Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Boston
Posts: 6569

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...atoday/11865096

Anti-swap CD hits the racks
Tue Sep 23, 6:42 AM ET

By Mike Snider USA TODAY

In his new album, Coming From Where I'm From, Anthony Hamilton reflects on his roots and the directions in which they have led him. His CD, meanwhile, offers a glimpse of the direction the music industry is taking to prevent rampant piracy.

The soulful singer's Arista debut, which arrives in stores today, may look like a traditional CD. But it's the first of an expected wave of CDs intended to keep listeners from swapping songs on the Net.

The disc has two sets of music tracks: one set of "encrypted" songs that can be handled by CD players but cannot be ripped on computers, and a duplicate set of tracks in the Windows Media format. These can be downloaded from the CD to a computer and then transferred to portable devices or recorded to home CDs.

But these "secure digital" tracks cannot be played on another computer should they be uploaded to the Net. "The whole concept was to create a legally licensed structure" for computer use of recorded music, says William Whitmore of SunnComm, which designed the anti-copy technology.

The company two years ago released the first protected CD, Charley Pride's A Tribute to Jim Reeves.That disc, which simply encrypted the tracks so they couldn't be copied by PCs, and other early efforts met stiff consumer resistance.

Record labels are hoping this CD will prove more acceptable because it lets fans use music with their own devices and share with friends, but not with millions of others, says Nathaniel Brown of BMG, which distributes albums on the Arista label. "This is the first generation that allows the kind of personal use that we have deemed appropriate," he says.

In CD players, the disc plays normally. When put into a Macintosh (news - web sites) or Windows PC, the disc installs software to keep the music secure, and an interactive menu pops up with several links, including one to copy some or all of the Windows Media tracks to your hard drive.

Another link allows you to send e-mail to friends so they can download a copy of the song playable for 10 days. "You're sharing music, but you are not giving it away forever," Whitmore says.

Sunncomm is talking to other music labels, as is competitor Macrovision. BMG plans to release more protected CDs this year, though it's making no further announcements yet, Brown says.

Many Net swappers "think it is their God-given right to steal music," Whitmore says. "They don't know any better. We have to teach them."

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I think one of the best things about buying a CD is the fact that I can rip them to my computer. I can do whatever I want with those mp3s. Now, these tracks I can supposedly burn to a CD. Does this mean if I rip those tracks from said burned CD that they will be free of all this technology and can be then put on Kazaa for freebie uploading? If not, is this a violation of the law? I mean, up until now a person could rip a CD if they had the means, this CD forces you to download the tracks. Not everyone has high speed internet, nor can everyone leave their computer running over phone lines long enough to download entire albums.

Will people not buy the album in sheer boycott?

Is this a step away from promoting downloadable music? This could go either way, but is it going in the opposite direction of thought?

I am tempted to go buy one of these and see if my friend and I can crack it. Seriously. It could provide hours of entertainment.

*edit: link added*

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Registered: May 2002
Location:
Posts: 8658

Damn, you mean I won't be able to download any Anthony Hamilton tracks on Kazaa? This is a time for mourning, brothers, apparently the RIAA has already won.

Seriously though, I'm not really sure I understand what they're doing and what that allows us to do under fair use... but it sounds a helluva lot better for its industry than suing little girls and grandparents.

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Registered: Oct 2001
Location:
Posts: 17905

They wanted to protect Charlie Pride's music from piracy?


WTF?

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Registered: Feb 2003
Location: Oceanside, CA
Posts: 5073

Yuck. When I put this thing in my Mac, it will automatically download software?
I'm slightly uptight about this, but I like to keep very tight control on what sort of software goes onto my machines...I don't trust the RIAA to make software which won't mess up my puter.
This is an unfortunate development.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: seattle-ish
Posts: 11272

a lot of people came in asking for that album today.. also asking me a bunch of questions about the copy-protection.
I dont have any answers.

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Registered: Oct 2000
Location: Wetaskiwin AB, Canada
Posts: 1438

If someone wanted the music in mp3 format that bad, they'd just plug a standard CD player (discman, whatever) into the line in on the soundcard. Then, fire up something like Cool Edit 2000 (Now known as Adobe Audition), and record the CD as line input, save as a .wav file, and convert each song individually to an .MP3. Time consuming, maybe, but still possible.

Not that I would do such a thing. It's not legal. (But to charge $25 for some absolute unknown is?)

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