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peggypwr1
join:2003-10-06
Fremont, CA
| Can't Copy Protected CDs still be cracked? You guys have probably heard about the new cipy protection for music now. When played in regular home stereo, the unrestricted tracks will be active. But, when played on a CD, the copy protected restrictive traks will be activated limiting the # of copies you can make.
Can't somebody play the CD in the stereo, record it to cassette, then rip the songs from the casette to the computer. Then maybe use software to clean up the sound then upload? | |
|  peggypwr1
join:2003-10-06
Fremont, CA | Re: Can't Copy Protected CDs still be cracked? oops i meant to sday, when played on a computer the restrictive tracks will be active. | |
| dave
Premium,MVM
join:2000-05-04
not in ohio
 ·Verizon Online DSL
 ·Verizon FIOS
| said by peggypwr1  :Can't somebody play the CD in the stereo, record it to cassette, then rip the songs from the casette to the computer. Then maybe use software to clean up the sound then upload? Sure, at loss of fidelity, but if you don't mind listening to lower-quality sound, go ahead.
It's always been possible to duplicate analogue recordings, but it hasn't been too big a deal for the industry, because the duplicates are always worse than the original, and people tended to actually buy things they liked. However, with digital recordings, you can make bit-perfect copies, and that's where the problem lies, in the eyes of the copyright holder.
Any time you pass digital audio through an analogue step, you reduce the quality. Especially cassette tape! "Cleaning up" can never restore the information you lost - the laws of physics are against you. | |
| | 
INHCNN
join:2001-12-15
Lansing, MI
| Re: Can't Copy Protected CDs still be cracked? said by dave :if you don't mind listening to lower-quality sound... Ahem… “Inferior” 
I don’t think CD>Tape>PC will be a neccisary step by any stretch. This will not be then end of consumer converted media.
Why? Well – one of my favorites: If it can be engineered, it can be un-engineered. Some crafty hack will find a way to beat it, publish the findings, and we’re back at square one. Simply more money spent by the RIAA/MPAA in a useless fight.
Sorry for taking it OT.
--
"Pressure makes diamonds."
--General George S. Patton | |
| | raybrett
join:2001-02-20
Saint Louis, MO | Actually you begin to lose the quality with the first conversion to digital. | |
| | | 
jap
Premium
join:2003-08-10
038xx | Re: Can't Copy Protected CDs still be cracked? Thank you! How soon people forget.
that being said, i'll keep the high-end digital for recorded materials, of course. Too many handling advantages. | |
| 
kw
Premium
join:2004-06-12
| I wouldn't worry about that problem just yet. I'm pretty sure there will be a way to copy music for a long time. Copy-Protection on cd's has been a lost cause so far...such as holding shift when you insert the cd.  | |
| 
whizkid3
Premium,MVM
join:2002-02-21
Queens, NY | quote:
Copy-Protection on cd's has been a lost cause so far...such as holding shift when you insert the cd.
??? | |
| |
kw
Premium
join:2004-06-12
| Re: Can't Copy Protected CDs still be cracked? said by whizkid3 : quote:
Copy-Protection on cd's has been a lost cause so far...such as holding shift when you insert the cd.
??? Like a previous poster said, you have to reply on the Windows Autorun feature to work in order to execute the copy protection. Holding shift while inserting the cd tells Windows not to autorun. | |
| | 
Doctor Four
My other vehicle is a TARDIS
Premium
join:2000-09-05
Dallas, TX
·AT&T U-Verse
| said by whizkid3 : quote:
Copy-Protection on cd's has been a lost cause so far...such as holding shift when you insert the cd.
??? That is SunnComm's Mediamax copy protection scheme. That
was cracked by a Princeton University student, IIRC, and
SunnComm fired off a C&D notice at him, claiming the loss
of $10 million over it. They backed down from their legal
threat after an overwhelming amount of negative publicity.
The latest scheme relies on autoplay being turned on to
install a hidden DRM driver that supposedly interferes
with CD ripping software. But it, like the previous ones,
won't load (and programs like CDex can just ignore the
data track) if it is turned off.
DRM and all forms of copy protection are snake oil. There
hasn't been one that hasn't gotten cracked yet. If it can
be heard or seen, it can be copied.
--
"Kayura or Badamon, whichever you are, you should know that I will never give up this battle. By the will of the Ancient, I shall succeed!" - Shuten (Anubis) from the Ronin Warriors.To RIAA/MPAA - You can sue but you can't catch everyone! | |
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koolman2
Premium
join:2002-10-01
Anchorage, AK | Re: Can't Copy Protected CDs still be cracked? Sure.... | |
| | | | | | | badboy54166
join:2002-08-25
Shawano, WI | Re: Can't Copy Protected CDs still be cracked? DVD Decrypter works lovely | |
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antiserious
The Future ain't what it used to be
Premium
join:2001-12-12
Scranton, PA
| Re: Can't Copy Protected CDs still be cracked?
... the reports of DVD Decrypter's demise have been greatly exxagerated ... »www.dvddecrypter.r8.org/ ...
--
... "Nobody's perfect - well, there was this one guy, but we killed Him" ... Christopher Moore, 'Lamb' ... | |
| | | | | | | | | | B
Premium,MVM
join:2000-10-28 | Re: Can't Copy Protected CDs still be cracked? Is that really Lightning UK? He lost "his programmers"? He's not a programmer?
-- B
--
In a realm outside causality and function | |
| | | | | | | | | |
antiserious
The Future ain't what it used to be
Premium
join:2001-12-12
Scranton, PA | Re: Can't Copy Protected CDs still be cracked?
... all I know is what I read, sorry ... seems he's battered but not beaten ...
| |
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koolman2
Premium
join:2002-10-01
Anchorage, AK | Nope, that's a fake site by someone trying to get donations. DVD Decrypter is gone, sorry. | |
| | 
Batlad
@golden.net
| She's referring to a hair brained copy protection scheme someone tried to introduce a year or two back that relied on Windows "autoplay" feature to install a piece of malware on your computer. That was supposed to prevent you from copying the CD on that computer, but it basically fell apart if you disabled autoplay by holding down shift while loading the CD, or if you used another operating system like Linux. Not to mention that if it relied on someone being stupid enough to click "yes" to installing the "CD-ROM Special features" because installing it "stealthily" would be prosecutable.
Even the pop news guys got into the act of saying how incredibly stupid it was. | |
| 
captnhook
join:2001-02-20
NY
| Just speculating here as I haven't encountered a Copy Protected Cd as of yet.. but I wouldn't think you'd need to do the analog cassette route. Musicmatch (free recorder/player) offers a record in analog mode, I would think that this would defeat the digital copy protection with a minimal loss of quality. I'm certain that other ways to defeat this so called "protection" will become available soon if they aren't available already.
If they can create it simple logic tells you that it can be circumvented. | |
| 
JamPony9
Premium
join:2004-12-08
Austin, TX
| Original poster seems to be referring to the new tech BMG is using, as reported here, for example : »www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtm···=8814566
It seems to be another variation of the trick where you're supposed to get the CD-audio on a standalone player, but only the Microsoft-format tracks on a computer-type drive.
In the past this type of scheme has relied on two things: the Windows autorun feature, and some sort of monkeying with the data structures on the disk to confuse the ripping software so it sees the compressed tracks and misses the CD-audio.
Auto-run is worse than a design defect; it is an anti-feature that constitutes a gaping security hole. At least one previous scheme of this kind actually installed a driver, without warning the user, and even if the user opted out of a subsequent prompt. The driver then would always ran silently in the background and disabled ripping if it detected a disk with a certain digital marker.
That's a perfect illustration of malware installation by the autorun exploit. Every Windows user should turn off autorun and be careful never to execute any software from what purports to be an audio CD. This is the only reason this thread qualifies for the security forum.
The other trick usually involves a falsified table of contents or some other violation of the CD specifications to make the CD-audio harder for the user to access. It can be overcome by ripping with suitable software (also optical drives differ in their behavior). Try Nero or EAC on Windows; isobuster on Windows; Grip on Linux. Reportedly the BMG tricks don't work on Mac. | |
| | hobie1027
join:2002-05-05
Chickasha, OK
| Re: Can't Copy Protected CDs still be cracked? From the reuters article:
The copy-protection technology is also far from ironclad. Apple Macintosh users currently face no restrictions at all. What's more, if users go to a Web site to complain about the lack of iPod compatibility, Sony BMG will send them an email with a "back door" measure on how to work around the copy protection.
Sounds like the crack is built in. | |
|
keepitsimplesam
@ccc.de | To get around any copy protection I thought you just need to create a ISO image of the original cd, and then burn the ISO image to a cd-r/rw. | |
| |
koolman2
Premium
join:2002-10-01
Anchorage, AK | Re: Can't Copy Protected CDs still be cracked? That doesn't help if you want to make compressed versions for your portable player, such as an iPod or a Dell DJ.
--
A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station. | |
| 
SpannerITWks
Premium
join:2005-04-22
| Yes they can, And in the Digital domain too, but i'm not saying how to do it !
I'm all for copy protection, whether it's Music/Films/Software whatever. And so would you be i imagine if you produced similar work.
Everybody likes to get paid for their work, and eat etc etc don't they ?
--
I Only Know What I Know But I'm Learning all The Time - Stay Safe - Spanner intheWorks/SpannerITWks | |
| | 
norwegian
Premium
join:2005-02-15
Outback
·WestNet Broadband
| Re: Can't Copy Protected CDs still be cracked? crikey spanner, no wonder you get the attention you do, fancy stirring the pot with a bl$%^y big wooden spoon,
good to see....only because if we don't see our own short falls, how can we get better
sorry mods, it is off topic, so ill get back to the question
the technology is only young, like most of what we play with, sure digital does give more control, for big brother, can i hear anyone crying over where did analog go...
but realistically looking at this question...
someone will break the security for anything that is produced to secure the CD, the problem still remains, that while we use technology at the rate we do...it is inevitable someone will pay to break its code, its human nature | |
| | 
major marco
Res Firma Mitescere Nescit
Premium
join:2003-02-13
Stepford, CA
clubs:
| said by SpannerITWks :Yes they can, And in the Digital domain too, but i'm not saying how to do it ! Gee, how nice for you. Your mother must be very proud.
--
»bushflash.com/ma.html | |
| | 
clowny
Premium
join:2003-09-09
Crystal Lake, IL
·AT&T Midwest
| said by SpannerITWks :I'm all for copy protection, whether it's Music/Films/Software whatever. And so would you be i imagine if you produced similar work. I'm not for copy protection. I buy my software, but people with cracked games, dowloading lossless format music, and software that doesn't have activation have it easier than paying customers. What's the point of copy protection then?
Copy protection will always be cracked, & the paying consumer will have the hassles with the crap, like Starforce.
»Irritation-Ware
Why is this in the Security forum anyway? | |
| |
performancemattersmo
@66.100.x.x
| I'm a musician. I don't consider canned pieces of data "my work." Art is inherently different from other forms of "work." I think I can say most artists, genuine artists, I know don't make art to make a living, they make it to propose a philosophical expression or, less theoretically, because they enjoy working with the materials they use to make their art, whatever medium it be in. I think that musicians, in particular, should not become rich off of the digital replications of a series of sounds recorded in a contained and isolated studio bit by bit until the appearance of "music" exists. I like that musicians, should be forced to make their money off of performance, like musicians did for the past dozen centuries before the second half of the one that recently concluded. I love the fact that digital media is making my, and other true artists', works available in their recorded formats. All this distribution does is make audiences that much more receptive to what I am putting forward when I come to their city to perform. Then those audience members see the real think, they get to hear music, organic and real, made by human beings, in that moment. Notes that will never be heard exactly the same again.
Recordings are essentially promotional material that somehow duped people into paying for the equivalent of a copy of an oven that doesn't work.
People are so confused about the meaning of 'copyright.' Copyrighting is intended to prevent others from making money off of my intellectual property. When no one is charging for it, why are they violating a copyright? No one is stealing my work and pretending its theirs. Rather, they're simply enjoying something I, or any musician, did some time earlier and probably getting excited about the prospect of witnessing the real thing in a live venue.
The reason the big, rich majors and "artists" (read: talentless media tools) are so scared is because they know free file sharing forces them to actually give people a performance theyre will to pay for. They'll have to live on their performance skills, which are pretty much all studio smoke and mirrors. Small-scale recording and performance can only be the victor when people start demanding quality over tricks.
If you can't survive file-trading as an artist, you weren't an artist to begin with, you were a salesman. People not coming to your movies because they can just download it? Then change the nature of the movie experience into something communal and the audience will want to come and pay you for it. Imagine if you could meet and ask questions of the director of a film at his movie premiere. I'd pay for that rather than just download the movie.
File sharing is bad for big business, and that is good for art and the intellect of the general populace. | |
| | | dave
Premium,MVM
join:2000-05-04
not in ohio
·Verizon Online DSL
·Verizon FIOS
| Re: Can't Copy Protected CDs still be cracked? said by performancemattersmo:
People are so confused about the meaning of 'copyright.' Copyrighting is intended to prevent others from making money off of my intellectual property. You are so confused about the meaning of 'copyright'. Copyrighting is intended to preserve your right to make money off your intellectual property -- that is, it reserves to you the right to make copies.
(You are of course under no obligation to either make copies, or make money from those copies).
You can easily look this up. »www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#wci
When no one is charging for it, why are they violating a copyright? If you chose to sell copies of your work for $99.95 (plus shipping and handling), and some guy starts giving away identical copies for free, then you could no longer profit from your own work.
The violation lies not in whether the other guy is or is not making money, it lies in the prevention of your right to do what you want with your own work.
(You of course are under no obligation to make copies, make money from those copies, or to prevent others from making copies. The law merely gives you the control over your work, if you want it.) | |
| | 
Oleg
Bellsouth Fastaccess
Premium
join:2003-12-08
Birmingham, AL | I would not even come close to analog made copy | |
| |
See 12 replies to this post | |
jet-stream
@59.95.x.x | cant some cd's be disabled with just a simple black marker? then the cd's hologram cant be read by the laster, because it is masked by the black opaque ink of the marker. | |
| simpletrick
Premium
join:2001-08-11
Kenner, LA
3 edits | On reflection I do not wish to post... (duplicate post) | |
| mikedurrbeck
join:2005-06-11
Richmond, VA
| How about ripping the cd to Media Player as .wma files, then burning a new disc using the create music cd option on Media Player. Then take that cd and rip the tracks as .mp3 with Winamp. I doubt there copy protection can survive multiple format changing. Its more over copy limiting rather than protection anyway. | |
| | |
whatthehey212
@comcast.net
| Re: Can't Copy Protected CDs still be cracked? " "Microsoft Plus! Digital Media Edition "
Connect the audio out (3.5mm jack) to your line in(3.5mm jack) and recored it from there
they can not put copy Protection because there would be no way for the headphones to decode it"
And what you have is no longer a perfect digital copy. | |
| | | 
Anonymous_
Anonymous
Premium
join:2004-06-21
127.0.0.1
clubs: | Re: Can't Copy Protected CDs still be cracked? then i could use WINRIP and copy from my Digital OUT (SPDIF)
--
You are currently using 2252 MB (98%) of your 2302 MB.---- 76607 emails | |
| | 
novaflare
The Dragon Was Here
Premium
join:2002-01-24
Barberton, OH
| said by Anonymous_ :there is a better way to do this buy for 19.99$ "Microsoft Plus! Digital Media Edition " Connect the audio out (3.5mm jack) to your line in(3.5mm jack) and recored it from there they can not put copy Protection because there would be no way for the headphones to decode it Most copy protection doesnt change what you here. Even the meathods that use digital tones use ones that are out of the normal human hearing range. So it not so much that it has to be decoded its that it triggers your computer and software to refuse to record it. Saddly sonic foundry and many other comercial programs wont let you record it at all any more. Ad for dit in dit out that wont work its digital.
--
DSLR security chat at us.ausirc.net chanel #dslr_sec lets pack this channelopen source dns server for *nix and windows »powerdns.com | |
| | Libra
Premium
join:2003-08-06
USA
| I have a question. I know all CDs, etc. are copyrighted, but do they disclose this new technology on the Cd? And do they disclose that they will install a driver on your computer?
If you just wanted to play a CD on the computer and used the shift key so it wouldn't auto-run, when you clicked on the D Drive to play it, does that prevent it from installing that driver? Or are you doomed to get this driver installed by playing it?
I just looked at 4 new CDs of my daughter's and the only thing I see is FBI warnings about copying.
Sincerely, Libra | |
| |
koolman2
Premium
join:2002-10-01
Anchorage, AK | Re: Can't Copy Protected CDs still be cracked? Post the CD names and we can find out for you. | |
| | 
Frosties
Premium
join:2001-10-01
Sweden
4 edits | Hm, used to be that if Philips cd logo was on the cover then it was safe to buy, when in doubt put it back. Are you saying that this doesn't apply anymore? | |
| Primis1
join:2005-06-13
Coldwater, MI
| To everyone stupidly harping on the "perfect digital copy" thing... you do realize file formats like MP3 are lossy formats and the RIAA still doesn't want you to have those right?
Your "perfect digital copy" argument is stupid and irrelevant. They don't want you to have copies, period. They could care less what the quality is.
Now everyone move along, nothing to see here... | |
| | dave
Premium,MVM
join:2000-05-04
not in ohio
·Verizon Online DSL
·Verizon FIOS
| Re: Can't Copy Protected CDs still be cracked? said by Primis1 :To everyone stupidly harping on the "perfect digital copy" thing... you do realize file formats like MP3 are lossy formats and the RIAA still doesn't want you to have those right? Your "perfect digital copy" argument is stupid and irrelevant. They don't want you to have copies, period. They could care less what the quality is. Now everyone move along, nothing to see here... Of course. And I don't use MP3 either 
But your argument is incorrect. MP3 and other lossy formats are supposed to change the signal only in ways that "you might not notice".
By comparison, the imperfections introduced by analogue tape are mere freaks of nature, and don't take your feelings about the sound into account. (OK, maybe noise-elimination techniques such as dbx and Dolby take your feelings into account).
I would agree that, in principle, the RIAA and their ilk don't want you to have copies, period (even those copies you are legally entitled to have). However, I contend that the higher fidelity, the more worried they are about it, and that analogue copies are their least concern.
(Look at it this way: if you're selling pirate copies, you sell fewer copies if they're crappy copies. Thus simple risk analysis should tell 'em to go after the better copies first.) | |
| | |
novaflare
The Dragon Was Here
Premium
join:2002-01-24
Barberton, OH | Re: Can't Copy Protected CDs still be cracked? heh dave at the rate riaas going their gona start sueing people for playing their music to loud and putting on a public performance. | |
| | | | 
ctceo
Premium
join:2001-04-26
South Bend, IN
clubs:
 ·magicjack.com
·AT&T U-Verse
 ·Comcast
·AT&T Midwest
 ·HughesNet Satellit..
1 edit | Re: Can't Copy Protected CDs still be cracked? If they wanted to, it is allegedly illegal to play music so loud that others can hear it.
Even though it's old, it's still valid.
---LEGAL---
Copyright 2001 John Gilmore
This document is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This document is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this document; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
-----
What's Wrong With Copy Protection
John Gilmore, 16 February 2001
»www.toad.com/gnu/whatswrong.html
Translations: English, Portuguese, Deutsch, Español, Italiano, Frances, Russian, Hebrew
What's wrong?
Ron Rivest asked me, "I think it would be illuminating to hear your views on the differences between the Intel/IBM content-protection proposals and existing practices for content protection in the TV scrambling domain. The devil's advocate position against your position would be: if the customer is willing to buy extra, or special, hardware to allow him to view protected content, what is wrong with that?"
First, I call it copy protection rather than content protection, because "content" is such a meaningless word. What the technology actually does is to deter copying. Such technologies have a long history in computing, starting with the first microcomputers, minicomputers, and workstations. Except in very small niches, all such systems ultimately failed. Many failed because of active opposition from their buyers, who purchased alternative products that did not restrict copying.
There is nothing wrong with allowing people to optionally choose to buy copy-protection products that they like. What is wrong is when:
Competing products are driven off the market
What is wrong is when people who would like products that simply record bits, or audio, or video, without any copy protection, can't find any, because they have been driven off the market. By restrictive laws like the Audio Home Recording Act, which killed the DAT market. By "anti-circumvention" laws like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which EFF is now litigating. By Federal agency actions, like the FCC deciding a month ago that it will be illegal to offer citizens the capability to record HDTV programs, even if the citizens have the legal right to. By private agreements among major companies, such as SDMI and CPRM (that later end up being "submitted" as fait accompli to accredited standards committees, requiring an effort by the affected public to derail them). By private agreements behind the laws and standards, such as the unwritten agreement that DAT and MiniDisc recorders will treat analog inputs as if they contained copyrighted materials which the user has no rights in. (My recording of my brother's wedding is uncopyable, because my MiniDisc decks act as if I and my brother don't own the copyright on it.)
Pioneer New Media Technologies, who builds the recently announced recordable DVD drive for Apple, says "The major consumer applications for recordable DVD will be home movie editing and storage and digital photo storage". They carefully don't say "time-shifting TV programs, or recording streaming Internet videos", because the manufacturers and the distribution companies are in cahoots to make sure that that capability never reaches the market. Even though it's 100% legal to do so, under the Supreme Court's Betamax decision. Streambox built software that let people record RealVideo streams on their hard disks; they were sued by Real under the DMCA, and took it off the market. According to Nomura Securities, DVD Recorder sales will exceed VCR sales in 2004 or 2005, and also exceed DVD Player-only sales by 2005. (»www.kipinet.com/tdb/1000/10tdb04.htm) So by 2010 or so, few consumers will have access to a recorder that will let them save a copy of a TV program, or time-shift one, or let the kids watch it in the back of the car. Is anyone commenting on that social paradigm shift? Do we think it's good or bad? Do we get any say about it at all?
Instead, consumers will have to pay movie/TV companies over and over for the privilege of time-shifting or space-shifting. Even if they have purchased the movie, and it's stored at home on their own equipment, and they have high bandwidth access to it from wherever they are. This concept is called "pay per use". It can't compete with "You have the right to record a copy of what you have the right to see". These companies can't eliminate that right legally, because it would violate too many of the fundamentals of our society, so they are restricting the technology so you can't exercise that right. In the process they are violating the fundamentals on which a stable and just society is based. But as long as society survives until after they're dead, they don't seem to care about its long-term stability.
Companies don't disclose copy-protection restrictions
What is wrong is when companies who make copy-protecting products don't disclose the restrictions to the consumers. Like Apple's recent happy-happy web pages on their new DVD-writing drive, announced this month (»www.apple.com/idvd/). It's full of glowing info about how you can write DVDs based on your own DV movie recordings, etc. What it quietly neglects to say is that you can't use it to copy or time-shift or record any audio or video copyrighted by major companies. Even if you have the legal right to do so, the technology will prevent you. They don't say that you can't use it to mix and match video tracks from various artists, the way your CD burner will. It doesn't say that you can't copy-protect your own disks that it burns; that's a right the big manufacturers have reserved to themselves. They're not selling you a DVD-Authoring drive, which is for "professional use only". They're selling you a DVD-General drive, which cannot record the key-blocks needed to copy-protect your own recordings, nor can a DVD-General disc be used as a master to press your own DVDs in quantity. These distinctions are not even glossed over; they are simply ignored, not mentioned, invisible until after you buy the product.
It isn't just Apple who is misleading the consumer; it's epidemic. Sony portable mini-disc recorders only come with digital input jacks, never digital outputs. Sound checks in -- but only checks out in low-quality analog formats. Intel touts the wonders of their TCPA (Trusted Computing Platform Architecture). You have to read between the lines to discover that it exists solely to spy on how you use your PC, so that any random third party across the Internet can decide whether to "trust" you -- the owner. TCPA isn't about reporting to you whether you can trust your own PC (e.g. whether it has a virus), it doesn't include that function. It exists to report to record companies about whether you have installed any software that lets you make copies of MP3s, or any free software to circumvent whatever feeble copy-protection system the record company uses. Intel is pushing HDCP (High Definition Content Protection) which is high speed hardware encryption that runs only on the cable between the computer and its CRT or LCD monitor. The only signal being encrypted is the one that the user is sitting there watching, so why is it encrypted? So that the user can't record what they can view! If the cable is tampered with, the video chip degrades the signal to "analog VCR quality".
Intel is also pushing SDMI and CPRM (Content Protection for Recordable Media) which would turn your own storage media (disk drives, flash ram, zip disks, etc) into co-conspirators with movie and record companies, to deny you (the owner of the computer and the media) the ability to store things on those media and get them back later. Instead some of the stored items would only come back with restrictions wired into the extraction software -- restrictions that are not under the control of the equipment owner, or of the law, but are matters of contract between the movie/record companies and the equipment/software makers. Such as, "you can't record copyrighted music on unencrypted media". If you try to record a song off the FM radio onto a CPRM audio recorder, it will refuse to record or play it, because it's watermarked but not encrypted. Even when recording your own brand-new original audio, the default settings for analog recordings are that they can never be copied, nor ever copied in higher fidelity than CD's, and that only one copy can be made even if copying is ever authorized (if the other restrictions are somehow bypassed). Intel and IBM don't tell you these things; you have to get to Page 11 of Exhibit B-1, "CPPM Compliance Rules for DVD-Audio" on page 45 of the 70-page "Interim CPRM/CPPM Adopters Agreement", available only after you fill out intrusive personal questions after following the link from »www.dvdcca.org/4centity/. All Intel tells you that CPPM will "give consumers access to more music" »www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/···2300.htm). Lying to your customers to mislead them into buying your products is wrong.
Scientific research is unpublishable
What is wrong is when scientific researchers are unable to study the field or to publish their findings. Professor Ed Felten of Princeton studied the SDMI "watermarking" systems in some detail, as part of a public study deliberately permitted by the secretive SDMI committee, so they could determine whether the public could crack their chosen schemes. (SDMI would not allow EFF to join its deliberations, saying that we had no legitimate interest in the proceedings because we weren't a music company or a manufacturer. There are no consumer or civil rights representatives in the SDMI consortium.) Prof. Felten was in the New York Times last week, saying the SDMI people and Princeton's lawyers are now telling him that he can't release his promised details on what was wrong with these watermarking systems, because of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. It's OK to tell the SDMI companies how easy it is to break their scheme, but it isn't OK to tell the public or other scientific researchers.
Competition is prevented
What is wrong is when competitors are unable to build competing devices or software, vying for the favor of the consumers in the free market. Instead those devices are banned or threatened, and that software is censored and driven underground. Such as the open-source DeCSS and LiViD DVD player programs. Such as DVD players worldwide that can play American "Region 1" DVDs. EFF spent more than a million dollars last year in defending the publisher of a security magazine, and a Norwegian teenager, from movie industry attempts to have them censored and jailed, respectively, for publishing and writing competing software that lets DVDs be played or copied but does not follow the restrictive contracts that the movie studios imposed on most players. The movie studios spent $4 million on prosecuting the New York case alone. Few or no manufacturers are willing to put ordinary digital audio recorders on the market -- you see lots of MP3 players but where are the stereo MP3 recorders? They've been chilled into nonexistence by the threat of lawsuits. The ones that claim to record, record only "voice quality monaural".
Abuse of "copyright protection" rewards monopolies
What is wrong is when the controls that are enacted to protect the rights reserved under copyright are used for other purposes. Not to protect the existing rights, but to create new rights at the whim of the copyright holder. Movie companies insisted on a "region coding" system for DVDs, because they would make less money if DVD movies were actually tradeable worldwide under existing free-trade laws. (They couldn't charge high theatre ticket prices if the same movie was simultaneously available on DVDs, and they couldn't combine the ad campaigns of the theatres and the DVDs if they waited a long time between releasing it to theatres and releasing it to DVDs.) This system results in the situation where a consumer can buy a DVD player legally, buy a DVD legally, and put the two together, and the movie won't play. The user has every legal right to view the movie, but it won't play, because if it did, movie companies might make less money. Similar controls exist in DVDs to prevent people from fast-forwarding past the ads or those nonsensical "FBI Warnings".
Microsoft built some deliberately incompatible protocols into Windows 2000 so that competing Unix machines could not be used as DNS servers in some circumstances. Microsoft released a specification but only under an encrypted file format that claimed to require that readers agree not to use the information to compete with them. When someone decrypted the trivial encryption without agreeing to the terms, Microsoft threatened to use the DMCA to sue Slashdot, the popular free-software news web site, who published the results. (Luckily for us, Slashdot has a backbone and said "go ahead, we'll defend that suit" and Microsoft chickened out.) Copyright doesn't grant the right to prevent competition, or to restrict global trade -- but somehow the legislation that was enacted to protect copyrights is being used to do just those things.
Social policy is created without public input
What is wrong is when social policy is created in smoke-filled back rooms, between movie/record company executives and computer company executives, not by open public discussion, by legislatures, and by courts. The CPRM specification, for example, allows a distributor of a bag of bits (who has access to software with this capability) to decide that future recipients will not be permitted to make copies of that bag of bits. Or that two copies are permitted, but not three. This policy is not legally enforceable, it was not created by law. The law says something different. But the policy will be enforced by equipment built by all the major manufacturers, because they will be sued by the movie/record companies if they dare to build interoperating equipment that lets consumers make three copies, or copies limited only by their legal rights. Is it unexpected that such back-room policies end up favoring the parties who were in the room, at the expense of consumers and the public?
Copyright's balance of benefits is lost
What is wrong is when the balance between the rights of creators and the rights of freedom of speech and the press is lost. Any increase in the rights of creators is a decrease in the public's right of free speech and publication. Whenever copyrights are extended, the public domain shrinks. The right of criticism, the right to dispute someone else's rendition of the truth, is damaged. The First Amendment gives an almost absolute right to publish; the Copyright clause gives a limited right to prevent publication by others. Any expansion of the right to prevent publication diminishes the right to publish. For example, few works created after 1910 have entered the public domain, if their owners did not abandon their copyright, because as the years went by, the term of copyright kept getting extended. But the copy-rights created by technological restrictions are not even designed to end. There is nothing in the SDMI or CPRM spec that says, "After 2100 you will be permitted to copy the movies from 1910".
Beneficiaries are a tiny fraction of society
What is wrong is that a tiny tail of "copyright protection" is wagging the big dog of communications among humans. As Andy Odlyzko pointed out, »www.research.att.com/~amo/doc/eworld.html, see "Content is not king" and "The history of communications and its implications for the Internet"), "The annual movie theater ticket sales in the U.S. are well under $10 billion. The telephone industry collects that much money every two weeks!" Distorting the law and the technology of human communication and computing, in order to protect the interests of copyright holders, makes the world poorer overall. Even if it didn't violate fundamental policies for the long-term stability of societies, it would be the wrong economic decision.
Society can truly eliminate scarcity, but not this way!
What is wrong is that we have invented the technology to eliminate scarcity, but we are deliberately throwing it away to benefit those who profit from scarcity. We now have the means to duplicate any kind of information that can be compactly represented in digital media. We can replicate it worldwide, to billions of people, for very low costs, affordable by individuals. We are working hard on technologies that will permit other sorts of resources to be duplicated this easily, including arbitrary physical objects ("nanotechnology"; see »www.foresight.org). The progress of science, technology, and free markets have produced an end to many kinds of scarcity. A hundred years ago, more than 99% of Americans were still using outhouses, and one out of every ten children died in infancy. Now even the poorest Americans have cars, television, telephones, heat, clean water, sanitary sewers -- things that the richest millionaires of 1900 could not buy. These technologies promise an end to physical want in the near future.
We should be rejoicing in mutually creating a heaven on earth! Instead, those crabbed souls who make their living from perpetuating scarcity are sneaking around, convincing co-conspirators to chain our cheap duplication technology so that it won't make copies -- at least not of the kind of goods they want to sell us. This is the worst sort of economic protectionism -- beggaring your own society for the benefit of an inefficient local industry. The record and movie distribution companies are careful not to point this out to us, but that is what is happening.
If by 2030 we have invented a matter duplicator that's as cheap as copying a CD today, will we outlaw it and drive it underground? So that farmers can make a living keeping food expensive, so that furniture makers can make a living preventing people from having beds and chairs that would cost a dollar to duplicate, so that builders won't be reduced to poverty because a comfortable house can be duplicated for a few hundred dollars? Yes, such developments would cause economic dislocations for sure. But should we drive them underground and keep the world impoverished to save these peoples' jobs? And would they really stay underground, or would the natural advantages of the technology cause the "underground" to rapidly overtake the rest of society?
I think we should embrace the era of plenty and work out how to mutually live in it. I think we should work on understanding how people can make a living by creating new things and providing services, rather than by restricting the duplication of existing things. That's what I've personally spent ten years doing, founding a successful free software support company. That company, Cygnus Solutions, annually invests more than $10 million into writing software, giving it away freely, and letting anyone modify or duplicate it. It funds that by collecting more than $25 million from customers, who benefit from having that software exist and be reliable and widespread. The company is now part of Red Hat, Inc -- which also makes its living by empowering its customers without restricting the duplication of its work. It's no coincidence that the open source, free software, and Linux communities are among the first to become alarmed at copy protection. They are actively making their livings or hobbies out of eliminating scarcity and increasing freedom in the operating system and application software markets. They see the real improvement in the world that results -- and the ugly reactions of the monopolistic and oligopolistic forces that such efforts obsolete.
Converting the whole world to operate without scarcity is a huge task. Such a large economic shift would take decades to spread through the entire world economy, making billions of new winners and new losers. We will be extremely lucky if by 2030 we are prepared to end scarcity without massive social turmoil, including riots, civil unrest, and world war. If we are to find a peaceful path to an era of plenty, we should be starting HERE AND NOW, transforming the industries we have already eliminated scarcity in -- text, audio, and video. Companies that can't adjust should disappear and be replaced by those who can. As these whole industries learn how to exist and thrive without creating artificial scarcity, they will provide models and expertise for other industries, which will need to change when their own inefficient production is replaced by efficient duplication ten or fifteen years from now. Relying on copy-protection now would send us in exactly the wrong direction! Copy protection pretends that the law and some fancy footwork with industrial cartels can maintain our current economic structures, in the face of a hurricane of positive technological change that is picking them up and sending them whirling like so many autumn leaves.
Summary
This may be a longer discussion than you wanted, Ron, but as you can see, I think there are a lot of things wrong with how copy protection techologies are being foisted on an unsuspecting public. I'd like to hear from you a similar discussion. Being devil's advocate for a moment, why should self-interested companies be permitted to shift the balance of fundamental liberties, risking free expression, free markets, scientific progress, consumer rights, societal stability, and the end of physical and informational want? Because somebody might be able to steal a song? That seems a rather flimsy excuse. I await your response.
John Gilmore
Electronic Frontier Foundation | |
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join:2002-09-17
Australia
| Re: Can't Copy Protected CDs still be cracked? Recently found this site while troubleshooting audio problems. Seems like audio software, firmware and hardware related issues can now be joined by 'buyer beware' considerations. There is a page showing copy protection logos and warnings, assembled by a Dutch 'contact', and a page with a list of known 'bad' CDs. The road to the personal backup is getting rockier.
»ukcdr.org/issues/cd/ | |
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some guy
@milwwi.ameritech
| cds play on regular cd players because an audio cd player has no idea how to deal with the executable file that installs the "protection"
simple ways to become protected from copy protection
1)disable autorun on all drives on windows boxes--there are many ways to do this, here is one »features.engadget.com/entry/3239···8279892/
2)use a nonstandard os--big labels will never bother to create a linux version of their protection
3)don't buy cds--they can't put nasties on your computer if you just download the cd preripped from somewhere else
if you bought a cd, you have the right to rip it. a DMCA challenge is unavoidable in the near future, but media companies will lose it, since encryption is not built into a cd player (like it is in a dvd player), but in the media--think of it as "optional software", you can't be compelled to install it | |
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Nicram
@62.17.x.x | 'some guy' just closed this topic - a stand-alone CD-copier, or CD-player linked with CD-recorder always do the job. | |
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Oleg
Bellsouth Fastaccess
Premium
join:2003-12-08
Birmingham, AL | Why not just to make a copy to CDR | |
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kw
Premium
join:2004-06-12 | Re: Can't Copy Protected CDs still be cracked? Then you'd have two copies of a DRM'd disc. The best way to get around DRM is probably to disable Autoplay, and leave it at that. If the disc doesn't run when it's put into the computer, then it defeats anything they might try and put on there. | |
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