Copy protection with a bite?

I can't point to any examples, but I believe there are suits in progress.

I also believe Sony will replace all affected CDs with ones without the protection.

Some of the artists whose CDs had the protection were pretty pissed too. Apparently this was something that Sony kept completely under the table. They would still be doing it if someone had not accidentally discovered it.
 
Hmm, lets see. The copy protection on DVDs was hardware based and it was cracked rather easy. I have the software on my computer that lets me copy DVDs so my cousins don't trash the originals. I have a tray of "Intel Confidential" (Engineering samples that where never intended to leave the lab.) Pentium 3 CPUs. I have two in my video capture system. Really fun to tweak them since you can do things to them that you can't to the retail CPUs (Multipliers are unlocked as are some cache settings.)

The problem with hardware solutions is that once they are broken then the whole system is broken. The consumers will not stand to have to buy a new music player every 6 months. The simple fact is that if it can be seen or heard, it can be copied. Theconsumer must be given the key for the media to be playable. The only problem is that the consumers and the criminals are indistinguishable from each other. So now what?
 
I wonder how the music companies ever survived the 1980s, where we just taped songs off the radio or off LPs, and any cheap tape deck could (*gasp*) copy music records onto readily-available cheap media that could then be distributed to be copied again. You never saw them sending their lawyers after the kids who made love song tapes for their girlfriends, and yet the music industry still sold lots of records.
 
perception, here is the link from the EFF site about how to disable autorun on your computer. This effectively blocks some of this kind of malware from installing. The cost is that you then have trouble just popping regular cds into the computer and running them.

http://www3.ca.com/securityadvisor/p...aspx?cid=76351
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Two quick notes.

1. While doing what that link describes will indeed diable autorun, there's a much easier way to do it that doesn't involve mucking with the registry. Registry changes are often immediate and in many cases a single misplaced character can really throw Windows for a loop.

The best way with Windows XP is to open up My Computer, right click on the the CD/DVD drive, select properties, then under the Autoplay tab you will find the various actions Windows will take when it detects a disc in the drive.

2. The problem is that autorun will only keep these kinds of programs from starting up on their own...usually. To listen to the music on your computer you still need to run this program or rip the tracks from the CD. Since most people don't know how to rip audio CDs they'll be stuck installing this annoying software.

My recommendation to anyone that buys one of these CDs: find the office computer nerd and ask him if he can rip the CD and make a copy with only the audio data. Falls under fair use, is completely legal, and it gets you in good with the office geek who probably knows, and logs, every single thing you do online.
 
I wonder how the music companies ever survived the 1980s, where we just taped songs off the radio or off LPs, and any cheap tape deck could (*gasp*) copy music records onto readily-available cheap media that could then be distributed to be copied again. You never saw them sending their lawyers after the kids who made love song tapes for their girlfriends, and yet the music industry still sold lots of records.
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That kid couldn't load those songs up to a public bulletin board to be downloaded by thousands of people. At worst, he could make a few dozen tapes for his buddies. It's a matter of scale.

Also, the copy of a copy issue is greater because a digital copy of a digital copy is as perfect as the first. An analog copy of an analog copy (what you're creating in your statement about songs being copied again) gets progressively worse each time.

Chris
 
I don't care what kind of copy protection they put on it, hardware or software.
If you can hear it, you can record it.
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Very true. Once something is in digital format it can be copied, bit by bit, to create a 100% completely identical reproduction.

There is no encryption, no coding, no piece of software that cannot be broken. If it's written by human beings it can be subverted by human beings.

I wonder how the music companies ever survived the 1980s, where we just taped songs off the radio or off LPs, and any cheap tape deck could (*gasp*) copy music records onto readily-available cheap media that could then be distributed to be copied again. You never saw them sending their lawyers after the kids who made love song tapes for their girlfriends, and yet the music industry still sold lots of records.
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The difference is that recording off the radio or even with a dual tape deck causes quality loss. Even with the best reproduction equipment, analoge copying will always result in quality loss (though it's virtually imperceptible by human ears with the higher end stuff). Digital information, on the other hand, can be copied bit for bit and thus can be distributed with perfectly equal quality. Even MP3s at the highest bitrates will sound exactly like mass produced CDs to the untrained ear on any consumer level sound equipment.

The music industry as well as the movie and television industries need to realize that things are not going to be reverted to how it once was. They no longer have such strict control over the quality of media that people get their hands on and if they want to survive they need to drastically restructure their marketing and income strategies.

Making it harder for people to pirate digital media is not going to stem piracy. The only thing that will do is motivate pirates to try harder and when motivated by the sheer thrill of subverting copyright protection (believe me, many pirates do this stuff for just that reason - has nothing to do with money for these guys because it's extremely rare that they actually sell anything) they will beat it. The key is to make it easier to get the content legally and to show people that the creators of the content are the ones getting paid, not the middlemen.
 
Redworm you're right, that is a lot easier than playing with the registry unless you're like me and have been crashing computers since the IBM 360 days. :p

Sometimes I forget the ease of doing things the Microsoft way. In fact to be honest I forgot that I'd already disabled autorun for other reasons when I bought the computer. :o
 
Indeed. I just don't want those that didn't waste their evenings as a child disassembling the family PC like I did to accidentally hose their system. :D
 
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