'Caution seems to be warranted. One of the companies working with BMG, SunnComm, copy-protected an independently released CD earlier this year by country singer Charley Pride; many buyers complained that it was unplayable. In Germany last year, BMG was forced to recall 130,000 CDs encrypted by Israeli company Midbar Tech, also for playability issues.'

Do the labels ever bother to ask their own engineers about these things? You can't prevent a cd from being readable on burners without doing the same to a significant percentage of your cheap cd player-using market. Players are written to the spec, and breaking the spec means they won't work.

Of course, *one* way to deal with this would be to come up with some sort of online/kiosk/whatever time-based licensing system hoo-haa. Not that they'll do it until they're driven to the edge of bankruptcy.

People have pirated music for decades by taping. Dual cassette players were cheap, and I can only guess that their sole purpose was to dupe music cassettes. Why is the music industry so alarmed by ripping tracks now? Did Napster just scare them quite a bit?

The best way to combat piracy is to get the prices down a bit. Get CDs at the $10 price point at retail and most people won't bother going to the trouble to burn pirated CDs. Or maybe they will. Perhaps I'm naive.

sure, the discs can be read in burners or readers or whatever, but if you do digital extraction of the audio, you get the glitches that they put in there to 'prevent' you from getting a clean rip of the audio.

when you play the discs themselves in *any* cd player, it's the D->A converters that filter out the glitches.. this is true of all home/car/dvd cd-players and ALSO of computer cd-rom/dvd-rom drives that have their audio playback done in analog rather than in digital (which, in windows, is a checkbox item in the device configuration that defaults to analog).

so... you COULD rip the disc in analog mode (at 1x), and probably have not tooo much S/N loss (on a good sound card), but have none of the audible glitches... OR, you can rip at whatever speed digitally (CDDA) and get basically an audible 'exact image' of what they have on the disc.. namely, the stuff they put in there to make ripped cd's sound like crap.

good stuff, huh? :) there's sorta a way around it, in that if you have a drive/deck with SPDIF output(s), you get a clean post- D->A converter digital signal, but you lose track markers and would still have to do 'rips' at 1x.

- mike - lurk lurk lurk -

"Why is the music industry so alarmed by ripping tracks now?"

Because when you duped a casette, you end up with a pretty crappy copy. And a copy of a copy? Forget it! With burning CD's, the image is digital, so the integrity is maintained no matter how many copies of copies of copies of copies are made.

In other words, before CD-RW one owner would make maybe three copies of a tape to give to his friends. Now, those friends can all make copies for three of their friends, and those friends could each make three copies for their friends. Now, 27 people have a high quality copy of music that one person purchased. Before, 9 people would have bought and made 18 crappy copies. And with Napster, millions of people can get a copy of music that only one person paid for.

"The best way to combat piracy is to get the prices down a bit. Get CDs at the $10 price point at retail and most people won't bother going to the trouble to burn pirated CDs."

I am so with you on this point. But that won't happen until some established bands figure out that they don't need a record contract to release an album. It will get airplay based on their name and the fact that the radio stations receive free copies of it. If it's good, the kiddies will rush out to Best Buy and "Turn on the Fun!." Plus, at $10, they are much more likely to get/give them as gifts, etc.

It is easy to get studio time and cheap to create a master CD, but established artists (and I use the term loosely) continue to sign contracts with recording companies that act like they hold the monopoly on publicists.

- frank - rant rant rant

"I am so with you on this point. But that won't happen until some established bands figure out that they don't need a record contract to release an album. It will get airplay based on their name and the fact that the radio stations receive free copies of it."

Actually, this isn't true, if this article in Salon was correct. It alleged that the only way music gets played at large stations is through pay-offs from the Record Companies to the stations. If you don't pay, your music doesn't get played....ahem, "allegedly".

I think the record companies are crucial still. They do the marketing, the promotion, get the airplay, get the product in the stores, etc. That's how we end up with manufactured megastars like 'NSync and Brittany Spears.

I am assigning homework to any of these goofballs who want to stop people from making mixed CD's: they are to watch High Fidelity and write a paper on the importance of mixed tapes/CD's to our generation.

I understand their fear of wholesale theft, but creating technology that also inhibits how I use the music I buy is...well, it's whack. Not only that, it's wiggidy whack. I think my right to make compilation tapes and CD's is protected by the Constitution. Or the Magna Carta. Or something.

Oh, and look out for snakes.

-Amanpour

'Oh, and look out for snakes.'

Richard Baseheart?

"Actually, this isn't true, if this article in Salon was correct. It alleged that the only way music gets played at large stations is through pay-offs from the Record Companies to the stations. If you don't pay, your music doesn't get played....ahem, "allegedly"."

----------

I've also heard that the opposite is true. If a station plays something that the big-boys don't like, they've been pressured to stop playing it.

On the subject of copy-protection: It doesn't work for games, it won't work for music, and companies will still do it.

I kind of feel like they have no right to limit my ability to make a compilation CD. I mean, if I buy ten CDs because they each have one good song on them (good for the companies), then don't I have a right to burn those ten songs that I wanted onto one CD, as long as I have purchased the original CDs first?

And, kind of a different issue, but if I buy a CD, isn't it legal to burn a copy, so I can keep one in the car and one in the house?

That just sucks. Not that I'm overly confident that it'll ever work, because hackers and piraters are typically smarter than the companies producing the CDs. (If they could get the people who warez this stuff to work for them, we'd all be in trouble!)

There's only one thing that will matter to the companies that make these copy protected discs: will they sell more or less of them than the non-copyprotected discs. If they sell more, it confirms in their mind it's a good business move; if they sell significantly less, they'll go back to non-copyprotected.

Your role in this decision is clear. :)

"...the only way music gets played at large stations is through pay-offs from the Record Companies to the stations."

I remember a case about a record company had been paying off some L.A. disk jockey to play their albums that otherwise wouldn't get airtime. Then again, my wife has been watching a lot of Lifetime lately and maybe it was a movie starring Valerie Burtinelli, Victoria Principal, and Meridith Baxter-Birney.

"They do the marketing, the promotion, get the airplay, get the product in the stores, etc. That's how we end up with manufactured megastars like 'NSync and Brittany Spears."

We end up with these types because the Walt Disney Corp has their finger in all of it. Did you ever notice that all of these kids were Mouseketeers on the "New Mickey Mouse Club"? Did you ever notice who gets airplay on the "Radio Disney" affiliate in your town? The Disney Channel is constantly running ads for televised concerts from Disneyworld. The TV show "Making the Band" is about a group of kids from Orlando (Disneyworld) on ABC, which is owned by the Disney corporation. Carson Daly once commented on "The Daily Show with John Stewart" that all the boy-band members are from ORLANDO, FL and that the whole town should be shut down for that (which raises my opinion of him greatly).

Anyway, my point is that you need publicists, etc. for the rap, pop, and mainstream country music stars. But for a _real_ act with a loyal following (Dave Matthews, Madonna), they could easily self-publish an album. They'd have to get pretty pissed off with the industry in general to do that, though. Prince is pissed off enough, but he isn't very relevant today.

I grew up making tapes. My father was a reel to reel fan, and brought back some nice gear from 'Nam. We used to make tapes on weekends, with me helping out by flicking a switch here and there or cueing up a record. As a teen, I made cassettes for the car. Compilations of all the Led Zep and Skynyrd and Elton John or whatnot hits. Much later I made CDs for the car, culling the one or two songs I liked from my collection of mostly crappy CDs.

I don't buy many CDs anymore, but I sure as hell won't buy any that are copy protected. Ever.

Well, ok, except for opera maybe. I don't make compilations of different Verdi arias.

I hardly buy CDs anymore either. I can see why the marketeers target that 18-34 age group. People like me have opted out of being consumers. I buy a paperback every now and then (though usually from a few used bookstores I haunt) and the things I need like underwear, toothpaste, etc., but I hardly buy anything else.

Back to music, one of the great anti-piracy things that's been gone for a long time now is the old LP covers. We used to get a new LP and play it and read the liner notes cover to cover, read the lyrics, etc. It was part of the experience and you missed out on it if you culled a tape from someone. Those little inserts that come with CDs just can't compare.

I just find it hard to believe that Record Companies are losing anymore money now than they were in the past from duping.

Just look at the market right now with all the 5+ million record's sold bands and compare that to say 20 years ago. Record companies are making a killing nowadays on record sales more than ever, so why are they all up in arms about duping? Greed.

The bastards.

Jeff

Vaguely on topic: if you're using Winamp and you haven't downloaded this, you're probably missing out on the most gorgeous visual effects on a PC. I hadn't checked up on Geiss in a while, and this is the Winamp Plugin replacement for it. Try loading the "Planet" preset. Jesus, that's a nice surface.

"Back to music, one of the great anti-piracy things that's been gone for a long time now is the old LP covers."

I love this point, Mark. It speaks sort of indirectly to why the ability to pirate films on DVD would never appeal to me. I love owning them. I love the packaging of them, especially the good ones. I'm not saying that they're up there with the liner notes of LP's, but I would much rather buy Fight Club or Seven and have the whole package as it had been produced than just burn my own generic looking DVD.

For dubbing tapes, though, part of the fun was coming up with a cool looking insert cover for the cassette. Personalizing it. Taking the time to put a stamp of individuality on it. I think too few professionals do this now in the music business. I cannot remember the last interesting liner notes I read. The Say Anything soundtrack CD? I don't know.

I too rarely buy CD's. I'd say the only things I buy, entertainment wise, are DVD's and books*. I love hardback books. I love owning books. If we ever get to the point where books are only digital I think I'll just take that as my cue to leave.

-Amanpour

*Oh, and now that I've got a Dreamcast I guess you can add games to that. Barely.

Same with games for me.
I want the box, the manual, the disk with the paint on it, etc.,

-Andrew

"when you play the discs themselves in *any* cd player, it's the D->A converters that filter out the glitches.. this is true of all home/car/dvd cd-players and ALSO of computer cd-rom/dvd-rom drives that have their audio playback done in analog rather than in digital (which, in windows, is a checkbox item in the device configuration that defaults to analog). so... you COULD rip the disc in analog mode (at 1x), and probably have not tooo much S/N loss (on a good sound card), but have none of the audible glitches... OR, you can rip at whatever speed digitally (CDDA) and get basically an audible 'exact image' of what they have on the disc.. namely, the stuff they put in there to make ripped cd's sound like crap."

Interesting. That could be effective, because it makes copying _far_ more inconvenient. And that's the goal of any good copy protection scheme..

Our only protection from this scheme is a raft of returns from folks who have unsophisticated car or home CD players that won't work with the copy protection. Enough returns, and they'll have to forget the whole thing.

certainly it makes it very inconvenient.

i guess that the question is: do people want to go back to taking the time to make copies of their audio like 'the old days'? like, before 'easy' methods of cd audio extraction/encoding were available... or like dubbing tapes.. or, gasp, records -> tape!

while it kinda irks me that they are doing it (copy protecting audio cds, violating the "CD Audio" standard in the process, making it difficult/impossible to get a good, fast, clean 'rip'), i do see WHY they are doing it:
who the hell really wants to waste the time and spend the money doing all that shit just to copy a couple songs for some friends? like hell i am! those cheap bastards ('friends') are gonna pay for it themselves, just like i did, if they want the music. they can dupe their copy ALL THEY WANT, on THEIR TIME, thankyousoveryf'nmuch. :P

- mike - hey, that sounds about right -

Yes, but this is the era of file-sharing utilities, only one person has to do the recording then we all get copies.

I've yet to search for a recording of anything I wanted and not find it within a few minutes.