"Whether you like it or not"

TaranT · Post by **TaranT** » Fri Nov 08, 2002 5:13 pm

The UK Register published an email that record company EMI sent to a customer.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/28009.html

One mad consumer relations team might be an isolated incident, two begins to look like a trend. The dismissive response Bertelsmann Music Group's copy protection team recently issued to a consumer's query essentially boiled down to, 'all Cds will be copy protected, it's not our problem that they won't play on some devices, so tough.' But apparently, it's a competition. EMI Germany is taking pretty much the same attitude, and its humorously-tagged Consumer Relations team is calling the customers pirates while it's about it.

Thanks to DeeKay for drawing our attention to this little stunner, and for help in the translation. German speakers can view the original in all its glory here, but we think the following loose translation captures the flavour of the atrocity (our bold on the best bits)...(ed. translation follows)...

"<snip>...If you plan to continue protesting about future audio media releases with copy protection, forget it; copy protection is a reality, and within a matter of months more or less all audio media worldwide...(will be)...copy protected. And this is a good thing for the music industry. In order to make this happen we will do anything within our power - whether you like it or not."

Cardinal.jpg · Post by **Cardinal.jpg** » Fri Nov 08, 2002 5:53 pm

What are you trying to say here?

f~a~e~r~i~e · Post by **f~a~e~r~i~e** » Fri Nov 08, 2002 9:51 pm

it's being very confusing.

Rozard · Post by **Rozard** » Fri Nov 08, 2002 11:37 pm

I think what he's trying to say is that record companies are going to try and make it so that Cds aren't rippable, or "copy protected," as was said. Not like that really matters; all you have to do it plug a mini-phono jack into the Line Out of your CD player and into your microphone plug on your computer. Hit Play on the CD player, hit Record on your computer

Lucia · Post by **Lucia** » Fri Nov 08, 2002 11:41 pm

i didnt kno dat was possible
but noe i will try it

OmniStrata · Post by **OmniStrata** » Sat Nov 09, 2002 12:56 am

Rozard wrote:I think what he's trying to say is that record companies are going to try and make it so that Cds aren't rippable, or "copy protected," as was said. Not like that really matters; all you have to do it plug a mini-phono jack into the Line Out of your CD player and into your microphone plug on your computer. Hit Play on the CD player, hit Record on your computer

Good one, but how exact will it be?

:/

Rozard · Post by **Rozard** » Sat Nov 09, 2002 2:09 am

Well, it wouldn't be perfect quality, but it will still be the music. The point I was trying to make was that you're not going to stop the digital sharing of music my making CDs encrypted so you can't rip 'em. Besides, someone would figure out a way to decode it.

rubyeye · Post by **rubyeye** » Sat Nov 09, 2002 12:59 pm

I think the real issue people neglect to mention is, supposing that 'copy protection' becomes "unbreakable", this would mean MP3s could no longer exist, which in turn would mean every technological inovation, service, product, and basically the entire industry designed around MP3 technology becomes obsolute, there's no market for it and everyone's out of a job and the economy goes to shit, again.....

Not only is copy protection a sensorship issue, it's a bad marketing decision.

I mean doesn't Virgin Records and other music companies make MP3 players and other digital music related products? Aren't they shooting themselves in the foot. Sound's like they are not looking at the big picture.

iserlohn · Post by **iserlohn** » Sat Nov 09, 2002 1:46 pm

Virgin must not really care that much - I bought a DVD-Audio from them yesterday, and since compatability is still an issue (DVD-Audio doesn't play on all DVD players), there's a nice 5.1 copy encoded for fully rippable DVD-Video as well. So much for that idea =)

TaranT · Post by **TaranT** » Sun Nov 10, 2002 12:49 am

The technology built into some CDs to stop people copying them is futile, according to a computer scientist who has put today's antipiracy systems under the microscope. He believes the continual software and hardware upgrades issued by the makers of computer CD drives and audio CD players render copy protection systems pointless in the long run.

John Halderman, a computer scientist from Princeton University in New Jersey, plans to show delegates at a digital copyright conference in Washington DC next week that the idea of CD copy-prevention is "fundamentally misguided".

In 2001, Princeton University scientists debunked the technology the music industry planned to use to inaudibly watermark sound. Halderman is now doing a similar job on copy prevention systems.

Halderman looked at three widely available copy-protected CDs. He found that the three different copy protection formats they used all had one thing in common: they all index the contents of music discs using a system meant only for recording CDs on a computer's CD drive....

The complete article is here:
http://www.newscientist.com/news/print. ... ns99993020

RE: Rozard's suggestion for "line-in" copies...

A good idea, and easy to do, but one reason that copy protection has become an issue is that a noticeable number of CD players won't play the protected discs. With a protection scheme, the CD no longer meets international standards (RedBook or whatever it's called) and some players "just say No!". If your player won't play it, then the line-in method is useless.

So far the retailers have been willing to accept these "broken" discs as defective returns. But if the number of them increases, then it's the retailers who will start saying "No." And the point of the article I posted above is that the record companies could really care less. No doubt they will start raking in more bucks selling players "guaranteed" to work with all CDs.

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