Sony's Death Grip [Archive] - Thoughts Media Forums

Ed Hansberry

12-03-2002, 01:00 PM

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.fool.com/News/Foth/2002/foth021202.htm' target='_blank'>http://www.fool.com/News/Foth/2002/foth021202.htm</a> </div>In an unprecedented effort to bring their consumers frustration levels to new heights, Sony is readying a CD protection scheme (<a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=scheme">see definition #2</a>) that is sure to drive the peer-to-peer software usage to all corners of the globe. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/hansberry/2002/20021203-sonyanger.gif" /> They call it Label Gate. Label Gate.... Label Gate, Magic Gate, Watergate, Travel Gate, whatever. A bunch of guys sitting in a back room sucking on stogies planning to fatten their wallets through the unconscionable use of power over others. Ok, that may be over the top. Watergate probably doesn't belong in this group. :wink: How does Label Gate work? Every track on the CD is encoded. Supposedly this doesn't affect normal CD players, but computers won't be able to play or rip any tracks - well, not without Sony's proprietary software. (Do you ever see the word "Sony" with "proprietary" not being far behind? :? ) Just install this software on your Windows based PC. Sorry Apple and Linux users. You're out of luck. So, install the software, register with Sony and you can decode the tracks to your PC. Once. ONCE! For the incredibly low price of $1.64 each. Each track that is, so figure about $20 per 12 track CD that you have already paid $15 for from the store. And if you get a new PC, or somehow lose your music? Well, Sony has you covered. You simply re-rip it... at the special deal of $1.64 per track, or you can bulk purchase 10 tracks for $16.40. What a sweetheart deal! <!> I can tell you one thing - there won't be any Label Gate CDs in my house, car or office. I used Napster for a few months and Kazaa a few months after that but removed it after spyware/adware was introduced. I sampled quite a bit of stuff and wound up buying about 7-8 CDs I would have never bothered with and deleted what I didn't purchase. If any of my favorite artists show up with this Label Gate junk, I'll probably buy a cheap $500 PC, load Kazaa and all the popups that come with it and wait for the music to be copied, 'cause it will be copied. Then I'll buy the CD so the artist gets their $1 per CD and throw it in the trash before I leave the mall.

Russ Smith

12-03-2002, 01:16 PM

Unfortunately, the Lable Lobby seems to be louder than the user lobby. This kind of stuff flies exactly in the face of the "intellectual property" argument the lables use to explain why you pay $20 for a CD that costs $0.52 to make (an argument I happen to agree with). The problem is, if you're paying for the property, you should have the right to freely change it's medium as long as you don't sell it (or really even give it away) to someone else. The technology already exists to make the lables nearly obsolete. I wonder when the confluence of Internet prevasiveness and fed-up-with-the-Lable-ness will reach the point where it becomes common for artists to bypass the lables entirely. (Some already do.)

renz

12-03-2002, 01:16 PM

DRM will never work. If the music is presented to the user on a computer in an unencrypted format (e.g. by letting the user play the song on your propriatary player) there will be somebody who figures out a way to hack it. Simple as that. The funny thing is ... it will happen just because it´s a challange.

Untill then ... no more SONY CDs for me, thak you very much. :wink:

sesummers

12-03-2002, 01:27 PM

If I can hear the music on my stereo, I can feed it back into the input jack of my sound card, and re-digitize it. Once I've done that, I have an unprotected MP3. Unless they outlaw that technology (and somehow enforce it- are they going to put 50 million of us in prison?), all Sony will be able to do is piss people off enough to feel justified in passing those unprotected MP3s to all their friends- all 50 million friends. They may think they "have the power", but the real strength is in numbers- the numbers of consumers who might not bother to "demand" their fair use rights, but will take them anyway, one way or another.

Brad Adrian

12-03-2002, 01:45 PM

The article makes some points about why people want to trade songs; the high cost associated with buying a CD that may have only one or two "good" songs on it could be one major reason. I've always contended that if the record companies made it easy for me to pick and choose the songs that are put onto a CD, I'd pay considerably more for that CD. If I could put 12 songs that I really wanted onto a CD, I'd gladly pay $2 per song.

rlobrecht

12-03-2002, 02:07 PM

jayman

12-03-2002, 02:07 PM

I might run a book on how quickly it gets hacked!

No, sorry, thats stupid thinking -
it'll have been hacked before it's official release date!

Jayman

Kre

12-03-2002, 02:09 PM

Boy, I have to hand it to ya, Ed. If there's any thread that's gonna challenge the record for number of posts, in my mind, this has to be it.

Sony just burns me up. :evil: What are these people thinking??!!!?? It's like they're on a pilgrimage to tick off as many people as they can. No one is going to pay that kind of money just to burn a stupid CD. All this is, is greed. Another way to line their pockets with more gold. The only trouble here is that Sony is too retarded to realize that consumers AREN'T retarded.

I'm all for paying for an artists work, but these Sony suits are nothin' but con-artists with nice clothes. As long as a consumer is purchasing the CD and not turning around and making money off of it or advertising it, it belongs to the consumer to do whatever they please with it.

I say be honest and buy the music, but as far as this stupid-copy protection scheme is concerned, I say rip, shred, burn, or whatever you want to call it, and do whatever it takes to get around this. I will NEVER pay for this.

All Sony has done here is piss everyone off. If anyone has any reason to engage in peer to peer music sharing, this is the log that's gonna make the fire really go. If anyone had any problems with sharing music, Sony just made sure they don't anymore. I may not figure out how to get around this scheme, but someone will. And I have absolutely no guilt in using whatever tools will be available to me to bypass this Sony stupidity. Just because you find a way to make money off of something, doesn't mean you're justified in doing so. I mean, do the artists get a percentage of this new profit stream? I don't think so. Like these Sony suits don't have enough money already. No honor among thieves. I have to think that this is where the fight really begins.

Sony: You just got yourself a war.

that_kid

12-03-2002, 02:09 PM

Well that's the great thing about analogue, I can play the cd back in my studio cd player(which even has a digital out that bypasses DRM) and input the sound into my mixer while preserving the sound :D. It's funny how these companies think they can put a stronghold on people to make them do what they want :evil: . It only takes 1 copy of that "Un-Rippable" cd to hit the net and then it's all over.

Adam

12-03-2002, 02:09 PM

Then I'll buy the CD so the artist gets their $1 per CD and throw it in the trash before I leave the mall.

Rather than buying the CD and funding Sony's largesse, you could just send the money directly to the artist involved,... :?:

Kirkaiya

12-03-2002, 02:17 PM

I'm curious about whether Sony's proposed format for the music (encrypted music files) will conform to the "Red Book" - the set of standards issued by Phillips, the original creator of the Compact Disc (CD) format.

Other protection schemes, such as introducing errors on the disc, have in large part failed because they did not conform to these "standards", and therefore some regular (not in a PC) CD-players couldn't play them either, and then Phillips announced that they would incorporate the tech to play them into the CD-players they make for computers.

As someone pointed out, one workaround is to take the decoded analog audio stream from the CD player, and route it directly into your audio card, and re-encode it - but this is not ideal, since the analog->digital and compression will result in loss of fidelity. (well, all compressed audio has a loss of fidelity, but the conversion from Digital to Analog and back to Digital will add further degrade it).

What I don't quite "get" is that, if the music is encrypted, how will normal stereo CD players play it? Or is the encryption something really subtle, using the difference between "normal" CD players and CD-ROM drives, so that the raw digital-audio stream, though encrypted, still sounds the same? (I'm very curious about the details).

If the latter is the case, then Phillips could again swat down Sony by releasing CD-ROM drives that act like normal stereo CD players, giving the PC (by which I mean all PCs, not just MSFT) access to the digital stream prior to D/A conversion.

Also, Phillips *could* withhold licensing the "CD Compact Disc" license (essentially just the right to use the label and logo), which wouldn't really hurt Sony much.

I suspect that whoever mentioned the hackers is correct - the very lack of support on Linux means that somebody will hack the encryption, or the format, and we can all get free "Sony Rippers" (memories of DivX dancing in my sleep :-) )

You know - these big record-selling companies don't seem to really "get it" - despite some toe-in-the-water attempts (PressPlay, and the other "legal" downloading site owned by the labels), these companies are trying to hold onto a distribution model in which data (music) is digitally encoded, sent to a factory, stamped onto plastic disks shrink-wrapped, driven in trucks to a store, where people are supposed to buy them, drive them home, and put them into their players. (I'm sort of paraphrasing Gates there, I think).

When 15% of the country (the U.S., not sure about our northern neighbors) has broadband, and another 15% set to get it in the next couple of years, this model is like the old ice-delivery-man, driving around with blocks of ice, when electricity started becoming available... I'm starting to agree that these labels better figure out the online distribution model, or they're going to be extinct.

Paul

12-03-2002, 03:07 PM

How can this system possibly have a future???

that_kid

12-03-2002, 03:20 PM

I won't have a future, it actually reminds me of the latest IBM commericials feturing some dumb Business Execs I wonder if they are talking about those people at sony music............

lar3ry

12-03-2002, 03:22 PM

Daniel

12-03-2002, 03:25 PM

I'm curious about whether Sony's proposed format for the music (encrypted music files) will conform to the "Red Book" - the set of standards issued by Phillips, the original creator of the Compact Disc (CD) format.

Apparently yhtese "CDs" will not be marked as such. They will not confirm to any standard and will therefore not display the CD label we all know and love.

Sony bites. What more is there to say? They seem to have enough money to come up with amazing hardware (Aibo for example) but still want to make life difficult for honest people on principle. I have a Mac, I don't own a stereo, I buy all my music, I have never used any P2P network for music. So this new LabelGate (CustomerGate perhaps) means that I cannot enjoy the music of artists that I like (who are on the sony label) WITHOUT breaking the law. What's up with that? Sony make great stuff but I will never buy a LabelGate CD (deliberately) or any other Sony product while they continue to suck so much.

Daniel

Kre

12-03-2002, 03:32 PM

When 15% of the country (the U.S., not sure about our northern neighbors) has broadband, and another 15% set to get it in the next couple of years, this model is like the old ice-delivery-man, driving around with blocks of ice, when electricity started becoming available... I'm starting to agree that these labels better figure out the online distribution model, or they're going to be extinct.

Yeah, tell me about it. Labels are absolutely going to have to figure out a whole new business model from the ground up. The time has come where people won't put up with these old ideas anymore. They're going to have to share the wealth whether they like it or not. Artists are going to have to gain more, and so are the consumers.

I don't want to pay for a CD with three great songs and the other seven, crap. I want to buy individual songs - just the ones that I like. This would not only increase business for the labels and artists IMO, but it will put pressure on these people to begin coming out with more good material if they want to get paid.

I would pay up to $2 for each GOOD song - no more than that, though. And that would be a deal for both consumer and artist/label. I get only the songs that I want, and downloading makes money for the labels because now they don't have to manufacture CD's - consumers would just rip their own and download jacket art and lyrics if they wanted to as well. Labels would only have to deal with downloadable data. Could you imagine the reduction in overhead and the increased profit margins if what labels put out was distributed only through the internet instead of, or in addition to CD's, and people could just rip their own CD's? Devices in addition to computers could be made to make this really easy and automated. Buy only the songs you want, download them, put in a blank CD-R or CD-RW, and rip away. Large numbers of people would just cease purchasing pre-recorded CD's altogether and only use the internet to purchase and obtain their music. Going into a store to buy a CD would, to many, seem like an ancient method of buying music.

The internet is clearly the wave of the future for buying music. The labels are very slow in figuring this out. But for this to really work, they're going to have to realize that people will also have to have the option to choose only the songs they want - not force them to buy an entire CD where 75% of it's going to be rubbish.

The labels just don't understand how much they would gain if they just allowed people to download their music, and only the songs they want, and then let them download it to their own mp3 player or pocket pc or computer as many times as they want to. This would revolutionize the music industry by breathing life back into it. They want sluggish sales to go away? This is how to do it.

SofaTater

12-03-2002, 03:44 PM

It's time for people to start voting against the record labels -- by voting with our wallets. When they start boneheaded attempts like this to milk more money from the consumers, it's time to stop giving them any money at all. CDs are already, in my opinion, overpriced. Particuarly, as others have mentioned, when some have two or three good songs and are filled out with so much bland music.

We produced a CD and cassette for charity a few years ago using a local production company. They actually charged us more for the cassettes because the raw stock and the production process cost more. So why are CDs priced higher (even adjusted for inflation) than cassettes and LPs did when they were popular? I remember that about ten years ago or so some Congressional committee was looking into whether the record companies were ripping off consumers with too-high prices on CDs. I never heard any more about this -- guess the soft money put a stop to that...

There are plenty of studies that support the idea that music file swapping actually promotes the purchasing of CDs by lesser-known artists. The record company execs are just too greedy to take an objective look at the facts and realize that they are just shooting themselves in the foot. Online and MP3 music is the future of the recording industry -- if they cannot get with the times and give the people want they want, the record companies will begin disappearing.

In the meantime, however, their anti-consumer tactics are a royal pain in the neck...

JvanEkris

12-03-2002, 03:59 PM

You think you pay much... In europe, CD-prices are about 50% higher. No way i'm going to give Sony one cent of my money. I used to buy CD's a lot. They raised the prices by 100% in the last 3 years and gave less in return (try getting the latest album of shakira on your MP3-player in a legal way).

This is not going to happen: under international copyright law i have got the right to copy music for my own use. I am willing to pay $35,- for a good CD. But any CD-producer stopping me will have one customer less. I will download them instead, and as a grattitude towards the people who provided this service, i will make my complete CD-collection (2000+) available online :twisted: until i can buy and use my CD's in a normal way again.

Jaap

Ed Hansberry

12-03-2002, 04:06 PM

Ed Hansberry

12-03-2002, 04:09 PM

It's time for people to start voting against the record labels -- by voting with our wallets.
They already are! CD sales are down and it isn't file swapping that is causing it. It is the insane prices, pathetic offerings (all the good artists are squeezed out - I encourage you to again visit Aimee Mann's site (http://www.aimeemann.com/home.html) and buy her stuff directly from her and read her link to United Musicians) that is causing the slump in CD sales.

12-03-2002, 04:10 PM

It only takes 1 copy of that "Un-Rippable" cd to hit the net and then it's all over.

Exactly. And there always be people to do it. If i buy a cd and i find that is protected, i´ll do it just because i´m mad.

RickK

12-03-2002, 04:13 PM

The internet is clearly the wave of the future for buying music. The labels are very slow in figuring this out. But for this to really work, they're going to have to realize that people will also have to have the option to choose only the songs they want - not force them to buy an entire CD where 75% of it's going to be rubbish.

The labels just don't understand how much they would gain if they just allowed people to download their music, and only the songs they want, and then let them download it to their own mp3 player or pocket pc or computer as many times as they want to. This would revolutionize the music industry by breathing life back into it. They want sluggish sales to go away? This is how to do it.

That's a hard sell to make to management. The current industry model forces people to buy stuff they don't want - that equates to a huge markup. You can't offer a "pick your song" model with cannibalizing your high-margin CD sales. And a relatively small percentage of the public has the time, bandwidth, and/or technical savvy to download and play songs. Therefore, many of the potential new customers of a "pick your song" model are those who already know how to get the music for free.

That said, *I* would certainly buy more music than I do now if offered clean, professional digital recordings for $2.00 a song. The last CDs I bought were from artists I discovered while "surfing" Napster. I would buy a LOT if they figured a way to put a lot of old stuff on line through some central, one-stop-shopping site. I might even be induced to finally hook my computer up to my stereo. But I don't know how much of the potential listening public I represent.

cpoole

12-03-2002, 04:39 PM

Philip Colmer

12-03-2002, 04:41 PM

As someone pointed out, one workaround is to take the decoded analog audio stream from the CD player, and route it directly into your audio card, and re-encode it - but this is not ideal, since the analog->digital and compression will result in loss of fidelity. (well, all compressed audio has a loss of fidelity, but the conversion from Digital to Analog and back to Digital will add further degrade it).

I wonder what would happen if you had a domestic CD player with a digital output and fed that into a sound card in a PC with a digital in.

Come to that ... I wonder if the domestic player connected to an amplifier with a digital connection would be able to play the CDs.

If we can find players that do not play the CDs, one way of getting the message through to Sony is to buy the album and then keep on exchanging it until the store runs out of stock. Get your money back and do it to another store. Sony will have so many returns on their hands, it might make them think twice.

--Philip

Janak Parekh

12-03-2002, 04:51 PM

Just a minor nit: the site linked to requires (admittedly "free") registration--and "auto-checks" for you a bunch of "reports" to send to your email address. You might want to mention the required registration next time you link to the Fool site.
Sorry - I didn't know. I am a paid subscriber to Fool.com but knew the articles were free. I didn't know they now required registration to view them.
Hmm, I didn't have this problem, and I'm not registered to Fool.com. :?

BTW, I love the buy album and throw in trash in mall concept. I suggest you do it in the Sony store at the mall, if it has one. :lol:

(Yes, I know the Sony store would be just the electronics folks, but at least you can send a message to them...)

--bdj

that_kid

12-03-2002, 05:00 PM

I have a couple of consumer cd players with digital outs on them. If I can get my hands on one of those CD's I'll try it. I can even go as far as sending the digital output from the cd player to my SONY reciever and then send a digital out copy to my computer. It would be great to have their own copy protection broken using their own equipment :P

Brad Adrian

12-03-2002, 05:12 PM

...I would buy a LOT if they figured a way to put a lot of old stuff on line through some central, one-stop-shopping site...
That's an excellent point; a lot of my favorite music isn't even available through Kazaa et. al, so I would gladly pay for older tunes that were offered in digital format. This could open up a whole new market for musicians and groups like Chicago, The Doobie Brothers, Fleetwood Mac, The Eagles, etc.

dbrahms

12-03-2002, 05:17 PM

if decoding or any other type of DRM gets put in place...everyone will just make their own mps's from the CD's. What would stop people from hitting "play" on a cd player and recording the track from a line-in? especially with optical inputs on PC's these days...there is no loss. People will always get around it... The crooks are always 1 step ahead. But this is good...it will actually force musicians to tour more often to make $. But then we'd find out how bad they really are and discover how studio technology makes artists sound better (like alanis morisette)

JornadaJ

12-03-2002, 05:21 PM

Just off CNN.com. Looks like this DRM stuff is a multi-front attack by the recording industry.

http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/12/03/sharing.lawsuit.ap/index.html

szamot

12-03-2002, 06:22 PM

Bring it on baby, I also have a nice Cd palyer and even nicer Denon DAT player any one in for a digital copy send them my way. This is the reason I always disliked Sony they are the Walmart of the Audio industry. And yes it will not be long before some 15 year old cracks it, I seem to remember DVD's used to be ultra secure.

emjay

12-03-2002, 06:45 PM

I used Napster for a few months and Kazaa a few months after that but removed it after spyware/adware was introduced.

www.kazaalite.com - all the files, none of the spyware! The music industry's contempt for its customers just gets worse and worse... It's bad enough when they keep repackaging and rereleasing old songs on new compilations and expecting to maintain sales... they really are living on a different planet!

PhatCohiba

12-03-2002, 06:54 PM

I would pay up to $2 for each GOOD song - no more than that, though. And that would be a deal for both consumer and artist/label.

WHAT is sony thinking. Their current library is currently available through PressPlay. You can subscribe for $10/month Stream / Download to a WMA coded machine and listen to their entire catalog all you want anytime.

If you want to buy a song you can pay around $1 / song and get an unlocked / unrestricted copy.

For those who are looking for a legal way to listen, give pressplay a try, if you sign up for a trial through Yahoo, you don't even need a credit card.

http://www.pressplay.com

If you find a way to unlock all of the WMA's then "PM" me :P :twisted: :P

Kirkaiya

12-03-2002, 07:01 PM

{excerpted} What would stop people from hitting "play" on a cd player and recording the track from a line-in? especially with optical inputs on PC's these days...there is no loss.

Technically, the loss isn't occurring so much due to the physical connection type (optical vs. copper), but due the differences between how music is stored (digitally) and listened to (analog).

If you take a normal "line-out" from a CD player, you're not getting the "raw" data from the CD: The CD player reads in the digital stream, and runs it thru an Analog-Digital converter (some even advertise "1-bit A/D converter" and whatnot).

The output of the A/D converter is an analog approximation of the digital stream on the disc. If you then take this analog output from the line-out, and then want to convert it to an MP3, you would then run it thru another converter (Digital-Analog this time), which would create a digital approximation of the analog signal, which you would then store (either as a raw .wav file, or a compressed mp3, mp4, whatever). These sucessive approximations mean your final digital file is not a true digital copy of the original.

As some people have pointed out - some CD players do have a "digital out" jacks, which can then be plugged into digital-enabled receivers, amps, and other modern equipment. If (big if) that digital-out is the raw datastream from the CD, then it should be possible to simply plug that into some audio-card that has a compatible "digital in", and record it directly (or compress it to MP3, whatever).

And there lies the rub - are the digital-out connectors on CD players (the ones that have them) compatible with any digital-in ports on audio-cards? If not, will companies start to make these?

I think that, rather than a hardware solution becoming widespread, it's more likely that somebody will figure out a software hack, a la DivX, so that people without the expensive audio equipment will be able to rip the songs.

Oh - whatever happened to the "Blank recordable CD-ROM tax", you know, where like, 2 cents for every blank CD sold goes to the labels and artists? Now THAT is a load of crap, since my CD-ROMS are for file storage only (I don't burn my own CDs for music, i just use my PocketPC, laptop, etc, to play it).

naquada

12-03-2002, 07:09 PM

How does Label Gate work? Every track on the CD is encoded. Supposedly this doesn't affect normal CD players, but computers won't be able to play or rip any tracks - well, not without Sony's proprietary software. (Do you ever see the word "Sony" with "proprietary" not being far behind? )

sorry 'but computers wont be able to play...' does this mean that the almightly sony has decided FOR me that I cannot pop an original CD into my laptop, or my desktop and play it ?

I dont own any ripped songs or cd's that i didnt buy in CD format (i'm a musician) once I've brought them I should be able to do with them as i wish... If i want to encode them and play them on my ipod I should be able to.. the same as if i want to put them onto a mini disc and listen to them in the car....

Chronos

12-03-2002, 07:35 PM

I now burn a copy of our CDs for use in our car. After having a few CD wallets "disappear," and with the environmental changes from extreme heat in the summer and freezing cold in the winter, I prefer to use copies in my automobile. I assume this new technology would also prevent this too. :evil:

serpico

12-03-2002, 07:39 PM

This sure is crazy stuff. I just heard that the movie industry has passed their last years profit already to $8.4 Billion US and there still is the month of December for more movies to come out. So they are not hurting with all the movie file exchanges on kazaa. I was wondering about playing cd music on a dvd player and sending it out to your computer if the digital format is still the same or similar? There will be a hardware workaround for sure, and soon a software hack. This soap opera just keeps going with the record labels and consumers, why don't they embrace technology instead of fighting it. Especially Sony who make computers and digital devices.

feo

12-03-2002, 07:46 PM

I usually dump my CDs to my minidisc using a PS2 and Sony portable minidisc. I connect them using a fiber optic cable. The cool thing is that the minidisc will actually split the tracks automatically. I do this because I do a lot of running and I am way to lazy to carry a big cd player, plus I can easily carry a few of minidiscs with me when I do very long runs.
Now if I was to connect the same optical cable comming out of my PS2 into my computer (my soundblaster has an optical-in), I would be doing a pure digital copy right? sounds to me like this new Sony copy protection scheme will not affect my current Sony based duplication set up.
Of course unless they decide that Sony music CDs should be playable on a Sony Playstation 2.

that_kid

12-03-2002, 08:06 PM

Chronos I do the same thing. After seeing my friends 200+ cd collection disappear in the middle of the night from his car, I'd rather have copies in my car "just in case". I also rip all my cd's(and vinyl 8O ) to mp3's and store them on a another drive in my file server so I can stream them to any place I need to. While I can't say that i've never downloaded music I can say that 98% of my mp3 collection is made up of cd's that I own.

Paul P

12-03-2002, 08:09 PM

I don't think this is even news because it will never happen. Or it will happen, but only to be retracted from the market shortly thereafter; gradually phased out and forgotten about after Sony suffers massive backlash and loses millions of dollars on sales of their hardware and media potentially incorporating this restrictive technology. Some sort of protection will exist, but certainly not to the effect of this hindrance on the user.

KyleC

12-03-2002, 09:06 PM

Our good friend Wes recently went on a rant about this very topic (although I don't think it was Sony specifically):

http://www.wessalmon.com/000043.html

JornadaJ

12-03-2002, 10:04 PM

Another similar story. Am I the only one seeing a trend here? Is this what's next once Sony owns the music market?

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_721008.html

RedRamage

12-03-2002, 10:04 PM

Wasn't it Sony that tried that silly thing with have a garbage track at the beginning of CDs that made them unreadable in Computers? Yeah know, that highly technical solution to piracy which was defeated with a Sharpie?

And furthermore, doesn't anyone else find it a little...um...stupid (?) that one part of Sony is working their rear ends off trying to prevent the ripping of music from CDs while another part of Sony produces hardware designed to let you listen to ripped music?

spongeworthy

12-03-2002, 10:10 PM

PhatCohiba

12-03-2002, 10:45 PM

For those who are looking for a legal way to listen, give pressplay a try, if you sign up for a trial through Yahoo, you don't even need a credit card.

http://www.pressplay.com

:?: I have a Yahoo account, but can't see how to trial Pressplay w/o a c-card....I went to the sign-up via the Yahoo affiliate link, but it wanted all the same info.

Do you have to have some sort of Yahoo "wallet" thing setup too?

I did my evaluation a couple of months ago. That must be new. My apologies, but still consider trying it, it reminds me of the good old find everything on napster days.

If you listen to most of your music directly from your computer, its a great deal.

Jonathon Watkins

12-04-2002, 12:09 AM

While I can't say that i've never downloaded music I can say that 98% of my mp3 collection is made up of cd's that I own.

I'm with you all the way That_Kid. I own around 99% of the music I have in MP3 format - with the remainder being one-hit wonder tracks I get off friends etc. I pay for my music and I expect to be able to play it on any device I want. I rip & then pop the CD into storage. Sony can't win on this one, but this is a really stupid thing to do! :roll:

Xaximus

12-04-2002, 12:20 AM

:evil: Artists I enjoy listening to who are signed with Sony better find a new label fast; they won't be getting a single cent from me until then. And if they decide to stick with Sony? Sorry... I'll gladly pirate their music along with everybody else. :twisted:

seanturner

12-04-2002, 12:53 AM

Does anyone know if sony will be labeling it and warning consumers or it will be a nasty suprise when my dad buy's a cd and calls me asking wtf is wrong with his pc with surround sound?

Jason Dunn

12-04-2002, 01:04 AM

Sorry - I didn't know. I am a paid subscriber to Fool.com but knew the articles were free. I didn't know they now required registration to view them.

I just clicked and read the article - no registration required, and I don't think I've been to fool.com in years...

Jason Dunn

12-04-2002, 01:36 AM

Oh - whatever happened to the "Blank recordable CD-ROM tax", you know, where like, 2 cents for every blank CD sold goes to the labels and artists? Now THAT is a load of crap, since my CD-ROMS are for file storage only (I don't burn my own CDs for music, i just use my PocketPC, laptop, etc, to play it).

I don't know about the US, but in Canada they hit us with that tax - and the price on the store shelves is BEFORE tax, so you take up a package of 20 CDs for $10 and the bill suddenly becomes $20. What's worse is that the NEW, much higher tax is still being debated last I heard. I found a local computer store that sells blank CD-Rs sans-tax, which is exactly what we knew would happen - a "CD-R black market" sprang up overnight.

The government can be so clueless sometimes... :roll:

Jason Dunn

12-04-2002, 01:42 AM

Chris Spera

12-04-2002, 01:57 AM

Living in Nashville as I do, I am sensative to the whining that the Industry does about digital music. They're just pissed because they think they're missing a revenue stream. They simply don't understand digital music at all.

Their BEST solution IMHO, if they feel they're missing $$ in the digital music revolution, is to raise the price of CD's. This provides them their extra $$ without making my digital-music-life a living hell in the process.

Don't get me wrong. I don't agree with ANY of this, and won't pay any more for a CD than $15US. That's too much in my mind; but as everyone else has been saying, DRM hacks, work arounds, etc. are just a few months behind any formal DRM implementation if for no other reason than because the challenge is there.

I'm not impressed with Sony and their tactics at all; and even tho they have artists like The Dixie Chicks in their stable, I'll boycot them, as I'm certain many others will if this DRM plan goes thru. I WILL NEVER pay them TWICE for ANY music I buy, which is effectively what we'd do under this plan.

I will NEVER buy any music with implemented DRM. I WANT THE FLEXABILITY TO LISTEN TO THE MUSIC I PURCHASE ANY WAY I WANT TO.

The artists RARELY see ANY of the money that we're talking about here, kids, so all this is doing is bulking up the bonus of some over paid, under realistic, overly whiny music executive.

And I just can't buy into that... I work too hard for my money and won't just simply give it away, which is what I'd be doing under this plan.

Kind Regards,

Christopher Spera

Jason Dunn

12-04-2002, 02:02 AM

Does anyone know if sony will be labeling it and warning consumers or it will be a nasty suprise when my dad buy's a cd and calls me asking wtf is wrong with his pc with surround sound?

Probably not - Sony was experimenting with some other "anti-piracy" technology a while back, and they slipped it into the market randomly and without notice. I believe it was a Celine Dion CD...no real loss there. :lol:

sweetpete

12-04-2002, 02:09 AM

For those who are looking for a legal way to listen, give pressplay a try, if you sign up for a trial through Yahoo, you don't even need a credit card. http://www.pressplay.com

I'd sign up in an instant if it was available for Canadians...last time I checked it wasn't. :?

I looked through the terms of service and didn't see anything that said open to US residents only. I haven't tried signing up yet though I will in a couple weeks. I have a XMAS party coming up at my house and I want to sign up for the 3 day trial then. If I like it then I'll continue on with the sub. :lol:

Jonathan1

12-04-2002, 06:07 AM

I've been using Linux as of late. So Sony can screw off. Heck even if it could be used on Linux or Apple I wouldn't buy it. Copyrights on my music WILL NOT HAPPEN in my home. I may buy 10 copies just for the heck of it and take them back claiming defection. Sony can rot in **** for all I care. DIE SONY DIE! :twisted:

Nice camera's, DVD players, and TV's though. :roll:

paqman_lover

12-04-2002, 05:58 PM

i don't think this latest attempt by the recording industry to steal more of the people's hard earned money will specifically affect me in the US based on the article at fool.com :

Sony Music Entertainment (Japan), a division of Sony (NYSE: SNE), answered the call last week, announcing the advent of its new "Label Gate" digital rights management (DRM) package. Beginning in 2003, all CDs released from Sony Japan will carry this protection.

I almost wish they'd try it over here because i'd love to see them backpedel after a couple months. The recording industry seems to forget how capitalism works, but i imagine shortly they will have a painful lesson about how you can't screw the same people you need to buy your product to stay in business.

One of the best ways for people to get sony to stop this is to actually buy one of these encripted CD's. After buying the CD, return it saying it doesn't work in my computer and get another. Now the returned copy the store has to send back to Sony because it is not sellable and Sony has to reimburse the store. For kicks bring your laptop into the store and open ever single CD there and after everyone doesn't work get your money back or exchange it for a CD that you actually wanted.

Soon the stores will have huge signs up saying Sony CD's will not work in computers without additional software and more fees, which will slump their sales even more. Sony will be out a bunch of money reimburseing the stores for the returned CD's and the stores will be angry at Sony for makeing their job that much harder. If Sony doesn't reimburse the stores the stores will stop carrying Sony CD's because it would become to costly.

I believe shortly there will be a "war" between consumers and the recording industry with the artists being hurt the most.And this war will continue until the recording industry learns that consumers can only take so much from them.