The first major release of a copy-protected CD appears to be “Rock Your World” by Michael Jackson, according to Need To Know – the promo copies work on most CD players, but are unrecognised by current CD-ROM firmware.
This is a problem for all consumers – as the UK Campaign for Digital Rights points out, “These new CDs will play fine to start with, but underneath, the sounds have been subtly corrupted. Your CD player has to work much harder to play the music correctly, so after a few scratches, you’ll have tracks going wrong MUCH SOONER than with normal CDs. In truth, these CDs are not as good quality as normal CDs.”
The Campaign recommends a policy of taking back non-playing CDs as defective immediately (pointing to the ‘CD Digital Audio’ logo, which does constitute a claim that the disc meets the logo’s standards), or taking it back if it fails after a short time.
From Need To Know (http://www.ntk.net/), Friday 21st August 2001:
MICHAEL JACKSON’s new single seems likely to “Rock Your World” in more ways than one, as promotional copies sent out by Sony appear to be the first examples spotted “in the wild” of audio CDs which won’t play in PC CD-ROM drives. “When loaded into the CD drive, the disc spun continuously as though the drive was trying to access the TOC of a blank or corrupted CDR”, reports our correspondent, a producer and sound engineer, adding: “None of our stand-alone professional or domestic CD players had a problem with it”. Of course, this is exactly what Macrovision’s SafeAudio (or similar copy-protection systems) are intended to do: insert “bad” error-correction codes, which audio CD players can interpolate around, but higher-precision CD-ROM drives don’t, effectively preventing you from ripping (or listening to) any tracks on your PC. The UK’s Campaign for Digital Rights (formerly the “Free Dmitry Sklyarov” guys) are still planning a leafleting campaign alerting shoppers to this ingenious reduction of their music’s self-healing properties (making CDs more susceptible to scratches or other damage) – though perhaps an “explicit lyrics”-style labelling system wouldn’t go amiss either, for those of us who just don’t own a non-CD-ROM CD player.
The copy protection is expected to last until CD-ROM manufacturers – or third-party programmers – can produce firmware which can cope with the protected CDs. This should be much easier with examples to hand. Third-party programmers are quite adept at this sort of thing – witness the regular appearance of region-free DVD chips for players that are not region-free from the manufacturer.
The UK Campaign for Digital Rights has a page of useful links for the pissed-off consumer.
Need To Know is alarmingly clue-enhanced. I recommend you subscribe immediately.
Didn’t get a chance to post this yesterday, but the word from Sony is that Australian promo copies aren’t copy protected.
I’ve heard reports that other record companies are issuing copy protected copies to their staff – these are the copies before the promo copies are sent out to media and whoever. By the time they send stuff out to people outside the company, they’re sending out conventional, unprotected media.
It’d be a foolish record company that sent Australian media promo copies that won’t play in a CDROM drive – most people I know use their computer to listen to new music while they work. If your CD won’t play it’ll probably just go to the bottom of the pile and be forgotten about.
“I’ve heard reports that other record companies are issuing copy protected copies to their staff – these are the copies before the promo copies are sent out to media and whoever.”
Presumably to try to minimise prerelease leakage of MP3s or whatever. This fails to allow for the drooling fan’s tolerance for reduced sound quality in the quest for rarities – an MP3 from high-quality analogue sound really doesn’t sound that bad, particularly before there’s a proper release to compare it to.
Of course, Rocknerd welcomes tips and comments from industry folk who’ve been handed one of these CDs. Give it a bit of a testing, as detailed in the original article, and let us know what CD and how it works or doesn’t.
“It’d be a foolish record company that sent Australian media promo copies that won’t play in a CDROM drive – most people I know use their computer to listen to new music while they work. If your CD won’t play it’ll probably just go to the bottom of the pile and be forgotten about.
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Well, the recording industry is famous for its perspicacity, cluefulness and ability not to shoot itself in the foot. According to Sony, the Key2Audio-protected promo CDs were (a) sent to radio stations (gee, send ’em something they can’t put onto the hard disk all the music they broadcast is stored in. THAT’ll get you airplay) (b) after MP3s had already leaked out. These people …
Oh, here’s another one: EMI plans to offer prerelease promos online-only, in such a way that you have to be online every time you want to play the song – half the stream is on what they send you, the other half is on their server.
This looks to me like a promotional opportunity for record companies who can see the value in not being a complete pain in the arse to the people you want to do something for you. Small labels going through a major will really need to keep an eye on what dumbarse tricks their distributor is pulling this week.
Some of the majors already service radio online (mostly commercial radio). As PBS has one 56K modem for the entire office we can’t take up this sampling system as you pretty much need a cable modem or it’s pointless. They are hoping that this will eliminate physical sampling altogether. They’ve pulled the sales reps out of the stores so next up they’ll be pulling the promo reps out of the media.
I have gotten a copy-protected CD through the BMG music club. It was Pete Yorn Musicforthemoringafter. The CD can only be played in a CD-ROM if you use the player that comes with it and you can not rip it for a backup or to make a compilation. I complained and their response was to send me another copy protected CD. There was no warning to let me know the CD had the copy protection. I sure hope people complain and they come to their senses because it is a major nuisance.