Arrr, matey!

[miss_squiddy]

Hrrm. Seems that record companies have launched a new weapon in the fight against music piracy - uncopiable (and seemingly unplayable) CDs! (Note the splendid returns policy...)



I can see this idea being scrapped almost immediately (if it can't be 'fixed' with black marker pen) - it's getting to the point where most people won't want a CD they can't copy onto their iPod, MP3 player or computer...

Thanks to mikki_g for the link!

Comments

[lleuadtywyll.livejournal.com]

What a bag of wank...I'm always putting tracks onto cd-r from cds, I imagine this would alienate a lot of people!

[pleb.livejournal.com]

Let's hope it's proven to be a shite idea before it's employed on decent albums.

[miss_squiddy]

Which record label is this anyway? Is this going to effect any less whingey/jumpery bands?

[miss_squiddy]

At least it'll take a while to get too irritating then.

*tries to think of the last time she bought a CD released by a major record label*

[pleb.livejournal.com]

Actually, I fail to see how they can make this work on a PC if the auto-run feature on the drive is disabled.

[pleb.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure they're on Parlophone, although I'm not sure who they in turn are linked to. It's rather disconcerting to see this so soon after the recent copy-protection scandal involving Sony.

[miss_squiddy]

I like actually owning albums. I suppose they're something which might dissappear completely in the nexr few years, but I prefer buying actual physical objects rather than streams of data. I still don't trust technology. It changes too quickly.

[miss_squiddy]

Would be pretty difficult to try and DJ without any working CDs! That would make a large part of your collection pretty much obsolete, wouldn't it?

[miss_squiddy]

I reckon it's all a plot so the record companies can cash in on downloading. your Cd won't play? Why not buy the MP3 version too, sucker?

[lee-chaos.livejournal.com]

That's *exactly* it - and the old licences allowed you to make copies of music for 'personal use'.

Record companies are just getting greedy and desperate under the cloak of lgal righteousness...

...and I'm off again. FECK! ARSE! MP3s! GIRLS!

[nathan-courtney.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, I'm exactly the same.

While MP3s are good, they're still a lossey form of compression, so I'd still rather have the original CD.

[mrscruff.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but thinking about it, CD's aren't the godsend they originally were. What are they now? Six Technology jumps behind?

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

So do I, but I'd rather do without than support labels who are making the albums all but unusable.

[nibber.livejournal.com]

indeed, esp if any artist is expecting club play as i expect the above would rule out most club cd systems :/

still, coldplay cd's make great tea coasters...

[miss_squiddy]

Heh heh heh. Two excellent points.

[tintintin.livejournal.com]

Thank buggery I didn't throw my discman away!

[miss_squiddy]

I thought that too!

[miss_squiddy]

You all better again BTW? You were a bit down in the dumps last time I saw you... I'm presuming slight technical hitch?

[tintintin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, drunken moping. Thanks for the advice and general positivity at the time!

[miss_squiddy]

No probs :D

[mortarach.livejournal.com]

I really don't think its going to pose much of a problem.

I seem to remember that these "uncopyable" CD's run a little garbling program in windows that makes mp3 recording come out sounding like aliens in the bath. I'm presuming its the same with these because they'll only work on a newer PC and not a mac (which doesnt have the anti-piracy software). Theres loads of guides on how to switch off the garbling software on the web.

It might be that you have to have the software running to make it play now, but that wont be a problem as you'll get software freely available to counter it not long after.

If you take into account that it still has to be an audio CD for it to play on a normal CD player, then there is no way they can stop it being recorded as the computer can just access it in the same way to copy it.

[miss_squiddy]

I figured that that would be the case... Pretty much everything that they invent to stop piracy is undone by pirates...

[tintintin.livejournal.com]

Well, when it comes down to it, no music is unpirateable - even if it takes a bloke with a microphone sat in front of the speakers taping it.

[mikki-g.livejournal.com]

Here is the message it sends:

Buy cd's, but you wont be able to play them in your car, or on your computer, or on your iPod even though you own it. If you do put it on your computer it may open you to attacks and make your computer not work.

or

Download the MP3's and do whatever the hell you like with them.

Hmm, hard choice!

[thepussykat.livejournal.com]

Bonepeeler by Wumpscut also had this kind of crap on it.

Especially annoying as I couldn't make a back up copy and then my album got nicked.

[squiddity.livejournal.com]

Or, what I do.

I buy the albumns I like.
I use the CDs to play in my car stereo or to lend to people.
I download the MP3s illegally (though possibly not as I do own a license for the music) to put on my MP3 player (though, obviously, only if I cannot rip my legasl copy directly).
I also download music I don't like as my MP3 player is often used to provide music for social engagements - I don't buy these albumns though.

It strikes me as a good halfway house.
I do want to support the artists who produce music I like, but in the same way as I used to tape music from the radio of from friends to have music to play socially, I still want to have access to music that I don't especially want to pay for.

[mrscruff.livejournal.com]

If you think this whole debacle smells of Richard Branson's Pants, I had a DVD boxset for Christmas which has 'Anti Piracy' software to prevent it being read in a PC - this is pretty bloody annoying as I usually watch DVDs in my room on my PC.

Useless.

[miss_squiddy]

That's a bit rubbish too.

[recursived.livejournal.com]

Whaaaaat! As I don't have a TV and have no intention of ever getting one again, this means I'll be back to my previous "having loads of a type of media but not the player for them" situation. Wankers! Spill the beans, what was the boxset/publisher?

[mrscruff.livejournal.com]

It's a Fox DVD Boxset of a TV show called Millenium (It's an XFiles spinoff about serial killers)

To be fair it's not the best television i've ever watched anyway, but fuck it if i'm cold & don't want to leave bed to watch tv I DEMAND TO DO SO!

[recursived.livejournal.com]

Arse, it's not conceivable that I'll buy Futurama/Simpsons on DVD at some point (much more likely to be the former, you only have to be in the same country as a TV to end up watching several episodes of the Simpsons). They're the only things (well, and the Times Higher, but that's being sold off) that I'd give Murdoch money for, so I suppose Fox's self-decapitation isn't too much of a loss. Assuming, of course, that no-one else decides to be really, really stupid.

[miss_squiddy]

Couldn't you just plug a DVD player into your monitor? I'm sure that would be possible and relatively inexpensive these days...

[recursived.livejournal.com]

True, I'm sure that's possible, but strangely enough I'd like to avoid it as I have a perfectly fine DVD player ALREADY IN MY PC!! It'd be like someone giving you a non-readable non-musical audio-CD and adding "well, you could always just read the book!" I'm beginning to rant now, sorry.

[lee-chaos.livejournal.com]

Philips, the people who own the copyright for CD technology, won't even allow these monged-up CDs to bear the Compact Disc logo. Even they're fighting it from the inside.

All this is bollocks. If sound comes out of a cable, as it must, that cable can be plugged in somewhere else to record.

Record companies should spend less protecting their copyrights and more investing in good music.

Sharing music is good.

This is the thin end of a rant for me, which i shall back away from slowly now...

[miss_squiddy]

Chaos wins! Easiest anti-piracy solution ever! Now put down the keyboard and retreat to a safe distance. That's it...

[lee-chaos.livejournal.com]

I like to think of myself as the industrial music indsutry's answer to Father Jack... ;)

[beleraphon.livejournal.com]

Oh bad mental image!

thanks for that, its going to be with me all afternoon now...

[miss_squiddy]

Mmmph! Sexeh!

[lucien-dark.livejournal.com]

Very recently Sony have been in the shit for a similar thing - their copy protection system makes you listen to the protected cd only through their own software when you play it on a pc, to prevent copying. The problem with this being that hackers can use this software to hide their own code on your machine, and if you try to remove the software it's very easy to fuck up your windows install and make it useless. Luckily they got what they deserved on this one - sued instantly, huge out of court settlement, have to recall all of the cds with this on, have to exchange the cds people have already bought for clean ones, can't make any more cds with the software on, etc. Dicks.

[lee-chaos.livejournal.com]

Given it more thought, it's not *actually* 'copy protected' at all, is it? It's more like 'general use protected'. There might be a trades description argument there too...

[rohypnolslag.livejournal.com]

Pah and fah!

Cobblers. As Mr Chaos points out, nothing is impossible to pirate. If it is possible to play some media, it is possible to duplicate it.

But less people listening to Coldplay can only be a good thing.

Copyshmitewrs (not a spelling mistake)

[fading-star13.livejournal.com]

Hail to the Thief has copyrighted malarky on it.

You can't copy it. Which I have no right to feel annoyed about eing as it wasn't mine, but HELL! I wanted a copy of it for free.

Rabble rabble rabble.

This is just silly also....

[fading-star13.livejournal.com]

Have you heard about the new DVDs too?

Sony and philips are coming up with a new DVD (not the blue ray ones for HDTV) but just a new type of DVD. This DVD will not be able to be copied. It has no better quality or anything like that.

Oh, and it won't work on ANY existing DVD player, including the yet to be released Playstation 3.

Re: This is just silly also....

[miss_squiddy]

Sounds a bit rubbish. What's so good about a disc no-one can play?

Re: This is just silly also....

[mrscruff.livejournal.com]

They wont sell though. Who the hell would buy something more expensive, which makes life harder?

Re: This is just silly also....

[recursived.livejournal.com]

...if that's all they sell, then that's all you can buy. Sure it won't be as elegant a solution as the vinyl/CD or VHS/DVD transition where at least they had the incentive of better quality, but once people get the new players (and eventually chuck out their old ones) in order to play the latest piece of mass-marketed over-long generic piece of shit from Hollywood you can then expect them to replace their back library with the new format as well. Loadsa money. It's even more lucrative than the PC games market, where the latest ooh-look-at-the-graphics FPS requires you to upgrade/replace your computer (because, hey, you can normally still play your old games on the new PC!) Sorry, I'm beginning to rant, AGAIN!