Copy Protection

So yeah, a little while back I was whining about how several artists that I liked had new CD's out, but they were copy protected (Ben Harper was one, can't remember the other). I didn't buy the CDs, because I ONLY listen to music coming from mp3's now basically.

So last night I was at Future Shop picking up the new Led Zeppelin CD and DVD. There was a new CD out by Sarah Brightman, a singer that my mom quite likes. Sure enough it was copy protected. I figured since she only listens to music from CD's, it couldn't hurt to pick it up, give the copy protection a try, and then give it to her.

So I am in the middle of ripping it right now. The first song I can't seem to rip, I would assume due to the copy protection. However I ripped the second song, and it sounds fine. The rest of the album is ripping right now.

So it looks like this copy protection isn't all that bad (or useful for record companies) after all. I haven't tried too hard to rip the first track yet, perhaps updating CDex will allow me to.

If there is one thing I have learned in my experiences with stuff like this....it's that no matter how hard the record companies try the hackers will always win. Any form of copy protection can and will be beaten almost before it hits the shelves. The people who beat the system and put the material up on warez sites and such will always stay one step ahead of the game. The only people hurt by the copy protection are the people who want to make the legitimate copies that by law we are supposed to be able to make. I am the same way with music....I tend to put a lot of stuff on my computer to listen to when I am browsing the web and whatnot. That type of copy protection bugs me because it interferes with my ability to do with my music as I like and yet it still doesn't do what it is supposed to do....the hacker elite will still make mincemeat of the protection.

Oh well......whatcha gonna do :rolleyes:

lol, it's not even the hacker elite that can get around this shitty copy protection. I didn't even do anything. I just put it in my computer and started ripping with CDex. Like I said, the only song I couldn't rip was the first, but I didn't really very hard.

Basically, their "copy protection" stops someone from popping the CD in their drive and hitting "copy CD", because it will fail on the first track. However, that doesn't stop anyone from going and jacking the other songs on the CD.

So like I said, it's a good thing they spent all that money. Hopefully the first songs on Richard Ashcroft's and Ben Harper's CDs suck!

The sad part is how much money they spend in trying to make their media copy proof. Thus passing on the cost to the consumer and making a CD that should in reality cost mere pennies to make cost upwards of $15.....and no matter the money they do spend on it....it doesn't do any good. Their will IMO, never be a form of copy protection that isn't beatable. I wish they would just quit wasting money on it and assume that people will copy what they want to copy.

Actually the major labels are being sued atm for price fixing. The cost of manufacture et al, is significantly lower than the sale amount, the price cd's are sold at is an artificial one, and some people would like to know by what magic means the majors happened to come up with the exact same sales price.

Not that sony or any of its subsidiaries would ever do anything to hurt their valued customers

bah, you can't just use the manufacturing cost of CD's. There are dozens of other things that do the same, whether they are books, dvd's, movies, computer games, virtually ANY consumer product, it goes on and on.

Not to mention that paying for the recording of albums etc is extremely expensive, extremely. And probably 1 in 10 actually makes the record company a profit.

Personally I think 15 bucks (canadian) is a perfectly acceptable price for a CD, when you compare it with most other consumer goods it's quite reasonable. The one thing that does piss me off is that they jacked up the price when CDs first came out, and have never reduced it.

yeah.. is why I used et al after cost of manufacturing.

I actually work in the music business, and you'd be surprised what the actual markup is on a cd. The total costs involved with making an album is less than 1/5 of the selling price when skewed over the production run.

And the argument that only 1 in 10 actually making them a profit is not really valid. Don't force me to pay more for music just because the company can't hire someone good in a & r. Should we pay more for a Big Mac if McDonalds tries to sell chinese food, or tofu burgers?

Bah, Radiohead and Placebo's new albums both have this copy protection on them as well. I didn't buy Placebo's because I saw the sticker, however Future Shop had covered the sticker on Radiohead's CD, so I didn't know till I got home.

It will be interesting to see if they will take it back tomorrow. I kept the wrapper with the hidden sticker on it, so I don't think they will hassle me too much. If they do I am gonna make a big scene. I can hardly wait!

The reason that CD's are 15 bucks is everyone takes .25 cents to a buck per CD sold. So the artist, The producer, the agent, the song writers, bla bla all the way up to the record label and the distributer, they sell it in at 7.50-9.00 bucks to your local record store and then they mark it up to 15-18 bucks to the consumer...

Im not saying the greedy people deserve it or the mark up is fair, but everyone has thier hand out....

Think thats not fair, HAH try the video game bussiness...

Im not allowed by NDA to discuss console prices, but a PC game in a jewel case, box and manual packed out 100k copies is like 2 bucks per, and thats if its nice packaging and a color manual... For top end PC games, retailers get 49.99 for them, talk about profitable bussinness :))) Thats why even 9.99 junk in bargain bins at cosco for a sleeve and 42 cent CD is still profitable in quanity...

I think if you look at all entertainment media, DVD, CD, Games across the board, I think youll see a huge mark up... If you have a Hit its great, if you don't it can be tough to make money even with that mark up...

"the rich get richer and the rest are gasping for air"""

I just bought Radiohead's Hail to the Thief and had no problems ripping it in media player 9 eomer. Do they not all have this copy protection?

Dunno, did yours not have a sticker on the front saying Copy Protected? The back of the CD has system requirements for it as well.

Maybe it's just a regional thing, I dunno. Or maybe WMP9 can figure out how to rip the first track? I didn't try all that hard.

Bought David Usher's new CD, sure enough Future Shop had once again covered up the copy protection label with their price tag. Here is the letter I sent to EMI, and plan on sending to every other address I can think of.

I would like to express my extreme disapointment and disgust with EMI's insistence of using copy protection on David Usher's latest release, along with numerous others.

When I purchase a CD, I immediately rip it into high quality mp3 for listening. My home stereo is connected to my computer, I have a mp3 player for portable music, and my car stereo also plays mp3's burned onto CD's (thereby allowing me to carry all my CD's in my car without the fear of having several thousand dollars of music stolen). I essentially do not use the CD once I have ripped it, I put it on the shelf and only use it when going to a friend's place etc.

However, your copy protection is a weak attempt at disallowing this. First of all, it only prevents the ripping of the first track, the rest of the CD can easily be converted into mp3 form.

Second, if I pay the 15 dollars or whatever the price, why should I not be able to enjoy the music in any way I choose, so long as I am not distributing free copies? Am I honestly expected to buy a copy for each location that I want to listen to the music at? Carrying around CD's is cumbersome, not to mention that it tends to damage the CD's, which happens to be my third point.

If I want to back up my purchase, should it become damaged in the future (we all now how easily that can happen to CD's), I am now unable to do so.

Fourth, the only people punished by this poorly implemented and thought out scheme are those that PAY THE MONEY FOR THE CD IN THE FIRST PLACE. Let that sink in. It does nothing to prevent file sharing, whatsoever. Some enterprising individuals will still figure a way around your copy protection (I didn't even try, like I said, I can rip every song but the first) and share them on a sharing network.

I have well over 250 albums that I have amassed in the past 10 or so years, and I feel disgusted and angry that the recording industry's short-sightedness and greed are punishing me, simply for buying a CD. The nearly two thousand dollars I have spent on my car stereo, home computer, and portable mp3 player are wasted by this copy protection in a poor attempt that does not even accomplish the goals set out for it. Bravo.

/high 5 eomer~

Yeah that's my biggest beef with all the steps the recording industry is taking to ward off file sharing. The only people they hurt are the legitimate buyers and the fairly moderate unskilled people that don't have the know how to work around the protection and/or protect themselves while using kazaa or something like it. The people that are really pushing the limits and using cracked copies of programs or have hundreds of illegal albums on their comp are easily getting around any copy protection......so whats the point?

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Eomer
Dunno, did yours not have a sticker on the front saying Copy Protected? The back of the CD has system requirements for it as well.

Maybe it's just a regional thing, I dunno. Or maybe WMP9 can figure out how to rip the first track? I didn't try all that hard.

---

Get this - for some weird reason I couldn't rip the first track to license to ill. A really old CD. But it played fine. Hmm. :|

Get BlindWrite Suite4, I've been able to rip everything from software to music with this.

Link?

Well, they replied:

Dear Marcel,

We are in receipt of your email and regret you have experienced a problem with one of our products.

EMI is using this technology to control both copying and unauthorised distribution or piracy. This approach is similar to other copyrighted products such DVDs and computer games which have been using copy protection for years

Out of the several million copy controlled albums EMI has released in a number of territories around the world, the rate of consumer enquiries that we have received has been less than 0.02%. About a third of these were to complain that the disc couldn't be copied (even though all the discs were labelled to explain the copying restrictions) and another third were about problems with specific players (which tend to be the older or very high-end players). The vast majority of the player problems have been fixable by our technology suppliers. As long as consumers alert us to the problem we can ensure that the copy control technology is adapted so that it doesn't happen again.

Nobody expects the anti-shoplifting steps that retailers take to completely eliminate shoplifting, but they do keep it to the minimum level possible. Copy control technology is similar and it means that anyone wanting to crack this technology and illegally distribute copies of the music for free has to make a conscious decision to do so. Of course a retailer could guarantee that there would be no shoplifting by not letting anyone in the shop, but obviously then they wouldn't sell anything. There is a trade off here. Similar technologies, such as those used in DVDs, computer games, software, etc, have all been broken by some people at some time. We believe that honest people want to act honestly. Introducing this technology also helps raise awareness of the importance of copyright protection and that unauthorised copying and distribution of music is theft.

We believe it is absolutely right to protect the intellectual property of music and that this is essential to support a vibrant and dynamic music market. The problem of CD-R piracy is having a major negative impact on music around the world - music sales fell by 5% in 2001 and then by a further 9% in 2002. Surveys last year in the US, Germany, Sweden, Japan and Canada all found that free music downloading and burning are substituting sales significantly more than they are promoting them. With copy control there is a balance between the level of playability and the level of copy protection because of the way the technology works. We have deliberately chosen maximum playability (on CD players, DVD players, car stereos and computers). As a consequence, the level of protection cannot be 100%. The only alternative to increasing the protection is to reduce the playability.



Regards,



Emi Music Canada
Quality Control Dept
1 (866) 553-0220

Rika, thanks for the info on the program, it seems to be able to rip an image fine. However, how do you get mp3's out of the program? Not sure I understand :/

music sales are falling because music these days mostly sucks