Tubular Bells 2003: COPY PROTECTED

This is EXACTLY why I've basically switched to vinyl. It's a good thing most of the music I actually like these days can be found on vinyl...

 

A - men!

After all, its not like it can't be copied one way or another...

 

Will you not be buying any SACD's?

 

I can see an audiophile in a local club making 30 copies for is audiophile buddies to pass out at the next listening session..

 

Check this link out:- http://ukcdr.org/issues/cd/bad/
Looks like most CD's in Europe are protected. There must be loads out there that haven't been reported\found out. Like I said in previous post, the record companies were known to put out some batches in secret.
I guess the USA will begin to see more protection non-redbook products.

 

I hear you. If people simply stuck to making copies for personal use, we wouldn't be where we are today. What did people do when they couldn't take theit turntables in their car? They made a cassette. Nobody cared. But you had to buy the album to do that. Too many people aren't buying anything nowadays. Just downloading their own for nothing and pissing in the water supply for everyone else.

BTW I've bought quite a few copy-protected CD's and they sound fine.

Not really. If not for the record companies, they'd have nothing to steal.

 

Doh... cmon man what kind of an attitude is that from an Audiophile!? "It sounds fine", .... but it could be better if it conformed to redbook standards.
These CD's are corrupt. They prevent certain players reading them, and you will lose playing time\extra tracks to allow for the 'protection track'.
If protected CD's do become commonplace, it will be us the Audiophiles, the one's who care about sound quality, that will lose out most. Not those downloaders.
Remember copy protection will never work. Hackers *will* get round it, so why should us innocent people who pay for our CD's have to put up with this garbage from record companies. If I spend $12 on a CD, I expect it to be redbook, sound as good as it can, play in my car, able to burn my own compilation discs. Why should the innocent suffer? That's called freedom ain't it?

 

EMI Canada is releasing pretty much everything "Copy Controlled".

From the inside of the Coldplay - "Clocks" CD single.
"This disc contains Copy Control technology. It is designed to be compatible with CD Audio players, DVD players, and PC - MS Windows 95, Pentium 2, 233 MHz, 64MB RAM or higher, Mac OS 8 6-9 with the Carbon Lib extension and Mac OS X. Quality control - [email protected] / 1.866.553.0220.

I encourage Canadian members here to E-mail or call this EMI number and complain. As mentioned in a previous thread in Canada we are LEGALLY allowed to make backup copies of our CDs for the car, discman, etc.
http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/s...=210764&highlight=canadian+copying#post210764
In Canada we pay a higher price for blank CD-Rs for this very purpose.

The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency right now has about $28 Million that they've collected since 1998, IIRC for distribution to artists. This money comes from Canadians such as me, buying blank audio cassettes and blank CD-Rs.

EMI Canada should not be copy protecting their discs, nor should any other major or indie label here. It's all legal here.

 

I called the EMI 800 number. You receive a recorded message identifying the dept. and asking you to leave your name and phone number, which I did.

It will be interesting to see what sort of repsonse I get. I will keep you posted.

 

The really silly part, is that it's pointless. It does absolutely nothing to stop real piracy, and only frustrates legitimate consumers.

Most pirates get their source material from file-sharing networks, not other people's CDs. All you need is a regular CD player and a computer with a sound card and you can make MP3s of any recording. The sound won't be as good, but most people won't care. It will take longer to create the files, and some people won't bother, but that's irrelevant on a file-sharing network where if one person has it, everyone does.

A good example of the "it only takes one person" theory in action is how, to this day, thousands of people are convinced that there's a rare/unreleased/early Pet Shop Boys song called "Send Me An Angel" -- and all because some bright spark mislabeled an MP3 file. Of course, the song was by Real Life, was a sizeable hit (twice!) and doesn't even sound like PSB -- but try telling that to all the KaZaasters out there.

 

I really enjoy my SACD Multi-Ch disc of Tubular Bells, so I think I will also skip this version.

Other cds that are copy protected are:

Busted Stuff/ Dave Matthews Band
Up/ Peter Gabriel

I had a hell of a time trying to make a copy to play in my car.

 

Well, they could also be better if they conformed to standards of taste and restraint in terms of recording quality. They sound as good as other non copy-protected commercial pop/rock CD's, in that the recordings are 'corrupt' to begin with, maximized, compressed and all.

 

My music is registered with SOCAN and so far I have never seen anything reflecting this distribution in my royalty statements.... at least YET.

Cheers,
Chris

 

Actually, a lot of this stuff is imported. Much stuff now is brought in, not pressed in Canada, so it's built-in. I note Coldplay "Clocks" CD singles has it, but the newer "The Scientist" does not appear to. New Ed Harcourt and Tom McRae are imported and copy-protected. Yet new Turin Brakes indicates "Manufactured in Canada by EMI Music Canada" and is protected.

Can someone educate me on how copy-protection affects sound quality? Or should I pick up an LP copy of the CP'd item and spot the differences? LP usually sounds better anyway.

 

At the same time that they're demanding a MUCH bigger levy on all blank media, they also concede that they have not paid out a dime of the money they've collected.

 

Actually, they didn't send out the paperwork to SOCAN members regarding this matter until earlier this year. You had to sign it and return it by a certain date or you wouldn't get your (alleged) piece of the pie.

My best Homer Simpson voice: "Mmmmmmm.... pie!"

Still remains to be seen how big that piece o' pie is for the average artist. I thnk that Bryan Adams gets most of my money, anyway.

Cheers,
Chris

 

Nah, probably Celine. As if anyone would be pirating her material! Oops, was that my outside voice?

 

They must have because I downloaded the whole thing about 2 weeks ago. It sounded great. I will still buy the original though.

It doesn't have the "charm" of the original but it sure sounds excellent.

By the way... I know the DVD comes with some surround mixes but is the whole thing coming out in M/C any time soon? Anyone? anyone?

 

Right on. A CD player, a computer, a good sound card, and a file-sharing network. Assuming hackers never crack the protection schemes (yeah, right)...it's those four right there that render copy-protection meaningless. With all the cheap high-quality sound cards out there, who cares if it's not ripped digitally with a CD-ROM drive? Big deal. Most people won't know the difference and in many cases there probably wouldn't be much of a difference.

Matt

 

At best, copy protection is nothing more than a minor nuisance, at worst, it ruins the CD. I'll tell you how easy it is to get around a copy coded CD. I have a stand alone CD burner that I use to burn vinyl to CDR. It obviously has an analogue function. The burner doesn't distinguish between the analogue source. So, any copy coded CD I want on CDR, I only have to play it on my CD player and burn it real time through the analogue function of the burner. Obviously, that's a nuisance, as I'd rather burn it at 4 or 8x speed on my computer, but it doesn't prevent me from making a copy. The sound quality is probably slightly degraded, but it's degraded from the copy code protection anyway, right? It seems the labels would be better served fighting this battle on a different front, as copy coding does NOTHING to stop copying and only serves to piss off consumers interested in making legitimate legal copies of their CDs, while degrading the sound quality intended by the redbook format.

 

Same here in the U.S.: music CD-Rs are more expensive for that reason, and is a result of the "Taping tax" issue. Although here, the RIAA probably grabbed all the money to buy some judges and politicians to push their corrupted agenda.

I'm of the mindset that if it is copy protected, I will not buy it. I make compilations to play in my CD changers, and recently, make MP3 CDs for the portable. It's my own "fair use", as the law dictates.

 

In the USA we are LEGALLY allowed to make backup copies of our CDs for the car, discman, etc. also. HOWEVER, nothing in the USA "fair use" law requires manufacturers to release product that can be copied, which is why many VHS titles could be protected with macrovision without violating "fair use."

 

Who says they couldn't?

 

Yes, but here it's on all blank media. So even if you only buy CDRs to back up files, photos, etc., the music industry gets a cut. Sweet deal for them, isn't it?

 

Yeah, maybe I can write something for her. Somehow, I doubt if she'd appreciate an electroacoustic soundscape piece. At least it might drown out her voice.

Cheers,
Chris