDs and they come out with plans to initiate even more copy protection even on regular CDs and threaten to alienate even more customers.

Smart move, music industry sakers and movers, smart.

[Joe Tully]

Actually, as you have probably heard, CD sales increased after Napster, and only a couple of weeks ago they announced that 2001 sales had almost returned to pre-Napster sales levels. Who knows if there's a link between CD sales and P-2-P programs, but it's too interesting a correlation to ignore.

Personally, I think that CD sales are going down because current music is crap. (Sorry, I don't mean that to be flamebait, just an opinion.) A very significant proportion of the CD buyers are in their late 20s-30s. The latest pop music isn't really ideal for that age group.

[BLACKHEART]

DVD's and CD's are like apples and oranges

DVD's sell because they are still fairly new. They also make old movies look new again and restore the beauty lost over the years.

CD's do the same thing, only instead of movies they are music and they've been around for years.

CD's aren't selling because music is crap. It's all the same. It's all still feeding off the mainstream without heart or meaning and it will be forgotten in 5 years. There are only a few acts making quality products. The highest selling album of the year was that Linkin Park trash. What's that telling you?

[Calhoun07]

Admitedly, most of the music I have bought in the past year are of artists who's back catalogue I've been catching up on. There were not many CDs actually released in 2001 that I purchased.