Heartland

from here

Coldplay's new CD comes with an insert that discloses all the rules enforced by the DRM they included on the disc. Of course, these rules are only visible after you've paid for the CD and brought it home, and as the disc's rules say, "Except for manufacturing problems, we do not accept product exchange, return or refund," so if you don't like the rules, that's tough.

What are the other rules? Here are some gems: "This CD can't be burnt onto a CD or hard disc, nor can it be converted to an MP3" and "This CD may not play in DVD players, car stereos, portable players, game players, all PCs and Macintosh PCs." Best of all, the insert explains that this is all "in order for you to enjoy a high quality music experience." Now, that's quality.

I wonder how Coldplay feels about their fans getting all these rules set down for them by the music label? I wonder if most fans who read these rules will be wise enough to blame corporate, or whether they'll just decide to dig up a band whose label treats them like customers, not crooks? It's amazing how the labels always seem to come up with new ways of screwing artists: if they're not cheating them out of royalties, they're systematically alienating their fan-base.

OK, it's Coldplay and they're crap, but this is getting increasingly common.

I'm not sure how legally enforceable a condition of use is when it's only visible after you've bought the CD (these rules are inside the packaging) as you cannot make legally binding additional terms and conditions after the contract (in this case, the purchase of the CD) has been completed. But when it's Joe Bloggs vs a multi-national music-industry corporation then it's not always a fair playing field in the courts.

How would you feel if you found a note in the next (here's hoping) Sisters CD saying that you couldn't play it on your computer (certainly not unless it's running Windows). Or your DVD player. Or the CD Player in your car. Or on your portable CD player. (All of these are excluded in the list in the linked article).

I put "no" because even though the musicians obviously have a right to control how their music is treated, it it ridiculous to make the cd unplayable in a car stereo or on a personal CD player for example. I know if all my cd's didn't play in my personal CD player I'd go mental on those regular 5 hour train journeys I've been doing.

If the CD is made so you can't change it into mp3 form then what is the point of producing items such as ipods? Like it or not that is the way I think music is going and they are making all these rules to try and stop it from happening.

the darkness have expressly forbidden this.. justin said it was ridiculous that fans can't play music where they like. (slight paraphrase there)

consumers' association and office of fair trading, anyone?

If it won't play in a CD player, then it's false advertising to sell it as a CD. Any attempt to enforce such an "agreement" is illegal, as any contractual terms added after the initial sale are void.

Unfortunately it seems Microsoft are trying to enforce similar restrictions on DVDs by not supporting players which ignore region coding:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl ... 88&tid=137

Maybe copy protection is excusable, but preventing a product from working because it was bought in a different country to the player is ridiculous.

protecting the artist's property ie the music is fair enough (to a point) but a cd is physically your property. to restrict it's use to such a degree means really that you are only leasing it as they retain rights over it. how arseways is that? if i had the money and the inclination to bulk buy all coldplay's cd's from asda and then snap them all into tiny pieces no one should be able to (or want to) stop me.

it would be actively encouraged

Perhaps some ironic justice is in order?

• Play the CD on high quality equipment with analog output of higher quality than most speakers would notice
• Take the line output of aforementioned kit and plug it into the best recording equipment you've got, again preferably that with higher quality than your average speakers
• Record the output to disk
• Serve the manufacturer with a writ claiming that since the product clearly stated that it could not be burnt to disk it obviously isn't working as advertised

N.B. A little bugger called the DMCA makes it very silly to attempt step 4 in the USA, so don't.

@Motz - I think I mentioned that in the original post, but as I said, while it might be technically legally unenforcable, the courts are not level playing fields when it is an individual (possibly without legal aid) fighting against the legal department of a corporation (I refer you to the McLibel Case - I certainly wouldn't have the willpower and determination to battle in the courts for years)

If I can't rip it to MP3 myself I'll probably just try to find the music I'm after on the net and download it. That'll be one less reason for me to buy the CD.

I think the idea is that no-one is able to rip it to MP3 and thus it can't be distributed as such. Of course there will be someone determined enough to go via the analogue route, so you'll probably get lucky.

Motz wrote:I think the idea is that no-one is able to rip it to MP3 and thus it can't be distributed as such. Of course there will be someone determined enough to go via the analogue route, so you'll probably get lucky.

Name one CD DRM that hasn't been hacked? I think every album still makes it on to some file sharing network, usually before its release date.

First off, most of the times it is the record company that decides if (and which) copyright protection will be used on the artist's CD. Without their explicit NJET, the artists don't even have a lot to say in the matter.

Secondly, whatever copy protection 'they' put on the CD, if it is NOT fully compatible with your equipment (eg car CD player and even computer) this is a breach in standards used for years by record companies such as Philips and Sony (the Red Book Standard). While it is not illegal as such, the next point IS...

The next point being (and I quote):

"On November 21, 2005 The Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott sued Sony BMG. Texas is the first state in [America] to bring legal action against Sony BMG for illegal “spyware.� The suit is also the first filed under the state’s spyware law of 2005. It alleges the company surreptitiously installed the spyware on millions of compact music discs (CDs) that consumers inserted into their computers when they play the CDs, which can compromise the systems. On December 21, 2005 Greg Abbott added new allegations to his lawsuit against Sony-BMG. Abbott says the MediaMax copy protection technology violates the state's spyware and deceptive trade practices laws. He says Sony-BMG offered consumers a licensing agreement when they bought CDs and played them on their computers. But, Abbott alleges in the lawsuit that even if consumers reject that agreement, files -- known as spyware -- are secretly installed on their computers, which pose security risks for music buyers. Abbott said "We keep discovering additional methods Sony used to deceive Texas consumers who thought they were simply buying music," and "Thousands of Texans are now potential victims of this deceptive game Sony played with consumers for its own purposes." In addition to violations of the Consumer Protection Against Computer Spyware Act of 2005, which allows for civil penalties of $100,000 for each violation of the law, the alleged violations added in the updated lawsuit, on December 21, 2005, carry maximum penalties of $20,000 per violation. It was reported on December 24, 2005 that Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist is investigating Sony BMG spyware."

Another article (can't remember where is is located for the moment) says that the copy protection itself can be described as 'spyware', for it tracks the behavior and the actions of the buyer... Interesting innit?

Needless to say that since the record companies started to file lawsuits aganst illegal downloads, a lot of countries fine-tuned their laws concerning this kind of 'new' crimes (e-crimes or netcrimes or whatever). But (the nice part coming up....) it can also be used against the companies, like in the case LazCorp mentions or in the one I stated.

Of course, it is a bit tedious to file a lawsuit against Sony on your own, but if anyone just stopped buying these CD's AND started to download them from, say iTunes or another legal download site, you could do some significant damage to the record companies, while sparing the artists.

IZ.

Someone (DVD Jon or someone similar) will find the hack to break the copy protection.

Then the Recording Industry will come up with different copy protection (maybe something fun like Sony's last attempt at copy protection - the hugely embarassing rootkit fiasco which left tens of thousands of computers open to viruses).

Then someone will hack it... and we're in this loop ad nauseam.

Having accepted this, it occurs to me that copy protection is not the way forward for the music industry, and is the equivalent of the desperate flailing of a drowning man, rather than the sensible way to run a business. There are more (and better) clever programmers and whizzkids (the geek types, not the speed types ) sitting at home in front of computers working on hacking the copy protection software than there are working for the recording industry writing new copy protection software.

And in the meantime, the recording industry is pissing off its customers.

But on the other hand the musicians/artists/writers should be paid for their work.

And in the meantime, the recording industry is still pissing off its customers. And that is why sales of CDs are down (that, and the recording industry cartel that makes sure that CDs are over-priced).

Elsewhere on another thread someone correctly pointed out that the recording industry is little more than a bank with a marketing department attached. This is certainly how it has always worked - the record company shells out to fund the studio recording and the advertising, and takes its money back from the proceeds of the sales.

But in a world where you can have the very latest multi-track recording software on your home computer, and you can get professional quality recording and mixing done in your front room, do you need (need, not want) the expense of a recording studio?

And since we're currently communicating on a system where anyone (like me or QB or Hal or Motz...) can set up their own website and market their product (be it artwork, or a discussion forum, or CD trades, or your own CDs...) to the whole world for £100 per year or less, then do you really need the advertising department of a record company?

In fact, do we need record companies?

My prediction (here's something we can laugh at in a few years time, pointing out how very very wrong I was) is that more and more bands will appear that don't use record companies, but instead use professional-standard home recording software like Logic (with maybe a few hours in the vocals booth of a proper recording studio for recording vocals and suchlike) to record their own work.

And they'll market themselves using the net (as many bands are using their own websites, or things like MySpace). They'll have to give a lot more away free to download, but the CDs they offer for sale will be much better packaged (I love those cardboard digipacks that bands like Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Swans produce - they're much more tactile and pleasing to own) to add value and entice people to buy them.

I can imagine a network of support services springing up online to help (and make money off) musicians sell music online - support services like MySpace where you have a concentrated audience of potential music fans, and probably similar sites which allow musicians to reach particular niche markets (particularly imaginative record companies should be buying into MySpace and other social networking sites now if they want to adapt and survive).

Record companies will have to adapt (although some will happily survive producing advertising-intensive boy bands, and so on) or die. Personally I hope they die.

I expect this to take a fair few years, but it will start getting reported in the media this year.

There - every website seems to have 'new year' predictions for the future and we didn't - now we do.

Having discussed this on a gazillion other (music) sites in the past, I'm not going into too deep a detail here, but suffice it to say we will evolve towards a more Internet-based distribution of music. It will be a long and hard road, paved with law-suits and example-setting.
But you will always need record/distro companies and promotors when you start to/want to become a bit 'bigger'. They still have the oh so valuable market knowledge.
They might be vultures, but they know where to find the tastiest carrion

IZ.

And in Sisters Chat, Smallstone wrote:Of course the option is to bypass the 'big record company' and do it oneself.
Find a distributor with tentacles around the world who can get your eagerly awaited recrd into every shop in the universe (it ain't that hard).
Get them to stump up the manufacturing costs (average cost of a CD to actualy make is about 60p - but the new Sisters CD.... how many would it sell.... worldwide..?)
Employ a 'team' to get you press, radio, TV, marketing etc.
That way you cut out the middle man.
Easy.

Sorry to steal your lines, Smallstone, but it seemed appropriate for this topic as well!

(and welcome to HL, by the way )

IZ.

I think it's fair to protect CDs, but as Motz pointed out, those CDs are not actually Audio CDs and thus, they should not be marketed that way. Just a little notice on the cover saying 'copy protected' would do for me.

The stopping of CDs being MP3 ripable is, according to me, just a way to have another channel to sell music, after CDs, casettes, vinyl they might find it appropriate to jump on this new medium. Honestly, can't blame 'em for that, if I'd run their business I'd do the same. It seems to work, so...

Also I noticed a remark about DVD region coding: This is actually illegal due to WTO restrictions, and IIRC there are/were lawsuits on that one, so I can hardly imagine someone'd like to try this out for CDs as well...

Yes, but .....

Having shopped for CDs in Russia, it's amazing how easy it is to get good quality bootlegs (CD or MP3) of pretty much any artist you're interested in. A regular visitor to the former USSR could easily do all of his record buying without any of the artists seeing a kopeck of his money.

He might even think about bringing lots of these cheap discs home and flogging them on ebay, ensuring lots of other people can do the same thing without putting a penny or cent in the artists' pockets.

The list of places where your disc 'may not play' is a catch all rather than an aspiration. Preventing me from making CD-standard copies and distributing them myself is a legitimate aim of a company seeking to protect its product.

As for the future death of record companies, it's a nice idea, but how do you get your granny to download you an MP3 for Christmas? She can go to Woolies and buy you Coldplay's latest (gee, thanks) but she's unlikely to go on-line and pursue it that way. Don't forget that there is a technological gap to be bridged here, and a large number of music consumers can't or won't bridge it. I know very committed musicians who don't, or prefer not to, use modern technology because it lacks the feel of rummaging in dingy Camden basements for something unexpected.

After all, if the technology exists for bands to release their material without recourse to a record company, why do most of them pay record companies to release their material?

grannies are capable of buying mobile phone top up vouchers. it might work in a similar way in the mainstream.

I would never buy an MP3 without having a hard copy of the track, because of computers' tendency to crash, and I don't see grannies doing it, but people are doing it en masse. Funny thing being - just heard this one - in Belgium even those MP3s appear to be illegal to use for eg. deejaying, as you're not able to prove you bought them

Oh my. All these copy-protection systems.. I CERTAINLY wouldn't know how to record off my sound card.. or how to copy it to a cassette..


Any band that puts copy protection like this on their CD deserves to be f**king shot. In fact, I'll say it here in case there's ever any doubt about my music:

1) If we ever sell out of a certain CD, or you can't afford to buy it at present, then GO DOWNLOAD THE MP3S. I'm hardly going to lose much money from it.
2) If we end up going through our musical life without once having our live performances or demos bootlegged, I'll be very annoyed.
3) If I ever consider measures such as these, you're free to stab me for being a corporate bitch.

End transmission.

@andymackem - you're absolutely right - this isn't going to happen overnight. I work for a publishing company and I manage their ePublishing department, and there are a lot of old-style pre-internet attitudes at high levels which refuse to take into account the fact that new technology exists and is used by many many people.

And I also agree that the physical product won't disappear totally in favour of mp3s - there is definitely a obsessive-human-nature thing about collecting the physical things (hence my suggestion that CDs that are sold will be better packaged to be more tactile etc).

As for preventing people copying MP3s and distributing them - the pirating and illegal download of mp3s will only decrease to an insignificant level when the cost of legally buying an mp3 of a song is so low that it's not worth the effort to fart around on Kazaa/Limewire/Bittorrent finding and downloading the pirated copy. I reckon that's about 10p-20p per mp3. When the cost of distribution (over the net) is so incredibly low, the record companies need to ditch their current over-priced model and go for small-profit high-quantity sales instead of high-profit low-quantity sales.

@emilystrange - spot on - my aunt can buy me a £10 Amazon (or whoever) voucher - she doesn't need (or want) to ask the man behind the counter in HMV if they have anything by Alien Sex Fiend (she wasn't happy about doing it).

@Dark - as someone has already mentioned, unless the band has a lot of sway with the record company (i.e. is a multi-million seller) then it's doubtful that they have the power to tell the record company not to put copy protection on their CD - it's the record company's choice. Yes, now artists have got even more to worry about than creative/artistic freedom - they have to worry about the methods their record comapny will use in digital rights management as well.

I blame Caxton.

Not entirely jokingly either; before movable type meant the easy publication and dissemination of books, copyright was an unheard-of concept. Books -- all of them -- were laboriously copied out by hand (together with scribal errors, marginal notations by one scribe being added into the main text by the next, and various other transmission errors).

The idea of an author who tried to stop others from copying his work would have seemed insane to (say) the monks of 9th century Ireland, through whom many ancient works have come down to us.

Similarly, how did musicians make money before the advent of Edison's phonograph? They played live music. The Sisters have proved (to the chagrin of some) that you don't need to release records to make (at least some) money from music; playing live can still pay its way (admittedly, if the Sisters had never released a record it would be difficult to see how they could still be making money touring).

The point being? Record companies decrying digital copies and downloads do seem to have a flavour of King Cnut ordering back the tide; even without a hack of the copy-protection, Motz's Digital -> Analogue -> Digital conversion will provide good enough copies for most people's purposes.

IMO the Internet age is sounding the death-knell for copyright. Once an image, song, novel, poem, whatever, is digitised and on the net, how can you "protect your rights of ownership"? Impossible. The music and other publishing industries need to wake up and smell the coffee. They're dead in the water, but haven't noticed yet.

Interestingly the NUJ is withdrawing its support for existing copyright legislation.

There was a long (and rather dull) piece about this in their latest issue where they argue that they were wrong to endorse the repressive capitalist mechanism of copyright (the NUJ does write like this all the time - it makes me question why I'm a member every time it contacts me).

They are now seeking some kind of 'intellectual property' idea to protect the creator of published work (journalists, specifically) rather than the disseminator (newspaper owners, or plausibly record companies).

Of course, this potentially means that a writer takes on far more responsibility for defamation and related issues - at the moment I can expect protection from my company's multi-million pound legal resources if I am subject to a law suit. If they no longer have the same rights to my work they may argue they no longer have the same responsibilities and leave me to fight alone. Damage awards would necessarily be smaller (I didn't make a US$1bn profit last year) but the impact on me would be far greater. You won't sink a paper, but you can sink awkward journos.

If you can hear it, you can copy it. Simple as that.


Anyone?

I'm nicking that for an avatar