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Passing along a couple of articles I saw today about some scary DRMware on recent Sony CDs...

http://neros-fiddle.blogspot.com/2005/1 ... puter.html

Stay away.

Ryan

I didn't read *all* of the comments there, but what's preventing someone from doing the shift key trick? Is something whack with the Red Book audio? What's preventing one from just doing a rip?

Turning off autoplay (or using Mac/Linux) should work -- but not everyone knows about that. I was trying to help those who might have autoplay enabled avoid sticking a CD in their drive and ending up with a nearly-impossible-to-get-rid-of rootkit intercepting all calls to their CD driver.

I added some verbiage to my post with instructions on disabling autoplay, though, since that's almost always a good idea.

Ryan

Interesting, especially the links within that blog. Apparently the DRM on the My Morning Jacket CD was done WITHOUT the band OR label's knowledge. (???)

That's standard practice. You think Radiohead particularly wants copy protection (the super-shitty EMI kind that corrupts the error-correcting information) on their CDs? It's the label/distributor's decision.

Lots of indie bands are particularly unhappy with this status quo, unsurprisingly.

How exactly does EMI's shitty "Copy Protect" work? I have four Kevin Ayers discs with this crap. I bought them mail order when they were released in 2003 and got no warning about it.

It seems to be something that works only in tandem with certain hardware and software. All I know is that EAC choked on them with three different drives; iTunes on my Mac choked on them using a Plextor drive, but using the same Plextor drive on the Mac, both Toast and commandline cdda2wav and cdparanoia sailed through them with no errors. Strange, huh? I just can't figure out what exactly that copy "protection" scheme is doing. Does anyone know how it works -- or is supposed to work? It's not just a false TOC. Some software can deal with them, some (including EAC) cannot. So what is that all about? I'm just curious.

Having said that, I'll NEVER buy ANY copy protected CD again. I don't give a damn what it is. If it's copy protected, I can live without it.

When the band's website contains advice on how to bypass the copy protection the label has slapped on their CD, you know "protecting the artist" isn't high on the priority list at the label.

The link about the Van Zant CD was *really* scary to me. Once that crap gets in there, it's there forever, autoplay or no autoplay. Unless you've got the Windows hacking skills this guy does, that software will be forever waiting for a CD it recognizes to be inserted in the drive, at which point it will leap out and shut down access to the drive except through its "authorized" crappy software. If the software breaks and screws up access to your drive for other things? Tough titty.

All the sleazy doubletalk on the Sony site about "if you want to use these songs on an iPod, call Apple and tell them to support our DRM scheme" is also a barrel of laughs. So being able to play the songs on a CD you paid full retail for is now subject to the political relationship between Sony and Apple. Lovely.

Definition of irony: downloading music from shady Bittorrent sites is now the best way to protect yourself against malicious worms and Trojans. Nice work, labels.

Ryan

Crummy Old Label Avatar wrote:All I know is that EAC choked on them with three different drives

Did you try the various modes of ripping?

The EMI stuff is particularly nasty. Basically, it screws around with error correction sectors and does all kinds of awfulness. There're sites (cdfreaks?) which dilineate how to *potentially* defeat it, but I think some of it ends up being a hardware crapshoot.

As I have some of those Ayers albums, do you want me to CDR them for you?

Re: Sony's "plea": yeah, it's a barrel of laughs, especially coming from a company which--until very recently--allowed no format other than ATRAC on their Ipod clone. Seriously. MP3s, OGG...all converted to ATRAC before they'd be playable. And Sony now has the nerve to harass Apple about "opening up their format?' What a waste of space those guys are.

I don't generally pay much attention to conspiracy theories about Big, Nasty Corporations, but it's almost as if Sony's trying to attract attention from the tinfoil hat crowd with its ridiculously anticompetitive and anticonsumer outlook.

Attack!

Where, fearless leader?

Xenu wrote:Where, fearless leader?

Give me a few minutes. I'll think of something.