BMG:"No more music CDs without copy protection"

Faced with adverse publicity to copy protection on CDs, a year ago Bertelsmann Music Group bravely gave in and promised to replace a clutch of Natalie Imbruglia CDs which were protected by Midbar's Cactus Data Shield. But a year is a long time, BMG is at it again, this time apparently set on applying copy protection to all its music products.
...
This is a clear commitment to 100 per cent copy protection, and once implemented will no doubt ease the workload of the various 'corrupt CD' identification sites considerably. Ah, but what if you have a problem playing the CD? "If you can't play the BMG product on your player please contact your dealer or the responsible person at BMG under (email address of the responsible person)."

We're sure it makes more sense in German. If you fill in the form and send it off to who knows where, this is what you get from the BMG Kopierschutz Team (typos left in):



"we are sorry you have troubles with our copy protection technology. The copy protection reacts on the special new technology that is build in in burners. Unfortunately htis technics was built in many new CD players, even if they can't copy a cd.

The copy protection yet does not recognize wheather that burner technics is build in a cd player or in a burner. That's why the cd playern might not play a copy protected CD. Since burner technics are also built in car radios, this may be the reason, why you can't listen to a copyprotected cd in your car.

As far as we were adviced, our copy protection is according to the Red Book Standart as well as all labelling on the cd.

A standart home CD player is one that has no burner technics built in. Our Cds play on all Cd players without burner technics.

There will be no cd manufactured without copyprotection any more."

Philips has made a statement that protected CDs are not Red Book compliant and therefore the "Compact Disc"-logo is not allowed to use on protected CDs. However, according to this article, they do use the logo.

And the fact that BMG is about to ignore the clients with advanced MP3CD players is disgraceful. But this also means that a ripped & de-protected copy of an audio disc is actually better for the consumer than the original one.

And the protections -- they just fail to stop anyone.

TheRegister

Written by: Lasse Penttinen @ 6 Nov 2002 11:45
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  • 7 comments

  • Pio2001

    I guess some people won't even notice a difference, as there will certainly be drives capable of copying the CDs, as there are for all current protections.

    Pio2001

    6.11.2002 12:04 #1

  • slickster

    Does this new technology prevent you from actually creating an image on your harddrive from the CD or burning it back to a CD-R?

    6.11.2002 12:11 #2

  • dRD

    It prevents you even _playing_ the discs in various normal CD players, including tons of car stereos.

    And this experiment is being carried out only in Europe, where _all_ BMG discs will be copy-protected from now on.

    Petteri Pyyny
    Webmaster
    http://AfterDawn.com/

    Please read our guides before posting questions! Guides are available here:
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    6.11.2002 12:17 #3

  • Ketola

    Well atleast there's a bright side to this story - now it's easy to tell for sure which CDs NOT to buy. *grin*

    Jari Ketola
    Administrator
    http://www.AfterDawn.com

    6.11.2002 12:20 #4

  • dRD

    Ketola: S**tty thing is the habit of labels to actually own multiple label brands and avoid showing their own, "main brand" logo on them. Columbia Records, etc -- they don't "really" exist, but are just parts of the Big Five.

    Easiest would be to boycott _ALL_ CDs, despite what label, until the music industry gets the idea (like that's gonna happen..).

    Petteri Pyyny
    Webmaster
    http://AfterDawn.com/

    Please read our guides before posting questions! Guides are available here:
    http://www.afterdawn.com/articles/

    6.11.2002 12:24 #5

  • markusk

    No wonder cd sales are declining. People are are not sure that they can play their new cds so they rely on getting the them as a "safe version" from a tech-savy friend Stupid politics from the record companies and not working.

    Markus

    P.S. Next time when you buy a cd/dvd -drive make sure it can read these new "faulty" cds

    7.11.2002 00:33 #6

  • 8bit_bytr

    Doh! I'll just use an old CD-Rom and a loop-back cable like I do now, ripping my MP3's for my walkman and ignor this puny menace. Get a life!

    Play Atari today, it won't break-down tomorrow ;-)

    7.11.2002 08:25 #7

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