| 1/26/2004 12:29 AM |
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that cdwow topic reminds me. the one time i bought from them, it was radiohead's hail to the thief, and it had that copy-protection scheme which makes it:
1. unplayable on computers other than windows and macs
2. uncopiable to mp3 players
3. very annoying to play even on windows
cdwow were very good about it and took it back no problem. it was radiohead's label, parlophone, which was experimenting with the scheme for the european edition of the cd.
will this scheme make people more or less likely to buy cds? is the scheme legal, given that in order to prevent the cd from playing as normal in a computer, they have to break the "red book" audio cd standard?
have a look at http://ukcdr.org/issues/cd/docs/celdion.shtml for an overview of the situation, and early reports of artificial intelligence - apple imacs going on strike when asked to play celine dion cd's.
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Binokular Veteran Member Posts:1665  
| 1/26/2004 8:14 AM |
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Its pretty annoying if you listen to your music on an MP3 players, it also causes problems on some car stereos, such discs need to be clearly labelled as copy protected and should not be allowed to even labelled as CDs as they completely break the original compact disc standard as originally defined by Phillips.
People are buying less CDs but copy protection is not the main reason. The main reason is the mainstream record companies like AOL Time-Warner with their sheer lack of imagination and seeming disdain for consumers. Copy protection is extremely annoying and is just another straw on the camels back.
The ironic thing is that it does not stop piracy, especially large scale piracy. Even if you can't crack the copy protection scheme, theres a simple way around it. All you need is decent hi-fi, some decent connectors and possibly a pre-amp (remarkably cheap piece of kit) or PC audio interface. Armed with this you can just record the audio going into your sound card from your hi-fi.
Basically copy protection only serves to show how dim-witted some record company execs are. Two amusing instances of copy protection spring to mind. The first being the hilarious case of the spider-man movie soundtrack, why anyone would want to listen to this is beyond me but I digress. Anyway, it was supposedly copy protected, but also contained multimedia content that you could view on your PC. The hilarious thing was that the copy protection did not work (you could still play/rip it it on most CD-ROM drives) but neither did the multimedia content which was so buggy it crashed on most PCs. So the bit wasn't supposed to play on your PC did, the bit that was supposed to didn't - Genius!
Also amusing was the fact the recent Chemical Brothers singles compilation was copy protected. A bit ironic for a band that have sampled other peoples records.
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Vent My Spleen Advanced Member Posts:500
| 1/26/2004 9:10 AM |
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I bring them straight back to the shop - if I can't MP3 it, it is no good to me.
Interestingly, the record companies have become wary of copy protection for a number of reasons. First up, they had no end of problems with devices not playing the CDs (particulatly DVD players). Second, they are finally starting to realise that just because you MP3 something, you are not necessarily part of a mass conspiracy to rob Lars Ulrich - the rise im popularity of ipod has made them take notice. Finally, as Bimokular says, doing good quality analog to digital recording is pretty damn easy (as anyone with a mini disc will tell you) so copy protection is not going to stop tracks finding their way onto the web, even if they could copy protect everything.
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eoghan Basic Member Posts:331
| 1/26/2004 9:59 AM |
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The UK 'Campaign for Digital Rights' website has a VERY comprehensive sub-site with info on copy-protected CDs. It's probably THE essential resource for anything you need to know on copy-protected CDs:
http://ukcdr.org/issues/cd/
eoghan
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