A Conversation for Ask h2g2

What do you think about CD encryption & copy protection..?

Post 1

HappyDude

I came across the an article on proposed changes to UK law regarding Copy protection of CD's and I was wondering what other people thinksmiley - huh

Personally I have no problem with it providing the disc play on my old'ish CD player - which by all reports they might not
smiley - erm

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/28015.html
I've e-mailed a copy of this article with a note about my own concerns to my MP.


What do you think about CD encryption & copy protection..?

Post 2

Sho - employed again!

eeeeeeekkkkkkkkkk!
I have no problem with the copy protection as you said, but I do have a problem with something I heard on the radio about this which is that some CDs will no longer play on a pc. Which is a bit much considering my pc is located in a different room to my hi-fi and I like to listen to music while I muck around on my pc sometimes.

The article on the radio stated that some of the protection measures would mean that you can't even get the disc out of your CD-drive - except by taking the thing apart.


What do you think about CD encryption & copy protection..?

Post 3

HappyDude

it's a bit much isn't it smiley - erm


What do you think about CD encryption & copy protection..?

Post 4

Crescent

I am against copy protection, if it could be targetted to just stop pirates all well and good, but it stops copying fullstop. Any copying, 'fair use' copying - so you have a backup, or want to listen to it on your MP3 player, whatever. I am sick and tired of governments and corporations and lobbyists wanting to, and actually taking away my rights. I am glad that within any week that a new copy protection scheme is brought out that it is hacked and cracked. Grrrr, makes me angry just thinking about it smiley - sadface Well, my £0.02, sorry for butting in smiley - smiley Until later....
BCNU - Crescent


What do you think about CD encryption & copy protection..?

Post 5

Dogster

I haven't had a chance to look at the consultation document linked to on that page yet, and the article is a little thin on details, so I'm not quite sure what the proposal is. The general point is that there will be a way round any copyright protection that appears in the near future. It may be technologically challenging, but the pirates and hackers will find a way round it. This sort of new measure will only inconvenience ordinary people behaving legally.


What do you think about CD encryption & copy protection..?

Post 6

HappyDude

Let your MP know your concerns
http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/contactingmp.htm


What do you think about CD encryption & copy protection..?

Post 7

the_league_against_helium (see A816996 and A823448)

Can you imagine if the money we use to pay for our music was subject to restrictions like these?

"I hereby decree that the bloated sum I have paid for this CD must be used to cover the manufacturing costs (under fair and equitable trade practices) of the product, to reimburse the artist and the remainder donated to charity. It may not be used to allow record company execs to have any more fun than the rest of us, and diverting any of it to the marketing of manufactured boy bands which give pop a bad name will be subject to vicious litigation."

Sorry, I got carried away there, but hopefully you see what I mean. There may well have been an increase in the secondary distribution of copyrighted material. I have my doubts about file sharing on this scale. I'd like to think the majority of people use it to audition the music, but I really don't have that much faith in human nature. Having said that, I have huge great thundering objections to my punishment by proxy for someone else's transgressions smiley - grr, which is what these copy-protected CDs are.

I agree with crescent smiley - ok. This type of copy protection eliminates the legitimate fair dealing rights of the vast majority of us. Fair dealing exceptions, as I understand them, allow litited copying for private study. That means, for instance, that those of you who use sample-and-time-stretch software to transcribe that fiendishly tricky guitar part aren't breaking the law. Whoops - "you can't do that anymore, you pirate" smiley - pirate.

If a determined pirate wants to counterfeit a CD, and make a profit doing so, they'll find a way. In fact, I'm not even going to call them CDs as this is a long way from the CD standard that Philips established. Let's hope Philips decide to engage in a bout of legal towel-flicking smiley - towel over calling these things CDs.

The rest of us at the very least want to play our CD on whatever CD player we want, and if fair-dealing exceptions allow it, to format- and time-shift these recordings we've bought, for our own private enjoyment. Surely we shouldn't have to fight for this on a purchase-by-purchase basis. That's a ludicrous idea - I can't imagine that the Secretary of State will be too chuffed at having to deal with one complaint per unit sald in the UK, if everybody complained (oh please please please if this gets through, do exactly that).


What do you think about CD encryption & copy protection..?

Post 8

MaW

I hate it, to be perfectly honest. The only way I have to play CDs at the moment is with my computer - so I should stop buying them? Or do I buy them and download rips off the Internet so I can actually listen to them?

They're lucky I'm willing to pay for them at all. But I would never buy a CD which I knew to be copy protected.


What do you think about CD encryption & copy protection..?

Post 9

kC - You know I'm Right.

Does it matter if cd's come out with copy protection any way?

If people are going to copy a cd they will manage to do it, I've yet to find a copy protected cd that don't copy somehow.


What do you think about CD encryption & copy protection..?

Post 10

Dogster

The reason it matters is that if copy protection is to work, CDs will have to be redesigned so that they will only play on certain "acceptable" devices (i.e. ones which make it difficult to copy). This rules out a lot of legitimate ways of playing a CD (e.g. on currently existing CD-ROM drives which don't view the user as an enemy). This would be extremely annoying and expensive to a lot of people, as it would effectively render all of the music equipment that they currently own obsolete.

For example, my hifi has a CD player with an optical digital out port on it, I could feed this into my computer which has a digital in port and make a perfect recording of the CD as an MP3 file. If they wanted to stop this trivially easy mechanism for copying they'd have to make their CDs not work on my hifi's CD player. Assuming I actually want to listen to their CDs, I then have to fork out another 350 quid for a new CD player that is approved by them and doesn't let me do this.

Yes the copy protection could always be broken, but it means that instead of just having a CD that works, you'd have to make a copy illegitimately. For casual users it stops them from using their CDs in legitimate ways, for slightly more techno-savvy users it increases the cost of a CD (you have to buy a blank CD to copy it on to, and you have to expend the time and effort working out how to get around the copy protection). Pirates are the only ones who are largely unaffected by all this.


What do you think about CD encryption & copy protection..?

Post 11

MaW

That's basically the long and short of it. Copy protection will inconvenience ordinary people greatly (and make them out of pocket too), while impeding the pirates for a total of, oh, ten minutes? Maybe a day if they're lucky.


What do you think about CD encryption & copy protection..?

Post 12

milo

The proper pirates just look on things like this as a challenge.

and good luck to them.


What do you think about CD encryption & copy protection..?

Post 13

xyroth

this is the old "dongle" problem cropping up again, without them having learned any of the lessons from the previous umpteen attempts.

what happens when you bring in a dongle with a particular product is that it makes it awkward to use.

this has the immediate side effect that the techno-savvy create a more easy varient of the same thing, which then gets even more widely distributed than pirate copies would have in the case without the dongle or security method.

These pirated and cracked copies are then bought in preference to the awkward variant, directly hitting company profits.

even more than that though, when a particular company gets a reputation for trying this sneaky trick, and another company brings out a product that is almost as good, but unrestricted, then they get the sales instead, also directly hitting the profits of the original company.

the other problem has become known as the "linux driver" problem.

it is where, for example, I can legally buy a dvd to play on my legally bought computer, running my legally bought linux operating system, but if i try and play it in the machine, then the stupid non-disclosure aggreement means that I can't legally play it.

the same thing is happening with printers, modems and cameras.

I can still use them, but only illegally.

thus making me a smiley - pirate through necessity.

also, Steve Heckler of Sony music said "Once consumers can no longer get free music, they will have to buy music in the formats we choose to put out", which pretty much shows what the industry is after, especially with their "life plus 90 years" copyright extension that they are all trying to get enacted.


What do you think about CD encryption & copy protection..?

Post 14

PQ

Well if we want to listen to music while on the computer and they wont let us play cd's we will all just have to download them from the net instead...I'm sure that will be what happens.


What do you think about CD encryption & copy protection..?

Post 15

Blues Shark - For people who like this sort of thing, then this is just the sort of thing they'll like


Of course it's money grubbing (and a serious mistake by the record companies, who have mis read completely the MP3 debate), but I think it is is worthwhile correcting something that's been said here about 'fair use copying'.

It *DOES NOT* include the right to make copies as back ups, in different media, or for any other reason. This is one of the most widely misunderstood pieces of copyright law.

smiley - shark


What do you think about CD encryption & copy protection..?

Post 16

Narapoia

You're right BS, but it hasn't stopped people making party tapes and more recently CDs etc for their own enjoyment, not for profit, having first bought the originals, giving the record companies their precious profits.
I'm sure I've seen research (possibly connected with the Napster fiasco) which suggested that, far from reducing the amounts of legal stuff bought, the ability to "re-format" has had little adverse impact on legal sales.

I think the record companies are mad tho try this - it will just drive people who dabble on the grey edges of the illegal (having already bought the legal stuff) to go all out and only buy the illegal stuff which they can then re-format to their hearts' content!

I had a count up recently of the number of CD playing devices in our house and it was a frightening ten separate players! If I had to replace all of them it would cost a small fortune!


What do you think about CD encryption & copy protection..?

Post 17

Blues Shark - For people who like this sort of thing, then this is just the sort of thing they'll like


True indeed, but people seem to think this is a right that they had being taken away, and it's not. It's a right they never had.

As tpo MP3, the total drop in sales over recent years is five per cent (or thereabouts). My guess is that this is actaully accountable for when considering;

1) The ridiculous price of a CD today.
2) The paucity of music that is *worth* paying that price for.

I actually bought more cd's by a wider variation of artists because of MP3. The only other three people who used MP3 p2p file sharing wouldn't have bought the stuff anyway as they had no money. No sales were lost as a result of their use of the MP3.

smiley - shark


What do you think about CD encryption & copy protection..?

Post 18

Deep Thought

They EN-crypt, We DE-crypt.
The cycle goe's on.
1010101


What do you think about CD encryption & copy protection..?

Post 19

Hooloovoo


That's the whole problem. So long as a CD is capable of being played, it is capable of being copied. The only way to make a totally secure system is to make a CD so that it cannot be played on any system at all.


What do you think about CD encryption & copy protection..?

Post 20

Mina

At the very least I could hold a microphone to the speaker to record it that way...


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