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Michael Fossenkemper 11 September 2005

I just had a conversation with an executive at Sony during a mastering session in which he said that the record labels were about to embark on a new copy protection scheme that would severly hinder individuals from coping CD's. I don't have much as far as details, but right now it looks like they are going to focus on PC's and not hassle with Macs.

Comments

anonymous Mon, 09/12/2005 - 11:32

Michael Fossenkemper wrote: Now that I'm thinking about it, Why are the labels not going to impliment this for macs? I wonder if itunes has anything to do with it.

I figure it probably has to do with allocation of resources more than any agreement they might have with Apple. I believe over 90% of the machines out there are currently running Windows. Code for each copy protection scheme would need to be ported to each OS - and ports are often very difficult - meaning that they cost time and money. So rather than delay release of their next "scheme" - plus spending a lot of additional cash - I'd figure Sony thinks they can take care of a large share of the "problem" by just addressing PC's initially. Of course this is just conjecture on my part.

Frankly I think if they spent more time developing and promoting artists that have true enduring merit instead of doing their best to cling to a business plan that the age of quickly streaming digital data is making obsolete the "Big 4"s future outlook would be a lot better.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

jonnyc Mon, 09/12/2005 - 13:03

I like how this pirating music has become such an issue with the record labels yet didn't seem to be at all in the 80's when everyone and their brother would copy a tape and give it to friends or just wait for the song to come on the radio and record it from there. I couldn't tell you how many times as a kid i would copy a friends tape or wait for the good songs to come on the radio. I just think its interesting that there never seemed to be an issue then but now all the sudden it is. I do realize the internet makes it easy to steal but hell all you needed 20 years ago was a friend with a tape and tape deck, and like computers who didn't have one. I think the countless years of paying 17-25 bucks for a cd bit the record industry in the ass and their getting a bit of what they deserve, I personally prefer to buy my cd's because I want the highest quality audio possible to compare to and I just like the fact I can say I bought it.

anonymous Mon, 09/12/2005 - 19:39

Michael Fossenkemper wrote: Well, he told me that it's not that they can't impliment it on macs, it's just that they're not. They already have it ported, they are just not implimenting it. With all of the majors involved, porting it to mac is just pocket change of one of the mailroom guys.

Interesting - so maybe the hand of Jobs is indeed in behind this??

ironically -
As an independent artist also - I've found that one of our best marketing tools for getting people to the gigs and to buy our CD has been making free full length mp3 downloads available.
But anti-piracy moves has never ever been about protecting the artist - what it's about is protecting profit margins.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

Hawkeye Tue, 09/13/2005 - 05:44

The last "Copy Controlled" CD I bought would not play on my IBM P4 XP desktop, my new Dell Latitude 810 XP Pro laptop, my car deck, or my Toshiba DVD player. It would only play on my main system Linn CD player. This is despite the fact that the CD said it would play on all these devices.

It's said that a lot of the copy protection involves the error correction circuitry and that this circuitry ends up being "maxed out" on most CD players, trying to keep up with the altered coding. This school of thought also says that these CD's generally do not sound as good on a lot of players because they are messing with the red book CD standard.

In fact, a lot of those CD's arent't technically CD's at all.

anonymous Tue, 09/13/2005 - 05:54

About 8 months ago in new scientist it was reported a new type of piracy control may be tested,it was a simple idea I'm not sure if this will be it but,they reported manufactures were going to make disks which were slightly off centre so it would be impossible to be error corrected for a burn copy but good enough to play on most consumer cd players.I doubt that is it (because ripping would probably work fine)but check thier archives.

Thomas W. Bethel Tue, 09/13/2005 - 05:58

jonnyc wrote: I like how this pirating music has become such an issue with the record labels yet didn't seem to be at all in the 80's when everyone and their brother would copy a tape and give it to friends or just wait for the song to come on the radio and record it from there. I couldn't tell you how many times as a kid i would copy a friends tape or wait for the good songs to come on the radio. I just think its interesting that there never seemed to be an issue then but now all the sudden it is. I do realize the internet makes it easy to steal but hell all you needed 20 years ago was a friend with a tape and tape deck, and like computers who didn't have one. I think the countless years of paying 17-25 bucks for a cd bit the record industry in the ass and their getting a bit of what they deserve, I personally prefer to buy my cd's because I want the highest quality audio possible to compare to and I just like the fact I can say I bought it.

Anytime you can play a medium you can copy it. It may not be the best copy but if you can see or hear it you can make a copy. What the record companies and movie studios are worried about is the replication of an exact copy of the medium. Today with digital equipment one can take a CD or DVD and make multiple copies of that CD or DVE without playing for the additional copies which is cutting into the companies bottom line.

Back in the 50's 60's and 70's you could always make a copy of a record or tape or cassette or even off the radio but it was always a second generation copy and you could not clone the original like we can do with the equipment available to us today. The copy sounded darn good but it was still a copy and not an original clone. Now the record companies and movie studios are faced with technology that can basically make anyone a replication center and copies of DVDs and CD that are not produced by the record companies or movie studios are out on the streets around the world before the original media is even a couple of days old. I have seen DVDs offered for sale before the movie opens at our local Cineplex. I have also seen more and more people in movie theaters with tripods and camcorders especially with first run popular shows like Starwars or Spiderman. Our local Cineplex just put up signs saying it was illegal to do so but on the same day I saw the sign I saw a guy recording in the theater I was in.

We all think that the movie studios and record companies are being overly cautious and have way more money than the lowly consumer but they have to make a profit and they have to stay in business if they are going to survive.

I think the current prices charged for CDs is ridiculous. They are way too high for the content available. You can purchase a DVD with 8 hours of entertainment on it for $14.99 but a CD with less than an hour on it costs $18.99 at the local Border's store. Does that mean that I will make copies of the CD for all my friends to "get back" at the record companies ....NO it does not. I will however thing seriously about what CDs I purchase and how many I will buy which in turn is HURTING the record companies.

In the "good old days" there were single records which on could purchase for a reasonable price so if you really liked a song you could go to the local record shop and get a 45 rpm record for less than a dollar or you could purchase the whole album for less than six dollars. That was still a lot of money in those days but you had a choice. Now you purchase a CD with two good songs on it and 14 filler songs and you have to part with a $20 bill. I think the internet is the place that is going to be the salvation of the record companies it will be the place where it is still possible to purchase the single for less than a dollar and have it available immediately. What the record companies want is to somehow FORCE you to purchase the CD if you want to enjoy it and not get your music off someone else's computer. Unfortunately this is not going to work just as all the other copy protecting schemes have not worked for the simple reason that if one person can invent a way to prevent copying another person can figure out a way around the copy protection.

The best way for the record companies to survive is to make music fun again and to keep the cost of ownership low enough so that the individual person does not have resort to criminal means just to enjoy there music. The other problem today is that most record companies are run by lawyers and they would rather sue than figure out how to sell more music. This is NOT the way it was in the 50's 60's and 70's when the people making the decisions were musicians themselves and knew what it took to please the public at large.

MTCW

Hawkeye Tue, 09/13/2005 - 06:32

Anybody can walk in off the street and get 1,000 CD's with jewel boxes and four colour artwork done for $999. I have to think the manufacturing cost when you're producing millions of CDs is a lot less than that.

Where is the $18.99 going? A couple of bucks for the retailer, less than a buck for manufacturing, a pittance for the artist and the rest to... where?

I know promotion and advertising can cost big money, but there are a lot of artists out there who are not the latest pop icon who get zilch in terms of promotional support from the record companies and their CD's are still expensive.

I agree, that the way to thwart copying is to make the product inexpensive enough that people will forego the hassle of copying and just buy the product for the convenience and for the artwork, etc. Make a value proposition to the consumer that they cannot ignore. This is the way that business works. As long as the record companies and RIAA keep trying to turn back the clock to preserve old paradigms and business models, the more they will turn off the very consumer who they rely on for their survival. This is just basic.

anonymous Tue, 09/13/2005 - 08:02

Michael Fossenkemper wrote: but i'm not talking about just copying a whole CD for pirating, It's going to require people to jump through some serious hoops just to mp3 it to a player. To the point of record execs moving over to macs so it won't hinder them. Three that I know have moved over this week.

MS is about to launch the nightmare of 7 different versions of their new OS "Vista" - including "Ultimate" which will offer the buyers "exclusive content". Could they be in cahoots with this also in order to try and sell more copies of their most expensive OS?

It all seems so X Files if you let you imagination go on this.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

anonymous Tue, 10/04/2005 - 07:07

Michael Fossenkemper wrote: I just had a conversation with an executive at Sony during a mastering session in which he said that the record labels were about to embark on a new copy protection scheme that would severly hinder individuals from coping CD's. I don't have much as far as details, but right now it looks like they are going to focus on PC's and not hassle with Macs.

If you can hear it you can record it. We've been round this copy protection issue a thousand times (and so has Sony) and there is nothing you can do - I wish there was!

JoeH Tue, 10/04/2005 - 11:47

I'm about to take the plunge and buy an ipod Nano. They sound great, and they seem worth the cost. BUT, I want to make my own MP3's from my own CDs, and do it all myself. I'm going to have to look into that part, to make sure I can get what I want out of it.

As for the cost of CDs, I've been saying this for years, and anyone reading this is free to quote me. Sell 'em for $5 each, and their troubles are over. Anyone with a $20 bill on them will reach for four; sales will be back.

It breaks down like this:

$1 for the artists & writers, however it breaks down.
$1 for the managment
$1 for the label & distro agencies involved
$1 for the replication & shipping costs
$1 for the retailers.

Add tax on for the gov't and everyone gets a piece o'the pie for $5 each.

What could be simpler?

Let me tell you, that $15-18 per disc money is going SOMEWHERE, and it's not the bank accounts of the artists. Ask anyone in the biz; NO ONE makes $$$ on CD sales, they make $$$ on live performances.

JoeH Tue, 10/04/2005 - 11:48

I'm about to take the plunge and buy an ipod Nano. They sound great, and they seem worth the cost. BUT, I want to make my own MP3's from my own CDs, and do it all myself. I'm going to have to look into that part, to make sure I can get what I want out of it.

As for the cost of CDs, I've been saying this for years, and anyone reading this is free to quote me. Sell 'em for $5 each, and their troubles are over. Anyone with a $20 bill on them will reach for four; sales will be back.

It breaks down like this:

$1 for the artists & writers, however it breaks down.
$1 for the managment
$1 for the label & distro agencies involved
$1 for the replication & shipping costs
$1 for the retailers.

Add tax on for the gov't and everyone gets a piece o'the pie for $5 each.

What could be simpler?

Let me tell you, that $15-18 per disc money is going SOMEWHERE, and it's not the bank accounts of the artists. Ask anyone in the biz; NO ONE makes $$$ on CD sales, they make $$$ on live performances.

kmdavidson Fri, 10/07/2005 - 20:03

I think Sony has actually been doing this for several months with a number of their releases (e.g. David Gray, which is actually quite good)

I've used a few in PCs and they're a bit of a pain - they first install a program on your computer and then let you play it. I'm not sure how itunes has been integrated, but I don't think that's going to be too big of a problem. The CDs are copy-limited not copy-restricted. So theoretically, Mike's dad could still rip a CD into iTunes without any problems. That is "theoretically." If your dad is anything like my sister, he'll pick up the phone and call you for "tech support" the second the prompt comes up asking if the computer can install the software necessary to play the CD. I think Sony is making a mistake and the number of pirated copies prevented will pale in comparison to the number of CDs not sold on account of frustration. Most of the people buying CDs nowadays are not the 17-year olds with the computer know-how (they download directly from itunes). Those buying CDs are from a generation that remembers the long box, cassettes, and 45s... And they're the ones who are going to get frustrated trying to play the CD on their computers, and possibly just stop buying copy-protected/limited CDs altogether.

And I agree with Joe that the CDs should and could be cheaper. $5 a pop may be asking for too much of the record companies (lest we forget their marketing costs, and wasted dough on the bands that never sold), but I'd be perfectly happy with $14.99 again. There have been countless times that I've gone to a record store, picked up two CDs, looked at the price, put them both down out of disgust, and purchased nothing. So instead of 2 at $14.99, they get 0 at $18.99.

Hopefully, they'll catch on, lower the price, and chill out on the copy protection mania.

My apologies for the excruciatingly long post.

jdsdj98 Wed, 10/12/2005 - 16:03

Do these new efforts at copy protection affect the ME's role at all?

Do you have to approach what you do differently, in terms of coding the protection schemes?

Does that happen at your level, or downstream of you?

If downstream, it seems that it would concern you that what you hand off as your finished product will actually go through another revision, thus introducing a point of failure after you release the "final" version.

If not downstream, who is responsible for the financial burden of providing your facility with this capability? After all, it isn't YOU that mandated this change.

Just questions that come to mind when these things come up.

anonymous Sat, 10/15/2005 - 11:04

Hawkey:

"Where is the $18.99 going? A couple of bucks for the retailer, less than a buck for manufacturing, a pittance for the artist and the rest to... where? "

This is exactly where most people seem to be in the dark and where the record companies are made out to be such bad guys - mainly because people just don't get it.

The breakdown is roughly as follows:

Out of an $18 CD on th shelf of a store the first THIRD goes to the retailer - So thats $6 to him ( the biggest cut of the cake )

The Wholesaler takes the next ten percent

The distributer takes the next ten percent

the tiny cost of manufactuer comes off next say $0.40 ?

costs that nobody think of come off the remaining - thats Advertising and promotion costs ( usualy HUGE for a top ten album ) - also Promotion and plugging

Whats left after that is taxed

This is then divided in to a new percentage - the artist gets on average 7% of this ( or 7 'points' as its know )

The writer of the songs gets 7% the publisher of the songs gets 7% and often the producer may get 1 or two percent.

so the record companies keep the remaining 75% ( which after the dedcutions above is a very different figure compared to the initial price on the shelf.

What people also fail to recognise is that its the record companies taking the risk of spending tones of money on acts that may never make it and fail to recover any of the costs - For every major success we hear about there are hundreds that simply don't break through - so they lose money as well as make it - Its a huge risk backing and funding an act and getting it to the masses why shouldn't they reap the rewards of this success ?

Anyone can make their own CD album and sell it on their own web page but how many individuals are lucky enough to be able to fund the distribution, advertising, plugging, media and pressings that make a top ten album get there ? - This is why we need the record companies.

Lester

anonymous Fri, 10/21/2005 - 06:24

Let me just say this...

There is *NO WAY* to prevent copying. PERIOD!

Second, the area of loss is not CD to CD but rather CD to digital file/MP3 etc.

Most systems are DSP-based, meaning they can accept flash software upgrades.
Hackers can write their own bypass updates for the hardware and distribute the updates to the public.

As long as the public has access to ANY device that will record sound and ANY device that plays sound,
it is absolutley IMPOSSIBLE and ECONOMICALLY non-viable to attempt to prevent copying.

Sony and the rest will have to ride out this transition period until EVERY device EVERYWHERE is connected to the Net.
Then they can use DRM to *reduce & hinder* copying, but you'll never ever eliminate it and it will never remain hindered for long.
It's an already lost battle...

From an investor and stock holder perspective it's also not smart.
The R&D and initial costs are substantial and the returns are impossible.

They're better off to eliminate production of CD's entirely, which will take another 8-10 years minimum world-wide.

I have had my different vehicles broken into (auto alarm or not) over 20 times in my life. A long time ago, due to insurance replacement issues and costs, etc., I switched to playing only copies of my CD's in my vehicles.

I leave the originals at home and that way if the copies are stolen I make more. I never distribute them and they are for my personal use.

It will only take one group lawsuit against SONY for this reason alone and it will put an end to their plan.

In the near-term anyway the overall loss is simply not worth the return on investment in copy protection.

If the execs were really thinking, they would organize an industry-wide campaign and target social-engineering commercials and advertisements against the youth, all ages and beginning as soon as possible.

Package the Ads and commercials on all media - put paper inserts with web link to watch the advertisement on a website with a contest to bring in the purchaser, dvd forced previews, maybe even *cringe* an audio-ad on cd's, TV Ads during cartoons for the very young, MTV and Teen Mag Ad's for the young and Network Ad's for the rest.

These Ads and commericials would present the anti-copy view and present copying as "uncool" and damaging to the industry. We've seen this type of campaign used recently against smoking and on some DVD's for anti-copy. That method would at least provide some mid to long-term results in their efforts against copying for distribution.

You might even include a sub-plot in a couple popular movies and TV series where some kid gets branded "uncool" by his or her peers and shunned for copying and distributing.

(And if you don't think that type of campaign works then try lighting a cigar or cigarette the next time you're in a public restaurant or mall, but please film it and post a link to it when you do it!)

KJ
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Kyro Studios

Cucco Fri, 10/21/2005 - 07:55

I don't really have anything significant to contribute here, but I wanted to vent my frustration.

Often, I load CDs from my collection into my DAW to see it and hear it on a different level than just my car CD player. Often, this helps clients too when I can load a GOOD sounding CD and a sh*tty sounding CD.

Well, I just dropped $200 on 10 CDs (newer ones on the market) and found out that 8 of them require me to load this sh*tty software (which I don't take kindly to on my DAW!!!!!) and then, when I tried to load them into Sequoia, there was this awful skreetching sound through the entire track.

This is just damn frustrating.

I really don't mind paying $15 for a CD (more than that is assanine!) and I do understand how the costs break down - the retailer makes the lion's share of the profit! But so far, everyone here seems to be right - the big companies are alienating the consumers in ways to try to protect their assets. It's kind of like an O'Henry story...

I also heard a story on our local news channel (WTOP) stating that Wal-Mart will be making a move to sell no CD for more than $10. This is a great idea, except a couple small problems.

1. Wal-mart will probably buy their discs from the distributor at the same cost that they always have - cutting into everyone else's share, not their own.

2. It puts Wal-Mart in a positive light and I just can't live with this!

J.

anonymous Wed, 11/02/2005 - 09:18

Michael Fossenkemper wrote: the record labels were about to embark on a new copy protection scheme that would severly hinder individuals from coping CD's

I'm categorically Against any form of copy protection, as it tends to penalize the paid legal users more than it stops the pirates.

As idealistic & honest as the next guy... but I understand that people "innocently" give copies of CDs and software to friends and brothers in-law.

Scenario at a concert: " Hey I'm your biggest fan, I like your new CD so much, I made copies for all my friends. Can I have your Autograph?"

Which is the bigger problem ? I dunno.

Michael Fossenkemper Wed, 11/23/2005 - 06:40

I think they are the first in a long line to jump on the "Sue Sony" wagon. Apparently this rootkit is creating quite a mess for a bunch of video guys. guys using PC's editing video usually get CD's of needle drop music to lay in, music that the client has liscensed and payed for. It's disabling all sorts of things in the system rendering it unusable. At say $450/hour and your down for a couple of days with a nice little rootkit and you've got 5 editing suites... Can you say show me the money??? I read that there is an uninstall program available somewhere. I think you have to call Sony and be directed to it.

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