CD Copy Protection, Are Music Industry Folks Stupid?

ScottW

ScottW

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Staff member
Okay, maybe I am just insane, but was just reading on NEWS.COM how a few record labels are ramping up on CD's that can't be copied or music from them can't be burned.

Last I checked, I could plug any ordinary CD player (audio only) into my INPUT jack on my computer and record away.

They can't stop that. It seems dumb to spend such stupid amounts of money on securing the front door, when the back door doesn't even have a lock on it.

Scott
 
ScottW, there may be two points:

1) By locking the front door you make harder for people to steal the music. Even if it is not impossible. And you stop the databases that simplifes the large scale exchanges by giving you all the disk and song names by comparing the digital signature of the disks.

2) They are ways to make even analog copy difficult. It is done for the video tapes. It's not perfect but it stops simple users to copy rented videos.

The real big progress would be to have a system that lets me copy my CD on my iMac or on my iPod but that would make impossible to share these over the Internet.
 
The simple fact is that all of those file sharing programs haven't stopped me from buying CDs, I actually buy more now. I will NEVER buy a copy protected CD however.
 
A friend of mine just bought Norah Jones "Come Away with Me". The CD cover indicates the CD is protected.

I have imported this CD in iTunes, then burnt it, then listened to it. Even though I hate Norah Jones, I can assure you the CD sound quality is perfect.

I have already copied dozens of 'protected CDs'. I cannot see any difference between protected and unprotected CDs. Too bad :rolleyes:

PS: my friend could not copy his Norah Jones CD on her PC, however. This may be of some importance...
 
Some of the earlier copy protection 'broke' CDs as far as Macs are concerned.. But. Anyways. Trying to copy protect CD's, is like trying to stop hacking. No matter what you do. someone will always find a way to get around your attempts at 'security'...
 
My favorite was the ring around the outside of the cd. All you had to do was take a felt tip black marker and run it around the outside edge of the cd and viola, the cd is no longer protected.

I agree the RIAA is just plain 'DUMB'

They missed the boat back when napster was at its greatest. It will continue to be their downfall.
 
Not only because they try to copy protect their products but also because:
-They continue to shutdown online "sharing" apps
-They continue to overcharge their products
-They continue not wanting to embrace an online service where their customers could buy their products at a lower price
-They continue to mess with computer geeks ;)

:D

I for one, in the foreseeable future, would never buy an original Audio CD... I hate stickers which let me "know" that this and that CD will not play in a PC/Mac computer!!! :mad: However, I keep buying those sweet DVDs because I think their price/performance ratio is just ok :rolleyes:
 
It's just a bunch of technophobes who can't understand that a computer and an mp3 doesn't have to be bad, doesn't have to be piracy, doesn't have to keep them from adding enough coin to add another gold tooth to the addled heads.
Personally, I will not/would not buy a CD from an artist or company that would keep me from transferring it to my Mac and iPod. I'd rather do without their product than have some dinosaur of an industry dictate to me how I can and can't listen to the music I purchase.
It's amazing how backward this industry is. Rather than embracing the techonology available and making it work for them, they shun it, screw the buying public, lose money because they're behind the times and promote piracy.

Just please ,please let the Apple music service see the light of the day.
 
I think the following statement is true in 99% cases:

"Surprisingly enough, none of the RIAA employees is young enough to understand what electronic media supports such as MP3 or DIVX can mean to users."

I agree those people have missed the boat.
 
I'm not sure they have missed the boat.

For the time being they make more money selling CDs and "fighting piracy" than Napster ever did on the Internet. It's easy to give for nothing. Making money is another challenge. The media industry is about making money.
 
Well, CD sales are down like 10-12% in the last 2 years and my guess is that sales will continue to fall or stagnate until the record companies embrace online downloads. I have stopped buying CDs that are copy protected. I refuse to support a system that denies me my "fair use" rights. The same with DVDs. I won't buy anything that limits my ability to use it wherever in the world that I want whenever I want.

Maybe all of this brouhaha is a good thing and what comes of it will transform the world of multimedia. The current system is unworkable.
 
When I said the industry missed th boat I meant they didn't get on board at the most opportune time of development for online music. Instead of fighting online music, sending it P2P, they could have embraced it and nutured it into a profitable business model, while maintaining their profitable CD sales. The RIAA has no understanding of the technology. They couldn't see the whole picture and how things were evolving into what they are now. It took the industry nearly 3 years to realy get some idea of where things are heading..Oops cd sales down 10% and falling.

Finaly they've begun setting up online services, but due to their screw up they've pissed off many customers and allowed an entire generation of customers 8-15yr olds to grow up never buying music. My brother, 13, and his friends do not buy music. They download it and burn it. The RIAA has harmed their business more than they will ever realize for years to come.

They have no one to blaim but themselves for 'missing the boat' at the most opportune time.
 
On a slightly-off-topic note...

I download alot of music from new artists that i am interested in, and usually end up purchasing one or quite a few of their records...

If the record company had any intelligence...they would want the artist's music to be shared so people can HEAR it...
 
well w/o reading all of the responces..
yes you can do that, but the whole point is it stops people from digitally ripping it from the computer...
truth is, i'm not gonna hook my cd player up to the computer, and press record and stop at the song start and end..
i wanna open itunes, press rip and leave.
 
I think it would be nice to be able to listen to part of a CD before you go out and buy it. Sure they offer that in a lot of stores that sell CDs; you scan the barcode and it plays some of the CD. It's nice and all but I don't have the time to go to a store just for CD hunting. I would love to be able to listen to tracks to see if I want to buy the CD or not without having to leave my house. There's been quite a few times I bought a CD and didn't like more than 90% of the songs on it. So I waste $12 to $20 dollars just for one song basically. To me that's stupid. And the fact that it would cost them $2 max to create a CD with cover and all, and then they turn around and sell it for $12 to $20 is just ludicrous. People find it much more economical to download songs from Kazaa,etc than to buy the CD. The fact that a CD costs as much as a tank of gas for my car is obscene. The last CD I bought was on sale for $10; the new 3 Doors Down CD. If music companies started selling CDs for $10 and included a bonus DVD like they did with the 3DD CD, I would most definitely love to buy it, because I live in the middle of nowhere and don't have cable and it's kinda nice to see videos, etc of the band of the CD you just bought. But as chevy said, they're in it for the money. I also chose not to buy copy protected CDs. I want to be able to rip it to mp3 so I can enjoy the music on my laptop without having the CD-ROM drive buzzing away. I want to me able to send those MP3s to my iPod once I get one this summer. And most of all, I want to be able to copy that CD for myself so that I save the original from damage. Then I have the piece of mind knowning if someone breaks into my car they're only gonna get a couple dollars worth of CD-Rs over a couple hundred dollars worth of original CDs. That's my two cents; hope it was spent well.
 
I still buy CDs, I actually don't really use peer-to-peer for music other than on a very occasional basis. Sometimes I'll hear something I like and want to get a taste of whether I'm interested enough to invest in a CD or not.

I don't really want to repeat my thoughts on the whole music industry and online music sharing so I'll post a pointer to something I wrote on another site if you're interested.

<http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=59510&cid=5655149>
 
Eons ago when I was about the age most of you are now, we swapped music files using cassette tapes (new then). The response of the RIAA was to get a law passed that added a small fee on to the price of each blank cassette, regardless of wether it was actually used for music. The idea was that this way they could recover some of their losses.
Now lest you think I am going to argue for a similar "tax" on blank CDs the answer is no. The reason is simple. None of that cassette tax money ever makes it back to the artists who are the ones that do all the work. That's right, it just goes to the big music companies. "Well there's no way to fairly allocate it. " What's so fair about the big music conglomerates keeping all of it?:mad: If there was a way to guarantee the money went to the artists, I would be all for a "tax."

As far as P2P stuff hurting the artists, I don't think so; it is the consolidation of the music industry into some big conglomerates that really don't give a damn about art and music.

Bah! I need a drink.:p
 
Originally posted by chevy


music sales went doen 10-12%
Click to expand...

BS

they released a lot less records too ( i heard up to 25% less) and that is the real reason. i admit some of it may have to do with online piracy though.
 
Originally posted by Jack Hammer
BS

they released a lot less records too ( i heard up to 25% less) and that is the real reason. i admit some of it may have to do with online piracy though.
Click to expand...

Odd thing, when Napster was shut down, CD sales in areas around colleges actually decreased.
And, as Jack Hammer and Chevy have pointed out less music was released. How much that is crap? A lot. They just don't get it: people won't buy CDs that are 75+% crap.

Then there is that little matter of a recession and money being tight.
 
Markets are filled with sh!tty music, if this can still be called music. Even King Crimson has problems to finance their own albums, whereas Billy Crawford or f***ing Britney Spears can spit in a microphone and make billions bucks from it.
::evil:: ::evil:: ::evil:: I'll buy my music when producers will decide to commercialize somthing that sounds like music !

You have noticed one thing: since piracy has increased, producers are looking for ways to make a commercial CD better than a home-burnt CD. thsi solution is called 'digipack': it consists in far more dense booklets, photographs, nicer covers, some nice elegant pack with the CD...

In economic terms, this is called added value (well, in French, 'plus-value'). It is a consequence of piracy. Piracy is bettering the CD offer, to motivate demand. Piracy is not only bad for the CD industry, on the long term I mean. Also, some CD producers are looking forward to help vynil producers to transpose some of their stuff on CDs. Yes, there are bright sides to piracy !

I repeat that the guys who are looking for a way to protect music from the people who can't throw huge sums of money into an album are regressive, 'missing-the-boat' people. They should understand this type of defense never works in terms of marketing.
 
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