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View Full Version : Sony Still Doesn't Get It With New CD Protection Scheme


Ed Hansberry
11-17-2003, 12:00 AM
<a href="http://money.cnn.com/2003/11/10/technology/sony.reut/index.htm">http://money.cnn.com/2003/11/10/technology/sony.reut/index.htm</a><br /><br />"Sony Music, home to such artists as Beyonce Knowles and Bruce Springsteen, said Monday it plans to introduce new CD technology in Germany that prevents users from copying songs to file-sharing sites, but allows them to make copies for their personal use."<br /><br />Sounds OK so far, but here, the devil is in the details. :devilboy: Some new CDs will contain "a compressed digital copy of the music that can be quickly copied onto any computer. From the computer, users can copy that music onto Sony portable digital music players."<br /><br />That's right. I'm sure the music is in some proprietary scheme that will require Sony software to play that will then allow transfer to Sony devices. I think not! One of the artists Sony is going to try this with is Tori Amos. I have every CD she has released in the US (well, not the ill fated "Y Kant Tori Read" before she figured out what she was good at) and some that were not released here. If her new CD is protected in this manner, it will be one CD I'll skip.<br /><br />The solution to prevent copying lies in pricing. Any proprietary scheme that only allows copying/burning/playing within specific constraints is doomed to fail simply because in 5, 10 or 15 years, that software will no longer be available. I still enjoy listening to some of my first CDs and have even repurchased some tapes in CD format. 95% of what I listen to is either on my PC or Pocket PC. I'm not gambling $15 on music that may essentially expire on me in a few years when the copy protection scheme du jour is abandoned in favor of something else.

SandersP
11-17-2003, 12:04 AM
I'll give the web 11 minutes to crack the protection scheme after the release. :roll:

hashish
11-17-2003, 12:05 AM
I am sure Sony get it.

They just don't care; or believe that the consumers don't care.

Your reasoning is right about not buying it; but someone will break the copy protection because by releasing it they are offering a challenge.

dean_shan
11-17-2003, 12:07 AM
This is doomed to fail because not everyone uses a Sony music player. And as Ed said, "What about PPC?".

Spiral
11-17-2003, 12:09 AM
There's pretty much no way to stop you from taking a recording from the output jack of a cd player. It's a bit of a nuisance, but I did it with one of my Avex cd-protected cd's just so I could listen to it through winamp on my whole playlist rather than their crappy propriety player that comes on the cd.

ctmagnus
11-17-2003, 12:37 AM
:confused totally:

Of course Sony gets it.

$$$$$$$$$$

Jereboam
11-17-2003, 02:10 AM
There is nothing that annoys me more than the restriction of choice. I take my digital music quite seriously, and this sort of behaviour takes away all the enjoyment of music, to the point (as Ed said above) where I will walk away from artists and record labels who employ these techniques.

Having pre-encoded digital music foisted on me by Sony is a big nono. For starters, it will undoubtedly be in some weirdo low-bitrate format that will be completely unacceptable even for casual listening. Will I be able to tag it correctly? Will any third party programs play it? Will it play on my iPod? And how much space are they taking away from the CD tracks themselves? Will the quality of the actual CD suffer because they've had to jam compressed copies on it too?

I suspect that only allowing it to be played on Sony players will be cutting it close to the legal wind, though? Maybe they will see sense and drop this nonsense before they've even started.

J'bm

Floodguy
11-17-2003, 03:02 AM
All Sony Vaio includes a software piece called "SonicStage".
This software allows the user to convert audio cds to the following output formats: ATRAC, ATRAC+, PCM and WMA. MP3 supported only for importing. If one has a SONY Digital- or Network(MD) player the software also can arrange Playlist and copy them directly to the device (MD, MemoryStick, RAM). If not, you have to copy your files manually to the device. :?
I have one of this stupid protected CD (my wife bought it by mistake cause she didn't know this) and you can copy it over to your SONY Player and to ant other WMA supported player, but I'm not able to make copy the CD itself. :cry:
Yes, and I agree with you all too, it a price question! To expensive!
:D

heov
11-17-2003, 03:02 AM
but doesn't itunes music store have similar constraints? it seems to be well... really well actually.

Ed Hansberry
11-17-2003, 03:49 AM
but doesn't itunes music store have similar constraints? it seems to be well... really well actually.
I think iTunes allows CD burning, which then allows ripping. :?:

ethancaine
11-17-2003, 03:55 AM
Here's a novel idea... and I've looked but have been unable to find this information. :?

Can anyone find the purchase price distribution for the average CD?

I mean, the average CD costs what, $15? How much of that is going to who? :confused totally:

Without knowing that, I don't think you can honestly suggest that CDs are priced too high. :takethat:

I am not defending copy-protection or overpricing, I just want to know where the profit is going so we can decide what is acceptable. :soapbox:

szamot
11-17-2003, 04:18 AM
I have said this more than once, but I will say it again. I always had and always will dislike SONY and all their proprietary schemes. They are the Wal-Mart of electronic industry, in my view, and there are better alternatives to the, in my opinion, trash they produce. Perhaps the reason why Sony is almost broke is because they spend too much time, money and effort on nuisance like this copy protection, memory stick, BetaMAX and other garbage. Nice try Sony, now get a life.:pukeface:

bkerrins
11-17-2003, 04:25 AM
As soon as Sony introduced the memory stick I gave up on them. It's more expensive than CF or SD cards, takes up a bigger footprint and it doesn't work with anyone else. I like Walmart...they carry everything at a fair price and help out the community. Sony doesn't work with anyone and I haven't heard about any of their community programs.

szamot
11-17-2003, 04:29 AM
As soon as Sony introduced the memory stick I gave up on them. It's more expensive than CF or SD cards, takes up a bigger footprint and it doesn't work with anyone else. I like Walmart...they carry everything at a fair price and help out the community. Sony doesn't work with anyone and I haven't heard about any of their community programs.

Sorry when I said Wal-Mart I meant mediocre, common, ordinary.

lapchinj
11-17-2003, 04:51 AM
...Any proprietary scheme that only allows copying/burning/playing within specific constraints is doomed to fail simply because in 5, 10 or 15 years, that software will no longer be available....I'm not gambling $15 on music that may essentially expire on me in a few years when the copy protection scheme du jour is abandoned in favor of something else.

I second that emotion. :evil: At the rate that software and hardware bugs and incompatibilities pop up and cracks get posted to some web site I don't give it a year before we hear of people having problems with music they bought the year before. It'll be a real nightmare. You'll see sony doing a song and dance for us while trying stem the tide of hacks and cracks and the failure of their own software which was, is and will always be flawed since no software is perfect. Like the dog that chases its tail. There will always be a patch for some hack and a hack for the newest patch. I wouldn't give a dime for a sony CD - unless it was blank.

Jeff -

dean_shan
11-17-2003, 05:09 AM
but doesn't itunes music store have similar constraints? it seems to be well... really well actually.
I think iTunes allows CD burning, which then allows ripping. :?:

Yes you are correct. When ever I buy somthing from them I always burn it then rip it to MP3.

garrans
11-17-2003, 06:18 AM
Can you guys help me understand a couple of things ?

a) When you download a song from iTunes, is it digitally watermarked with your user info ?

b) Help me understand how a regular CD player can play a Copyright protected CD, but it can't be read & copied by a CD Player like MusicMatch ?

Thanks
Steve.

marlof
11-17-2003, 07:21 AM
When ever I buy somthing from them I always burn it then rip it to MP3.

Do you experience any loss in quality? After all, you're going from a compressed (AAC) format to CD, and then recompress in MP3. It's the one thing I'd do if I could access the iTunes Music Store (not available in my country yet), and I was wondering about that.

So far I've been able to bypass many copy protected CDs by reading them in my iBook, which usually is able to rip song 2 and further. Only the first song has problems. This I copy by connecting my iBook to my stereo set, and make an analogue copy. A hassle, but it works. The quality of the MP3s that come from this is good enough for me.

All in all I try to avoid any copyright protected music as much as I can. Not because I believe in P2P sharing, but because I believe in my right to make a copy for my own personal use. I own hundreds of CDs, and they all go with me on my iPod, and some go with me on my Pocket PC.

ChristopherTD
11-17-2003, 10:38 AM
As I understand it the Apple iTunes songs are encoded at 128bps AAC which on the surface seems fairly low. However two things seem to make it superior, one is that whereever possible Apple have gone to original masters for their encoding so they have more data to compress in the first place, and they use a sophisticated compression method that takes a long time to process each track to ensure best quality.

This is all second-hand, I can't verify this as iTunes Music Store is not in Europe yet.

So I guess a CD burned from purchased songs would be reasonable quailty.

ChristopherTD
11-17-2003, 10:57 AM
I still enjoy listening to some of my first CDs and have even repurchased some tapes in CD format. 95% of what I listen to is either on my PC or Pocket PC. I'm not gambling $15 on music that may essentially expire on me in a few years when the copy protection scheme du jour is abandoned in favor of something else.

Unfortunately some of the earliest CDs that I purchased have died. The label has worn off in places and the CD laser can no longer focus. I have used EAC/Lame to extract most of the tracks from the damaged CDs and they are now in MP3 files that I can archive safely and listen to on my iPod. My CD player died 2 years ago and I have never replaced it, my iPod has taken its place. These ever more bizarre copy protection schemes are a worry, especially the ones that install blocking software on your PC without asking or telling you.

I have spent a lot of money on CDs, and my spending has increased four fold since I got the iPod because I can now listen to the music on the move, in the car or anywhere in the home. Copy protection, as always, only harms the legitimate purchaser. My purchasing is set to dwindle again!

Jereboam
11-17-2003, 11:52 AM
iTunes Music Store - I think the DRM scheme they employ is actually quite appropriately named Fair Play.

The deal is -

A playlist can be burned no more that 10 times. But change the playlist and you can burn it another 10 times. And so on. Not much of a limit.

Your music can only be used on three computers simultaneously. But in iTunes there is a menu option to deauthorize a specific computer. So if you upgrade, change computers or whatever you can deauthourize that machine and authorize another. Fine by me.

You can transfer the tracks to as many iPods as you like. You can stream them locally or over http.

All in all, I have to say this is pretty unobtrusive DRM and the only people it is going to bother are fileswappers. Honestly speaking I can't see anyone else who should be bothered by this constraint.

Of course, you are also limited to using iTunes itself as your jukebox and playing software. But having used iTunes for a while now, on XP, I have to say that I am hooked - it truly is a very decent piece of software, and you can't beat the price.

The only thing that would prevent me from buying iTunes Music Store tracks is that they are encoded at 128Kbps AAC. For me, this in insufficent. I use good headphones/speakers and I am unsatisfied with this bitrate, I can definitely hear compression artifacts and they sound pretty tinny/flat - which is a nono in the long term - once I have bought a CD, I can rip (most of them) copies of them to FLAC/Monkey's Audio for archiving, and can be pretty sure that I will be able to transcode/re-encode these tracks for my listening enjoyment, at high quality, in the years to come.

I would like to see a premium service at iTunes MS which would allow a user-selectable bitrate. But I guess the business model is still developing.

J'bm

ChristopherTD
11-17-2003, 12:22 PM
The only thing that would prevent me from buying iTunes Music Store tracks is that they are encoded at 128Kbps AAC. For me, this in insufficent. I use good headphones/speakers and I am unsatisfied with this bitrate, I can definitely hear compression artifacts and they sound pretty tinny/flat

Have you been able to listen to tracks from the Music Store? I am sceptical that 128 AAC is enough, but many users have reported that the quality is much better than ripping themselves at 128. Certainly I notice a difference between 128 and 192 when I rip my own CDs, but I would be interested to hear how iTMS tracks actually sound at 128.

qmrq
11-17-2003, 04:22 PM
Here's a novel idea... and I've looked but have been unable to find this information. :?

Can anyone find the purchase price distribution for the average CD?

I mean, the average CD costs what, $15? How much of that is going to who? :confused totally:

Without knowing that, I don't think you can honestly suggest that CDs are priced too high. :takethat:

I am not defending copy-protection or overpricing, I just want to know where the profit is going so we can decide what is acceptable. :soapbox:
Not much of it goes to the artist... another reason to get all your music from cdbaby.com (http://www.cdbaby.com/)! 8)

qmrq
11-17-2003, 04:23 PM
The solution to prevent copying lies in pricing. Any proprietary scheme that only allows copying/burning/playing within specific constraints is doomed to fail simply because in 5, 10 or 15 years, that software will no longer be available. I still enjoy listening to some of my first CDs and have even repurchased some tapes in CD format. 95% of what I listen to is either on my PC or Pocket PC. I'm not gambling $15 on music that may essentially expire on me in a few years when the copy protection scheme du jour is abandoned in favor of something else.
Do you have the new version of Microsoft Reader installed and 'activated' Ed?

Ed Hansberry
11-17-2003, 04:57 PM
Do you have the new version of Microsoft Reader installed and 'activated' Ed?
Nope. Same reason. I use Palm Reader.

AndrewLubinus89
11-17-2003, 05:12 PM
but doesn't itunes music store have similar constraints? it seems to be well... really well actually.
I think iTunes allows CD burning, which then allows ripping. :?:
Yeah, I bought some songs from Itunes burnt them to a cd and then ripped them to mp3, inconvenient but not bad.

Paul P
11-17-2003, 06:10 PM
You can't really blame these companies for doing this. They're desparate. Music is being stolen on a massive scale. Unfortunately, people who actually buy music are the ones paying the price.

xendula
11-17-2003, 06:23 PM
I think Sony is going to get away with it this time, because

a) without trying to be fresh or something, people who listen to T. Amos are not the youngest ones any more, so most of the people purchasing her CDs might never notice the copy protection on it. She is not very big over here - so maybe this is why they picked her instead of some techno or hip hop group.

b) I think that most people over here don't even know that they have to look very closely at the back of the CD cover, where hints about copy protection are almost hidden, to make sure they can even play the respective CD on their computers.

So, I think that they will sell that CD just fine, except, of course, if their copy portection is so messed up that the CD won't play in older CD players. It happened before - or, rather, it's happening right now with some CDs available on the German market - and people are taking them back to the store to get their money back, but the question is whether they are ever being told that the CD producers purposely corrupted the CDs, so that they know what to avoid in the future.

dean_shan
11-17-2003, 07:00 PM
When ever I buy somthing from them I always burn it then rip it to MP3.

Do you experience any loss in quality? After all, you're going from a compressed (AAC) format to CD, and then recompress in MP3.

I can't really tell I difference. Although if the iTunes store did not allow CD burning I would never use them at all. That is a must so you can put it in MP3 form and play it in cars and what not.

tmulli
11-17-2003, 07:43 PM
Can anyone find the purchase price distribution for the average CD?

The cost to produce the actual physical disc is ~2-3 cents. The profit realized by the artist depends on their status (popularity, market-ability, clout, etc) and negotiating ability of either themselves or managers, ~.10-1.00 per album sold (just a guesstimate, there was an aritcle I read that broke down all the costs back when the whole music thing broke out, but can't rememebr the exact figures). The rest is pure profit for the record companies minus marketing costs.

This whole situation sickens me. With the wide spread reach of the internet, the music companies' role in music distribution needs to change to accommodate and reflect this new reality, not try to surpress it. It's 6 or 7 greedy CEOs against billions of consumers. How do they think they will win? With copy protection schemes? That's analogous to telling your kid they cannot do something because you said so; the moment you look away they immediately proceed to do it. Wake up!! :twak:

(Rant over...)

PPCRules
11-17-2003, 08:15 PM
... to the point (as Ed said above) where I will walk away from artists and record labels who employ these techniques.
It really is that simple.

This kind of decision, to add flawed protection schemes, is based on maximizing profits. The producer's are assuming they will make more money on these than on unprotected discs. If, due to consumer resistance, they make less, it will stop immediately.

So the key is an educated public. People need to be made aware they are buying a protected disc, so they have the opportunity to choose not to buy it. The internet is the great venue for making available this info about which discs are protected. Does anyone here know where that info is at?

The main problem I see is that too much of the public is fixated on artists (loose use of the term), as opposed to the music, so they are complelled to buy everything released in that artist's name without regard to anything else. I'm afraid not enough people will walk away. But they at least need to be informed and have the information available to make an informed decision.

davidm
11-17-2003, 10:42 PM
Can anyone find the purchase price distribution for the average CD?

The cost to produce the actual physical disc is ~2-3 cents. The profit realized by the artist depends on their status (popularity, market-ability, clout, etc) and negotiating ability of either themselves or managers, ~.10-1.00 per album sold (just a guesstimate, there was an aritcle I read that broke down all the costs back when the whole music thing broke out, but can't rememebr the exact figures). The rest is pure profit for the record companies minus marketing costs.



Of course, this is the incremental cost. Software incremetnal production costs are similar, yet no one seems to complain about the copy restrictions placed in software (except to some extreme forms of activtation). How much is too much money? Who is to decide? Are CEO's overpaid? Are artists overpaid? Are programmers overpaid?

In my view, pricing is relevant only when the cost of the alternative is sufficiently less to entice someone to undertake the alternative. Most likely the pricing that would deter the alternative is unacceptably low.

As I see it, the impetus is our very strong copyright protection laws. They are strong enough to include criminal penalties. You do not have that in patent law. The copyright lobby has over the years convinced Congress to enact very strong laws, including the DRMillenium Act. These laws encourage the copyright holders to do everything they are doing, because the payoff can be huge. My vote, dilute the copyright protections, and you will see a lot more effort to accommodate the market demand.

Dave

Also in my view,

PetiteFlower
11-18-2003, 12:03 AM
The record stores take in a decent chunk of the profit as well. I don't think the rest is PURE profit for the record companies, as the production costs and marketing costs are pretty sizable(production includes putting the album package together and the cost to use the recording studio and do all the mixing etc etc etc, not just the actual cost to press the CD), but the artists get very little. I saw on Behind the Music a while back that when the group TLC was first starting out, they got 8 "points" off every CD, which I believe translated to 8 cents for every dollar.

Unless you're dealing with someone like Ani DiFranco, who does all her own production and owns her own label, very little of CD sales actually go to the artist. If you want to support your favorite artist, you are much better off buying concert tickets then CDs, since they get to see a lot more of the money for those.

Jereboam
11-18-2003, 12:46 AM
The only thing that would prevent me from buying iTunes Music Store tracks is that they are encoded at 128Kbps AAC. For me, this in insufficent. I use good headphones/speakers and I am unsatisfied with this bitrate, I can definitely hear compression artifacts and they sound pretty tinny/flat

Have you been able to listen to tracks from the Music Store? I am sceptical that 128 AAC is enough, but many users have reported that the quality is much better than ripping themselves at 128. Certainly I notice a difference between 128 and 192 when I rip my own CDs, but I would be interested to hear how iTMS tracks actually sound at 128.

[grizzle mode]

No, I haven't, because like 6,037,941,243 other people I don't live in the United States. Granted, I don't think all six billion of us have iPods but Apple have quite seriously annoyed their international user base with this...and not the first time either. Apparently the expensive .Mac accounts that are much pumped by Apple are virtually useless outside the US too. So come on, lay the rumours to rest and tell us when iTMS is coming to the rest of us, Apple.

[/grizzle mode]

Apparently most iTMS tracks are encoded from studio masters, and also using the Quicktime Pro AAC encoder rather than the iTunes AAC encoder. The encoder is actually the same - but the difference in encoder front end will certainly make a difference as Quicktime Pro gives more options for controlling quality. It is being said that iTMS tracks are encoded with the Best setting, rather than the Better setting which is default (and unchangeable) in iTunes. This is independent to selecting the bitrate.

So yes, I can believe that tracks downloaded from iTMS will sound pretty good and certainly better than homegrown 128 AAC - will it be enough to satisfy my ears? Dunno, we're all different, but when it does get to Europe or at least the UK I'll be there to give it a whirl. I like the business model, the interface and I lurve my iPod.

J'bm

theone3
11-18-2003, 01:12 AM
Isn't the answer simple? Buy one of those $15 CD players, attach it to your microphone port and record away :)

I'd like to see copy protection get past that ;)

Viva OGG!

wigglesworth
11-18-2003, 01:59 AM
I bought Iron Maidens "Dance of Death" album and it was copyright protected. I wasn't able to burn it to musicmatch.

Later I found an article on MSN on how to disable the copyright protection on the cd.

I beleive I still have the full article somewhere that I could post the link if anyone is intereted in this.

What I had to do was, as soon as the cd was inseted into the computer I had to hold the shift key down, this disabled the auto play, from there I was able to go into my musicmatch and copy the cd to my hard drive.

Does anyone know if this would work for the sony protected cd's as well?

qmrq
11-18-2003, 02:34 AM
Nope. Same reason. I use Palm Reader.
Ah, alright. I could not remember who among the editors used MS Reader.

qmrq
11-18-2003, 02:39 AM
ethancaine wrote:
Can anyone find the purchase price distribution for the average CD?

It's around $2-3, depending on what kind of colors are on the inserts and CD itself. That doesn't cover such things as studio time, travel time, etc if necessary.

dean_shan
11-18-2003, 02:53 AM
Can anyone find the purchase price distribution for the average CD?


It's not a CD but here is the cost for iTunes Music.

Jobs has one more reason not to be concerned about the competition. "The dirty little secret of all this is there's no way to make money on these stores," he says. For every 99¢ Apple gets from your credit card, 65¢ goes straight to the music label. Another quarter or so gets eaten up by distribution costs. At most, Jobs is left with a dime per track, so even $500 million in annual sales would add up to a paltry $50 million profit. Why even bother? "Because we're selling iPods," Jobs says, grinning.

Ed Hansberry
11-18-2003, 05:37 AM
What I had to do was, as soon as the cd was inseted into the computer I had to hold the shift key down, this disabled the auto play, from there I was able to go into my musicmatch and copy the cd to my hard drive.

Does anyone know if this would work for the sony protected cd's as well?
No. That is another copy protection method I think I made fun of a month or so ago. :lol:

ethancaine
11-19-2003, 02:06 AM
It's around $2-3, depending on what kind of colors are on the inserts and CD itself. That doesn't cover such things as studio time, travel time, etc if necessary.

I remeber reading an article back in 1995 when Metallica and Electra Records were sueing the pants off each other...

Metallica (as a group) got $1.00 per CD sold to split amongst the four members. That dollar also had to pay the groups manager, unsponsored music equipment, and any studio time beyond what Electra paid for (which was an absurdly few amount of hours, according to Lars Ulrich). The key to any artist surviving is the touring scene where they have to pay for everything but national press, but also get to keep up to 80% of the ticket price.

So my point goes to this... CDs would still turn a profit at a much lower cost. Much of the cost lies with the retailer, also. As a USAF servicemember, I can buy any single-disc album for 12.95 or less, yet SAM GOODY may sell that same CD for 22.95. My on-base store turns hugh profits (which it then turns over to the Morale, Welfare, and Recreation fund). So if AAFES is turning a profit at 12.95, someone's making an absolute killing at 22.95... and it's not the artist.

Another example:

Eminem made like 52 mil last year, most of which due to producing 50cent as a Shady Records artist and touring. His multi platinum album came up as about 15% of his income. (As per my memory of a VHI documentary.)

Artists should wise up and stick to tours and producing their own albums at the concerts and on their websites for cheap... Share all you want, we'll tour more.

dean_shan
11-19-2003, 06:50 AM
Well put ethancaine. :clap:

Rob Alexander
11-21-2003, 08:29 PM
...Any proprietary scheme that only allows copying/burning/playing within specific constraints is doomed to fail simply because in 5, 10 or 15 years, that software will no longer be available....I'm not gambling $15 on music that may essentially expire on me in a few years when the copy protection scheme du jour is abandoned in favor of something else.

:soapbox:

This is exactly the reason I object to software activation, and I can't understand why everyone thinks that's okay while this is terrible. I know it seems like there will never be a world without Windows or Word or whatever, but you don't really know that. We'd have once said the same thing about Lotus 1-2-3, Ashton-Tate dBase, WordStar, etc. Can you imagine if you had some serious work you'd done in one of those programs that you needed to get to, and if they still required 'permission' of the company to use? Try it... call the Lotus division of IBM and tell them you have a legitimate copy of 1-2-3 v2.0 which was copy protected. And tell them that your hard disk crashed and you need to get a new copy that will let you install it again. See how far you get. It's exactly the same situation as with the music. You're buying the perpetual right to use the intellectual property and no protection scheme can guarantee than you'll actually be able to use it perpetually.

Now, thanks to everyone laying down and taking it from Microsoft, all the other big companies have started their own activation schemes. And they're not all as 'generous' as MS's. (Here's a prediction... MS's won't be so generous for long either. Now that they've gotten us to buy into the idea, they'll tighten up the rules.) Adobe has just released their first activated product (Photoshop CS) and the rest of their line will follow. And they don't give you four installs and six-month resets like MS. Two installs and that's it... for good (unless you call and grovel and explain and finally talk someone into begrudgingly letting you use what you paid for). And what happens if they disappear someday? In their FAQ, they say if they ever go out of business, they'll simply tell their servers to reactivate everything. Now how stupid are we all? If they go out of business, they won't have any more servers and we'll be screwed.

So while I applaud Ed's position on protected CD's, I would still ask you all to consider why you so blindly support the same type of protection on software. Just as with the music, it's not about wanting to steal something (i.e. any honest user shouldn't care). It's about knowing that you'll have access to the product of your own labor (stored in a company's proprietary file format) for the rest of your life... not just until they decide it's been long enough. Computer software purchasers worked long and hard to defeat copy protection the first time. It really ticks me off that we've just handed it back to them on a golden platter.

P.S. MS always said we were paying higher prices because of piracy. Hands up anyone whose seen MS's prices fall since product activation went into effect.