Digital Rights Management on CD's This Christmas? 543
McDrewbie asks: "Has anyone discovered that the new CD's found under the tree or in their stocking don't play on their brand new CD player? My father got a Brookstone Wafer-thin CD system and several new CD's. Most play fine, however several ones from Sony (with CDextra software on them) and from Columbia, either don't play or play with some crackling and popping, yet play fine on our older CD player. Did these companies decide to quietly unleash DRM on the public this holiday season? Or is this just a problem with the new player (separate from it not being DRM capable)? What are other Slashdot readers experiencing today?"
Previous Stories (Score:4, Informative)
Also post them to the complete list of corrupt CDs (Score:5, Informative)
Please also post any new corrupt or DRM CDs you find on that complete list, there.
(While you're at it, boycott the RIAA by buying independent CDs [cdbaby.com], instead!)
CD EXTRA defined (Score:5, Informative)
It's not DRM, AFAIK. I've got several Sony CD EXTRA CD's that are nothing more than multisession CD's [techtarget.com] that some audio CD players simply cannot handle. However, I don't think you can get the same CD offered in both CD EXTRA and non-CD EXTRA formats, so you may be out of luck when trying to play those particular discs in those particular audio CD players; in fact, some older CD-ROM drives can't even handle 'em.
Got a Rio Volt MP3-CD player for christmas... (Score:3, Informative)
I was quite gratified to see that while the Volt supports WMA format, it does not support copy protected WMA files. In fact, the manual walks the user through disabling copy protection in Media Player.
Now if only the Volt supported Ogg Vorbis...
Re:Also post them to the complete list of corrupt (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Got a Rio Volt MP3-CD player for christmas... (Score:3, Informative)
They're working on it.
This is not "DRM" (Score:2, Informative)
There are numerous copy protection schemes out there, but it sounds like Sony is using the one that has bad error correction info, which makes the disc sound like crap if the CD player pays attention to it. Dumb ones don't, and tend to play normally (until you get scratches on your CD!).
Of course, anyone willing to spend about 10 minutes researching the issue can find the appropriate software/hardware to rip copy protected discs just fine. Copy protection will only stop the least sophisticated users from ripping the music. Just shows how stupid the record labels are.
Re:which cd's? (Score:5, Informative)
multisession in copy protected CDs (Score:5, Informative)
Corrupt data is added to that extra session so computers will go boink when reading it. This is why that magic marker work-around worked -- it prevented the computer from reading the extra session.
Now a good way to make proper back-ups of your Audio CDs is to remove this extra session. This can be done quite easily if you are using a plextor CD-Rw because the DiscDupe software that comes with it will, when presented with an audio CD, do a bit for bit copy of the first session only. This means that the resulting backup will have the protection removed so you can excercise your home use rights and easily make more copies for the car, ogg encoding, etc.
Re:Also post them to the complete list of corrupt (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Also post them to the complete list of corrupt (Score:4, Informative)
Presumably you said that to your english teacher when he told you to put a capital letter after a full stop.
There are no two ways about it, "CD's" means "of the CD" or "belonging to the CD". "CDs" is the plural of "CD".
Re:which cd's? (Score:3, Informative)
I bet they are not all on that list. The one I got for christmas says "COPY CONTROL" on the cover. So I assume it is YACCD (yet another corrupt CD), but it is not on the list. But then again, I didn't have time to test it yet.
Re:Also post them to the complete list of corrupt (Score:1, Informative)
Some things are a matter of style.
Experience... (Score:1, Informative)
I am experiencing a nauseating feeling when I see that you do not know how to write 'CDs'.
Hey
You got your formats wrong. (Score:4, Informative)
Track widths do not vary with CDs so you can stuff more on. Hence there is no such "narrow track width" problem with CD. however, this *does* apply to vinyl, and is one of the main culprits of poor vinyl quality over the last 15 years.
I've not heard of any "thin allyplate" problems with CDs, however using thin, low quality material has been a problem for sound quality for vinyl. some believe this was intentional on the labels' part to get people to switch formats.
also, having worked in the music business myself, i'm happy to say that i've never encountered an instance where the producers don't get a test pressing.
methinks your record exec may not be the only cokehead.
fross
Re:DRM for a present (Score:5, Informative)
If you bought any of the "copy protected" discs that won't play in your computer, Follow this link to the Milberg Weiss Law firm, [milberg.com] and join Dickey V. Universal Music Group et. al, a class action suit against the manufacturers of these defective discs that frequently use the Compact Disc digital audio logo improperly.
That comes off the links page [dontbuycds.org] of a consumer group boycotting the recording industry, for DRM, price gouging, and harassment of file traders. Dontbuycds.org [dontbuycds.org] A previous poster gave the link to that organization, but not to the class action suit, so , pay attantion mods, this post is not redundant!
Click here to sue (Score:5, Informative)
Here's how they put it in their court filing.
That's clear enough.
They ask that if you've found a defective CD, report it to them by clicking here. [milberg.com]
Re:Also post them to the complete list of corrupt (Score:3, Informative)
Come on, guys. Anyone with enough education to argue about the finer points of disparate style manuals should understand this concept.