Macrovision CD Protection Bypassed 301
LoPan writes: "The defective CDs that have recently arrived on the market have already had their copy protection broken according to The Register. What I'd like to know is if the discs do not conform to the Red Book standard, and if so, can they actually be sold as audio CD's, with the logo? Are they marked, warning consumers that they're buying a defective product?" The cdfreaks article referenced by the Register article tells you all you need to know. It's Windows-centric, but give it a few weeks and I bet cross-platform answers will show up.
Cdparanoia? (Score:1)
WAV files? (Score:1)
Question: Is there any loss of quality in converting from the CD native ".cda" files to the ".wav" format?
.cda file format and .wav file format (Score:2, Informative)
Question: Is there any loss of quality in converting from the CD native ".cda" files to the ".wav" format?
DMCA dosent seem all that bad..just misused (Score:2, Informative)
I think my big problem here is that I don't fully understand what the DMCA actually -says-... so i looked up some key passages, let's read along:
"Contracting parties shall provide adaquate legal protectiona nd effective legal remedies against the circumvention of effective technological measures that are used by authors in connection with the exercise of their rights under this treaty or the Berna convention and that restricts acts, in respect of their works, which are not authorized by the authors concerned or permitted by law."
Now, since the electronic reproduction of digital media for archival purposes is legal, how can the creation of a tool that enables this practice be illegal (i apologize for posting this sentiment twice, but im going somewhere different with it)?
Also an interesting little gem:
[paragraph pointing out that circumventing copyright controls to -accessing- information is illegal, but not copying it. and then...]
"This distinction was employed to assure that the public will have the continued ability to make fair use of copyrighted works. Since copying of a work may be a fair use under appropriate circumstanses, section 1201 does not prohibit the act of circumventing a technological measure that prevents copying. by contrast, since the fair use doctrine is not a defense to the act of gaining unauthorised access to a work, the act of circumventing a technological measure in order to gain access is prohibited."
Sounds pretty clear-cut to me. By those guidelines, the DeCSS boys should have been clean as a whistle, same with the CDFreaks crew.
Oh, and check out the footnote to that page:
"'Copying' is used in this context as a short-hand for the exersise of any of the exclusive rights of an author
Further down is a list of exceptions, section 1201(f), very interesting:
"Reverse engineering. This exception permits circumvention and the development of technological means for such circumvention, by a person who has lawfully obtained a right to use a copy of a computer program for the sole purpose of identifying and analyzing elements of the program neccessary to achieve interoperability with other programs, to the extend that such acts are permitted under copyright law."
"Encryption research (section 1201(g). An exception for encryption research permits the circumvention of access control measures, and the development of the technological means to do so, in order to identify flaws and vulnerabilities of encryption technologies."
Now, it was mentioned earlier that CDfreaks could still be presented with a civil suit, but lets take a look at "remedies".
"Any person injured by a violation of section 1201 or 1202 may bring a civil action in Federal court..." Since, according to said sections, no injury took place, no civil suit can be brought to court.
Also interesting was the mention that nonprofit orginizations, archives, and educational institutions are excempt from liability.
If you check out the new section in table two, section 512, "System Caching" is also excempt from liability. Since the CDFreaks software caches the audio track into RAM, wouldnt it be excempt?
For all the DMCA bashing that goes on, actually reading it, it looks pretty fair and reasonable.
The only possability then, is that the Powers that Be are all either unintelligent or receiving large bribes from the media industry.
American Democracy in Action (Score:2, Insightful)
This crap happens all the time. "Let the courts hash it out." If constituents aren't happy with the law (as interpreted), the congress can claim they didn't mean for it to be interpreted the way it was... and then proceed to "fix" it.
How I'm Bypassing Macrovision (Come Arrest Me!) (Score:2)
I suppose in a while they'll make voting with your feet illegal too. It's a logical next step.
Not buying (new) CD's (Score:2)
Beatles One (Score:2, Informative)
CDDA paranoia ripped this CD fine...here's how... You can't turn on the "accept no less than perfect" option...you will see errors during the read (V), but the end result is fine. You can only rip at 1x...I belive this is the key...most CD-Rippers will try to read at the fastest drive speed. I belive there are some portable CD players that read at faster than 1x (to fill their anti-skip buffers faster?)...obviously these CDs won't play correctly in these drives. And yes, there is no apparent CD-Audio icon on this disk.
Retroactive "circumvention device" status? (Score:5, Insightful)
Reported is that all software that is able to rip at Burst Copy Mode .... is able to rip SafeAudio protected CD's.
So does this mean that these Burst Copy Mode programs, while previously legal, are now "circumvention devices" under the DMCA?
If so, can I make a "protected" file format that Microsoft Office just happens to be able to read, and get Bill Gates arrested?
Re:Retroactive "circumvention device" status? (Score:2)
Anyone want to confirm this? I dont know enough about cdparanoia (I use Grip so it's point and drool for me) to know what modes it supports.
SafeDisc just doesn't make sense... (Score:2)
Think about it... they rely upon the data-correction system within RedBook CD Players to cancel out their intentional twiddling with the data. They're counting on computer players in raw data mode to send these errors, without correction, onto the software.
Problem is, when you read in raw mode, you also get the correction data. So it's a simple matter of taking the data you got and correcting it in software. Thus, you end up with the corrected data stream.
Am I missing something here? Seems like MacroVision was really grasping at straws with this.
Mode 1 sectors vs. Red Book sectors (Score:4, Informative)
when you read in raw mode, you also get the correction data. So it's a simple matter of taking the data you got and correcting it in software
CD-ROM stores 75 sectors per second. Red Book sectors contain 2,352 bytes, or (44100 samples/chn/sec) * (2 channels) * (2 bytes/sample) / (75 sectors/sec). CD-ROM sectors recorded in mode 1 (the vast majority of computer CD-ROMs) contain 2048 bytes of data and about 300 bytes of error correction data. For more information, read http://www.eaglevisiontv.com/General_Information/C DROM_Formats/body_cdrom_formats.html [eaglevisiontv.com].
CD Freaks Got It Wrong. (Score:4, Interesting)
The earlier article sited on /. (I can't seem to find the damn thing right now)
didn't
say that attempting to rip protected disks would
result in an error; it said that you'd end up
with bursts of static. This technology works
by placing bursts of static in the audio
stream and marking them with a wildly wrong
checksum. Audio CD players will interpolate
over these bursts. Data CD readers will read
the static in and (except for some models
running at 1x) ignore the checksum altogether.
The driver that CD Freaks points out is kind of cool; it means you don't need a dedicated ripper any more. The article, though doesn't indicate how it gets around the problem with the ECC codes being missing.
Given this, and given knowledge of the way that CD-ROM drives work, I'd bet anyone here dimes to dollars that the CD Freaks "solution" won't be any more effective at circumventing the copy protection than any other CD ripper.
Titles please? (Score:4, Interesting)
-S
Re:Titles please? (Score:3, Interesting)
And to all of you people who replied sarcastically to this poster: You're all idiots. If the only evidence for the earth's roundness or the Holocaust was press releases, fluffy news articles, and Slashdot posts, I'd have a hard time drawing any conclusions too.
So let me repeat my plea:
I don't care about how this makes you feel, or what your friend told you. Thanks.
Re:Titles please? (Score:2, Funny)
Be careful you dont sail off the edge of the world either..
Re:Titles please? (Score:5, Insightful)
Then we read "Oh joy! The protection has been broken!" Broken on WHAT? Until someone can produce a title and say what was done, I don't believe that there's really any "protected" CDs out there, and I don't believe that there's any protection that has been broken. Is that so hard to figure out. I'll change my tune as soon as someone identifies a CD that this has been done to.
Every single time this has come up on
Has anyone considered the possibility that these news stories are just being floated to gauge public response?
-S
Re:along that thought... (Score:2)
Website/Friend/Enemy/Hacker/CDinmail: Look cool new program
User: Clicks setup and installs it.
Charlie Pride (Score:2, Informative)
Yes, that was mentioned but it was using a different technology and not the macrovision technology. Apparently the experiment failed because lots of people returned the CDs because they often would fail to play on regular CD players.
The technology we're looking for is from macrovision and discussed in this article:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/07/19/007240 &mode=nested [slashdot.org]
-S
I want to see some people get convicted for this (Score:2, Interesting)
So what happens if people get prosecuted for this particular violation of the DMCA? it makes the news. People hear about how they can't even rip their own cds and play them on that $200 rio they just bought. People might have wasted their money. Now of course, if people are prosecuted for violation of the DMCA, which incidently they did break, they will be convicted. The next thing to do is appeal up to the supreme court on the grounds that the law is unconstitutional for all the various reasons that we
If the Court has any sense, they'll agree, and the DMCA will be out of our lives.
If the people prosecuted as violating the DMCA win it is possible that the law is never appealed and eventually we all get screwed when the US completes its deterioration into a corporate republic.
Alternate Source of cdfs.vxd (Score:2)
The workaround is simple, just replace the file cdfs.vxd on your Win9x machine, then when you go into explorer and open up a music CD, you will see a list of WAV files in various formats. Simply drag them onto your HD, then use whatever software you want to convert from WAV to MP3.
The author's site isn't responding, but you can download the file from Dave Central [davecentral.com] fairly reliably.
More complete summary of the workaround (Score:2)
Use this alternate CDFS.VXD cd driver on Win9x to show Audio CD's as WAV files IN THE FILE SYSTEM! This replacement driver shows WAV files in a variety of qualities. It works on any CD drive that Windows can support.
Then you can use your favorite Wave Editor program to read directly from the CD.
Put it in your \Windows\System\IOSubSys directory, and reboot. You can rename the old CDFS.VXD to CDFS.old for archive purposes.
Here's what I'm trying to say and ask. (Score:4, Interesting)
But isn't it just as much of a violation to bypass the Macrovision copy protection via sampling an audio stream, or recording the analog stream to another device?
By doing so, you are bypassing their mechanism to prevent the CD from being copied. And nothing in the DMCA says that it has to be 100% effective against all means of copying.
So does that make analog copying a violation because you are bypassing the digital protection?
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
reminds me.... (Score:2, Interesting)
of the good old days when commercial pc games were "protected" by putting bad sectors on the diskettes (yes when they still fitted on a few disks and were twice as fun as modern games)
Already announced at CD Media World (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.cdmediaworld.com/hardware/cdrom/cd_pro
Question about the DMCA (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet another reason the law should punish "conduct" and not code.
Access adulteration, not copy protection (Score:1)
How does one define a copyright protecting system?
Answer: badly.
It's not really a rhetorical question. The DMCA defines a technological protections measure, basically, as a process that applies information in order to gain access to the work in question. It is indeed THAT broad.
Not only is it ridiculously broad, it is of course a bad definition. Note: the Macrovision CD protection is the same type of "copy prevention technology" that CSS is: it does not in fact prevent copying, or even access to the work. It makes it difficult to read the work when it is used in a strictly controlled tech environment (ie, read in the environment of the copyright holder's choice). Both tpms do this, though, with "application of information in a process", so they count as tpms. But of course this isn't copy or access prevention, but access adulteration.
Only because the copyright holder is able to control the tech with which you read the work you have purchased or otherwise legally stolen, is - so far - any post-purchase access-adulteration "copy protection measure" even remotely conceivable.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Re:Question about the DMCA (Score:4, Informative)
Well, they'll have to decide exactly what it means, but the DMCA itself [eff.org] (from the EFF [eff.org]) says in Section 1201, subsection (a)(3):
You'll notice that even "impairing" a technical measure is illegal - if you do anything to "avoid" the measure, that is still illegal. It would seem to me that this device would fall under this terms, as it "impares" or "avoids" the measure designed to protect copyright...
As for whether or not what Macrovision is doing is a "measure" to protect copyright, it would seem that it is, as a "process or treatment" (namely error correction) is required to "access" the work. Which means that most likely, those of us in the United States, the land of the Free*, cannot legally use this system.
* Does not include tax, title or license. Some restrictions may apply.
Re:Question about the DMCA (Score:2)
Re:Question about the DMCA (Score:2)
That's pretty much how it works for DVD players. Expect them to try their damndest to phase out CD's for audio DVD's.
Re:Question about the DMCA (Score:2)
Am I wrong here? (I hope so.)
--Ben
Audio In, Digital Out (Score:2)
This has always been true. It's pretty much a waste of time for RIAA and its ilk to attack duplicating, since we all have that capability, or could get it fairly easily if we don't already.
They go on about the "quality" of the recording, but in the end it all comes down to how much the intermediaries make off the artists. I was recently at WOMAD, where I bought a whole bunch of CDs for $16 and was glad to do so, since they get a major cut of the money (many dollars), not the usual 4 to 16 cents per CD that most recording artists get. Which is why I also buy my music from touring bands - more money to the artist.
Until someone does something about that basic equation, I doubt piracy will ever be impacted.
Re:Audio In, Digital Out (Score:2)
The vast majority of people don't care that artists don't make any money. A lot of people use that as an excuse, but in reality they just want the free music. (How many people ever got around sending money to the artists after Naptering/etc. the music? Not many.) Most people don't feel any responsibility towards someone that they don't know personally, and so they don't see anything wrong with taking the music for free.
Sounds like you really are serious about getting money to the artists. Good for you. But even if the distribution of money changes, piracy isn't going to slow down much.
Re:Audio In, Digital Out (Score:2)
Many.
Remember, the studies show that Napster users buy more CDs.
Re:Audio In, Digital Out (Score:2)
What I do think will make a difference is when the record companies come up with (1) an easy way to obtain and pay for music online, and (2) methods of making piracy so difficult that people would rather just fork over the cash. Obviously, we're not going to like it if/when that happens, but that's what they're shooting for.
Re:Question about the DMCA (Score:2)
Chances are that this method fails the "effectively controls access" qualifier, and DMCA won't apply. You pretty much can't make a CD that is both:
Re:Question about the DMCA (Score:2)
How I wish that were true. How about looking at this April press release [eu.int] about the EU's latest directive on the subject, which member states now have 15-odd months to implement?
Copy protection is a sin. (Score:2, Interesting)
Legal, but not moral by my book. I hope more artists will see it this way too.
If you're not a Christian, move on. Nothing to see here...
Be honest now.... (Score:4, Interesting)
I think it's funny that they introduced these special CDs onto the market in the first place. People buy CDs for the high-quality music, and then they go and release this "copy-protection" scheme that purposly screws up the data so bad people can't copy the music to their computers.
Here's a little knowledge-nugget© for you record-producer-type people, some of us rip songs from CDs into MP3 format because it's WAY more convenient to listen to. That doesnt mean I'm going to share the data with the world just to spite the record companies... I know there are people who no longer buy CD's because the music is so easy to find online (and they should be punished for doing this), but I've actually bought MORE CD's in the past year or 2 because I had listened to the music online first.
Instead of trying to find a way to prevent people from using the CDs that they've bought at a normal store, how about figuring out a way to encourage online users to support the bands who actually make the music....
Re:Be honest now.... (Score:2)
but on the other hand, if you're exposing yourself to new music using mp3s, you're also subverting the economics that the record companies expect. they expect that if they force you to listen to something on the radio or mtv, then you'll go out and buy it. that's why n'sync and all the other shit like that is popular. nobody likes it because they normally would find it appealing. people like it because they're trained to like it.
if you start liking music on your own and ignore the schlock that you're force-fed, then you're adding unknowns to the system, and the record companies can't consolidate their catalogs to accomodate a universal taste, a goal to which they've been aspiring recently. During the merger-mania the record companies were going through last year, a lot of bands were dropped to slim down the rosters to a small pile of the most profitable "musicians." They WANT to produce as little variety of product as possible to reduce costs, and still sell enough to keep a nice fat income. finding new music on your own gets in the way of that goal.
Re:Be honest now.... (Score:2)
Doesn't mean it doesn't work. (Score:2)
Now, most people value their time, and there is a certain threshold where they'll just fess up and stop trying to crack something.
RIAA knows this, Microsoft knows this, and even the people who wrote the DMCA know this. (The DMCA just raises that bar for everyone... it's meant to make copying happen less often, not try and make it more difficult.)
Re:Be honest now.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, maybe - but the thing is, the 1-2% of people who have the knowledge to do this can distribute ripped mp3's to the world via "File Sharing Protocol of the Month." Joe Citizen doesn't have to be able to rip SafeCD's - he just needs a net connection.
Easy for anyone once an easy program is written (Score:2)
Then quite possibly all the user needs to do is point and click.
As for the DMCA, there may be legal reasons why the copy protection method does not make such a tool illegal. There may be legal reasons that it does make it illegal. Even if legal, Judge Kaplan might still rule against you.
RIAA know they can't only win with technology, since any program can make a hard operation easy.
So they fight back with (unconstitutional) laws.
I am afraid, that if this hack is legal, that the DMCA will be tightened to outlaw it and anything similar.
RedBook conformity (Score:5, Insightful)
CDFreak's software is really neat, from what i've read about it. It reads in the audio track into RAM and mounts it as a volume, and involved creating a custom VXD, sounds pretty innovative.
As for a couple of posts i've read about CDFreak being in danger of legal repercussions, their case is different from Dmitry's in that (please correct me if i'm mistaken) they're giving the software away for free, not selling it to make money, so they're not breaking any laws, even under the DMCA.
Re:RedBook conformity (Score:1)
If they aren't distributing their tool "for commercial advantage," then they can't be charged with a criminal violation of the DMCA. However, Macrovision can still file a civil suit against them, probably leaving them in debt to Macrovision (and to their own attorneys) for the rest of their lives.
Re:RedBook conformity (Score:3, Informative)
Sorry, you asked for it (literally), but you are mistaken. From the DMCA (as reproduced by the EFF) [eff.org]:
Notice it does not say they have to "selling" the device, only "traffic" in it. Now while Sec 1201, subsection (a)(1)(E)(2)(C) (is that how you reference it?) says "is marketed," that has been interpretted in the past as meaning something along the lines of "offered" and not necessarily "offered for trade."
So it would seem that yet, they can still be tried criminally under the DMCA.
"primarily designed"? (Score:2)
So, that means that anything that's purpose is not circumvention, but use, should be legal. IANAL, but I speak English, and that is what those words mean.
If that's the case, then why are we losing the DeCSS case? DeCSS is only a part of what was supposed to be used for playing DVDs, so why is it illegal?
but that's a farce (Score:2)
The _REAL PURPOSE_ of DeCSS is to allow the playing of DVDs, the _METHOD_ is the circumvention of CSS.
I understand that the DMCA isn't interpreted to allow that, but that's what the real meaning is, in English.
Re:RedBook conformity (Score:2)
Am I mistaken, or isn't this CDFS software the same exact VXD that's been out there for YEARS, used primarily to make it easier to rip to MP3, back when it was a lot easier to find WAV-2-MP3 converters rather than digital CD converters?
I remember using this software way back then.
Unless it's been changed specifically for the purpose of getting past SafeAudio, I do not see how they could possibly be arrested because of the DMCA.
CDDA filesystems (Score:2)
That's about as innovative as MS Windows. Filesystems that treat the audio tracks on CDs as files, have been around for many years. I think I played with one on my Amiga, oh, about 4 or 5 years ago (and it was old then)?
Re:RedBook conformity (Score:2)
The point is that they are distributing a copyright-protection circumvention device; even the tangential benefits that they realize by doing this (more visitors to their website?) will suffice to make them liable.
I'm wagering they'll be the next copyright-lobby DMCA-effectiveness poster-children, myself.
-Renard
Re:RedBook conformity (Score:2)
One can just imagine the hollywood lobbyist chatting up the Senator over a drink -- "Did you that under current law, it's perfectly legal for people to modify our cable boxes and disc players and make perfect digital copies of our content? And using the Internet, tney can take our content and give it away for free to anyone who wants it?"
To the Senator, that wouldn't sound right, and hense the DMCA was born out of good intentions. Sure, at some point someone considered the implications of this, and a a bunch of pro-fair use language was tacked on to the bill, but the core bit of allowing content providers to have legal 'access control' rises above all of that. It would have been a pointless law otherwise.
Re:RedBook conformity (Score:2)
> chatting up the Senator over a drink
Am I the only one who has a problem with
legislation being conceived under the influence
of dangerous mind altering drugs such as alcohol?
Familiar (Score:3, Insightful)
I remember thinking at the time, I wish this machine would stop trying to be helpful and check the validity of what it's reading, and instead just give me the data with no questions asked.
I know that CDs use some kind of Gray code or other ECC to encode 16-bit sample values into 20-bit words or something similar. Then there are other error-correction measures, checksums and so on. That's why a CD holds only 650Mbyte (or a bit more) although the physical capacity in terms of raw bits is much higher.
Is there any software or hardware to give a genuinely 'raw' CD image, before any of the error correction has been performed? Such an image would probably be around a gigabyte in size.
Re:Familiar (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Familiar (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Familiar (Score:2)
Blurb from the page: What's all this, then?
The BlindWrite suite is a tool designed to perfectly reproduce most CD.
To be or not to be (RAW mode compatible) ?
RAW mode is needed to produce perfect backups of some protected CDs !
DAO mode is even better. Almost all protected CD can be perfectly backed up using with DAO.
Blindread / Blindwrite are perfect tools to produce backups in RAW and DAO mode.
Don't know if that's what you mean?
Michael
Re:Familiar (Score:3, Interesting)
I have a Ricoh MP6200S which I bought several years ago. It's 6X read, 2X write/rewrite, but I won't trade it for anything in the world. The only CD I havent been able to duplicate on it thus far was Black & White (not worth copying anyway).
Most new cd ripping software typically does not support this drive since its so old. I'm still using a dos-based copy of DAO (precursor to CDRWIN). I originally got this setup in order to copy my PSX disks (which require raw reads) so I had all my games at home and at college.
Anyhow, if you want a powerful (albeit slow) drive, look up older models on eBay.
Re:Familiar (Score:2)
BeOS (Score:2, Interesting)
Heh (Score:2, Redundant)
Oh, and first post
Ahh, Macrovision (Score:3, Insightful)
I still don't get how they think this is a deterrent... The most frequent use of ripping discs these days is to make MP3's of them.
Well, mp3 encoding is lossy (although unless you are foolishly stingy with the bitrate the loss is very slight). Since someone ripping mp3's is willing to accept a slight amount of degradation, they should also be perfectly happy with a nice digitally filtered copy of the song with all the Macrovision glitches removed.
Heck, if your CD player can do it, so can software---your CD player doesn't really do anything all that fancy with filtering anyways.
Then again, don't be surprised---it's not like Macrovisions stuff ever really stopped people from copying VHS tapes or dubbing DVD's onto VHS for their friends...
Re:Ahh, Macrovision (Score:2)
Current systems CD-ROM data paths usually return an audio sector that has been verified correct, one that has been corrected, or the raw correct-or-not sector data. They don't usually return the error correction bits so that software can analyze the sectors and fix them.
If I'm way off and most CD-ROM drives out there provide a simple way to read the data with correction bits, then you are right. The software will be able to do the same interpolation the player hardware does.
You can still rip at 1x using your CD-ROM's audio path. And, as you said in your post, mp3 is lossy so the loss of quality caused by going D to A then A to D may not bother people as much. They're just upping your CD rip time from 10 minutes to 60 minutes. Once ripped, the file can float among all the others in the great P2P file sharing netherworld.
Re:Ahh, Macrovision (Score:4, Insightful)
What about CD players with digital output? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:What about CD players with digital output? (Score:2)
Better to just buy a card with a non-resampling assortment of SP/DIF I/O, such as the plethora of "pro" cards from Lexicon, M-Audio and the like.
Or, a $30 Zoltrix Nightingale (or about any other card [including some motherboards] based on the CMI8738 chip) will do the trick nicely with coax or toslink. Also works well as a hardware format converter, and an SCMS stripper.
While I'm on the subject, the error correction of a CD player takes place well before the bits reach the digital output.
While I'm on the subject, it occurs to me that such things as SafeAudio lend a hand toward legitimizing filesharing services. "Well, your Honour, I didn't have any way to utilize Fair Use and use this CD in the MP3 player that came with my new Mazda, so I downloaded the files from someone else who was able to figure it out."
Wait a second... (Score:2)
HAHAHAHAHAHA (Score:2)
It seems that every bit of protection they [RIAA] come up with (SDMI, SafeAudio), it gets cracked. The article summed it up in one line: "of course most of the CD Freaks visitors are able to bypass the protections, but the average home user will not". Once again, this just proves that they're not preventing people from copying music, but just pissing off the regular buyers/listeners.
Re:HAHAHAHAHAHA (Score:2)
Of course, the software industry went through a copy protection phase too. They ultimately decided that it was too much of a pain in the ass. A lot of customers simply avoided the copy protected software because it was such a pain to deal with the protection. Others copied it anyway because cracks always came about. The problem with "losses" is they don't reflect on the sales sheet. If you tell investors "We implemted foo copy protection and our sales dropped off" because the people pirating weren't going to buy your software anyway, the copy protection goes away pretty quick.
Commerical pirates vs Average listener (Score:2)
The truth is what-ever copy protection system exists, it will only be a matter of time before it is broken, since on the one hand people want their rights back and on the other you have some people wanting to make money whatever the costs.
WINE & Macrovision -- A bad combination (Score:2)
It's very annoying to have paid $100usd yet the program doesn't even pop-up an error message that could give any hints why it's not happy. Did I mention that I'm annoyed?
Maybe a generic fix for this nonsense will end up in Wine? That would be nice...
So what? (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm not bothered so much by purposefully garbled music as I am by the idea of authentication. Music that requires a certified legitimate player to show its papers, players that require music to do the same, all in the name of preserving the profit of record companies... Read this great article [discover.com] by Jaron Lanier over at Discover Magazine. (first saw it on a
aww shucks, I was looking forward to hardward hack (Score:2)
I was waiting to get my hands on one of those CDs with copy interference and see if I could hack a CD player to supply raw digital data to some kind of aquisition board or something connected to the computer. I know some electronics but very little about CD players so I thought it would be a fun project. Maybe an EE could do it as a digital design project sometime.
Anybody know where I could find specs or schematics or service manuals for old Sony Discmans (Discmen?)...? Or any other info useful for such a project?
Umm.... (Score:2)
There is NOTHING int he Macrovision spec that prevents copying. Absolutely NOTHING. You can still stick them in your Unix box and copy those AIF's right off it. You can still do an EXACT copy of the CD with any off the shelf CD burner. Don't call it copy protection. Call it what it is, "Conversion Protection".
If anyone callsit "copy protection" stupid Joe Reporter will pick up on it, and use it as a buzzword.
Annoyance (Score:3, Interesting)
???
Good thing I'm in Canada and not subjigated to the DMCA... oh wait... dammit... they're bringing that over here.... arugh.
Even so, I buy very few CD's anyway. Most of my favourite artists either give away MP3's and/or sell unprotected CD's. I adore the old Amiga tracker scene and all those great songs... so I'm happy
Site slashdotted... here is the article. (Score:2, Insightful)
-=-
SafeAudio, you probably already heard about it. It's the music industries latest technology to make sure they will get their money from the public.
I've never seen a industry that is so keen on money and tries in any way to protect it's products so desperately. Since they have stopped Napster they are disliked by more and more people, but they don't seem to care.
Altough SafeAudio is rather easy to bypass I think Macrovision can already market it as a success as it seems a lot of record companies have adopted the technology. Soon Macrovision will publish their results and I'm very curious how much they've made this year.
...
SafeAudio protects a CD only from ripping. This means that converting your CD to MP3/WMA files should be impossible. Stupid of course, as there are MP3 players on the market, just like a walk/disc man that you can carry around and for those you NEED to convert your CD's.
...
Macrovision and TTR (that started developing this technology) say that the error corrections that are done while you play a CD in your normal CD player/computer can not be heard, for now there is no reason to believe they are wrong.
The main questions rises, can we bypass it ?
...
Software that is able to do that, and besides that is always very handy is a modified version of CDFS.vxd. (Download here) Before installing this new windows CD-ROM driver you should think about 2 things:
It does not work for Windows NT/2K/XP and with all CD-ROM players
Make sure you have a backup of your original CDFS.vxd file (or just rename the old one to CDFS.old)
You can find the CDFS.vxd file that has to be replaced in the folder:
C:\Windows\System\IOSubSys
If you have succesfully copied the file, you need to restart your computer so the file can be loaded in the OS.
If all went well you can now open your Windows Explorer, and when you have a Audio CD in your drive it will show you all kinds of maps with choices of wav files. You can now pick the file you want and drag it to a folder on your HD !
By dragging and dropping all the files to your HD you have a very easy to use way of making a backup of SafeAudio protected CD's, and damn what will those Macrovision guys feel bad
-=-
see the actual site later for more info.
Enjoy.
Re:The Slashdot Effect (Score:1)
6. 1 August 21:28 Software A.G. of North America, Reston, United States
Re:congratulations, you are now a criminal in the (Score:5, Interesting)
Gets into interesting territory: in general, I know, an ignorance of the law does not preclude one from being prosecuted for breaking it ("gee officer, that's a COCA bush?! And here I thought I was makin' SALT down in my basement" will not get you off the hook), although it may be considered in sentencing (as long as you're not facing a mandatory minimum, natch)... Yet this seems to be a case where ignorance could justifiably be grounds for questioning whether the law even applies. Are these CDs really "encrypted" in the first place? Bollocks, I say - they just have a bunch of junk on them. Teaching your computer to ignore bad data on a CD is hardly decryption.
I think Macrovision is well aware of all this. They were floating them to find out a)how long it takes the story to break b)how big of a public stink about it would occur and c)how long it would take for audiophiles and compunerds to come up with a fix for the problem.
Answers:
a: practically instantaneously
b: only among a sadly tiny cadre of the technological intelligentsia c: not long at all. Thank you for playing, better luck next time!
Re:congratulations, you are now a criminal in the (Score:2)
(A) to ''circumvent a technological measure'' means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner; and
(B) a technological measure ''effectively controls access to a work'' if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work.
Sorry, DMCA doesn't even remotely apply.
Re:congratulations, you are now a criminal in the (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:congratulations, you are now a criminal in the (Score:2)
Re:congratulations, you are now a criminal in the (Score:1)
Except that there are two classes of works subject to the exemption from the prohibition on circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works [loc.gov]. The second is
If they are sold as audio CDs with the logo but are not Red Book compliant, then this exemption clearly applies, since the technological measure is clearly addressing a mechanism that fails to permit access due to malfunction.
Re:congratulations, you are now a criminal in the (Score:2)
Hmm. Remember back around the time of the first DeCSS case, when DMCA supporters made a big deal about how "computer code isn't really speech" and that enforcement of the circumvention clauses would never be extended to limit [real] speech?
Don't hear that line much anymore. Actually, it's probably a good thing. Let them push their way deep into First Amendment territory before it hits the SC.
Re:congratulations, you are now a criminal in the (Score:2)
It won't work that way. It will instead be the wedge that allows worse laws to get passed. "Your Honor, if it is legal to reasonably restrict criminal speech designed to allow pirates to steam content, is it not also reasonable to restrict the discussion of creating weapons?"
A few years from now you won't be able to print a picture of a gun ina book, or talk about the chemistry of explosives. This "circumvention" stuff is just the beginning.
Re:Defective (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Defective (Score:2)
I think for most people, the delibrate defects won't hit until it's too late. By delibrately munging the error correction, it seems that the CDs won't fail for the non-CD-ripping public until after the CD has been used and abused for awhile. At that point, your only options are to suffer with a broken CD or buy another copy. Smells like a bit of a scam to me.
Re:Defective (Score:2, Troll)
Re:Somehow it's not supprising. (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sorry, I forgot.. Who's ripping who off?
Re:Divx analogy (Score:2)
Re:Divx analogy (Score:2)
Re:Computer CD drives (Score:2)
Re:Computer CD drives (Score:2)
In Windows 9x/2000, when you view the properties of a CD-ROM/DVD-ROM, there's usually a "Digital Playback" option that bypasses the CD-audio cable connected to your soundcard and grabs the data direct from the CD-- I wonder if SafeAudio works with this, or if people who enabled this 'feature' are in for a surprise when they bring home a SafeAudio "protected" CD...
Re:Computer CD drives (Score:2)
Odds on they're in for a suprise. I suspect the Digital Playback uses the same mechanism used to 'rip' tracks from the CD.
Re:People don't care about the Copy Protection (Score:4, Insightful)
At best, Napster had a couple million users on simultaneously at any given moment - whereas CBS managed to get some 30 million to watch Survivor at the same time. If Macrovision were to round their return percentage figures off to the nearest tenth it would probably be sufficient to make all those returning due to unrippability dissapear. They also probably picked a CD that was unlikely to go over with techies very well, the better to slow down discovery. After all, they want to put the best possible spin on a fairly trivial protection scheme - remember, they could give a rats ass about end-users, their real targets, their consumers, are record companies.
Re:People don't care about the Copy Protection (Score:4, Insightful)
Try to return an openned cd to best buy and see how far you get. They'll happily exchange it for another copy of the same disc, but exchanging defective for defective is still defective.
I have many cds that i've never actually listened to in non-mp3 form. I get a cd, rip it, then put the cd in my rack and listen to the mp3s.
It will be interesting to see how the various portable mp3 device makers react to SafeAudio, assuming it gets widely accepted.
The most interesting part is that most people will probably end up doing a straight pirate copy of a CD off morpheus or its kin if they can't rip the CD. IE, I'm not going to buy a cd that I can't rip to mp3, so I might as well pirate a copy off the net (assuming I dont want to do the cdfreaks workaround myself).
Let us just say
Re:People don't care about the Copy Protection (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh I have no problem returning CDs as many times as necessary to get my money back. Best Buy is right across the street and I'm there all the time. I just say "Hey this is the 3rd time I've returned this CD. I can't read it and there's something wrong with it" and show a couple of receipts with their return clerk's initials on it. After that I usually get my money back.
After damaging some hard to find CDs, I immediately make a backup and stick the original in the closet. If I can't, back to the store it goes.
Re:People don't care about the Copy Protection (Score:2)
Re:Fools hope (Score:2, Interesting)
Just because something is law, it's not necessarily right. Perhaps eventually the "copyright industry" will learn that all this protection is nonsense, and the world will not end by loosening protection of IP.
Or perhaps I'm just another fool.