[slim] Re: New copy protection and Squeezebox

[Pale Blue Ego]

Play dumb.  When you buy a "CD" you can't rip to your iPod or
Slimserver, call or email the record company.  Tell them you need to
get the music onto your iPod and so what should you do?  Take the CD
back or download the tracks off the net?  After all, there really isn't
any other choice - make sure you let them know that the DRM CD is
useless to you.  

The funny thing is, you'll probably get an email telling you how to
disable the copy protection.  We've seen this with the Sony rootkit
fiasco.  They actually ended up providing mp3 files to customers who
bought the CD - that's the very thing the DRM was supposed to prevent!


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[slim] Re: New copy protection and Squeezebox

[Michaelwagner]

bill fumerola Wrote: 
> 
> Cory Doctorow (of the EFF) has an excellent speech on this topic:
> 
> http://craphound.com/msftdrm.txt
> 
> -- bill
A somewhat more readable version is here:
http://www.dashes.com/anil/stuff/doctorow-drm-ms.html

And as a footnote to this thread, since it was last updated, Sony/BMG
got caught - their copy protection was based on a rootkit, and they've
had to take back massive numbers of disks and exchange them. And face a
boycott.

http://tinyurl.com/ae9cg


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[slim] Re: New copy protection and Squeezebox

[FLMike]

If this is an issue you care about, contact your Congressperson or
Senator and tell them that this is important to you and why. Explain
that you are not a pirate or someone who steals content, but that you
value your right to fair use.  Ask them to support an exception to the
DMCA that gives the consumer the right to bypass copy protection or
other DRM mechanisms as long as that bypass is used ONLY to excercise
what are traditionally considered to be your rights to fair use.   I
believe a bill like this has been floated by Rep. Rich Boucher (sp?). 
This is a huge issue with fundamental implications for the way we as
consumers use electronic media.  For instance, there have already been
several attempts to get congress to force equipment makers to make
every device they sell that can receive and record digital TV signals
to recognize and honor a "broadcast flag" that can specify whether the
transmission can be recorded or not, and if so how many times etc.  If
they say "no recording allowed", then forget about recording your
favorite teams championship game.  Cut a check to the NBA or NFL
instead.  IMHO, under the cover of combating piracy, the media industry
is trying to force a move away from a broad fair-use environment to a
pay-per-play model.  That's not something I am looking forward to.


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Re: [slim] Re: New copy protection and Squeezebox

[bill fumerola]

On Sun, Jun 26, 2005 at 11:22:51AM -0400, Damon Riley wrote:
> Why would Microsoft want DRM?  What's in it for them?  Why should they 
> care about casual music piracy?

Cory Doctorow (of the EFF) has an excellent speech on this topic:

http://craphound.com/msftdrm.txt

-- bill 



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Re: [slim] Re: New copy protection and Squeezebox

[Jack Coates]

Damon Riley wrote:



Jeff52 wrote:


The labels (and some software companies) idea of "fair use" is DRM.
Ultimately what they want is for us to rip the music with a DRM
compliant ripper which requires a "license" in order to rip and
thereafter play it. I would guess that the vast majority of folks rip
using one of the standard rippers, e.g., Music Match, Real Player,
Windows Media Player, iTunes, etc., rather than EAC, CD-EX, etc. and to
the extent that these programs and the players used to play the music
are DRM protected then I assume the labels would be happy.
Once again, what a mess.




Why would Microsoft want DRM?  What's in it for them?  Why should they 
care about casual music piracy?


They don't care about it except as an excuse for DRM, and the reason 
they want DRM, I think, is lock-in.  If they can build-in DRM, then they 
can control what programs are 'trusted' to open other file types, no 
matter who created the content in the file or who owns the content.


If cooperative legislators, like Fritz Hollings, make it illegal to sell 
or even own hardware that doesn't include built-in DRM, then we're all 
screwed, not just those of us who want fair use of the music we buy.


I don't use MS Word, but almost all of the people who send me articles 
for a school newsletter I edit use it.  If future versions of Word are 
DRM'd, I may no longer be able to open these files because my word 
processor isn't 'trusted.'  The DRM fight is about much more than just 
copying a song.




Bingo -- extend the argument into the hardware realm, and you see why 
Apple is willing to switch to Intel x86 but not AMD x86. TPCA. Thing is, 
I don't really care as long as this sort of thing is limited to niches. 
I do care when every piece of hardware you can buy has to be authorized 
by the vendor for the use that you intend to put it to. I don't think 
that'll really happen though, there'll always be a place for the 
discount vendor who's saving a buck or two by skipping the TPCA chip.


--
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Riding the Emergency Third Rail Power Trip since 1996!
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Re: [slim] Re: New copy protection and Squeezebox

[Jack Coates]

Jeff52 wrote:

I have frequented a number of websites and forums discussing the new
copy protection schemes as opposed to those that were originally used.
The new schemes are quite different than the first generation and will
only become much more sophisticated. We no longer have "redbook" CD's.
Some new CD's may be ripped by SOME programs or by SOME drives or by
SOME operating systems or a combination thereof. Yeah, I can copy a CD
via digital out to my professional stand-alone CD writer or my digital
audio tape player and then rip it (or copy it via analogue out), but my
whole point in starting this thread wasn't that a particular scheme
would not eventually be cracked or a workaround found, but that this
has become a giant shell game about DRM. 


MOST people will not have the time or sophistication to figure out how
to rip a non-DRM copy of their CD, thus coercing those who manufacture
products (digital audio players, including Slim Devices) to adopt DRM
protection. The hackers will find a way: "Let's see...this is the new
CD by the Foo Wrestlers. According to my new Snoop Copy Protect Detect
program it uses the SunMoonMacrovision XYZ protection scheme. Ahhh, now
I can switch to my Linux/Apple/Commodore 64 box, plug in my external
Plextor/Lite On combo 12XY drive, use Isobuster/EAC/Audiograb prebeta
version 87a, run it through my homebrew DAC computer card, store an
image on my hard drive, convert to FLAC with cuesheet and then rip it
to CD-R with Nero version 1AZP. Now I can use that copy to rip it to my
player or drive without DRM. Yesssireee, I CRACKED it." 


Too true -- this is why if the CD won't rip in at least one of my 
machines I send it back to whence it came for store credit and tell them 
that it's defective. I don't even bother with an anti-DRM rant, I just 
tell them that it doesn't work in my car. I then use the store credit 
for something else, because I don't have time to deal with finding out 
if it was DRM or a truly defective disc. Funny thing is that I've only 
had to do this a couple of times, maybe because we don't listen to top 40.


The retailers know full well that they will be killed by returns if the 
CDs they sell don't work 100%. They're helping out with this little 
social experiment, but they're not vested in the RIAA's success and it 
won't take a lot of returns for them to side with us.


--
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Riding the Emergency Third Rail Power Trip since 1996!
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Re: [slim] Re: New copy protection and Squeezebox

[Steven Moore]

I thought that most piracy was in 3rd world countries like China  
which copied cd's by the millions.
These companies should be the targets for the music business not  
their customers.


Steven Moore
On 26 Jun 2005, at 18:04, radish wrote:




In fact, Sony/BMG press releases have referred to "casual piracy".  
They

know they are not going to outwit the dedicated hacker who wants to
post the stuff on P2P networks--they will fight and are fighting that
particular battle with lawsuits and legislation.



And this is precisely the fallacy of DRM. It only takes ONE PERSON in
the entire world to go to the lengths required to rip a cd and put it
on p2p, and it's there for everyone. Why should I pay money for a CD
which I can't actually play the way I want, when I could just download
it for free and use it however I like? By doing this they are actualy
discouraging me from buying their product. How the braindeadness of
this doesn't sink in is quite beyond me. Casual piracy is a myth, the
vast majority of illegal distribution happens via p2p and DRM does
NOTHING to prevent that - it actually encourages it.


--
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RE: [slim] Re: New copy protection and Squeezebox

[Phillip Kerman]

In case it's interesting to anyone, I pasted an excerpt from a forthcoming
release of a book I wrote about using Macromedia Flash.  You can see that in
the next edition I'll have a minor mention of DRM.  Probably not as strong
as I'd like it--but this book is not exactly my opportunity to push
political opinion.  Each edition reaches over 50,000 readers worldwide
however.

Thanks,
Phillip

EXCERPT:
For now, it's enough to know that just four sound formats can be imported
into Flash. What about songs on audio CDs? CD audio tracks aren't in WAV,
AIF, AU, or MP3 format, so you can't use them directly. Luckily, however,
most sound-editing software--and Apple's excellent free product
iTunes--provides the ability to extract music from a CD and save it in WAV
or AIF format. Of course, you should realize that significant copyright
concerns arise when you use audio from a published CD.  Plus, record labels
are adopting DRM (Digital Rights Management) techniques that make CDs
difficult or impossible to copy. (Alas, some of these CDs won't even play in
your CD player.) 

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[slim] Re: New copy protection and Squeezebox

[radish]

> In fact, Sony/BMG press releases have referred to "casual piracy". They
> know they are not going to outwit the dedicated hacker who wants to
> post the stuff on P2P networks--they will fight and are fighting that
> particular battle with lawsuits and legislation.

And this is precisely the fallacy of DRM. It only takes ONE PERSON in
the entire world to go to the lengths required to rip a cd and put it
on p2p, and it's there for everyone. Why should I pay money for a CD
which I can't actually play the way I want, when I could just download
it for free and use it however I like? By doing this they are actualy
discouraging me from buying their product. How the braindeadness of
this doesn't sink in is quite beyond me. Casual piracy is a myth, the
vast majority of illegal distribution happens via p2p and DRM does
NOTHING to prevent that - it actually encourages it.


-- 
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Re: [slim] Re: New copy protection and Squeezebox

[Damon Riley]

Jeff52 wrote:


The labels (and some software companies) idea of "fair use" is DRM.
Ultimately what they want is for us to rip the music with a DRM
compliant ripper which requires a "license" in order to rip and
thereafter play it. I would guess that the vast majority of folks rip
using one of the standard rippers, e.g., Music Match, Real Player,
Windows Media Player, iTunes, etc., rather than EAC, CD-EX, etc. and to
the extent that these programs and the players used to play the music
are DRM protected then I assume the labels would be happy. 


Once again, what a mess.




Why would Microsoft want DRM?  What's in it for them?  Why should they 
care about casual music piracy?


They don't care about it except as an excuse for DRM, and the reason 
they want DRM, I think, is lock-in.  If they can build-in DRM, then they 
can control what programs are 'trusted' to open other file types, no 
matter who created the content in the file or who owns the content.


If cooperative legislators, like Fritz Hollings, make it illegal to sell 
or even own hardware that doesn't include built-in DRM, then we're all 
screwed, not just those of us who want fair use of the music we buy.


I don't use MS Word, but almost all of the people who send me articles 
for a school newsletter I edit use it.  If future versions of Word are 
DRM'd, I may no longer be able to open these files because my word 
processor isn't 'trusted.'  The DRM fight is about much more than just 
copying a song.


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[slim] Re: New copy protection and Squeezebox

[Jeff52]

Phillip Kerman Wrote: 
> Pretty funny writing Jeff52.  Pretty accurate too.  There are a few
> things
> that I still don't get.  Are there not CDROM drives that can simply
> make an
> exact copy of any CD?  (Not re-encode it etc. but just make a dupe.)  I
> do
> tend to believe that simply holding down shift will defeat my ability
> to
> make a CD Copy.  What am I missing if I'm wrong?
> 
> Regarding DRM... I too totally don't blame the labels. But, I also
> don't see
> how my "fair use" gets in their way after I forked over the price they
> felt
> was fair.  And, I'd be fine if there was some sort of DRM pre-installed
> on
> Windows or whatever that actually WORKED but I fear any attempt
> will be
> frought with issues... with slim to name the one I care about.
> 
> I don't think the end of music as we know it is necessarily here;
> around the
> corner; or so far gone that we can't change its course.   There's all
> these
> new formats of audio CD that aren't going to make it.
> 
> Anyway, I'm almost tempted to try to get into the DRM business to knock
> some
> sense into folks but I don't know if I'm capable or care that much.

Hey Phillip,

Thanks for the compliment I was trying to be funny in order to
illustrate my point. Several of the sites I have recently viewed have
reported using older vintage CD-ROM only drives to accomplish just what
you mentioned with the new schemes. The new schemes go beyond the "shift
key" stuff and many have reported an ability to rip using a particular
hardware/software combination, but even then many have reported a
substantial number of errors on the copy or at least several tracks.
These discs are no longer redbook compliant and it appears to me (no
expert by any means)they are designed to be error correctable on MOST
CD audio players while introducing errors on MOST computer CD drives.
Who knows what is being done to the audio on the CD since the redbook
standard is being ditched. Freed of redbook standards, the copy
protection companies will be free to continue to develop a myriad of
schemes to cripple the audio and change it from time-to-time. The
labels are only concerned that the CD will play on MOST audio CD
players, and even then, if it doesn't play on all they really don't
care. Denon, Creek and other hardware manufacturers have already posted
information on their websites about not guaranteeing the playability of
new dual discs in their products and specifically state that the discs
are not redbook compliant. How in the heck can you design a product to
play a CD, when the CD is not manufactured according to the specs used
by the hardware manufacturer?  

The labels (and some software companies) idea of "fair use" is DRM.
Ultimately what they want is for us to rip the music with a DRM
compliant ripper which requires a "license" in order to rip and
thereafter play it. I would guess that the vast majority of folks rip
using one of the standard rippers, e.g., Music Match, Real Player,
Windows Media Player, iTunes, etc., rather than EAC, CD-EX, etc. and to
the extent that these programs and the players used to play the music
are DRM protected then I assume the labels would be happy. 

Once again, what a mess.


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RE: [slim] Re: New copy protection and Squeezebox

[Phillip Kerman]

Pretty funny writing Jeff52.  Pretty accurate too.  There are a few things
that I still don't get.  Are there not CDROM drives that can simply make an
exact copy of any CD?  (Not re-encode it etc. but just make a dupe.)  I do
tend to believe that simply holding down shift will defeat my ability to
make a CD Copy.  What am I missing if I'm wrong?

Regarding DRM... I too totally don't blame the labels. But, I also don't see
how my "fair use" gets in their way after I forked over the price they felt
was fair.  And, I'd be fine if there was some sort of DRM pre-installed on
Windows or whatever that actually WORKED but I fear any attempt will be
frought with issues... with slim to name the one I care about.

I don't think the end of music as we know it is necessarily here; around the
corner; or so far gone that we can't change its course.   There's all these
new formats of audio CD that aren't going to make it.

Anyway, I'm almost tempted to try to get into the DRM business to knock some
sense into folks but I don't know if I'm capable or care that much.

Thanks,
Phillip

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[slim] Re: New copy protection and Squeezebox

[Jeff52]

I have frequented a number of websites and forums discussing the new
copy protection schemes as opposed to those that were originally used.
The new schemes are quite different than the first generation and will
only become much more sophisticated. We no longer have "redbook" CD's.
Some new CD's may be ripped by SOME programs or by SOME drives or by
SOME operating systems or a combination thereof. Yeah, I can copy a CD
via digital out to my professional stand-alone CD writer or my digital
audio tape player and then rip it (or copy it via analogue out), but my
whole point in starting this thread wasn't that a particular scheme
would not eventually be cracked or a workaround found, but that this
has become a giant shell game about DRM. 

MOST people will not have the time or sophistication to figure out how
to rip a non-DRM copy of their CD, thus coercing those who manufacture
products (digital audio players, including Slim Devices) to adopt DRM
protection. The hackers will find a way: "Let's see...this is the new
CD by the Foo Wrestlers. According to my new Snoop Copy Protect Detect
program it uses the SunMoonMacrovision XYZ protection scheme. Ahhh, now
I can switch to my Linux/Apple/Commodore 64 box, plug in my external
Plextor/Lite On combo 12XY drive, use Isobuster/EAC/Audiograb prebeta
version 87a, run it through my homebrew DAC computer card, store an
image on my hard drive, convert to FLAC with cuesheet and then rip it
to CD-R with Nero version 1AZP. Now I can use that copy to rip it to my
player or drive without DRM. Yesssireee, I CRACKED it." 

The major labels and copy protection companies employed by them must
enjoy reading 20 pages of hacker forums discussions about the confusion
over how to rip the new releases. I would expect that they do not intend
to confound everyone, just most people. In fact, Sony/BMG press releases
have referred to "casual piracy". They know they are not going to outwit
the dedicated hacker who wants to post the stuff on P2P networks--they
will fight and are fighting that particular battle with lawsuits and
legislation. 

I suspect that the days of holding down the shift key or pressing
Control-Alt-Whatever while holding your mouth just right to avoid a
program installation are over. The major labels are at war with piracy
and I can't blame them. However, their scorched earth policy will soon
interfere with the average person's ability to listen to the music they
purchased legally and legitimately and most likely will result in DRM
becoming standard for hardware manufacturers who need to sell their
products in the marketplace. The customers will be hollering at the
manufacturer of their players (YOUR player will not play/store MY song)
and NOT the labels. This is precisely what the labels want: to force DRM
on manufacturers of hardware. Then the battle has been won. Slim Devices
and other manufacturers want and need to sell to a broad range of
people, not just sophisicated computer users who can figure out how to
crack copy protected audio content.


-- 
Jeff52
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RE: [slim] Re: New copy protection and Squeezebox

[Phillip Kerman]

> 
> > but won't allow ripping
> 
> What do you mean by "won't allow"? What actually happens?
> 

Hard to say because I've always been able to defeat it.  But, some cds
install software via auto-start which will disable common ripping software.
Plus, other things people mentioned on this list.

I have one new CD, Tom Waits "Real Gone".  The last track I can't get... it
always freaks out the error correction in EAC.  I'm not sure what,
technically, it's doing.

Thanks,
Phillip

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[slim] Re: New copy protection and Squeezebox

[radish]

> but won't allow ripping

What do you mean by "won't allow"? What actually happens?


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Re: [slim] Re: New copy protection and Squeezebox

[Michael Herger]

Maybe people can make a list here of the CDs they believe are  
un-rippable.


The German PC magazine c't already has a list of copy protected CDs and on  
which players/drives they can/can't be read:


http://www.heise.de/ct/cd-register/default.shtml?s=suche

It's in german, but there's little important text to read:

Abspielen: can the disc be played?
Auslesen: can the disc be ripped?

Laufwerk/Brenner: drive for computers
Player: player :-)

Ja: yes
Nein: no

--

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RE: [slim] Re: New copy protection and Squeezebox

[Phillip Kerman]

Dang, I have a hard time believing that there is actually a foolproof copy
protection technology.  I haven't seen one yet (that I couldn't rip).  Not
saying you all are wrong--but I just haven't seen it and I don't understand
how it could be true.  

Maybe people can make a list here of the CDs they believe are un-rippable. 

In any event, yeah, if it's true that really sucks.

Thanks,
Phillip

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Re: [slim] Re: New copy protection and Squeezebox

[dbls]

Neil Sleightholm wrote: 

> You are lucky they worked in the car, the player in my car (Saab) is
> the only player we own that plays copy protected CDs. My wife's Audi
> won't, PC's won't and 3 differect Bose systems won't. I have to rip
> them using AudioGrabber's "Get TOC..." options
> (http://www.audiograbber.com-us.net/) then create a new CD so we can
> play them.

Well, maybe that's one reason why they call it a Smart car!

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[slim] Re: New copy protection and Squeezebox

[Neil Sleightholm]

dbls Wrote: 
> My wife and I were in France a few months ago and bought a few CDs (at
> 20+ euros a pop!) to listen to while we were driving.
You are lucky they worked in the car, the player in my car (Saab) is
the only player we own that plays copy protected CDs. My wife's Audi
won't, PC's won't and 3 differect Bose systems won't. I have to rip
them using AudioGrabber's "Get TOC..." options
(http://www.audiograbber.com-us.net/) then create a new CD so we can
play them.

Neil


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Re: [slim] Re: New copy protection and Squeezebox

[dbls]

radish wrote:

> In my experience, with auto-run switched off and a
> copy of EAC I never even notice the protection.

If only it were so...

My wife and I were in France a few months ago and bought a few
CDs (at 20+ euros a pop!) to listen to while we were driving.
One of them, Ray Charles' "Genius Loves Company", was copy
protected.  Unfortunately, I didn't notice until a couple of
days later.  When we got home, I found that EAC will recognize
the CD and list the track titles, but won't allow ripping.

I have a friend with a CD recorder (i.e. an audio component) who
can record it, but that means going through D/A and A/D
conversions.  Better than nothing, I guess.  And I can tell him
not to bother recording "It Was A Very Good Year" (yuck!).

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[slim] Re: New copy protection and Squeezebox

[radish]

> IMHO the american market is still very free compared to the european.
> Most labels over here add copy protection
Most MAJOR labels, and they're the same companies as the US ones.
They're using europe as a test market to see how acceptable the
protected discs are to consumers. What I meant by my original comment
was that most of the music I buy isn't from the major international
labels, it's from smaller indy labels who appreciate their fans. Almost
all of whom are european, as it happens. Examples: ID&G, Vandit, Armada,
Bonzai, etc etc. Mainly German, Dutch & Belgian.


-- 
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[slim] Re: New copy protection and Squeezebox

[cliveb]

radish Wrote: 
> It is simply impossible (IMNSHO) to make a CD which will play in a
> regular CD player but which cannot be ripped.
Sort of true.

Any CD which needs to be able to be playable in a standard audio CD
must have a red book compliant first session. Many copy-protected CDs
use the simple expedient of having a second data session which is what
the CDROM drive sees. This is trivially defeated by using a CDROM drive
which has an option to ignore multi-session (eg. many of the Plextor
range).

But there is another, far more sinister form of copy protection. In
this, the audio session on the disc is deliberately scattered with
uncorrectable errors, and relies on the audio CD player's error
concealment (via interpolation) to produce an acceptable playback. The
overwhelming majority of CDROM drives either do not perform error
concealment, or do so poorly. The upshot of this is that you have to
rip the CD in a mode that doesn't detect the errors (eg. EAC burst
mode), and you end up with a rip that has many short digital glitches.

The only method I have found for successfully ripping these CDs is to
play them on an audio CD player and record the SPDIF output in real
time using a soundcard with a non-resampling SPDIF input. And of course
this technique will work with *any* CD, no matter what "copy protection"
technology it uses. The bottom line is: if you can listen to it, you can
record it.


-- 
cliveb
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Re: [slim] Re: New copy protection and Squeezebox

[Michael Herger]

Thankfully very little of the music I care about comes from labels who
treat their loyal customers like criminals, but for that little which
does, well let them spend their money on snake oil. It doesn't work, it
can't work, and it won't work.


IMHO the american market is still very free compared to the european. Most  
labels over here add copy protection. And I won't buy one single protected  
CD.


A while back I ordered a disc directly from the US as I did not expect it  
to appear on the european (swiss) market. I had rarely seen this artist's  
work in Switzerland's music stores. But I was wrong: A few months later it  
was in local shops - copy protected! Labels don't treat us all the same...


I recently asked myself whether labels are actually creeping back. There  
are more and more unprotected CDs whose precursor were protected.


--

Michael

---
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[slim] Re: New copy protection and Squeezebox

[radish]

It is simply impossible (IMNSHO) to make a CD which will play in a
regular CD player but which cannot be ripped. Many companies (including
Suncomm in the past) have tried, all have failed. There have been
so-called "protected" CDs on the market for years now, all are
trivially defeated. In my experience, with auto-run switched off and a
copy of EAC I never even notice the protection. Likewise, using Linux,
MacOS or anything else non-windows will utterly defeat their schemes. 

Thankfully very little of the music I care about comes from labels who
treat their loyal customers like criminals, but for that little which
does, well let them spend their money on snake oil. It doesn't work, it
can't work, and it won't work.

> I worry that DRM will one day be attached to the
> files I create myself and only allow "trusted" software to open those
> files. Eg. Text documents I wrote myself that only open for MS-Word,
> or
> music files I recorded that will only play on iTunes.
Sounds like an excellent reason to use OpenOffice and Foobar2000 rather
that Word and iTunes to me.


-- 
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Re: [slim] Re: New copy protection and Squeezebox

[ron thigpen]

Jeff52 wrote:


According to the link to Sunncom in my original post, the shift key
"Princeton student" workaround, disable autorun workaround does NOT
work with the new protection. 


Sorry, I didn't see that information in the Sunncomm page.  The Register 
page says something to that effect, but not with any precision.  Did I 
miss something?



The new protection forces you to accept the EULA and install the
software or the disc will eject and cannot be copied.


Some software must display the EULA and on rejection eject the disc.  I 
don't see how this could work except where this software loads (via 
AutoRun) from the CD itself.  Please let us know if you find out 
otherwise.


Oh, and it appears as if Sunncomm will actually give you a workaround if 
you ask in the right way.


see:


The 'simple mechanical workaround' referenced here smells an awful lot 
like the old  key trick.


perhaps this is where you ask:


I don't have direct experience with these discs, and it sounds as if you 
don't either.  For the time being I think the best course is just to 
wait and see.


--rt
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[slim] Re: New copy protection and Squeezebox

[Jeff52]

fuzzyT Wrote: 
> Jeff52 wrote:
> 
> > What a mess this all is. What does everyone else think?
> 
> absolutely vote with your wallet.
> 
> when that fails you and something you must have comes out on one of 
> these labels, then educate yourself.  not so convoluted after all:
> 
> 
> 
> You can:
> Use Linux
> Disable Auto-Run
> Disable the malware driver
> Just use the  key
> QUOTE]
> 
> According to the link to Sunncom in my original post, the shift key
> "Princeton student" workaround, disable autorun workaround does NOT
> work with the new protection. The new protection forces you to accept
> the EULA and install the software or the disc will eject and cannot be
> copied. Yeah, I could buy a Mac (which is not currently affected),
> install Linux, etc., but that was precisely my point, in order to use
> the new discs, we will be forced to resort to new hacks or some other
> convulted method of what formerly was a rather simple process: ripping
> the CD's and then streaming the music via Squeezebox. 
> 
> I agree with voting with my wallet, however, if, as reported and
> expected, all of the major labels follow suit (EMI is using another
> similar method already), then I will be limited to searching obscure
> labels with obscure artists which do not use crippled audio discs.
> Maybe that isn't all bad, however it is a substantial restriction on
> what I may listen to on my Squeezebox. This has got to be causing some
> anxiety to people who are in the business of marketing products to
> stream digital music via harddrives, e.g., Slimdevices and others. It
> would appear that most of these companies will be forced to use DRM
> licensing in their products so that the average person may stream their
> music.


-- 
Jeff52
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[slim] Re: New copy protection and Squeezebox

[kefa]

totally agree. I vote with my wallet against DRM which is the reason why
I go to all the trouble of buying CDs rather than downloading some poxy
crippled files that sound foo barred.

problem is, I'm sure the unwashed britney listening masses don't see
how they're being conned.


-- 
kefa
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