Arista to launch copy-protected CDs in States

Arista Records, a subsdiary of BMG, plans to launch copy-protected CDs in American markets around May/June this year. This will be the first major push towards copy-protected CDs in the U.S. Rest of the world has been experiencing the "joys" of copy-protected CDs for well over 12months now.

Arista plans to use copy-protection technology from SunnComm Technologies to protect its CDs. CDs will most likely be unplayable with PC CD-ROM and DVD-ROM drives as well as in big number of stand-alone DVD players (most notably "Chinese" DVD players that are based on PC hardware such as IDE drives) and car CD players.

To compensate the playback problems with PC drives, the discs contain copy-protected WMA versions of the tracks that can't be transferred to portable audio players or to other PCs.

The fight is impossible to win from consumer point of view: if the sales increase after the copy-protected CDs are being introduced, labels can claim that copy-protection works. If the sales drop, they can blame ever-increasing P2P piracy and justify adding copy-protection mechanisms to more and more CDs. Arista's artists include Pink and Santana.

Some hardware manufacturers, most notably Apple have taken a very aggressive attitude against the copy-protection mechanisms, since the copy-protected CDs actually are CDs with severe read errors on the discs that PCs can't cope with, but normal CD players can. Apple has announced that playing copy-protected CDs with Macs will void warranty.

Source: CNet

Written by: Petteri Pyyny @ 30 Mar 2003 2:57

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8 comments

Ghostdog

Fuck this! This is bullshit.

Ok, try to excuse my language, this just pisses me off real bad.

I can understand (but by no means accept) why record labels are worried about CDs that play in computers, but car CD players?

30.3.2003 05:19 #1

zoaok

WE ALL NEED TO STOP BUYING

30.3.2003 14:39 #2

seanbyrne

If the CD tracks are on the net before they are officially released, then CD Copy Protection is certainly not going to resolve this. Also, all it takes is one ripped copy, a Volunteer willing to share it and within minutes, there are hundreds of copies shared over the Internet.

With the majority of the population owning one or more PCs and many upgrading to decent Subwoofer 2.1 & 5.1 sound systems, WMA audio is simply asking for people to download a higher quality MP3 version. People will say "Why purchase CDs with poor quality WMA when I can download higher quality MP3s from the net'.

Arista, you're making a bad move.

31.3.2003 02:23 #3

mystic

give them their dues they are trying but as long as people have the need there will always be someone who will out smart them hey it only took 6 months to break the dvd code and they did it at a univeristy as a prodject.... then they'll up it again... yes we as a cultuer need to relax our spending habit and require more then one good song on a cd which has only 10 or so songs when we all know they could put more on it.. how about the mtv vidios or the ones mtv bans now then the might get my $15.95 . who wants top buy half of any thing ... damn its like the coffee compaines making the cans smaller and charging more for it... I went to whole beans. so why not partetion the lables for all of the product insead of half?

31.3.2003 04:36 #4

Jarpo

Pink sucks.

31.3.2003 06:45 #5

A_Klingon

I just hope they have the integrity to mark (identify) these crippled cd's as such. (But I wouldn't count on it). Actually, I'd like to buy just *one* of them, to see if I can't find a way to 'crack' it. Should be interesting......

31.3.2003 06:55 #6

ICP_RIP

Seanbyrne....your kinda missing the point of the copy protection, if nobody can copy it,then there will be no copies to download!!
I know what your saying about if one copy gets leaked out, but its going to be without A DOUBT A pain in the ass to even find files, or even if you do, you'll be in a que line of about 1000 to get it!!
I by no means agree with labels putting copy protection on thier music, I think its a waste of money....why?.....cuz there will always be a way to crack it....and whats it going to prove in the end? that the rich get richer again?......Plus i agree that half the music these labels have sucks anyway, and the bands who dont care about file sharing are the better bands anyway.....So pink can just take a F*ckin pill!!

~Down with the clown,till your dead in the ground~

1.4.2003 06:30 #7

vudoo

Listen folks it don't require rocket science to copy these protected tracks. Here is how.

1. Purchase a mini disc recorder. $150.
2. Purchase a mini phono to stereo RCA adaptor or mini phono to moni phone stereo patch cord depending if you buy a portible or console modle.
3. Plug your patch cord onto the speaker jack of your sound card.
4. press Record and Pause on your recorder.
5. Load Musicmatch jukebox (retail version).
6. Press pause and quickly press play on Mucsicmatch.
7. Wait till song is over and mark as a track with the track mark button on recorder.
8. Follow steps 6-7 till all songs are recorded.
9. After entire CD is recorded change the patch cord to the output of your mini disk recorder and plug it into the in on your sound card. It looks like a musical note.
10. Goto options on your musicmatch and go to recorder and select Stereo Mixer or Line In. Set your audiofile to MP3 320 K/S
11. press the red record button on Musicmatch.
12. Name the song that you want to record.
13. Press play on recorder and quickly press record on musicmatch. Wait till song is over and press stop and do the same thing for every song.
14. Put the songs in your shared file folder and share it with everyone.

Note you can do this with streaming audio so you won't have to pay for a CD ever again. Launch and MP3.COM are great sources for these streams. I got Meaterora before it was released that way till I found it on the net.
So as you can see the labels spend millions to protect and we spend about $160 to crack and a mini disc recorder is
D I G I T A L not A N A L O G! ! ! so have fun fucking over the industry.

Voodoohippi

1.4.2003 10:48 #8

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