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Sony Doing An End Run Around Its Own DRM 353

Posted by Zonk from the may-you-live-in-interesting-times dept.
glassgnost writes "According to a story at CNN, Sony has an odd response to complaints from fans who have discovered they cannot import their CD content to an iPod. Individuals who complain to Sony BMG about iPod incompatibility are being directed to a Web site that provides information on how to work around the technology. In short, some labels appear to have been instructing customers how to defeat DRM -- which, IIRC, is a violation of DMCA." From the article: "For now, the copy-protected discs work only with software and devices compatible with Microsoft Windows Media technology. Apple -- the dominant player in digital music -- has resisted appeals from the labels to license its FairPlay DRM for use on the copy-protected discs. The DRM initiatives are generating complaints from fans, many of whom own iPods. The message boards of artist fan sites and online retailers are filled with complaints from angry consumers who did not realize they were buying a copy-protected title until they tried to create music files on their home computers."
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Sony Doing An End Run Around Its Own DRM More

Sony Doing An End Run Around Its Own DRM

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  • Blaming Apple (Score:5, Insightful)

    by powerpuffgirls ( 758362 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @05:22PM (#13716689)
    Interestingly SonyBMG is blaming Apple [sonybmg.com] for the lack of support.

    I think this situation is bound to happen, when your right hand doesn't know what your left hand is doing.

    • Re:Blaming Apple (Score:4, Funny)

      by The_Quinn ( 748261 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @05:45PM (#13716917) Homepage
      From the Sony website:

      3. How can I get tracks I rip from my CD into iTunes and/or onto my iPod?

      Apple's proprietary technology doesn't support secure music formats other than their own and therefore the music on this disc can't be directly imported into iTunes or iPods.

      Sony BMG wants music to be easily transferable to any device that supports secure music. Currently, music from our protected CDs may be transferred to hundreds of such devices, as both Microsoft and Sony have assisted to make the user experience on our discs as seamless as possible with their secure formats.

      Unfortunately, in order to directly and smoothly rip content into iTunes it requires the assistance of Apple. To date, Apple has not been willing to cooperate with our protection vendors to make ripping to iTunes and to the iPod a simple experience.

      If you believe that you should be able to easily move tracks from your protected CD to your iPod then we encourage you to use the following link to contact Apple directly and tell them so. http://www.apple.com/feedback/ipod.html [apple.com]

      That said, while there is no direct support on the disc for iTunes or iPod, SONY BMG has worked out an indirect way for consumers to move content into these environments, despite the challenges noted above. If you'd like more information on how to move content to iTunes please CLICK HERE [slashdot.org].

      • Re:Blaming Apple (Score:3, Insightful)

        by kalidasa ( 577403 ) *
        This is fraudelent: they're not talking about "ripping" at all, but simply transferring their DRMed files.

      • Re:Blaming Apple (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Brave Guy ( 457657 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @08:30PM (#13718412)
        If you believe that you should be able to easily move tracks from your protected CD

        Parse error on line 6: can't interpret "protected" applied to derivative of trademarked name "compact disc".

        There is no such thing. If it's copy-protected, it's not a CD. Simple as that, really.

      • Re:Blaming Apple (Score:5, Insightful)

        by GweeDo ( 127172 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @08:44PM (#13718517) Homepage
        Use the Apple iPod/iTunes feedback form to tell Apple you THANK THEM for not support SonyBMG's copy protection. The more pissed off iPod owners the better. There are more and more of them everyday.

        • Re:Blaming Apple (Score:5, Informative)

          by jrockway ( 229604 ) * <jon-nospam@jrock.us> on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @09:16PM (#13718718) Homepage Journal
          I actually did this :) When iPod-owners can't buy your music, you lose. Fuck you, record companies. You're not in control anymore.

          Technically, though, FairPlay won't even work when distributing CDs. FairPlay works by encrypting the song with the iPod's key. When the CD is pressed, they obviously don't know the key to your iPod. So this isn't even possible.

          Actually, when you download a song from iTMS, YOUR computer applies the DRM to a clean copy it gets from iTMS. Running tcpdump and reassembling the file results in a non-DRM'd file. FairPlay, like all DRM, is a joke.

    • Are they trying to pull a fast one? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by kizzbizz ( 870017 ) <kizzer&gmail,com> on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @05:55PM (#13717015)
      "Unfortunately, in order to directly and smoothly rip content into iTunes it requires the assistance of Apple. To date, Apple has not been willing to cooperate with our protection vendors to make ripping to iTunes and to the iPod a simple experience. If you believe that you should be able to easily move tracks from your protected CD to your iPod then we encourage you to use the following link to contact Apple directly and tell them so. http://www.apple.com/feedback/ipod.html [apple.com]"

      So, they are trying to convince me that the reason THEY are DRM-ing their CD's is because of Apple? Im sorry, but who do they expect will be convinced by this? We're not talking about Momma and Poppa Joe here who will be complining- this will be educated individuals from the internet generation. These people will easily be able to see right through this decieteful childsplay. This is a foolish act by Sony that makes them sound like even more of faceless evil megacorporation than they already do.

      • Re:Are they trying to pull a fast one? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by SlimFlem ( 29212 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @07:23PM (#13717904)
        I'm so sick of all this blame-game bullshit being played by the music industry and I'm sick of all the crying and whining by the RIAA. This bullshit article tries to push the term "protected music" like it's doing something for you and making your life better but damn Apple for messing up my "protected music" experience. What the hell kind of shit is that? I don't want, need, or will never buy anyone's stupid ass "protected music". Please, it's all a bunch of shit. I don't miss wasting my hard earned money on cd's at all.
    • To be honest, in Sony the right hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing, let alone what the left hand is up to.

      Witness the huge number of completely different and incompatible memory card formats Sony keep making.

    • Re:Blaming Apple (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Thing 1 ( 178996 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @09:52PM (#13718910) Journal
      Well, if it's a violation of the DMCA, then perhaps one of us should call them up, listen to the voice that says "this call may be recorded for quality purposes" (which means "this call IS being recorded to cover our asses"). At that point you have permission to push record on your recording device, without notifying them (although this varies from state to state).

      So then get a recording of a support rep stating the web site, and then post it here for all to hear. One of us is an attorney, and will start a DMCA action.

      Of course, the victim is Sony, so the attorney will have a difficult time getting their client's agreement to pursue. But if the caller asked, "So, does this work for this other CD I have?" And Sony's rep answers in the positive, then the manufacturer of "this other CD" might have grounds to sue. And if the caller worked for the (other) manufacturer, it'd be even easier to turn this into a DMCA-killer event.

  • Incorrect (Score:5, Informative)

    by waynegoode ( 758645 ) * on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @05:23PM (#13716693) Homepage
    The linked website does not provide information on how to work around the technology. It explains how to 'work with' the DRM software. This page [sonybmg.com] on the website mentions the problem of playing their DRMed music on an iPod and directs you to this form [sonybmg.com] that you are required to fill out to apparently be emailed instructions.

    • Re:Incorrect (Score:3, Funny)

      by B11 ( 894359 )
      Yeah, because I'm about to email them with my info to let them know I'm circumventing DRM.

      Its not Apple's fault fot not getting behind their DRM, its Sony's fault for including it, although I guess they would argue its our fault for "pirating" their music in the first place. Like when pops you use to beat you mercilessly for disobeying him.

  • I don't think it is a violation of the DMCA... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Rude Turnip ( 49495 ) <valuation.gmail@com> on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @05:25PM (#13716721)
    If you tell someone how to circumvent the DRM to something in which you hold the copyright. The real question is, are you violating the DMCA if you are following those instructions to circumvent the DRM? And, if you are, would it be considered entrapment? None of this really matters since it would happen in the privacy of your own home, but it is an interesting legal riddle.

  • Violating the DMCA? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Quinn_Inuit ( 760445 ) <Quinn_Inuit.yahoo@com> on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @05:26PM (#13716735)

    Even if that does violate the DMCA, only certain people would have standing to sue about it...mostly Sony. Anyone else getting a piece of the profits would, as well, but it's possible that their contracts surrender that particular right to sue to Sony. Also, the artists may be just as interested in Sony in getting around this particular manifestation of the law of unintended consequences, so they might not want to sue, either.

    Of course, if the artists' contract required Sony to put DRM on there (maybe from an extremely anti-file-sharing artist like Madonna), then they would probably have a breach of contract action against Sony. I'm not sure it would succeed, but I'll bet it'd survive summary judgment.

    • Even if that does violate the DMCA, only certain people would have standing to sue about it...mostly Sony. Anyone else getting a piece of the profits would,

      As I understand the DMCA, violating the no-circumvention clauses are a *criminal* offense [cornell.edu] if done "willfully and for purposes of commercial advantage". Seems to me that:

      a) Sony are getting a commercial advantage by placating users who complain about the horrid DRM schemes they want to us by providing them with circumvention information.

      b) There is no pro
    • Even if that does violate the DMCA, only certain people would have standing to sue about it...mostly Sony. Anyone else getting a piece of the profits would, as well, but it's possible that their contracts surrender that particular right to sue to Sony. Also, the artists may be just as interested in Sony in getting around this particular manifestation of the law of unintended consequences, so they might not want to sue, either.

      In the US, DMCA is a criminal law; that means that disobeying it is a crime aga

  • Has anyone received the reply? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by soren42 ( 700305 ) * <<moc.yak-nos> <ta> <j>> on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @05:27PM (#13716741) Homepage Journal
    Since Sony wants a "proof-of-purchase" style form, has anyone with this issue completed the form, and received the response? It's be interesting to see how Sony is telling people to circumvent their technology.

    I'd fill it out myself, but it's been over a year since I bought any music that wasn't from iTunes. :)

    • Re:Has anyone received the reply? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @05:43PM (#13716904)
      Yep, I recognised the symbol and used my coldplay album. They sent the directions instantly. The album doesn't say it's Sony though so I don't think it matters. I think the only real info you need is the email so they can you the directions. Excerpt. "Thank you for contacting Sony BMG Online.

      We appreciate your purchase of our CD and apologize for any inconvenience. Please follow the instructions below in order to move your content into iTunes and onto an iPod.
      If you have a PC place the CD into your computer and allow the Sony BMG audio player on the CD to automatically start. If the player software does not automatically start, open your Windows Explorer. Locate and select the drive letter for your CD drive. On the disc you will find either a file named LaunchCD.exe or Autorun.exe. Double-click this file to manually start the player.

      TIP: If your CD does not contain either the LaunchCD.exe or
                    Autorun.exe files, it may not be compatible with this iPod
                    solution. Please reply to this letter for more information.

      Once the Sony BMG player application has been launched and the End User License Agreement has been accepted, you can click the Copy Songs button on the top menu.

      Follow the instructions to copy the secure Windows Media Files (WMA) to your PC. Make a note of where you are copying the songs to, you will need to get to these secure Windows Media Files in the next steps.

      Once the WMA files are on your PC you can open and listen to the songs with Windows Media Player 9.0 or higher (or another fully compatible player that can playback secure WMA files, such as MusicMatch, RealPlayer, and Winamp). You can then burn the songs to a standard Audio CD. Please note that in order to burn the files, you will need to upgrade to, or already have, Windows Media Player 9 or 10.

      Once the standard Audio CD has been created, place this copied CD back into your computer and open iTunes. iTunes can now rip the songs as you would any normal audio CD.

      Please note an easier and more acceptable solution requires cooperation from Apple, who we have already reached out to in hopes of addressing this issue. To help speed this effort, we ask that you use the following link to contact Apple and ask them to provide a solution that would easily allow you to move content from protected CDs into iTunes or onto your iPod rather than having to go through the additional steps above:

      • "We appreciate your purchase of our CD and apologize for any inconvenience. "

        Hey Sony! Think about what you're fucking saying here, jackholes!

        Obviously a strange new usage of the word "appreciate" seen only in the record industry. "The female praying mantis appreciates the male's sexual advances."

      • anyone else...? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by AdmiralWeirdbeard ( 832807 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @08:28PM (#13718392)
        Think that they might as well have said:

                "sorry, we're right smack-dab in the middle of one colosal pissing contest with apple right now.

                  Unless you want to go out and further support us by buying our inferior digital music player, you should just piss off and do what you were going to do anyways: burn a copy of the cd, then use that copy with itunes to put it on your stupid ipod.

                  sure, you'll have inferior audio quality, but fuck you for going with our competitor. you're just lucky we're not suing you for it."
    • Sony BMG Music Entertainment should just split up as far away from Sony Electronics as possible. It's an embarrassement to the rest of the console and hardware divisions. Sure it is bringing in money like any other record company, but in terms of gaining DRM ground, it's been useless.

  • I'd be interested to find out how many artists approve of DRM, and how many oppose it. Most of the names I see tossed about are has-beens, or never-heard-ofs -- I said most not all.

    Seems to me that an artist would want their art spread as widely as possible, since most of their money is made in merchandising, and touring. Name recognition is everything.

  • Do as we do in Brazil (Score:2, Informative)

    by famazza ( 398147 )

    Buy ilegal copies of you favorites CDs, for as cheap as US$ 2,00 (3 for US$ 4).

    Seriously. Acting like this is ask for ilegal copies, here in Brazil you really can buy ilegal copies for US$ 2, if you don't care about boxes you can buy for US$ 1,25 (2 for US$ 2), and when you buy a legal copy at local store you can't play it in your linux computer.

    For me it seems that they want it!

  • DRM (Score:5, Funny)

    by lilmouse ( 310335 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @05:31PM (#13716784)
    I told you so, but would you listen to me?

    Oh, nooooooooo, DRM will never cause problems for consumers, just a little harmless DRM...

    Time to bring in the Holy Hackgrenade, and blow the DRM into little pieces!

    --LWM

    • Re:DRM (Score:2, Funny)

      by deesine ( 722173 )

      Then did he raise on high the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, saying, "Bless this, O Lord, that with it thou mayst blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy." And the people did rejoice and did feast upon the lambs and toads and tree-sloths and fruit-bats and orangutans and breakfast cereals ... Now did the Lord say, "First thou pullest the Holy Pin. Then thou must count to three. Three shall be the number of the counting and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither sh

  • What "End Run"? (Score:3)

    by buckminster ( 170559 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @05:31PM (#13716788) Homepage
    I'm not sure why this article is written/titled the way it is. There doesn't seem to be any information on the Sony site about circumventing DRM.

  • Interesting... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by cesman ( 74566 )
    The big media companies want DRM and supported the DMCA. Now they have to break the DMCA to get around their own DRM. Please support the EFF http://www.eff.org/ [eff.org].

    Thanks,

    cesman
    • What are you talking about? Where are the big media companies breaking the DMCA to get around their own DRM? Certainly not on the site linked to by this story. Maybe you didn't RTFA but just the blatantly wrong blurb by the submitter. *sigh* /. is more of a tabloid these days. I guess they have to do something to stir people up now that Jon Katz doesn't write for /. anymore.

  • Best advice: Bring 'em back (Score:5, Insightful)

    by randalx ( 659791 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @05:32PM (#13716802)
    Instead of circumventing the copy protections, I hope most are simply returning their cd. Obviously they only care about their bottom line and not the trouble they put their "consumers" through. It's the only way they might get the message.

    • Re:Best advice: Bring 'em back (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ewhac ( 5844 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @05:48PM (#13716945) Homepage Journal
      Agreed. Return it as defective merchandise.

      Copy protection is a product defect. It is an artificially-introduced capacity for failure that would not exist if it wasn't there. Intentionally selling defective merchandise shouldn't be tolerated.

      Schwab

    • Good luck returning the CD. I yelled for as long as my voice would allow when I tried to take a CD back to Best Buy. The best I could get was returning the CD for another one. The problem with the CD that I purchased was that it did not even play in my car player. It ended up only working in one player in my house which was my CD player alarm clock. Then when the next one didn't work, I yelled even more and eventually got store credit. When you think about it, returning it only bother Best Buy since t
      • Always pay with a credit card. Preferably American Express. If it won't play in a standard cd player or computer, it is defective.

        Credit card companies are pretty good about charge backs against companies for defective goods.
      • Don't yell. Don't get mad. Do explain clearly and firmly that the CD is defective and they have a legal obligation here. If they refuse to see reason, come back with a summons to small claims court.

  • Apple should do what?! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Karma_fucker_sucker ( 898393 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @05:33PM (#13716805)
    From TFA: The company, which has sold more than 13 million copy-protected discs to date, is urging people who buy copy-protected titles to write to Apple and demand that the company license its FairPlay DRM for use with secure CDs.

    How about you ("The Company") give the technology to Apple so that you don't lose their users as customers. How would you like it if Apple published on their website that said "Don't buy your company's CDs, they are incompatible with our technology and refuse to change it." You see, in this case, Apple is driving the market. Either conform, or lose customers.

    • How about you ("The Company") give the technology to Apple

      Not to burst your Apple is glorious, evil record companies are to blame, but you've read that statement completely backwards. Apple owns FairPlay. Apple has refused to licence their fairplay protection to other companies so someone else can produce iPod compatible music (which is what Sony is asking to do here), and Apple has refused to equip the iPod with the freely licenced DRM the rest of the MP3 industry (players and online stores) are using.
      • Gee, I've been putting plain old MP3s on my iPod. Why does Sony need FairPlay to allow playing on an iPod?
      • . . .freely licenced DRM . . .

        I think we found a new definition for irony.

  • Why is it that Fair Use seems to be forgotten? (Score:4, Informative)

    by DustyShadow ( 691635 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @05:37PM (#13716833) Homepage
    Why are labels allowed to put this type of technology on albums and then say that they are not violating the consumer's fair use rights? I really don't understand why the fair use doctrine seems to have been thrown out the window lately. What would happen if someone took this to court claiming that their rights have been violated, not only by the DRM, but also by the DMCA?
    • Because they, albeit in small tags, actually declare on the "CD" itself that it's not a conventional CD. Take the latest album by Dave Matthews Band - there's a sticker on it that says it's meant to play on a conventional (i.e. non-PC) CD player and if one wants to play on the PC, it does so as DRMed WMA.

      Deceptive? Yes. But they do try to declare on the "CD" that it is not a regular CD. An extreme analogy, no doubt, but no one would complain about "fair use" violation when a DVD doesn't play movies on a CD

    • Fair Use only allows the end-user exemption from copyright law when the copying of the content is possible. The doctrine doesn't state anywhere that the content has to be made copyable.
    • What would happen if someone took this to court claiming that their rights have been violated, not only by the DRM, but also by the DMCA?

      It would be summarily thrown out, since under US law "fair use" isn't a right, it's an affirmative defence.

    • Re:Why is it that Fair Use seems to be forgotten? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Geoffreyerffoeg ( 729040 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @10:11PM (#13719017)
      Fair use is not a right. Fair use is an excuse (a legally acceptable one) to do things that are outside your rights. When you invoke fair use, you automatically admit that the infringement did occur (but you can't be punished for it). If you can get around stuff and fairly use it, more power to you. But nobody's helping you with fair use.

  • Text of the canned circumvention email (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @05:38PM (#13716856)
    This is it.

    Thank you for contacting Sony BMG Online.

    We appreciate your purchase of our CD and apologize for any inconvenience. Please follow the instructions below in order to move your content into iTunes and onto an iPod.

    [Macintosh] If you have a Macintosh computer you can copy the songs using your iTunes Player as you would normally do.

    [Windows] If you have a PC place the CD into your computer and allow the Sony BMG audio player on the CD to automatically start. If the player software does not automatically start, open your Windows Explorer. Locate and select the drive letter for your CD drive. On the disc you will find either a file named LaunchCD.exe or Autorun.exe. Double-click this file to manually start the player.

    TIP: If your CD does not contain either the LaunchCD.exe or Autorun.exe files, it may not be compatible with this iPod solution. Please reply to this letter for more information.

    Once the Sony BMG player application has been launched and the End User License Agreement has been accepted, you can click the Copy Songs button on the top menu.

    Follow the instructions to copy the secure Windows Media Files (WMA) to your PC. Make a note of where you are copying the songs to, you will need to get to these secure Windows Media Files in the next steps.

    Once the WMA files are on your PC you can open and listen to the songs with Windows Media Player 9.0 or higher (or another fully compatible player that can playback secure WMA files, such as MusicMatch, RealPlayer, and Winamp). You can then burn the songs to a standard Audio CD. Please note that in order to burn the files, you will need to upgrade to, or already have, Windows Media Player 9 or 10.

    Once the standard Audio CD has been created, place this copied CD back into your computer and open iTunes. iTunes can now rip the songs as you would any normal audio CD.

    Please note an easier and more acceptable solution requires cooperation from Apple, who we have already reached out to in hopes of addressing this issue. To help speed this effort, we ask that you use the following link to contact Apple and ask them to provide a solution that would easily allow you to move content from protected CDs into iTunes or onto your iPod rather than having to go through the additional steps above:

    http://www.apple.com/feedback/ipod.html [apple.com]

    Thank you for the opportunity to be of assistance.

    The Sony BMG Online Support Team
    CCKM


    This message and any attachments are solely for the use of intended recipients. They may contain privileged and/or confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you received this email in error, and that any review, dissemination, distribution or copying of this email and any attachment is strictly prohibited. If you receive this email in error please contact the sender and delete the message and any attachments associated therewith from your computer. Your cooperation in this matter is appreciated.

    Oops.

    • Re:Text of the canned circumvention email (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      These companies are mind bogglingly stupid:

      Once the standard Audio CD has been created, place this copied CD back into your computer and open iTunes. iTunes can now rip the songs as you would any normal audio CD.

      They are saying: take your crappy, damaged, DRM-encumbered CD, and make a "standard Audio CD" out of it. Then rip it normally. Well, WTF, why not just SELL STANDARD AUDIO CDs TO BEGIN WITH!!!! Idiots!!

      Please note an easier and more acceptable solution requires cooperation from Apple[.] To help spee
      • They are saying: take your crappy, damaged, DRM-encumbered CD, and make a "standard Audio CD" out of it. Then rip it normally. Well, WTF, why not just SELL STANDARD AUDIO CDs TO BEGIN WITH!!!! Idiots!!

        While I do agree with you I think their reason was to limit the quality of audio that makes it to the internet. Are the WMA files full CD quality? If you burn from their software is it just 128bps mp3 quality music? If so, then ripping the cd and sharing it would have a significant impact on the quality of t

    • Re:Text of the canned circumvention email (Score:5, Insightful)

      by paulm ( 37073 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @06:22PM (#13717303)
      Dear Customer,

          We are sorry that you are having problems driving the car we sold you without
      a steering wheel. An easier and more acceptable solution requires cooperation
      from the DOT to install tracks which your car can ride on and be guided to
      approved locations. To help speed this effort was ask that you contact your
      local DOT.

      Thank you for the opportunity to be of assistance.

      The Sony BMG Automotive Support Team

      • Re:Text of the canned circumvention email (Score:5, Insightful)

        by crimoid ( 27373 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @06:41PM (#13717531)
        Dear Consumer,

                We are sorry that you are having problems driving the car we sold you without a steering wheel but you were a complete sucker for purchasing such a vehicle in the first place.
                We realize that you have a choice when purchasing automobiles and are happy that despite our products' defects you still choose to buy them. Your sheep-like loyalty is appreciated.

        The Sony BMG Automotive Support Team
    • Please note an easier and more acceptable solution requires cooperation from Apple, who we have already reached out to in hopes of addressing this issue. To help speed this effort, we ask that you use the following link to contact Apple and ask them to provide a solution that would easily allow you to move content from protected CDs into iTunes or onto your iPod rather than having to go through the additional steps above:

      On the other hand, the easiest and most acceptable solution doesn't require cooperation
  • (cue black letters on yellow background) WARNING! This CD is copy-protected. You won't be able to copy the songs to your PC.

    A label like this should be obligatory.

  • Sony seems to be of two minds about this (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Paladin144 ( 676391 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @05:40PM (#13716875) Homepage
    Remember this recent /. story [slashdot.org]? Well, there have been recent developments [afterdawn.com]. Sony pulled the band member's post from the message board (man, you really sign away everything when you sign to a major label - even the right to express yourself, it seems). Then Sony had the embarrassment of doing a recall [cdfreaks.com] for the CD because some versions weren't allowing any copying. Now they're telling people how to get around the DRM after censoring the band's instructions for getting around it? Talk about flailing around in the dark.

    Personally, I'm glad Apple hasn't shared their FairPlay DRM scheme with the rest of the industry. It shows the RIAA what's like to be on the wrong side of a closed system. Now they know how we feel when we can't rip our songs to MP3s.

  • I quit buying CDs the day after the iTunes music store came online. I've never once had a problem with poorly implemented DRM.

  • Instructions to sony customers (Score:3, Funny)

    by kweg ( 305533 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @05:45PM (#13716919)
    take a permanant marker and cross off this track...

  • DMCRA to the rescue! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Dachannien ( 617929 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @05:49PM (#13716959)
    Quoth the article: The DRM initiatives are generating complaints from fans, many of whom own iPods. The message boards of artist fan sites and online retailers are filled with complaints from angry consumers who did not realize they were buying a copy-protected title until they tried to create music files on their home computers.

    Enter the DMCRA [wikipedia.org], which, in addition to guaranteeing the right to circumvent copy prevention systems for the purposes of making non-infringing use of a work, also mandates that when companies put copy prevention on a CD, they also add an adequate warning to the case indicating that the CD may not work in all players.

    I didn't think that the DMCRA would actually get attention because of the warning label provision, mainly because I'm more interested on the circumvention for non-infringing use provision, but perhaps the warning label provision is the way to get music consumers interested in getting the DMCRA passed.

  • Repeat After Me (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mpapet ( 761907 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @05:52PM (#13716984) Homepage
    When you buy a CD you purchase the priviledge to play the CD in a manner that the record company approves. Repeat three times.

    Now, for every person that says "No way! The law says..." They may be right, but I submit that the music distributors (via RIAA) are training people to believe and behave according to the statement above and completely ingnoring the law. (not breaking, but pretending it doesn't exist) These laws in particular protect the rich from the poor.

    Whatever laws may say otherwise, I submit that a coherent challenge to this mission won't be happening because the resources required to do so are:

    -out of reach of nearly all the people consuming music.
    -lack of incentive on the part of the people with the resources to challenge the RIAA. They are most likely shareholders garnering a return or otherwise can pay the price without concern.
    -Mounting a challenge to this is likely to be criminalized outright because it's easy to label it "they just want to steal our music." (reminds me of the medical marijuana lobby)
    -Allowing a CD to be used for more than one purpose is bad capitalism. The owner wants to monetize every single use and the current political climate in the US encourages this.

  • administrator? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by vijayiyer ( 728590 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @05:52PM (#13716986)
    To listen to the music on this disc, you need a PC with the following minimum system requirements:
    -
    -
    -
    - Logged in with Administrator rights

    why?

    • Re:administrator? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by EddWo ( 180780 )
      The copy protection scheme uses autorun.inf on the CDRom track to start a program which (after the eula) then injects a filter driver into Windows to prevent other Windows applications from reading the CDAudio tracks off the disk. The CDRom portion still contains the DRMed WMA versions of the tracks.
      You need to have Administrator rights to install new device driver on Windows.
  • the internet is disruptive technology

    we don't NEED music conglomerates

    teenagers pick up guitars to impress chicks, not to become millionaires

    if in the future artisits don't become millionaires, do you really think people will stop making music? as if fame and women aren't incentive enough?

    and even then, in the future, bands will make their money the old fashion way: touring, stage appearances, and the ticketing that comes with that

    and the bootlegs, videos, of that appearance will be free, as well as their entire catalog

    so sell your stock in sony, and buy some ticketmaster stock

    because the internet has made the media cheap

    but there is still only one artist, and in meatspace, as opposed to cyberspace, the artist is a rare commodity, so you can still sell tickets

    who loses in this future world?

    nothing but the music distrubutors

    the fans, and the artists, win

    bye bye, dinosaurs

    • Millionaire artists (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Infonaut ( 96956 ) <infonaut@gmail.com> on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @06:56PM (#13717652) Homepage Journal
      teenagers pick up guitars to impress chicks, not to become millionaires

      But the artists who have become millionaires aren't exactly clamoring to change the system, are they? The power is in the hands of artists, but the small number of artists who have benefited by the current system are as a whole uninterested in changing it.

      The fact that you and I don't need media conglomerates doesn't mean that they'll disappear of their own accord. Until big-name artists start working for change, and legislation is passed to curb the music industry's excesses, the industry will use its considerable financial and political clout to resist change.

      The current music industry profit model is probably doomed, but the labels won't let it go away without a fight. They know they're middlemen, and they know that the Internet is particularly good at weeding out middlement. The problem is no matter how many times they get hit on the head with a cluestick, they still can't figure out a way to shift their profit model. Expect this fight to go on for quite some time before the music industry either is utterly destroyed or is forced to adapt to the new reality.

  • Silly consumers, you should have downloaded that! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by _xeno_ ( 155264 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @05:56PM (#13717018) Homepage Journal

    Silly consumers, you should know better than to actually pay for the product, since it'll just be broken! You should just go download the song illegally over the Internet, because that gives you a working copy that you can use as you see fit.

    So, essentially, with DRM, Sony has succeeded in making the pirated copies of the songs more valuable than the real copies. Brilliant strategy.

    DRM always seems to work like that. All it accomplishes is making the "official" versions that much worse. How many people here have wound up downloading the "NOCD" versions of games that you paid for, simply because either the nuisance of having to swap disks was keeping you from playing, or because the copy protection actually crashed? I can't remember which game (C&C Generals?), but I remember I couldn't actually play a game recently because it's copy protection scheme actually would crash.

    I can only hope that eventually the media companies will realize that all this DRM stuff is simply taking value away from their product, not adding anything to it. Apparently their solution to piracy is to make the pirated product more attractive than their own. Then they wonder why the strategy isn't working. Hmm...

    • How many people here have wound up downloading the "NOCD" versions of games that you paid for, simply because either the nuisance of having to swap disks was keeping you from playing

      *Raises hand*
      That's really annoying. Just as well I play just one game, as I'd have to buy a cd drive for every game I play to not go crazy from swapping :)

  • Strange and noble decision by Apple (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Dr. Spork ( 142693 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @05:57PM (#13717026)
    I'm surprised and impressed that Apple don't license FairPlay to companies that make crippled CDs. What most of those CDs do is have portion of CD-ROM-unreadable music tracks that still sort of play in a normal CD player, and then DRM-locked compressed versions of the same songs that you can copy to a hard drive or a music player. But the most common music players, iPods, can't read those files, because the only DRM they know how to read is FairPlay.

    If Apple wanted, they could get the crippled CDs out there all using FairPlay to DRM the compressed songs. It's strange they don't. You would think that this would give a further competitive advantage to their iPod line of players, as well as seeing to it that everyone is using iTunes for playback and FairPlay for DRM. Should Apple want to, all of these objectives would be within reach. The strange thing is that they don't seem to want to. Somehow they wait on the sidelines while the music industry seems to default to Windows Media DRM. This is a less useful format for the majority of customers, and with enough of it around, competitors to the iPod get a serious advantage.

    So my question is this: Why is Apple holding out on the licensing of FairPlay? Is it simply that they think crippled CDs are evil and they don't want to dirty their hands with it? Strange.

    • Maybe because they like it when Sony's instructions on how to get around Sony's DRM includes the following:

      "[Macintosh] If you have a Macintosh computer you can copy the songs using your iTunes Player as you would normally do."

    • So my question is this: Why is Apple holding out on the licensing of FairPlay? Is it simply that they think crippled CDs are evil and they don't want to dirty their hands with it?

      No. Apple controls the hardware and distribution for iPod users, and they like it that way. They want to break consumers of the habit of buying little discs of plastic.

      If buying music on a CD becomes a hassle because of the DRM it helps Apple. If music companies are forced to release only DRM-less CDs, it helps Apple because t

  • ... how the analog hole works

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_hole [wikipedia.org]

    Yes the DRM will be circumvented eventually - but if it doesn't - there always is that pesky analog hole to fall back on
  • I work at a music store, and Switchfoot, the artist featured on Slashdot a week or so ago on Sony's label, was having certain copies of their DRMed discs recalled. I read the paper briefly, and it was stating that there was a problem with the discs not being able to even be played on PCs, but no effect on audio CD players.
    Why are the music companies bothering to use this DRM if it's causing such an uproar? Why are they just offering ways around it and not bothering to just STOP USING IT? It's cheaper for t

  • Interesting tidbit from the linked site:

    1. I have an Apple Macintosh computer. Will the disc work on my MAC?
    Yes. This disc will behave like a traditional CD in a Mac.

    Sounds to me, then, like it would play in a home player, or be rippable under linux. They also say:

    3. My CD player will not recognize this disc.
    This disc contains both an audio session and a data session for computers which makes it a multi-session disc. These discs are fully compliant with the Sony/Philips CD disc specifications. If your p

  • With the sales of CD going downward due to the advent of iTune (and many other soulless DMA-rigged music sites), the obvious impact of consumer trending is self-evident:

    The media repackaging and enforcement industry (another generic label for *IAA) has failed to embrace the power of the Internet and will continue to fail (despite iTune meteoretic rise).

    *IAA has well-documented and established monopolistic practice of doing the following:

    1. Jerry-rigging Top-40 listing
    2. Contr
  • I filled out the form at Sony BMG's website to receive their recommended method of getting around the copy protection on these discs in order to use them with an iPod. Here is the text of their automated email (with my comments in italics):

    Thank you for contacting Sony BMG Online.

    We appreciate your purchase of our CD and apologize for any inconvenience.
    Please follow the instructions below in order to move your content into iTunes
    and onto an iPod.

    Should they really be allowed to refer to these discs as CDs?
  • I have exactly three Dual Disc CDs (one being the new Rob Thomas CD, another being The Family Guy In Vegas CD, and a third I can't remember off the top of my head). Not ONE will play in ANY of the DVD/RW, CDROM, or CD-RW drives I have access to. The OS won't even recognize that there's a disc in the machine.

    Are Dual Discs (CDs that are CDs on one side and DVDs on the other) all automatically DRM'd or something? Or did I just get unlucky? Anyone else have any problem ripping Dual Discs, or the specific C

  • Apple's Strategy (Score:2, Insightful)

    by DingoBueno ( 461129 )
    This is quite interesting. Although the e-mail blames Apple, I think the users don't really care. By not licensing FairPlay, Apple is really turning the heat on the record execs. Nobody wants a Rio when there's an iPod available. And rather than go through all that work to load the tracks on an iPod, perhaps some users would sooner download the material. For many, that would technically easier. Things certainly do seem to be shaping up for a battle as Apple really starts to flex. Seems like it has th

  • Sony's perpetual anal-cranium inversion (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Proudrooster ( 580120 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @09:12PM (#13718689) Homepage
    For me, I quit buying Sony Consumer Electronics after I burned my first mix CD and found that my Sony CD/DVD player wouldn't read burned CDs. About 2 years later, the consumer electronics division is cutting 10,000 jobs and facing a $2B(US) loss this year.

    Now the half of the house that sells CDs is trying hard to alienate it's customers by releasing CDs that can't be listened to on iPods. Earth to Sony, if you make your products unusable, consumers aren't going to buy them. In addition, the consumer economy is severely depressed due to energy prices and a really expensive war we are fighting in Iraq. Until these issues are resolved, consumers are going to spend less money on both electronics and content. Meanwhile, you probably shouldn't sacrifice the per CD licensing fees to the copy protection and DRM companies. Instead you should focus on superior products and profitability.

    Selling products in a free-market economy is a tricky thing. Good luck! Oh, and one more thing. We are all sick of the movie remakes, please innovate something new and interesting. Herbie, Bewitched, and now King Kong? Geeeeeez.

  • they're not telling people how to circumvent it... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by YesIAmAScript ( 886271 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @02:02AM (#13719912)
    Read the canned response, it actually tells you to MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THE DRM INSTALLED FIRST. Then they want you to install WMP 9 or 10. In other words, they are encouraging you to install their DRM.

    They're not telling you how to circumvent it, they're telling you how to GET IT.

    If it said to disable autorun and then use iTunes to rip it, then it'd be telling you how to circumvent it.

    It's all a scam to get you into their circle of people already using their DRM system. By then it's too late.

    Return the disc as defective. If you pay money for DRMed content, then the music companies will try to sell you more DRMed content. Our only hope here is to return every disc that has protection and hope the retailers stop stocking it due to the hassle. Then the music publishers will be forced to release it without DRM in order to get it on the shelf.

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