“When a copy-protected CD hit No. 1 on the U.S. music sales charts last month, it marked a breakthrough for the antipiracy technology in all but one sense: The music still wouldn’t play on Apple’s iPod,” John Borland writes for CNET News. “A copy-protected CD recently hit No. 1 on the U.S. charts–without iPod compatibility. Still, some say CDs will have to play nice with the iPod if antipiracy technology is to succeed. That means the door may be closing on Microsoft, and opening for Apple’s own FairPlay technology.”
“Now the two companies responsible for most copy-protected CDs are scrambling to create new versions of their technologies that are compatible with Apple’s popular digital music player. In the process, they’re both making substantial changes in the way CDs are digitally locked, changes that could ultimately be a setback to recent Microsoft strides into the music business,” Borland writes.
Full article here.
Thurrott is HILARIOUS! The iPod undermines Microsloth’s DRM? Never mind that the iPod came along first, and M$ made a deliberate choice to go against the iPod’s supported formats with their DRM. Sounds like M$ was trying to undermine the iPod with their DRM and it backfired on them. Thurrott is a corporate shill for Gates and friends. He’s also a moron.
Us are,
Bizarro Jeff
No big deal I bought the “copy protected” Velvet Revolver CD and my Mac running iTunes saw the actual audio files and I was able to easily import the music onto my Mac and iPod in wonderful AAC. I also tested this on a Windows XP PC running iTunes and had no problem importing the music from the actual audio files not the crappy WMA files.
Dear A.Bomb,
I should have written ‘internet or computer’. A good CD (or DVD) has to be played on a good player with matching system. They sound only ‘reasonably’ good’ played on a computer – even if you’ve got really good speakers.
I’ve never professed to know ‘so much’. This is all self-evident to any audiophile or music lover with a good audio system.
This DRM thing was discussed in /. already. According the people there who actually purchased the CDs (Beasty Boys and Velvet Revolver), you can pop them into the Mac and rip them with iTunes. Since OS X does not auto-launch anything, the “protection” will not prevent one from copying them to iTunes. The part that does not play in iPod is the pre-compressed, DRM enabled tracks. If you can rip them with iTunes, why can’t you play them on the iPod?
Anyone who purchased them can comment?
Sorry but i dont ever buy CD’s. And I DONT buy from ITMS. I buy all my music from [url=http://www.allofmp3.com]http://www.allofmp3.com[/url] Yes its in Russian, and yes its in English as well. Instead of paying per song, its per megabite. So a gig only costs me $10. and I can encode it in mp4 for the ipod. I average about 5 cents per song.
Thats a .94 savings per song!
CD copy protection and “blessing” us with WMA files is a solution in search of a problem. There is not reason for this except to define how you can use your music and to control what devices you will be able to use it on.
Apple needs to refuse to participate in any scheme like this. There is no problem with using these CD’s on your iPod. The problem is the copy protection itself and it being forced upon us.
You can be assured that if M$ and this copy/DRM scheme “wins”, it won’t be a question of whether they include AAC or WMA files on the CD, but whether you have paid to be able to play it on all of the devices you have. Did you pay the fee to play it on your iPod. Did you pay the fee to play it on your new stereo amplifier or new HD TV. Did you pay the fee to also play it on your car stereo. Did you pay the fee to be able to play it on your parents computer when you go to visit.
This is not about giving you anything useful, it’s about limiting what you can do.
Sorry but i dont ever buy CD’s. And I DONT buy from ITMS. I buy all my music from [url=http://www.allofmp3.com]http://www.allofmp3.com[/url] Yes its in Russian, and yes its in English as well. Instead of paying per song, its per megabite. So a gig only costs me $10. and I can encode it in mp4 for the ipod. I average about 5 cents per song.
Thats a .94 savings per song!
Charko,
It all depends, doesn’t it? Audio mastering can be done on the computer nowadays with apps like Logic. How can you do that if the output sucks? That would be strange if the playback has a superior sound than the mastering apparatus, wouldn’t it? It’s a broad generalization to say that it is all self-evident to any audiophile or music lover with a good audio system.
What you meant probably was computers with average sound card that comes in average computers.
Yes Nobody, you’re right – that’s what I meant.
I was talking about your average home computer – my LCD iMac for example with good speakers attached.
I have to broadly agree with Charko on this… and not the early posters making stupid cracks about not buying physical CDs.
Like it or not, there IS a substantive difference between the average quality download [128 AAC/mp3] onto an average computer played through computer speakers. And remember that iTunes only has 700,000 tracks – that is a very small proportion of available music out there.
We’ve all heard about the lack of indie labels on the UK version of iTunes. There are similar problems here in the US – try buying a Radiohead album, or early Costello for example. There’s no Beatles of course, plus countless indie bands I can’t get on USiTunes. As a buyer of world music, this section is very poor. And iTunes does not – to my knowledge – hold the entire back catalogue to ANY major artist.
All of this will still make me go to the store and buy ‘hard copies’ of CDs – not only because they also offer liner notes and (semi) decent artwork… which iTunes doesn’t.
everybody send me $1 by paypal, and I’ll buy the CD and rip it into iTunes.
Think about it, for $1, all your questions can be answered…
Why should we all wonder?!?! We need to know, but why should anyone have to buy one of these CD’s just to find out if it works?!?!
Do I hear $1 ?
How about from 15 more of you now…
80% of complaints are from iPod owners..
And Paul still thinks for a minute that his ‘falsified demand for iPod mini’ holds water.. pffft
“Do people still buy physical CDs?”
Nope… they steal music from p2p networks
As a collector of world music, I downloaded a 2-cd album from p2p and decided to buy the package (2-cds plus 1-dvd). It wasn’t in the stores, and the shipping alone in the web was three-times the retail price. With no iTunes for OS9 that’s it for me — no purchase — no sale for the artist or label or RIAA. Instead of worrying about copy protection (I already have the tunes), they should be thinking about not missing the sale.
Yo, jason: If you’re gonna steal music why not do it straight via P2P? Or are you truly buying that Russian outfit’s lies that money is going to the creators, when anyone with two brain cells to rub together can see that, at those cheap rates, there wouldn’t possibly be enough money to go arond.
I don’t pay money to fences.
It is all over for Cds. They will be right in their with T-Rex. The landfills are saturated with LPs, 45s, 8 tracks, CDs, and sonner than you can say ‘dern it, a scratch’, CDs will be among their decaying plastics.
A disrupters day is never finished.
I don’t care about liner notes, cover art or anything the publisher, manager or band members have to say – anything they could say could only detract from my listening experience. I don’t care how much fun they had making this album or how tough it was – put it in your biography.
I get the music I want where I can find it. Copying is not stealing. Stealing is that hidden surcharge on blank cd’s that goes to select big record labels. Stealing is when record labels hold the copyrights to the work of the artists and bribe legislators to extend the copyright period beyond all reason. The intent of copyright was for artists and inventors to profit by their creations through monopoly for a LIMITED period, not third parties, not record publishers, not catalog investors. Bands make money playing music and charging admission – recorded music is like advertising that the consumer buys – since when should we be paying for advertising?
Most of the music I acquire is not helped by a high quality stereo revealing the limitations of archaic recording techniques. The DDD stuff can withstand a little compression. My stereo is set of Creature speakers and an iPod. I like a little crystal clarity as much as anybody but I’m not a fanatic – there is more to the music experience than being able to hear the squeaks of fingers on strings. Of course, that’s just me – to each his own.
I read Jason’s posts aloud with a thick Russian accent..
Try it, it’s fun.
Joke all you want. If the RIAA comes knocking on my door, I can show that I paid a website for the tunes, and quite frankly they can go to hell. You should ask an atty to look over the site. My cousin practices law (go ahead and make the appropriate joke here), and he says its pretty legit. Kinda like buying Jim Beam at a Russian airport. Is it legit? Is it not? either way, you paid for it and it then IS legit for you to own.
If I’m paying .05 per song, I figure I’ll be saving more money than some moron running around buying from ITMS ….JUST BECAUSE. God, I’m so sick of record labels GOUGING. And have you seen these rock stars that complain about the whole download thing anyway?
Lets address something here. Those fuzknuts put more cok…uhh i mean money up their noses they could start their own 3rd world country. I bet if they stopped doing coke and winding up in court they’d have tons more money to enjoy.
as far as i can tell the [url=http://www.allofmp3.com]http://www.allofmp3.com[/url] is legit and thats all that matters to me.
Jason
I hate the iTunes store.
You guys must all have broadband.
I bought a cd that didnt play in my Mac
I was so mad.
[url=http://www.phenomi.net]http://www.phenomi.net[/url]
jason..
good point.. kazaa was able to skip past the courts by starting up in AUS and allofmp3 has done the same… it’s only a matter of time..
in the meantime, you’re fine..
for what it’s worth, i live in canada, so i already pay for the music, through levies of CDR’s etc. (weird, i know, but it seems like they handled that years before this even became an issue–this relates to the Canadian iTMS no doubt)
my point is that apple will compete with these sites just like it competes with filesharing..
apple offers streaming and sharing on multiple computers and sells album art/liner notes and you can print up CD’s etc. etc.
apple will do everything it can to compete with these (obviously) morally bankrupt outfits that the RIAA can’t touch (A as in ‘America’)