posted by david on Mon 29 Mar 2004 @ 10:14 PM

Copy protected CDs have been something to avoid for a while so it was amusing to hear that respected Sydney Morning Herald columnist Jon Casimir had finally encountered the traumas associated with the purchase of one of these discs. It actually sounds like he hasn't been paying any attention to the whole thing until he got hit by it himself. Elsewhere, a JJJ dj has done a decent job of pointing out the contradictions in the way the music industry is tackling Internet file sharing.

posted by david on Fri 21 Nov 2003 @ 10:35 AM

When I read this ABC story about the idea of imposing a levy on the sale of every blank CD, I was appalled. I have a pile of blank CDs at home waiting for burning but it's a fair bet very few of them will wind up with music on them. It's more likely they'll contain backups of digital photos or backups of other irreplaceable data on my computer. Why should the music industry make money from me doing that? For the music CDs I do burn, they're generally created so that I can play the copy without worrying about damaging the more expensive original (or as a sign of how stupid things are getting, to generate a play-anywhere copy of a copy-protected CD). The logic of APRA and other music industry organisations here seems the wrong response to Phil Tripp's survey that found everyone wanted to be able to copy CDs they'd bought for their own personal use. The copyright act currently states that making a backup copy of software is legal but backing up your CDs is not. It seems to me that the way to fix that is just change the law to allow it and I can't see how requiring a levy is a prerequisite. Why should we pay for something everyone agrees should be a right? Why should all users of blank CDRs be slugged to offset that particular use? I could argue that I give people my photos on CD and as they could be burning copies of those to CDR, I should also get a levy from everyone to compensate me.

posted by david on Thu 26 Jun 2003 @ 11:01 PM | read or post comments (3)

When I first heard that record companies were thinking of implementing "copy protection", it sounded like a sick joke. Then it prevented me from buying the new Radiohead album and it didn't seem so funny. And then I inadvertently bought a "copy-protected" disc because I didn't notice the special logo that was supposed to warn me. I've since bought another such disc and my opinion of "copy protection" has now changed a little. It's simply a joke.

see the rest...

posted by david on Thu 12 Jun 2003 @ 11:29 AM

I have just ordered the new Radiohead album from the US. I would have preferred to purchase it locally but EMI Australia have decided to release it as a "copy-protected" disc. I am not normally someone who copies discs that they purchase (for myself or others) but as this disc will prove difficult to play on my CDROM of my work computer (a Linux machine where I listen to a lot of music), it is simply not practical for me to purchase it locally. EMI's copy-protection raises a bundle of issues here.

see the rest...

posted by david on Tue 14 May 2002 @ 09:28 PM

Okay, I had hoped I would be able to avoid mentioning her name so think of this as a story about Sony Music instead of... gulp... Celine Dion. It seems that Sony are trying to make enemies of all of those people who went out and bought new shiny Apple iMacs - the copy protection on the new album from whatsername may cause their computers to crash. And then they may not start again. And the disc might not eject. And you might have to take the computer back to Apple. And just as a bonus, they will probably charge you for removing the album from your system. Of course, the tech geeks over at slashdot are up in arms, as much as they can be when it comes to whatsername. There's a pretty daft story about it over at The Age and a better one over at cnet. This strikes me as a PR disaster for Sony so it will be interesting to see if they re-consider using this copy protection technology. How long will it be before someone sues amazon.com because an album they bought there didn't play because the CD was non-standard and they weren't warned? It looks like this technology has the potential to annoy many retailers and hardware manufacturers in addition to consumers. The Slashdot story above links to one possible work around for dealing with these "pretend" CDs.

posted by david on Wed 25 Jul 2001 @ 08:36 PM

It's probably not news that Napster is suffering a slow and painful death courtesy of legal actions by the record companies. While the addition of file blocking technology has made the service more-or-less useless, the RIAA still succeeded in having the service pulled off air altogether for a few days. It looks like it will live on but I don't think they'll ever have 60 million users ever again. Instead, it appears that many of those users have now turned to the range of alternative mp3 sharing services, as this article in Salon discusses in some detail. A few cliches spring to mind: they've won the battle but lost the war; they can't put the genie back in the bottle etc. And now the record companies are bragging about new technology they're surreptitiously adding to new CDs which prevent them from being "ripped" on a computer. How did they do that? Well, it's complicated but they're basically screwing with the error correction features of CDs, deliberately adding errors that fool CDROM drives but hopefully, not your normal CD player. Will someone figure out a way around it? Wait and see I guess. And finally, Alanis Morisette has said her bit about online file-sharing at the Plug.In digital music industry conference in New York. She argued that the demise of mp3.com and Napster is a blow for artists because they "offered a link between artists and audiences and was a way for less-established artists to have a forum to reach those who will be touched by their art". And so the debate rages on...

posted by david on Thu 15 Mar 2001 @ 09:07 PM

Although I'm a big fan of all kinds of music, I must admit that I rarely listen to the radio. It's pretty depressing that the really good stuff rarely gets radio airplay and hence, a chance at wider public exposure. Online mag Salon has published an excellent piece that explains just how US commercial radio works and how airplay is bought, not earnt. I've no idea how it works in Australia but it would be nice to think JJJ and the ABC are able to avoid this sort of thing. But then, when I remember how Rebeccas Empire decided to throw in the towel last year citing a lack of radio support, I wonder whether that might be undue optimism.

posted by david on Sun 12 Nov 2000 @ 07:14 PM

The SDMI have finally announced that their proposed secure digital formats have withstood attack, despite some of them being cracked during their recent challenge. As salon.com point out, the most credible team of crackers from Princeton have not yet submitted their documentation so it sounds like any announcements from SDMI at this point should be taken with a grain of salt. Ho hum.

posted by david on Fri 13 Oct 2000 @ 07:58 PM

The folks at SDMI put their heads together and came up with a technique for "watermarking" music to prevent digital piracy. They then challenged the hacker community to try and break their fancy schmancy copy protection. Guess what happened next? Someone broke it. Or at least that's the rumour emanating from within the SDMI organisation. The Slashdot crew pointed out this Salon.com story which comes complete with an amusing quote from a SDMI goon: "That's false, [but] I don't know the specifics because I'm not on the testing committee." Now that's what I call a convincing denial. :-) update: The RIAA have announced they will introduce a standard way of tagging digital music files. No doubt this will make things easier for them when managing their own digital music catalogues but they're putting an almost comical "this will help us stop piracy" spin on the story. If the best efforts of a high-powered consortium like SDMI can't come up with something to do it it's pretty obvious that the RIAA doesn't stand a chance.

posted by david on Wed 4 Oct 2000 @ 08:06 PM

In 1998 when mp3 technology became a massive blob on the radar of the recording industry, the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) group was formed so that the various record companies and electronics manufacturers could bash heads to devise a secure (ie. profitable) way of distributing music digitally. Two years on they've yet to come to an agreement on what to do and there are many within the SDMI who feel the battle is now completely pointless. The Slashdot crew have pointed out a great article that explains the SDMI infighting and makes some excellent points about why SDMI will fail. It repeats the assertion that supposedly inaudible watermarking probably isn't and this quote is representative of the piece: "If SDMI continues to search for something that simply doesn't exist, then you have to wonder, why continue this process?"

posted by david on Thu 10 Aug 2000 @ 03:29 AM

It seems that one of the things Courtney Love was ranting about recently has been rectified. The "work for hire" clause in the recent changes to US copyright law will now be revoked so that musicians can retain some sort of ownership of the works they deliver to their record company. Wall of Sound have the full story. On a vaguely related note, Cos pointed out Steve Albini's rant about the music industry from last year.

posted by david on Thu 27 Jul 2000 @ 03:44 AM

In the US, the judge presiding over the RIAA vs Napster case has ordered that all trading of RIAA-distributed songs is to cease more-or-less immediately. In effect, this means Napster is being shutdown. Although this is a temporary measure, the judge has ordered this because she finds it likely that the RIAA will win. I'm in two minds about Napster: on one hand, they're not the ones actually hosting the copyrighted material but on the other hand, blind freddy can see that the principal purpose of Napster is to "distribute" that material. The really dumb thing about this is that online trading of mp3 files cannot be stopped - Gnutella is just one of a number of alternatives. In effect, the RIAA will win nothing by winning this case as they cannot beat the technology. The old rule applies: if you can't beat 'em, join 'em, but sadly the fine minds at the RIAA haven't figured that one out yet. Find news coverage of the shutdown at CNN, ZDNet, Salon and probably most of the other news services. Of course, the Napster website also has stuff to say about it. update: Napster won their appeal and can now look forward to hearing the matter decided in a full trial thingy.