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Music Media

New Anti-Swap CDs Hit Shelves 853

Posted by timothy from the who-is-anthony-hamilton dept.
floppy ears writes "Watch out for the new Anthony Hamilton CD, Coming From Where I'm From. The CD has two sets of tracks: one set of "encrypted" songs that can be handled by CD players but cannot be ripped, and a duplicate set of tracks in WMA format. In CD players, the disc plays normally (in theory). When put into a computer, the disc installs software to keep the music secure, but allows you to copy some or all of the Windows Media tracks to your hard drive. What a shame that I'm running Linux and my portable MP3 player doesn't support WMA."
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New Anti-Swap CDs Hit Shelves More

New Anti-Swap CDs Hit Shelves

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  • Hmph... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bhtooefr ( 649901 ) <[gro.rfeoothb] [ta] [rfeoothb]> on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:01PM (#7048482) Homepage Journal
    The last time someone made an copy protection scheme for "CDs", didn't it only affect the first track on Linux? And even that could be gotten around? It's really simple - just rip everything but track 1 using CDParanoia.

    • Re:Hmph... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by faldore ( 221970 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:09PM (#7048654)
      No doubt the software on the CD is written for Windows, so Linux will be unaffected - to Linux the CD will look like a mixed mode CD and it will be simple to rip the audio tracks. The only thing stopping Windows users from doing it is the little .exe that is started by the autorun "feature".

      • Re:Hmph... (Score:5, Informative)

        by kasperd ( 592156 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:23PM (#7048848) Homepage Journal
        the little .exe that is started by the autorun "feature".

        Autorun is and always was a security hole. Microsoft should have known already when they implemented it, that it was a security hole. A similar but more subtle hole was fixed in AmigaOS five years earlier. That hole was used by multiple viruses, and caused the computer to get affected as soon as an infected floppy was inserted in the drive.

        It is possible to disable autorun in Windows 9x, the setting is very well hidden, and you need to use regedit to change it. Find the setting named: "HKEY_CURRENT_USER / Software / Microsoft / Windows / CurrentVersion / Policies / Explorer / NoDriveAutoRun" and change the value to 0x03ffffff

        • Re:Hmph... (Score:5, Informative)

          by Saucepan ( 12098 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:31PM (#7048933)
          Or just download Tweak UI (for Win NT,95,98,2k [microsoft.com], or for Win XP [microsoft.com]), which lets you turn off autorun and lots of other retarded misfeatures as well.

        • Re:Hmph... (Score:3, Informative)

          by WD_40 ( 156877 )
          It's a lot easier than that really. Just right click on your CD-ROM device in device manager, go to properites, and uncheck the "Auto Insert Notification" checkbox.

          As an alternative, if you want to leave autorun on, but temporarily disable it, just hold down SHIFT while you're inserting the CD.

          • Re:Hmph... (Score:5, Informative)

            by kasperd ( 592156 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:48PM (#7049119) Homepage Journal
            Just right click on your CD-ROM device in device manager, go to properites, and uncheck the "Auto Insert Notification" checkbox.

            Wrong. That disables detection of disc changes. What you want is disabling just the autorun feature without breaking something else. I really don't know why they make such a broken option so easilly available, while hiding the setting people should be changing instead.

        • Re:Hmph... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by rabidcow ( 209019 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @07:27PM (#7050042) Homepage
          Autorun is and always was a security hole. Microsoft should have known already when they implemented it, that it was a security hole. A similar but more subtle hole was fixed in AmigaOS five years earlier. That hole was used by multiple viruses, and caused the computer to get affected as soon as an infected floppy was inserted in the drive.

          It's about as much of a security hole as allowing binaries to be installed on the machine at all.

          The difference between autorun on a floppy and on a CD is that floppies are RW, while CDs are either read-only or read/erase/write. For a virus to spread via CDs, it would have to detect a CD burning operation and infect the CD image before it was written. This is an extremely complex task, and it would still only allow infection during a regular burn operation.

          Combine that with the fact that people don't tend to use CDs to trade data as much as people used to use floppies and the infection rate is MUCH lower. A lower infection rate means more time for a virus to be detected and stopped, so the virus writer would have to go to a lot more effort to get a much less effective virus.

          So yes, it is a security hole. It's not really a security hole worth worrying about though, since an attacker would almost have to have physical access to the machine in the first place.

          It is, however, extremely annoying.

          • Re:Hmph... (Score:3, Informative)

            by pod ( 1103 )
            I the case of broken CDs, it's not quite that black and white.

            These CDs have a data track, which has an autorun file on it. The autorun starts a silent installer that quietly installs some shitty DRM music player on your computer to play the WMA files. At least the CD that I put in on my work machine did that. At home, of course, I disable autorun on all the drives.

      • Re:Hmph... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by hajejan ( 549838 ) <hajejan@NOSPAm.kamps.org> on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @06:32PM (#7049550) Homepage
        And regardless of everything, you could always play the music on a high-quality CD player, optically record it on MD and encode it from the MD, or even copy it straight to another CD in audio-mode, and rip the CD. I guess we'll just have to wait untill the music industry realises this, and gives it up.

    • Re:Hmph... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by sterno ( 16320 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:14PM (#7048735) Homepage
      Or an even better way to work around it is to not buy the CD, and just download a copy somebody else went through the hassle to rip.

      Not that I'm condoning this behavior, but that's exactly what the record industry is encouraging. I don't listen to CD's, I listen to MP3's, and if I can't rip them from the CD, then I have to ask myself why I bothered to buy it. It would probably be better for the musician if I didn't buy the CD, downloaded the MP3's and then bought a bunch of swag from them.

    • Re:Hmph... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Petrol ( 18446 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:16PM (#7048749)
      Ummm... My crack?
      CD player'Line Out' to PC 'Line In'. Where's the flaw in that?

  • Simple solution.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rpozz ( 249652 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:01PM (#7048484)
    Don't buy it.

  • Crack (Score:3, Funny)

    by Gudeldar ( 705128 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:01PM (#7048489)
    So how many hours do you think it takes for this to be cracked 2-3 hours?

  • Nothing like a good challenge (Score:5, Funny)

    by nondeterminism ( 677019 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:01PM (#7048491)
    songs that can be handled by CD players but cannot be ripped

    Where there's a will, there's a way!

    • Re:Nothing like a good challenge (Score:5, Informative)

      by sixteenraisins ( 67316 ) <{moc.oohay} {ta} {tnanosnocsworromot}> on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:05PM (#7048572)
      Fairly simple but time-consuming: if you play the CD in a standard (audio only) CD player and patch the output from said player directly into the computer's sound card (digital audio would be even better), you can simply record the music digitally. Granted, this takes longer than simply ripping from the CD, but without any particular "hacking" of your system or the disk.

      Remember, only one person needs to do this - from there it can propagate across Kazaa, iMesh, etc.

      William
      • Yes it will be available immediately. Not only that, if it is difficult enough, they have increased the incentive to download the music illegally, and decreased the incentive to buy the disk. Good work there...

        Of course I suspect all the RIAA moves are designed to in fact increase piracy. The RIAA has much more insidious plans: they want to eventually outlaw all high-quality recording devices, because they will prove that all such devices allow, and are used primarily for, piracy (and that will be true). O

    • Re:Nothing like a good challenge (Score:5, Insightful)

      by plj ( 673710 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:10PM (#7048664)
      Yes. The interesting thing here is, how those "regular" CD tracks are "protected". Cactus-style redbook errors? Unclosed sessions, like on key2audio discs? Nobody is really interested of the WMA-content, people only want to find a way around the "protection", so that they can rip the CDA tracks off and create a new, noncrippled disc of them.

  • Remember kids... (Score:5, Funny)

    by axolotl_farmer ( 465996 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:01PM (#7048500)
    ..autorun on CDs is bad, mmkay!

  • That'll stop them! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:02PM (#7048504)
    Oh wait..

    Anthony_Hamilton-Comin_From_Where_Im_From_(Retai l) -2003-WCR

    hit the net about 11 days ago.. damn.

  • WHen will they learn (Score:5, Interesting)

    by junklight ( 183583 ) <mark@TIGERjunklight.com minus cat> on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:02PM (#7048519) Homepage
    If it was easier to buy mp3's than rip them off (searching p2p's or whatever) and if you could get all the benefits of pirate mp3's - listen anywhere, have a copy at home and on my portable player etc. then people would give them money.

    Instead - the music industry makes expensive stuff thats increasingly inconvienient and wonders why people are going elsewhere for their music. Oh and they don't pay the artists properly either - just in case we weren't pissed at them enough.

    the mind boggles....
    • What the music industry doesnt get is they dont sell music they sell CONVENIENCE. People dont need an industry for music - before there was an industry people learned to play instruments! Then someone figured out it was easier to get a machine to play consistently then a man - so they invented player pianos (and an industry was born); then Edison invented records because it was easier to lug a record player than a piano (or an ochestra), 45's b/c some people only wanted one song, 8-track b/c records dont

  • Great idea... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by aznxk3vi17 ( 465030 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:02PM (#7048521)
    Yet another way to get WMA spread across our computers. Can't they classify this automatic installation of software as a worm? What if we don't want to compromise our computers with this? Then we could claim they are discriminating against us against infecting our own computers.

  • Secure music? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by genka ( 148122 ) * on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:03PM (#7048523) Homepage Journal

    I hate this term. This music is not secure. It is restricted.

  • Damn (Score:5, Funny)

    by cyber_rigger ( 527103 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:03PM (#7048525) Homepage Journal
    I'll have to install Wine just to get my CD to not work.

  • swap sessions (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ignipotentis ( 461249 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:03PM (#7048532)
    Its just a shame that all this technology will be beaten by simply swapping the sessions. Just have your multi session drive read the session with the audio tracks instead of the one with the wma. If their "encryptions" prevents use of ripping digitally, it can still be ripped analog style, which means it can still be turned into mp3 and ogg/vorbis very easily. Why don't they just stop. With all the money invested in trying to build a better lock, they could have changed buisness models numerous times.

    • An even easier solution (Score:5, Interesting)

      by pla ( 258480 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @06:02PM (#7049264) Journal
      Its just a shame that all this technology will be beaten by simply swapping the sessions

      I've posted this before, and no doubt I'll post it again...

      Rip your CDs to an ISO with CDRWin or BlindRead, with C2 error correction disabled (but leave jitter correction turned on). Then mount the disk image via Daemon Tools or the like, and use any normal CD audio ripper (in its fastest mode, since no errors or jitter can occur this way) such as CDex to extract the audio tracks from the virtual drive.

      Works on every "defective" CD on the market, gives a perfect rip every time (for which reason I even use this method to rip non-defective CDs), and in many cases, it even takes less total time than using the CD audio ripper (assuming a non-defective CD) directly on the physical CD.

      You'll only have a problem if your drive doesn't support turning off C2 correction, in which case, spring the fifty bucks to get a cheap older Plextor drive from Blindwrite's "supported drives" list.


      Disclaimer - I have never even heard of the artist mentioned in the FP, and haven't tried this method on that particular CD. As I said, though, I have yet to fail to rip a CD this way, and have little doubt it would work in this case as well (sounds like just another cheesy multi-session standards violation hack, with the added "bonus" of running a trojan on your machine if you have unwisely left autorun turned on).

  • Isn't a Anthony Hamilton CD... (Score:3, Funny)

    by TimTheFoolMan ( 656432 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:05PM (#7048551) Homepage Journal
    ...anti-swap by virtue of it's content (with or without copy-protection)?

    Tim

  • A Patch exists (Score:5, Insightful)

    by secondsun ( 195377 ) <secondsun@gmail.com> on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:05PM (#7048552) Journal
    Raido shack has a patch [radioshack.com] for this however.

    It really makes me wonder why recording studios spend millions of dollars researching these things when all it takes is one person to post this to kazaa and defeat the whole purpose of the encryption.

    I guess this is why I am a CS major and not a business one.
    • Raido shack - roaches check in, but they don't check out ...

    • That's no patch.... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Pastey ( 577467 )
      ...it's an anti-piracy circumvention device!

      Seriously. According to the DMCA, couldn't use of that cable to rip one of these copy protected CDs be construed as such?


      Just goes to show how convoluted and idiotic the logic behind these new laws has become.

    • Re:A Patch exists (Score:3, Interesting)

      by bankman ( 136859 )
      I guess this is why I am a CS major and not a business one.

      Actually a business graduate would be shot (well, downgraded) if this were a case study and he were to suggest the current RIAA behaviour regarding file sharing as a solution to the problem in a decent business school with good teachers. For a number of reasons:

      Not an innovative solution to a disrupting problem set. Student was probably asleep during lecture on Christensen and Disruptive Technologies.

      Micro- and macroeconomic theory and issues (lik

  • What a shame that I'm running Linux (Score:5, Funny)

    by somethingwicked ( 260651 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:05PM (#7048554)
    "What a shame that I'm running Linux"

    Yeah, you're among friends here. Most people who read /. don't like Linux either

    and my portable MP3 player doesn't support WMA

    Bummer...somehow, I also thought MP3s and WMA files were the exact same thing. You mean they are different formats and your MP3 player won't play WMAs?!

    Bastards!

  • Not a CD (Score:5, Interesting)

    by yamla ( 136560 ) <chris@@@hypocrite...org> on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:05PM (#7048559)
    If you buy this and the place you buy it from specifies or implies that it is a CD, return it. They are required by law (at least in Canada and in the U.S.) to accept it for a full refund.

    My brother just bought David Usher's latest album. It played in the car but not in his laptop and that's where he spends most of his time listening to music. Note that his laptop met all the requirements listed on the back cover, it just wouldn't play... no CD audio, no WMA, nothing. And of course, it would prevent him from transferring the music to an iPod if it would play only WMA. He took the thing back to Music World. We wrote complaints to EMI Music, Music World, and David Usher's management company saying he didn't appreciate being assumed to be a music pirate, he didn't appreciate misleading notifications on the album cover (stating that it would work in his computer), and that he did not appreciate having his Fair Use rights curtailed.

    There was no response, of course, despite claims by at least one company that they would respond within x business days.

    • Re:Not a CD (Score:5, Interesting)

      by cnock ( 163362 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:20PM (#7048794) Journal
      The same thing happenned to me with Morrissey's recent Under The Influence compilation. I sent a kind email to the folks at the record company (DMC), and within a day, they sent an apology, and a request for my home address. Within two weeks, I had a non-restricted copy of the same cd that actually plays in my PC's cd-rom drive. They also admitted regret to pressing the restricted cds in the first place. An example of a record company understanding the downside of this "technology".
      • Kicking unrepentant companies in the wallet is one thing, but further humiliating them by publicly putting them lower on the totem pole than companies who repent from Restricted CD's, is even more effective.

        You've actually done us a public service by pointing out these reformed souls.

    • Re:Not a CD (Score:5, Interesting)

      by MKalus ( 72765 ) <mkalus@@@gmail...com> on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:31PM (#7048931) Homepage
      There was no response, of course, despite claims by at least one company that they would respond within x business days.


      David Ushers Managment was a lot quicker [thedarkerside.to] to reply (to me at least).

  • Not for high-end and car CD players (Score:5, Informative)

    by Telcontar ( 819 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:05PM (#7048564) Homepage
    High-end CD players and car CD players likely will not be able to handle it. Car CD players use a shock buffer which requires a true "random access" for reading ahead fast. The "encryption" usually consists of faulty bits on the CD, which results in read errors. Car CD players and high-end players try to correct for this, which does not work because there is no "true" faulty bit (which may be readable in some of the passes), but the CD is intentionally made as a faulty product!

    The best thing you can do is to return the CD unopened. This way, the recall figures in the sales will go up, and even 60-year-old executives with business plans from the fifties will learn.

    • Re:Not for high-end and car CD players (Score:4, Funny)

      by Esion Modnar ( 632431 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:35PM (#7048969)
      even 60-year-old executives with business plans from the fifties will learn.

      Nope. Not going to do it. I'm sticking right here with my martini lunches, golf with the boys at the country club, boardroom culture, oh, and yes, the cute young secretary taking DICKtation on my knee. If my company's business plan was good enough for my grandfather, it's good enough for me.

      (Hey, Bob! Have we sued anyone lately? Well, get to it! Why do you think we have that stable of attorneys on the payroll?!?!)

  • Anyone have a technical reference on this? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Yobgod Ababua ( 68687 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:06PM (#7048580)
    one set of "encrypted" songs that can be handled by CD players but cannot be ripped

    I don't see how this is possible given current CD player technology. If the CD player can read the stream of bits off the CD, and turn it seamlessly into music, then my computer (which is much more sophisticated than my CD player) should also be able to do so.

    Bits is bits. "dd if=/dev/cdrom of=/home/rip-cd" will transfer those bits. My choice of friendly utility that translates CD-format music bits into mp3, or ogg, or whatever should then work on those bits.

    Am I missing something?

    • Re:Anyone have a technical reference on this? (Score:5, Informative)

      by MrPerfekt ( 414248 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:14PM (#7048738) Homepage Journal
      Am I missing something?

      Yes, you are. When this technology first came out years ago [slashdot.org] /. had the story and umpteen million other related artcles can be found in the older stories..

      Anyway, to save you some trouble, the idea behind the "copy protection" is that they fudge the error correction on the disc's in such a way that a less complex (i.e. your home stereo cd player) will read them just fine and ignore the garbage and your more complex, cd-rom drive in your computer will barf attempting to use the error correction and be unable read the disc.

  • Ohh, it's encrypted! *shivers* (Score:3, Funny)

    by Andypro ( 707299 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:07PM (#7048606)
    Hmm, so I suppose running the speaker out back through to the line-in of the sound card and pressing 'record' in any sound recording program would be... too... tough... >_>
    *looks around in a frenzy* _

  • What kind of ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by DogIsMyCoprocessor ( 642655 ) <dogismycoprocessor&yahoo,com> on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:07PM (#7048615) Homepage
    mark do you think you'll have to make with a Sharpie this time?

  • Ability To Hear = Ability To Rip (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Professor North ( 606910 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:09PM (#7048656)
    "... songs that can be handled by CD players but cannot be ripped... "

    If it can be played through speakers on a computer the audio can be ripped somehow, and this will always be the case. This is regardless of whether one is ripping the track directly from the cd or ripping the audio as the sound card plays it.

  • When Is a CD Not a Music CD? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Myriad ( 89793 ) <myriad@the[ ]d.com ['bso' in gap]> on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:09PM (#7048657) Homepage
    When it doesn't conform to the IEC 908 standard and/or the Philips-Sony Compact Disc Digital Audio System Description (the RED Book).

    It may use the compact disc format, but it's not a Digital Audio Compact Disc.

    If they are going to sell a crippled disc it had better be marked as such. If I am lead to believe I am buying a disc recorded using the Red Book standard, that's damned well what I'd better get.

    You can't sell a Honda Civic as a Porsche 911.

    If the distinction is clearly marked on the disc, and that this disc does not conform to the Red Book standard and thus may not be 100% compatible with Red Book readers, then fine. I can make my decision to purchase or not to purchase.

    NOT labling the CD as crippled/containing copy protection/etc and selling it along side Red Book discs is misrepresentation. Fraud, pure and simple.

    (well, it my books anyway. Obviously the RIAA may feel differently).

    Blockwars [blockwars.com]: new features including accounts, still multiplayer & free.

  • It's not a CD (Score:3, Informative)

    by Vainglorious Coward ( 267452 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:10PM (#7048665) Journal

    If it doesn't meet the Philips spec for a CD, then it can't be called a CD. Has anyone actually seen this disc yet? I sincerely hope it doesn't carry the CD logo, since that would be a breach of the license [philips.com]

  • Collection of thoughts (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:10PM (#7048672)
    one set of "encrypted" songs that can be handled by CD players but cannot be ripped

    CD -> CD player -> sound card -> /dev/dsp -> lame

    No track is unrippable. Provided your audio chain is somewhat decent, the quality loss will be inaudible (much less than from the MP3 encoding anyway).

    In CD players, the disc plays normally (in theory)

    Yes, "in theory" is the keyword. In practice, it is quite different [theregister.co.uk]. Anyhow, if enough of those silly copy-protected CDs come out, some CDROM manufacturers will start selling units that can read them at a higher price. Who's the loser in all cases? the consumer/listener.

    When put into a computer, the disc installs software to keep the music secure

    Does it work under Wine?

    portable MP3 player doesn't support WMA.

    Get a Rio Volt. Or even better, play the MP3s generated with the method above.

    I hope more and more of these CDs come out, so more and more lawsuits against the idiots who make them happen, and eventually the entire music industry gets its reputation even more tarnished than it already is, hastening its long-overdue demise.

  • Radiohead - Hail To The Copy Protection (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:11PM (#7048680)
    From Blue Stone's Journal [slashdot.org].

    Got 'Hail to the Thief' today
    It's the first 'Copy Controlled' disc I've ever got, and it's quite interesting how they've worked it.

    The disc, ISO Buster tells me, is written in two sessions. Session 1, has the tracks, Session 2 has the software.
    When I put it in the CD-RW drive, and open it's contents, all that shows up is the software "Player.exe" and it's associated files.
    Windows Media Player refuses to recognise that the disc has any music tracks. As does Quick Time.

    Winamp (2) when instructed to play the disc in my CD Drive, plays it, without problem. The Creative 'Play Center' that came with my soundcard is able to play it also.

    The 'Player.exe' on the disc, insists on "modifying files" on my computer. It also then plays crippled versions of the songs, at only 96Kbps. Winamp and Play Center, play the tracks at full quality.

    My CD Ripping software (and Creative's Play Center software) have no problem ripping the tracks to WAV, MP3, or whatever.

    When I tried the disc in my DVD-Rom drive, it made grinding sounds, crashed my PC, and I had to reboot.

    So, it's called a 'Copy Controlled' disc, but what it really is, is a 'Windows Media Player Blinding, DVD-Rom Drive Fscking, Otherwise Rip It And Share-Away As Normal' Disc.

    What a complete waste of time for them.

    Still, on the bright side, the record company is paying good money (or it's ill-gotten gains, depending on how you look at it) to license the "copy protection," er... system, and it's associated software. Which means less money for them, and the RIAA! Hurrah!

    Silly tossers.

  • "New Anti-Swap CD's Hit Shelves" (Score:3, Funny)

    by JeanBaptiste ( 537955 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:12PM (#7048703)
    "New Anti-Swap CD's Hit Shelves"

    and thats where they will probably stay....

  • Nothing new in Canada (Score:5, Informative)

    by robinw ( 257786 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:15PM (#7048743) Homepage
    EMI has been releasing high profile discs from artists like Radiohead, Jane's Addiction and Blur in Canada for a while now. The problem is that these high profile discs do not play in many conventional players, such as my 1-year old Sony Discman.

    I wrote a nasty email to EMI about it, and they replaced my Radiohead disc free of charge with a non-crippled version, including delivery. I suggest that everyone who's against this technology actually buy the CD, write a letter to them and have them send a second disc at their expense.

    Here's an open letter I wrote to EMI and the RIAA [cryptek.org]

    and here's an entry about a technology I found to circumvent it. It can be done with software:

    How to Rip these tracks [cryptek.org]

    My biggest objection with this technology is that they call them CDs, when they don't conform to the CD standard. If you look for the official Compact Disc Constortium logo, it's missing. Putting these crippled discs alongside regular CDs in a store is misleading. They should be in a seperate section of the store, in very clear packaging (a small sticker or bullet on the back of the CD isn't obvious enough)

    I also don't think the artists know what's happening to their work. People who play these CDs in computers receive a far lower quality version of the song than they'd even get by downloading them online. They can't say that they're "all about the art" and release crap like this which sounds hissy and loses the bass-line.
    The WMA files are ripped at very low bitrates, something like 96kpbs, presumably to prevent people from just extracting them off the data layer and using file sharing. I personally never rip anything less than 192kpbs.

    -RW

  • Even worse! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by FrostedWheat ( 172733 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:17PM (#7048759)
    What is even worse is that WMA seems to be coming near the bottom of most listening tests. Restrictions or not, it's a bad format. Why couldn't they have used AAC? It can be restricted just as easily!

  • Load of marketing BS? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mindslip ( 16677 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:18PM (#7048762)
    Right. Encrypted redbook audio. I don't recall my cd player(s) having a Clipper chip folks! Hardly even much of a CPU. More like a PIC controller, I think.

    So the reality of this is...

    It's a CD that can only hold maybe 3/4 the amount of music CD's were designed to hold, and anything you want to snatch from the SPDIF jack on the back of your CD player can happily be recorded to... oh, say another CD (digitally, with all the original bits intact save for jitter), or Minidisc, or MP3 player, or whatever.

    And when you play it on your PC, you can hold down the Shift key as you close the CD drawer to prevent Windows' Autoplay feature... Oh, wait, that is *if* you use Windows, ...from installing some what... new CD ROM-drive drivers? How exactly does this stop you from reading the audio tracks?

    Now, more importantly. Labelling. Am I being *told* that I'm buying a CD that breaks my "God given right to steal music?" ... sorry, I mean, "use the media I purchased in any way I wish for my personal use"? (What makes you think I'm an Amerikan, folks? Different rules here, thanks.)

    Right.... Another half-assed attempt. If the music industry wanted to put some *real* effort in this, they'd simply work encryption (better than CSS!) into SACD's, and Sony would flood the market with cheap SACD players and re-release their whole catalogue on SACD, then stop pressing CDs.

    Or, of course, they could price CDs reasonably so we'd go out and buy shitloads more, regardless of the fact that there's only one track half-worth listening to amongst all the made-for-radio/lowest-common-denominator garbage.

    mindslip.

  • Whitmore quote: (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jollygreengiantlikes ( 701640 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:25PM (#7048869) Homepage Journal
    Many Net swappers "think it is their God-given right to steal music," Whitmore says. "They don't know any better. We have to teach them."

    Why can't they just stop trying so hard to piss people off. If they'd stop trying to teach people, perhaps fewer prospective customers, like myself, would run, crying bloody murder.

    I don't care to steal music-I've got the music I want (or if I want something new, I buy it/download it from iTMS). However, once I own it, I want to be able to listen to it on my terms. Why would I purchase music if I'm not getting anything better/more convenient and have to buy new equipment to listen to the music besides.

  • Why... why... why? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BMonger ( 68213 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:29PM (#7048916)
    I just don't get it... I have a Mac here at home and with multi-session CD's it mounts both sessions as different CD's on the desktop... when I bring the same CD to work and try to play it on my Windows 2000 box it asks if I want to install all kinds of junk to play the CD. I can't listen to the CD with WinAmp at all like I can with any other normal CD...

    So I have to download it (usually via IRC) and store a copy on my computer at work just so I can conveniently listen to a CD I bought... I wonder how much this brings up the RIAA's numbers of illegally downloaded songs... for instance if I didn't know all that much about computers and I was downloading songs I legitimately should be able to make MP3's out of and now Kazaa downloads them into a shared folder... well now the RIAA has 10-15 tracks more that they can claim are being widespread because I just wanted to listen to music I had given them money for.

  • OS X mounts both images (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Dugsmyname ( 451987 ) <thegenericgeek@gm a i l.com> on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:32PM (#7048943) Homepage
    Drop the CD in your OS X machine, and rip the "Audio CD" mounted image... Just ignore the other one.... Tested and confirmed.
    • Someone mod this man up!

      Not to sound like a pro-Mac weenie (although I am), but this is yet another reason why my primary choice of operating systems for day-to-day use at home is Mac OS X. Then again, I suspect that the primary goal of the "copy protection" on this CD was to lock out the majority of music pirates, who run MS Windows. I doubt that the major labels care that Linux and OS X users can rip the audio tracks by mounting the Red Book session directly.

  • It's not a "CD" (Score:3, Redundant)

    by El ( 94934 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @05:37PM (#7048990)
    If it doesn't meet the Red Book/Blue Book standards, it is not a CD, and Phillips should sue them if the use the Compact Disc Audio logo anywhere on the product. Also, CD retailers should refuse to carry them, as they WILL be returned much more often as purchasers discover they simply don't work with their hardware. We can also help out by buying, opening, then immediately returning one every time we get a chance! What are the chances of these working properly with Sony's car MP3 players?

  • Roadblock (Score:4, Funny)

    by GetPFunky ( 309463 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @06:09PM (#7049352) Homepage
    That should stop the 6 people that actually listen to his music.

  • Turn of auto run! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Sovern ( 631825 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @06:10PM (#7049362) Homepage
    I got a photo cd from my mother years ago. It installed Wal-Mart software that caused a system crash. The photo envelope had a small EULA that I did not read. It pays to hide in a small hole in your yard.

  • Screw these crippled "CDs" (Score:3, Insightful)

    by haggar ( 72771 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @06:45PM (#7049664) Homepage Journal
    What drives me completely mad is, the promise of the compact disc was high resiliance against dust and scratches, thanks to special coding mechanisms that utilize rendundant information in the CD blocks.

    Well, these bastards now are using this area of the CD to make it un-rippable. And at the same time, they make it much less resiliant. In other words, they are selling CRAP which will have to be thrown away much sooner. The saddest thing is, 99% of the people will just go on and buy more CDs because of this. Yeah, maybe some of them will comment that "I htought CDs lasted longer, in the past", and will be promptly ridiculed by some smartass with "sure, and LPs were even better than that, riiight...".

    And once again, the ignorant and meek consumer is lead like sheep to the slaughter.

  • I believe the basic premise is sound (Score:3, Interesting)

    by CrackHappy ( 625183 ) * on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @08:02PM (#7050375) Journal
    I've been reading the comments posted so far, and have found that a large majority are quite negative. But mostly, it's negative in regards to the following:

    1) Modifying the way the CD works will make it unplayable in certain players
    2) Some people don't use WMA, either because they can't, or because they refuse.
    3) The general "RIAA" sucks comments.
    4) Other issues I didn't notice, cuz I'm too slow and lazy to list them all.

    However, I didn't see anything come up that really pointed to whether this idea was sound in general. i.e. They're trying SOMETHING other than just suing the crap out of their customers, it appears that they're trying to both appease the consumer AND keep their margins up. After all, they ARE allowing personal copying and use, including sending a free copy to your friends for ten days. I'm sure the intention was NOT to make it not work on certain players or regions.

    In my humble opinion, this seems like a step in the right direction. Now, that doesn't mean they should not continue to take further baby steps, and try harder to really get at what their consumers want, which is very low cost single track downloadable and convertable music in an easy to find manner.

    Anyone else feel the same way? I'm not looking for flames here, and if what I said was inflammatory to you, I'm sorry, I'm just trying to point out my differing opinion from the majority of slashdot readers.

  • The sad thing is... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Arcturax ( 454188 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @08:32PM (#7050608)
    ... that they will probably sell more CD's to people who want to figure out how to break the protection than to people who actually want to buy the CD for the music.

  • Where are their heads? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by fygment ( 444210 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @09:02PM (#7050799)
    What is the music industry thinking? They seem to think people want a perfect copy of their CD. Logically, that would assume that MP3 swappers are audiophiles. BUT all anyone really seems to want is sound quality roughly on par with FM radio play. To get that you don't even have to pump CD 'line out' to your PC. You can mike it from your stereo in to your PC thus circumventing any encryption scheme that doesn't actually deny you the ability to play it on your CD player. So just what exactly is the copy protection against? (I once thought it was to protect from the big pirating cartels in the Far East. But they are rich enough to hire full time encryption crackers or, more likely, steal master recordings.) Oh well, someone is making a buck selling these encryption schemes and the impact on the file swappers is neglible so carry on with life.

  • Support artists/industry that supports you.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by msimm ( 580077 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @09:13PM (#7050875) Homepage
    I thought I'd do something more then my usual support independent (or independently minded) artist. There are a ton of artists out there not caught up in the whole piracy debate (since the rise of the net WAY more then most people imagine). CD's at the mall are no longer safe. The industry/distribution giants that have been hand feeding us are no longer (where they ever?) interested in fair practices.

    But this isn't really that big a deal, because you can just type your way down to:

    mp3.com [mp3.com]
    or
    emusic.com [emusic.com]
    or
    umbrellamusic.com [umbrellamusic.com]
    or
    listen.com [listen.com]
    or
    mp3it.com [mp3it.com]
    or
    iuma.com [iuma.com]
    or
    grageband.com [garageband.com]
    or
    besonic.com [besonic.com]
    or
    zebox.com [zebox.com]

    And it just keeps getting bigger and better out there. Really the only thing that needs to happen is we need to get comfortable with buying online artists. Maybe Rolling Stone will do an online section? *shrug*

  • Violates spec -- return as defective (Score:3, Informative)

    by bigberk ( 547360 ) <bigberk@users.pc9.org> on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @09:23PM (#7050926)
    I hope this doesn't have the "Digital Audio" logo on it, which would incorrectly imply that this is in fact an Audio CD. Such discs violate Philips' RedBook (Audio CD) format [cdfreaks.com]

    If you buy a CD and discover some sort of idiotic copy protection on it, return it to your vendor as DEFECTIVE. If the product claims to be an Audio CD and has copy protection in the form of encryption, unreadable tracks, etc. it is violating the specification and is defective.

    Either that, or false advertising. Either way it's grounds for making a complaint and getting your money back (I have done this at Future Shop, had to see the Manager).

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