[beowulf]

Thought you'd like to know what one of the CD technology authors think about CD-A Copy Protections.

January 02

Philips, the inventor of the Compact Disc, does not expect controversial attempts by the music industry to introduce CD "copy protection" technologies to last very long, because of consumer complaints. Philips is opposed to the use of copy protection systems. The technology is designed to stop CDs playing or being copied on personal computers but it can also prevent them from playing on many normal systems.
As inventor of the CD standard and the industry's licensing body, Philips could refuse to license such copy protected discs as genuine CDs, or pursue some other legal obstruction to the practice.

But Gary Wirtz, general manager of the Philips Copyright Office at its headquarters in the Netherlands, believes that copy protection technology will fail all by itself.

"Any kind of legal action would take years and we don't expect these [discs] to last that long," Wirtz told New Scientist. "At the moment we are trying to reason with people rather than sue them."

Wirtz believes that consumer complaints should put music companies off the technique. He adds: "It's not going to work, because any hacker can still make copies. It's only going to effect legitimate consumers and we know there have already been considerable complaints."

Rip off

"If anybody should know its Philips," says Jim Peters, a spokesman for the Campaign for Digital Rights, a technology-focused consumer rights groups based in the UK.

Peters says that copy protection systems infringe upon a listener's right to play music on any platform they wish. Relatively few recordings have been released with copy protection so far.

CD copy protection technologies are designed to prevent people "ripping" music for distribution via the internet. But the technique has proved controversial because protected CDs can cause problems for some older players, portable devices and in-car stereo systems. They may refuse to play or only play with errors on these machines.

CD protection systems currently involve introducing errors that PC players cannot cope with, or including confusing information in a CD's "table", which tells a player how to read its data. Critics allege that the techniques used could also impair the quality of a disc's audio content over time by making a disc less resilient to genuine errors.

Source: Will Knight / New Scientist

Note: For you legal fanatics out there, Yes, this article can be printed here, and no, Jude won't get in trouble.

 

[beowulf]

This article is also recent and interesting for those worried about quality losses and the copy protection hype:



Music industry rethinking CD copy protection

16:14 08 January 02

The music industry is having to rethink its drive towards copy-protecting music CDs, following people-power protests and probing questions from US politicians.

BMG in Europe had launched two of its chart CDs, Natalie Imbruglia's White Lilies Island and Five's Greatest Hits, with copy protection technology but have now switched production to "clean" unprotected CDs, following consumer complaints. The discs were launched "clean" in Australia.

In the US, Universal's new compilation CD of Fast and Furious rock music is copy-protected but is clearly marked with consumer warnings, unlike previous discs. BMG released both their CDs with only a small print reference to "Cactus Data Shield" and no explanation that this meant it was copy-protected and might not play properly on computers and some CD players.

In a further development, Congressman Rick Boucher, has written to music industry trade bodies, the Recording Industry Association of America and International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, to warn them that selling CDs that inhibit home recording may violate the 1992 Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA).


Blank media


Boucher, Co-Chair of the US Congressional Internet Caucus Committee, points out that the AHRA levies a royalty of two per cent on the price of recording equipment and three per cent on blank tapes and discs, to legitimise home recording. Preventing home recording through copy protection removes the justification for the AHRA levy.

Speaking for the IFPI and RIAA, Hilary Rosen, President and CEO of the RIAA, says the music companies are seeking "the right balance".

The UK is the only country in Europe where it is illegal to make a copy of a paid-for CD for personal use. Like the US, most major European states levy a royalty on recording media.

But lawyers for the IFPI's Head Office in London insist there is no link in European law between paying the royalty and being allowed to make a copy.


"Orchestrated campaign"


BMG spokesman Nigel Sweeney says that the Five CD produced only three complaints about copy protection and blames the larger number of Imbruglia complaints on an orchestrated campaign.

But he says: "No other copy-protected titles are planned. Everything has to be correct technology-wise."

Martin Dalgleish, of world-renowned British hifi company Linn, warns that getting copy-protection technology right is increasingly hard because consumer manufacturers often cannot get good quality CD drive components and use computer ROM drives instead - which can make copy-protected discs misbehave.

He says BMG's copy-protected discs are not standard CDs: "They change the rules in a totally unpredictable way. There is no published specification and therefore it is impossible for Linn or any other company to predict the playability of these discs."

Barry Fox / New Scientist

 

[cajunchrist]

Thanks for the detailed posts, Beowulf. The record companies can collectively blow me.

cajunchrist

 

[Ctn]

The cd press's are crappy as it is in Oz...thank god this aint gonna go thru

 

[beowulf]

Quote:

Originally posted by cajunchrist Thanks for the detailed posts, Beowulf. The record companies can collectively blow me.

cajunchrist, you said it so well that I guess I won't add anything else. Ahem.

 

[beowulf]

Here are the latest news, for all of you still following this thread:

Philips responds about Copy protected AudioCDs
Friday, 18 January 2002

As major record labels roll out a new breed of compact disc designed to prevent Napster style piracy, Dutch consumer electronics maker Philips , the co-creator of the CD, is refusing to play along.The new discs now making their way into record stores in the United States and Europe contain countermeasures that prevent playback on computers and, in some unintended cases, normal CD players as well.
``What we've seen so far is troublesome and cumbersome,'' said Gerry Wirtz, general manager of the Philips copyright office that governs the compact disc trademark. ``We worry (the labels) don't know what they're doing.''

The five major record labels -- Bertelsmann AG's BMG, Vivendi Universal , Sony , EMI Group and AOL Time Warner's Warner Music -- hope that by preventing the use of audio CDs in computers, users will be unable to ``rip'' or copy the music into the easily traded MP3 music format.

In the wake of Napster, the popular music-trading service that allowed consumers to rip and trade MP3s with a minimum of effort, the music industry was forced to investigate ways to limit rampant CD copying.

The controversial new anti-copying technology introduces minute errors to the CDs, or changes the location of data on the discs to prevent them from being played back on computers. In theory, most consumer CD players can correct the errors and decipher the structure, unlike the more finicky computer CD drives.

None of the companies have publicly committed to a full-scale introduction of the discs, yet ``it sounds like the record labels are still very much behind the idea and are in the process of rolling out an unannounced number'' of discs, said Jupiter analyst Aram Sinnreich.

WHEN A CD IS NOT A CD

Philips, because of conformity issues, has warned the record labels that the discs are actually not compact discs at all, and must bear warning labels to inform consumers.

``We've made sure they would put a very clear warning that you're not buying a compact disc, but something different,'' Wirtz told Reuters. ``We've been warning some labels to begin with, and they've adjusted their behavior.''

That means labels would also be barred from using the familiar ``compact disc'' logo that has been stamped on every CD since Philips and Sony jointly developed the technology in 1978.

The five major labels declined to comment.

POST-NAPSTER CDs

The attempts to graft protective measures onto the 20-year-old CD technology have had mixed results. Because there are hundreds and perhaps thousands of different CD players on the market, it's likely that some will be unable to read the new discs.

``It's extremely difficult to retrofit the system with copy protection without losing the ability for all CDs to play on all players,'' Wirtz said.

In one of the first protected CD releases from BMG, Natalie Imbruglia's ``White Lillies'' prompted numerous returns in the United Kingdom. Universal's ``More Fast and the Furious'' disc release in the United States featured a label warning that the CD would not play on a small number of CD players.

Even when the protection technology works as intended, Wirtz said that normal wear and tear could eventually overwhelm the error correction for the altered discs, causing them to become unreadable within a few years.

``We fear some of these so-called copy-protected CDs will play at first, but will eventually show problems and break down,'' he said.

DMCA DANGER?

Aside from its ownership of the compact disc trademark, Philips is a major manufacturer of CD burners, and Wirtz said future Philips machines will likely be able to both read and burn the protected CDs -- a proposition that may land the company in the crosshairs of the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA.

The far-reaching DMCA, enacted in 1998, bans any attempt to circumvent copyright protections. Critics complain that the law puts too much power in the hands of media publishers, denying consumers the right to use products bought for personal consumption in whatever ways they see fit.

Philips contends that the protected discs do not fall under the DMCA, since they restrict the playback of music, not copying itself.

``It is not a copy-protection system, it is not doing anything to recorders or copy devices,'' Wirtz said. ``It would not qualify as copy-protection under the DMCA, or the new European laws.''

However, the broadly worded DMCA bars the circumvention of any method used to protect the property of a copyright holder, and experts on the law said Philips may be treading on dangerous legal ground.

``The record companies would contend that the protection is encryption within the meaning of the DMCA, because it is designed to protect copyrighted material, and originates with the owner of the copyright,'' intellectual property attorney Leonard Rubin of Gordon & Glickson said.

Attempts to circumvent encryption are explicitly barred by the DMCA.

``The way that statute has been interpreted, it's illegal to bypass those types of digital access controls,'' said Robin Gross of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a public advocacy group which opposes the law. ``All you have to do is attempt to put some kind of technological protection system that controls access to the work -- it doesn't matter how effective it is.''

 

[cajunchrist]

Quote:

users will be unable to ``rip'' or copy the music into the easily traded MP3 music format.

Thanks to the MP3 encoding FAQ's I've been reading, I now know there is a difference between ripping a CD to a .wav file and encoding that file to .mp3. Anyone with a big head about computers know if you can rip a copy restricted CD to .wav or .aiff? Or does the copy restriction prevent that, too?

cajunchrist

 

[beowulf]

cajunchrist , that is correct, there is a difference. But before you encode it, you must have the WAV.

All copy protection methods for CD-A attempt to make the digital audio extraction from the CD impossible. That means that you cannot get the 44KHz .WAV tracks, and if you can't get that, well, you can't really use to for anything, recording another CD-A, or compressing it with any format like MP3.

I say attempt, because from what I've seen so far, the methods are only really effective with newbies. With most experienced geeks, they are either no problem or just a bit extra work.
So the question to your question is.. Yes, you can, but it might not be as simple as with a standard CDA.

But I agree with Philips. The new formats are giving too many problems, and they definitely don't comply with the color books.

I say they will be abandoned, but who knows...

 

[stuartr]

I hate the MPAA and the RIAA. If there are any organizations that stifle artistic accomplishment more completely, I don't know what they are. Instead they give us Michael Bey and 'NSync. I would like to smash their collective testicles with my hammer of righteousness. They remind me of another similar body -- the RAPM -- Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians...responsible for opressing Soviet music. Ugh, I hate these pigs, and I don't even use MP3's, never used Napster, and only make mix cds for personal pleasure. But I love Philips! Yay Philips!

 

[Dusty Chalk]

Quote:

Originally posted by stuartr I hate the MPAA and the RIAA. If there are any organizations that stifle artistic accomplishment more completely, I don't know what they are.

How about the record companies themselves?

 

[beowulf]

Quote:

Originally posted by stuartr I would like to smash their collective testicles with my hammer of righteousness. <..> Ugh, I hate these pigs

And the Beowulf Quote of The Week award goes to: Stuartr <applause>

 

[stuartr]

Thanks Beowulf. If I seem a little Grendelish, it is because I was spurned by my would-be girlfriend on Friday. It has made me cheeky. Damn her and her "I am sorry, was I leading you on? I think we should be friends..." AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
You wee wench! I can see your karma waning. You will be an armadillo in your next life...
ok, enough of that. I apologize. Oh yeah, headphones...I hear grados are nice....
Stu

 

[morphsci]

Quote:

Originally posted by stuartr ..... You wee wench! I can see your karma waning. You will be an armadillo in your next life... ..... Stu

Actually i think she will be four armadillos in her next life

 

[Beagle]

As long as I can buy great sounding CD's and LP's, I couldn't care less if everyone else steals or is satisfied with horrid sound quality. As long as I can still go out and buy good sound.

But why would anyone want to make a copy of a CD they already bought? If the copy protection is to prevent people from circulating the music for free online, then I am all for copy protection.

 

[morphsci]

Quote:

Originally posted by Beagle But why would anyone want to make a copy of a CD they already bought? If the copy protection is to prevent people from circulating the music for free online, then I am all for copy protection.

When I listen to CD's in my car I carry them in a portable case that uses sleeves. They are more subject to scratching. Therefore, I rip copies to protect the original. I also use ripped copies when I carry CD's for portable use in travelling. Since I rip the copies on my computer (and have every legal right to do so) I find it rather annoying that someone would try to prevent me from protecting my investment.

I also rip copies of CD's that are hard to obtain or OOP after ruining a few and then getting reamed financially trying to replace them.