NSync Copy Protected CD

admiral2001 writes "This article from NewScientist.com details the most mass market venture into copy protected CDs. Namely, NSync's new CD will be released in a least 3 different versions (with different copy protection techniques). Also, one of the types has (small) labelling saying that the CD cannot be played on computers."

Re:GOOD

Well N*Sync isn't the greatest music ever written, but they're actually pretty good. And why wouldn't they be? They have some of the highest-paid writers, voice trainers and musicians working for them. That doesn't mean that any of the people behind them are the next Beethoven, but they know how to write a catchy tune that sticks in your head.

All in all, some decent music is produced under the N*Sync brand. Their ballads are clearly targeted towards their early teen and pre-teen female audiences, but they're musically sound. Their more up-beat songs are actually quite catchy. The Backstreet Boys are more consistent in their sound, and I think that generally their music can be considered catchy more often, but when the N*Sync brand gets it right, they product some absolutely great tracks, such as "Bye Bye Bye," and "I Want You Back." Still, it's getting difficult to market the Backstreet Boys brand as the models creep closer to 30 and get married.

But that aside, we should be worried about this copy protection. If this technogy turns out to be reasonably effective for this market with few complaints, it will be much easier to roll it out on all future CDs. Remember, the RIAA doesn't assume that any technology will be 100% effective, but if it stops 99.9% of the population, then it will have done its job. Sure the geeks will still be able to obtain it, from ripping themselves or through obscure P2P clients, but the vast majority of people won't be able to get their hands on the MP3s, and that's all that really matters for the RIAA. The DMCA will take care of the misfits.

- j

Re:GOOD

If you start arguing who is better, Brittney Spears or Christina Agulera I will have to shoot you.

Of course. There can't be any argument, Christina Aguilera is obviously better.

And I bet she uses Emacs, too.

Re:GOOD

What you just explained is what most people who do not like this music, do not like about this music.

It is manufactured, easily digestible, put in a pretty little package and sold by the millions.

It is what the record companies want you to buy, it is easy for them to sell, especially when it is all over TRL.

The music is too perfect, there is no soul to it. N*sync has no emotional attachment to the songs because all they did was sing them.

Sure they look good and arguably can dance and arguably have good voices, but its manufactured, and pushed upon its audience, who buy it because all their friends are going to have it and its all over MTV and popular radio.

Its the perfect formula.

The same can be said for mainstream rap and rock, with the exception that some of them, infact, more likely most of them, actually write their own songs. It is still over produced to the point where seeing how much talent these bands don't have in concert is painful.

Re:GOOD

&gt All in all, some decent music is produced under the N*Sync brand. [ ... ]

I'm not sure whether this deserves a (+1, Funny), or (-1, Troll). Probably both.

Well, since you commented in the thread, apparently you'll be capable of giving it neither.

w00t!

I'd boycott but...

I suppose boycotts work better if you were actually intending to make a purchase. Damn the man, foiled again!

Re:I'd boycott but...

I've finished testing out the CD, and found absolutely no problems with it.

I was able to play it (cdplay) and rip it (cdparanoia) using both drives on my Linux box (an IDE CD-ROM drive and a SCSI CD-RW drive).

I also was able to play it (Windows Media Player) using both drives on my Window box (a DVD-ROM drive and a CD-RW drive, both IDE). I didn't try ripping, since I don't have any appropriate Windows software.
There were no delays in playing or ripping; cdparanoia didn't report having to do any jitter correction at all.

This CD was bought in Canada. If it is the same as the American edition, then this is some piddling protection! The New Scientist article claims that "copying using home CD recorders is variable." It would be interesting to have some reports from people with such devices.

It would also be interesting to hear from some people in Germany about the degree to which the CD is broken there.

Anyway, I'm quite disappointed -- it looks like I won't be able to buy and return this CD.

Re:Pool

From what it seems, there's a bit more to it than this. I would immagine that each version of the cd has a different watermark on it. They know that it is still gonna be ripped & coppied, they just want to find out which protection scheme is gonna be broken by the most people. The version with the least number of copies out there will be the format the industry settles on.

Part of bigger problem, not just N'sync CDs

Oh I can see it now, "Why do I care, I am a l33t d00d who only listens to great music and not N'Sync." Well, I hate to tell you, but this is only the first step. If it works and only a few people complain then they will start doing this to every CD and that is when it will cause problems for the rest of us. I won't buy this CD because I wouldn't like it but that doesn't mean I'm going to ignore the bigger problem.

Built-in ass covering?

Those available in Germany have draconian protection, a slightly weaker system is used on the US disk and there is no protection on the UK version.

So, if pirated copies do show up they can just say "Oh, the copy protection worked. This must be from the insecure UK version." Just like the Australian version of the Charley Pride CD. Clever.

Re:Built-in ass covering?

Note that Sony called this a "test."

Sony is not without its scientists. They know what a "control group" is.

Guarantee you, they will be able to distinguish among UK, US and German versions; they will be monitoring, tracking and pushing internal reports back and forth on this.

What we should hope to see is lots of rips from US and Germany, and none from the UK. Send them a message that copy-protection will only make their goods a target for the rip artistes.

Hm..

Well, the obvious result is to flag this as a big joke. We all know no one really wants to listen to them around here.

The thing is, this is probably just a sample. The thing to look out for is all the 14 year old girls who never play their CDs in their computers but the CD player their parents bought them for their birthday.

It'll look like a tremendous success. "Oh look! No one cares that this CD came out unsupported on computers, lets mass market!".

Next, you'll have your favorite RIAA-signed musician being forced into the same distribution plan..

Now, go talk to your little sister about how she's going to have to go with out her poppy boy band shit for a while.

Potential Problem

Look, NSync is about a million times more popular than that first case that got posted here a couple of weeks back. (See? I can't even remember the name of that artist.) If this CD gets out there and there isn't alot of blowback, it will open the door for more copy protected CDs.

What can you do about it? Offer to make copies of CDs for people who already have them. Tell them, "well, you have more than one CD player, right? Like one in your car, a portable one you walk around with, and maybe even one in your bathroom. Wouldn't it be more convenient to just have multiple copies of something you already own? .... Hmmm... my computer can't read it. Must be broken or something. Take it back!"

Or... "Hey, let me try and listen to that in my computer." (since most of us must have at least decent sounding rigs) "WTF? This thing doesn't work at all! Take it back!"

This is the opportunity to let Joe (or Jane) Public learn about copy protection and how it infringes on THEIR rights.

What about this?

Take your CD player that WILL play the CD, take the line out from the "phones" run a male to male connecter from it to the line-in on your sound card. Use Broadcast 2000 to record an unlimited wave file. Record each song and use lame to wav -> mp3.

I'm questioning if this thing they are trying to do can EVER be done perfectly?

Ya know what sucks..

It just dawned on me, even tho its more than blatent: I cant make copies of these CDs! Not for pirating, not for making MP3s (for myself only), but for the sheer fact of having backups. After losing my CD collection to theft and losing some CDs to wear/tear/scratching, I started making backups of all my cds, and only playing the backups. My plan has proved itself, cause I just had all my CDs stolen once again, but this time, aside from the $5 loss of the carrying case, and the $10 pack of 50 CD-Rs, I'll be back to playin my tunes as soon as I find time to burn.

/me hops on the bandwagon to stop this movement.

Why N'Sync? (seriously)....

Apart from the fact that this doesn't affect me, why would they do this to one of the largest selling acts out there? Don't they have the largest selling album over a single weekend? If anything, N'Sync is a testament to the fact that even though there are rippers and downloaders out there, people will still buy CDs from stores.

But if you are going to do a market study on a group, I guess you would want to test it out on one of the biggest selling groups out there.

Let's hope that it crashes and burns, and people, including parents, get up in arms about it.

Michael

Fight the Monopoly [cafepress.com] and the Evil. [cafepress.com]. More at Poundingsand.com [poundingsand.com]

Re:Why N'Sync? (seriously)....

Quite right. I'll bet a lot of kids in Nsync's "target demographic" (a much more accurate description than "audience" or "listeners") have computers in their rooms, but no other music playing systems. I don't have any kids, but it would make more sense to me to supply them with a PC with a CD drive than with a PC and a seperate stereo. You can't change the skin on a stereo.

This is going to irritate a lot of other people when they start applying this to music that *isn't* disposible. Even high-end audiophiles are ripping to hard disk, using systems like the Linn. They've discovered that digital audio played back from a hard disk and re-clocked is free of the jitter inherent in even the best CD players.

I overcame one of the three copy protections

"...at least 3 different versions (with different copy protection techniques)."

I was able to copy the CD on my flat-bed copier without any problem and I ened up with a good color, detail, et. al. quality.

However, a friend of mine ended up damaging his copier as he was trying to squeeze the CD through the copy feeder on his non-flat-bed copier.

I don't know about the third method of copy prevention -- as I haven't figured it out yet.

There is nothing like shuting the barn door...

when the horse has already run out.

I would be willing to venture that the number of people downloading music illegaly has pretty much stabalized since the demise of napster. No other network has achieved the market penetration that napster had. Now is not the time for the record labels to do things to prevent people from ripping CDs.

There was a time when I used napster etc. I can even remember hunting for ftp sites that didn't have a ratio. Anymore I just rip my own CDs so that I can leave them in my car and still listen to them at home. If anything moves like this increase the chances of me going out and hunting for songs online. If I can't rip my own CD digitally I'll either 1) Do it analog myself or 2) Find it online and while I'm at it, find several other songs too.

All that this will do is stop the most casual of copiers. The hard core rippers will find a way to force the CD-ROM drive to recognize the CD. The general public dosen't rip what they own so they won't care. So the only people that this really affects are the casual copiers, and they will just go out and find a copy that someone else has ripped.

What should be done...

Quick.. Everybody steal a page from Scientology!

Everybody buy a copy of the CD. And then return it a few days later, complaining that it doesn't work on your computer or CD player. Go to another store, rinse, repeat.

If enough people did this a few times, all of the sudden, the return rate would be abnormally high on the CD. All of the sudden, the record industry would see this as troublesome and reconsider copy protected CDs.

Re:What should be done...

Everybody buy a copy of the CD. And then return it a few days later, complaining that it doesn't work on your computer or CD player.

I doubt that will work. Most stores will refuse a return on Audio CDs, Computer Games, or DVDs that have had their seal broken. For a return where you get your money back, the CD has to still be sealed. You can't exactly claim the CD doesn't work on your computer if you haven't opened it to try.

If you go into the store claiming your CD doesn't work and the seal HAS been broken, the best they will do is provide you with a replacement of the same item.

All you need to do

is raise enough hell, and they'll take it back. What you do is play stupid. Buy a CD you KNOW to be copy protected, but doesn't have the label. Open it, try to play it in your computer. When it doesn't work take it back and say it's defective. Likely they'll just give you another one. Ok, fine, do the same thing. When it doesn't work bring it back, but this time be in a bad mood about it. If they give you another one, do the same thing but when you bring it back DEMAND to get your money back. If they won't give it to you, demand to speak to the manager. Raise a big fuss.

Now I know that all this may fail HOWEVER as a failsafe, just make sure you buy the CD using a credit card (not check card). If they refuse to give you your money back, threaten to have the bank stop the charges. That'll usually convince them to fold. If it doesn't, make good on the threat. Leave the CD in the store and walk out. Then, when you get home, call the bank that issued the credit card and ask what you need to do to block a charge. You'll probably need to write a letter explaining the charge you want blocked, and maybe attach a copy of the reciept (so make sure you have it). When you do what they bank wants, they'll stop the charge and bill the merchant. You won't be charged anything.

Believe me, it won't take a whole lot of this to put a stop to this copy protection. The mamangers of the specific stores will get all pissed off about this and raise a stink to the higher ups. It won't take too long before the root of the problem is traced back to this batch of CDs, and the recording company in question gets yelled at.

Re:What should be done...

Of course, that whole policy is due to the rampant buy/copy/return scheme of a few unsavory souls, which, as we all know, is gloriously defeated by the copy protection scheme on the media you purchase. You could always bring that argument up when trying to return your uncopyable item.

"I'm sorry sir, we don't accept returns on opened digital media."
"Why is that?"
"You could have copied the media and then returned it."
"But," as the customer takes out his microscope, "it says right here that this CD is uncopyable."
"And your point is?"
"So not only do you presume me to be a criminal, but you're an idiot. Thanks a lot. Have a spectacular day."

At least that's how I envision my conversation will go when I go to return my new N*Sync CD.

mac users good?

any idea why mac users have been succesful in ripping the disc while windows users have not? other OS's could do it, maybe?

/adam

Copy Protected CDs

More troubling is that Vivendi Universal is converting ALL of their music released on CD to protected formats.

It is just a matter of time before everything you buy will not play on computers. You will have to rip a disc using the line-in on your soundcard from a regular CD player, break up the tracks and then MP3 them. It won't stop trading, it will slow it down.

I think what might turn this around is... If at least one large music publisher converts all their offerings to CD protection - suddenly that may affect a lot of people (who listen to music on computers) and the number of returns (lost sales) may sky rocket. Consumers may get upset and this will probably cause CD sales in total to tumble maybe an additional 5% or so. Remember that Vivendi et al. are upset because the market dropped 5% over the last year.

I can also see at least one lawsuit (perhaps class action) if they piss off enough people. And if they convert all their offerings - they will piss off a lot of people. Sign me up for the class action when it happens.

It is also worth noting that many people who don't read slashdot have cd burners now - even those not computer literate. This will surely piss them off too. Not to mention that the question "Why can't I make a mix cd from cds I bought?" will come up VERY often, and be difficult to answer.

There will be backlash if a critical mass of CDs are copy-protected. I'm really interested to see the fallout. Remember, the consumer is king... And this sort of copy protection is definately "pissing on the king's cornflakes".

Haiku

Copy protection:
As if one needs more reason
To not buy N'Sync

Versions, eh?

NSync's new CD will be released in a least 3 different versions

CHANGELOG:

- Initial release
-- CD uncopyable
-- Band unlistenable

- 2.0 release
-- Fixed 2,144 bugs enabling people to copy CD. CD now uncopyable.
-- Changed demographic to younger audience; teens beginning to sense lack of talent. Note that this breaks backward compatibility

- 3.0 release
-- Fixed 53,944 bugs enabling people to copy CD. Gave up.

- 3.0.1 bugfix
-- Fired previous maintainer when it was discovered he had a soul.
-- Fixed another 128,535 bugs enabling people to copy CD. CD uncopyable.
-- Discovered simple cabling could be used to make a D-A-D copy. Sucessfully lobbied to illegalize cabling.
-- Hired armed enforcers to prevent people from humming songs.
-- Added technology to CDs to prevent any sort of listening to them whatsoever. Players now burn in unholy flame.
-- Band still unlistenable.

Whoa... I just noticed...

"Both the UK and US versions will play on a Windows PC and both let a PC CD burner make a copy onto a blank CD."

"Copying using home CD recorders is variable, with the US CD giving a "no disk" message on some recorders."

So this is lovely! The US version is still rippable. Except on the "consumer" home CD recorders that pay the royalties to the RIAA anyways because the only thing they were usable for was copying other CDs.

This is even more fscked than at first glance. ;)
It's just the German version. German geeks: your mission is clear. Buy and return as many NSuck CD's as possible! ;)

Oh, and another point...

At the risk of being redundant, someone needs to mod up one of the mentions about the UK version not having copy protection at all. How in the blue blazes is that supposed to prove anything at all? Here's the scenario:

I live in US, and I buy the CD. *shudder...just remember it's hypothetical* I try to rip it, I fail. I go to the p2p and download the entire CD. I then promptly burn that and distribute to all my friends who want the CD to play on their computers. I also distribute the mp3's to those who want them for their MP3 players.

This experiment will only prove how far people will go to circumvent copy protection, not how well the protection works. In a worst case scenario, the artists *shudder again* lose money because people quit buying the copy protected CDs and instead get unprotected copies from their friends.

Once again, RIAA, wrong answer. To quote Anne Robinson, you are the weakest link, goodbye.

Bye, Bye

Bye, Bye, Bye
Hey, hey
Bye, bye (bye, bye)
Bye, bye (bye, bye)

RIAA I'm doing this tonight
You're probably gonna start a fight
I know this can't be right
Hey RIAA come on, I loved you endlessly
And you weren't there for me
So now it's time to leave and make it alone

I know that I can't take no more, it ain't no lie
I wanna see you out that door
RIAA bye, bye, bye

(Bye)I don't want to be a fool for you
Just another player in your game for two
You may hate me but it ain't no lie
Bye, bye, bye
(Bye)I don't really want to make it tough
I just wanna tell you that I had enough
Might sound crazy but it ain't no lie
Bye, bye, bye

Oh, oh you just hit me with the truth
Oh RIAA you're more than welcome to
So give me one good reason RIAA come on
I live for you and me
And now really come to see
That life would be much better
Once you're gone

I know that I can't take no more, it ain't no lie
I wanna see you out that door
RIAA bye, bye, bye

(Bye)I don't want to be a fool for you
Just another player in your game for two
You may hate me but it ain't no lie
Bye, bye, bye
(Bye)I don't really want to make it tough
I just wanna tell you that I had enough
Might sound crazy but it ain't no lie
Bye, bye, bye

I'm giving up I know for sure
I don't wanna be the reason for your love no more
(Bye, bye)
I'm checkin' out, I'm signin' off
I don't want to be the loser and I've had enough

I don't wanna be your fool
In this game for two
So I'm leaving you behind
Bye, bye, bye
I don't wanna make it tough
But I've had enough and it ain't no lie, bye-bye

What can *you* do about it?

So you don't like N'Synch?
Don't let that stop you from helping!!
Buy a copy - open it - return it, complaining that it is defective. Hey, you don't even have to listen to it. No cost to you, and they can't resell it after the packaging is open. While you're at it, do it at the most expensive record store around.

Let's see, (# of /.ers) * $15 return = an assload of lost revenues.

trademark?

Has anyone thought about the trademark agreement? Doesn't Panasonic own the "COMPACT-DISC" trademark? I think I remember reading somewhere a long time ago that the way you are able to use this trademark is by insuring that everything with the label is playable in all players with the "COMPACT-DISC" trademark on it.

Any thoughts?

Re:trademark?

Very good point.

But I'm wondering if this (well, the German version) is actually some digital signature that CD copiers and MS Windows is looking for and then disallowing playback (explainable as a Windows bug because it should just disallow copy).

Consider that Mac users can listen (and copy?) to them.

A couple of suggested experiments for anyone with one of the unlistenable German discs: plug earphones into the audio jack on the front of your CD-ROM drive -- can you hear anything that way? (That's a direct analog out from a D/A converter built into the drive, bypassing anything the OS does). How about playing/ripping it on Linux?
Enquiring minds want to know.

(Oh, BTW, I think it's Philips that owns the Compact Disc trademark, or Philips + Sony)

NSYNC DISCOVERS NEW MARKETING TECHNIQUE!!

It's simple really. Release a rumor to the slashdot community that your latest CD has copy protection (when secretly it doesn't) so that all those quick-clickers can start a grass roots movement to buy millions of CDs and return them. Only they find out that they can't return them because there is nothing wrong with playing the CD.

Honestly, I don't know whether the CD is really copy protected or not. I just thought it was interesting to see all the slashdotters wanting to go out and buy a CD.

And then they came for the N*SYNC listeners...

Damnit, what is it going to take for the minions of Slashbots to quit cracking the comments about the copy protected artists not being worth copying? I was getting ready to Moderate this damned thread but I kept finding myself modding posts down so I gave up.

I do not care whether the copy protection is on an artist I like or one that I dislike. The point is that this travesty is creeping into the mainstream music industry, and if nothing is done the cost of adding this protection to future artists you might care about will be so insignificant that it won't be an issue whether they do it or not.

So get a damned clue people. This shit needs to be acted on now, either through letters to the labels involved or through active cracking of the protection schemes. The audio passthrough cables don't count here, as we need something that is so painfully easy to use (recording one long-ass wav file then editing each song out is normally fine for most studio works but try doing that on a live album with no breaks. I've done it and it sucks) that it's almost seamless in its operation.

Don't get complacent about this shit, because by the time they copy protect YOUR favorite artist it might be too late to stop them.

This is just beyond copyright protection...

Often, companies will be unwilling to sell heavily copyrighted materials if they think it'll hamper sales so much.

But if they slap it on an N'Sync CD, which, whether you like it or not, is going to get a large amount of CDs bought, they can always use the CD sales and say "Hey, we had copyright protection and the consumer liked it. Lets go ahead and put it on everything."

Stop using the phrase Copy Protection...

I would like to request that people stop using the phrase "copy protection" and instead use the term "copy prevention"

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.

RIAA can't have it both ways.

People have understood for years that when you purchase software you are actually purchasing a license to use that software. Should your CD cabinet suddenly burst into flames, you can call Microsoft and tell them you need new media. You prove you purchased it, pay shipping and handling, and you'll have new discs in no time. This is also the reason that big software companies don't try to copyprotect their CDs.

With the RIAA's latest move it has become much less clear exactly what we are purchasing from them.

If you're paying for the license to listen to the music, then you should be allowed to copy the CD, transfer to another medium, etc. As long you don't violate the license.

However, if you're paying for the media (i.e. the CD), then once it's in your possession you can do whatever you want with it - including duplication.

It's fucked up antics like this that piss me off about the RIAA. Either I'm buying the music or I'm buying the media - which is it? From now on, if I buy a CD and find out its copyprotected, I am going to assume that what I've purchased is the media, not the license to listen to the music, and should I figure out how to rip MP3s from it then I'll freely trade them with whomever I can.

Canadians...?

In Canada, we collect a levy on CDR media, rigthly or wrongly this allows us the RIGHT as a citizen to make copies of any music CD for our own personal use.

I can take YOUR NSync CD and make a copy for myself (%insert_your_own_joke_here%).

See more about this here: http://neil.eton.ca/copylevy.shtml#copy_for_friend s [neil.eton.ca]

So, does this mean that this 'version' of the NSync CD wont be sold here in Canada? Or will I have to start buying and returning CDs and showing them that their product infringes my rights as a Canadian according to the Copyright Act...

This could be seriously fun...

statistics and test marketing

This is pretty clearly designed to test the effect of different copy protection methods and to see whether labeling hurts sales in the short run.

Let's hope this CD shows up disproportionately on file sharing services (it's still easy to convert it into MP3 using analog) to drive the message home to the music industry that this kind of effort is pointless. (If you like, you can also run out in protest and buy a few dozen non-copy-protected NSync CDs, but I wouldn't recommend it.)

Clearly cheats me if CD recorders won't copy it

If it's true as reported that the disks will not copy on home CD recorders, then the consumer is being cheated of a right he has bought AND PAID FOR.

The whole CD recorder/"Music CD-R"/SCCS system promises that, in exchange for a PER-COPY FEE built into the price of the "Music CD-R," I have the right to make single-generation digital copies of CD's.

Now the music industry is saying that even after I pay that fee, I can't make the copy. They aren't even willing to live up to their own one-sided bargain.

Re:easy

That is why this makes a good testbed.

The overlap between CD-rip artistes and boy band followers is presumably slim. Therefore, negative reactions to this toe in the water will be slim.

If they'd tried this on the new Basement Jaxx, Garbage, or Bob Dylan, the hue and cry would disturb the 'speriment.