Congressman against DMCA "anti-circumvention" clause

[admin]

In regards to this article :

http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,5101325,00.html

If this bill passes, DVD ripping and backup will be completely legal, something that it should have been in the first place.

I am a little skeptical about the chances of this bill passing, but there is always hope, and that the fact that someone is willing to raise this issue, means that the debate is still ongoing.

What do you think?

[squidgy]

I agree with you, it's good to have hope on this one. Of course I'm aware of the DMCA although I don't live in the USA, but even outside the USA, there's lots of publicity for it, and it's an issue. I don't think there's a similar law elsewhere, though, or if there is, it's passed my attention by.

Here's my big gripe about the whole copy protection and DMCA thing. I respect that artists and studios want to protect copyright, but that's what existing copyright laws are for. DMCA paves the way for much more.

What do I mean? Well, if it actually became enforceable, that you couldn't even make backups of any movies or music you've bought, then the next thing we'll see is degradeable DVD's. Yep, a DVD that only lasts a year. Or even less, the times they would last would get progressively shorter, too. At the moment, if you like a movie, you can buy it, keep it and watch it again and again, as many times as you like. And if you go off it after a while, you can flog it second hand.

But the industry doesn't like this. So, in the future, you won't be able to sell second hand DVD's because they won't work. And if you like a movie enough to want to keep watching it again and again, then you'll have to keep on buying replacement copies of it.

You might think, naahhh, they'll never try that on, that would just take the piss. But I think DMCA paves the way for it, which is why it's very very important that it's crushed.

[squidgy]

Actually, here's an idea. :) When you buy a CD or DVD, try playing it on all your equipment, and ripping it. If anything doesn't work, then exercise your right to return the product and get your money back. If everyone did this, then the industry would soon wake up, with any luck. Mind you, I don't hold out much hope of a big consumer led campaign to get everyone to do this every time. :(

[Deus]

Why does this madder anyway? even if if doesnt pass people will just keep doinf what they have been doing for years. They find a way to put copy protection and we get around it. Whatever they do will not stop us from doing what we have done for such a long time. I thiknk eventually they will just fase the facts and give up.

[msissons]

I thought this article was interesting:

http://www.cdmediaworld.com/hardware/cdrom/news/0201/philips_protected_cd.shtml

I don't think legislation would stop people copying CDs in any case. Also, with CD (and now DVD) being established formats, there's not too much I feel they could throw at us in terms of copy protection.

As the article above says, CD copy protection is going to be useless as altered subcodes in CD's can be copied using cloneCD etc. and the same just wouldn't work for DVD.

I think it will take a year or so, when napster, pressplay, etc. start turning huge losses, before the music industry sees sense.

I, like a lot of people, like to have loads of mp3z on my computer because it's practical, but I am a music fan and i'm not bothered about spending cash on good music. I don't buy singles and never have because they're overpriced.

I think the music industry is upset because far too many bands are releasing music to make money, and thankfully we can now download their albums, see they're crap, and not bother getting them. They feel they've missed out on the internet revolution and are trying to make money where there just isn't any.

And if they think time-protected DVD's are a good idea, then I guess they should just look at circuit city and their wonderful DivX system!

[squidgy]

I certainly respect Deus's and msisson's optimistic points of view. And you're right, time protected divx collapsed, the consumer couldn't be fooled so easily, fortunately.

But then again, what is it that makes you keep buying replacement washing machines and refrigerators every few years?

I would have made a similar example with computer and home entertainment equipment, but that wouldn't be such a good example, because computer equipment is gradually getting more and more powerful and capable of more things, which is a good thing.

But you can't honestly tell me that a fridge you buy today will do anything that a fridge you bought twenty years won't do. Except, of course, that it will work at all. You don't expect a fridge to continue to function after twenty years.

And that's my point. Built in obsolescence. Things are made to wear out, and not to last, so that you keep buying replacements. I'm confident of being able to rip pretty much any CD or DVD and make a backup of its content, but I'd still be annoyed if the media itself degraded. That's different to software based time protection such as the old divx system.

It's also why I never took VHS that seriously, I've never had my own VHS player. The quality was never brilliant, and tapes used to degrade far too quickly for my liking! I think that the entertainment industry is starting to worry that it's shot itself in the foot by inventing DVD in the first place.

[msissons]

yeah, i agree about the vhs thing, i only bought a (very cheap) video recorder to rip vhs to divx (only for good films that aren't out on dvd yet - back to the future, italian job)

Also true about built-in obsolescence - expect a very encrypted next-gen cd/dvd as the legislation governing encryption exports has expired (so us poor people in the uk are allowed to use 128-bit at last) but essentially people aren't going to buy something they see no need for. Assuming all this copy protection lark for cd's blows over, how many of your friends have told you they're looking forward to getting an SACD player? or DVD-Audio? i'm guessing none - though i may be wrong... I'm quite happy with CD too, and I really don't think people will buy the whole "better sound quality (though only with a £10,000 hi-fi and perfect ears, and by the way we'll not let you copy off it) thing as its pointless. CD will be around for another 10 years, easy. And besides, when has a 2.8Mhz samling rate and increased dynamic range ever made the backstreet boys sound anything less than ****e?

[squidgy]

:bglaugh2: true about backstreet boys! I hope you're right about consumers not getting things they don't see a need for, I think you probably are. :) Still doesn't stop the industry from putting out CD's and DVD's that play on existing players when they are new, but are made from a lower grade material that degrades more quickly than CD's and DVD's currently available now.

Actually, time to be honest, I'll tell you where I'm coming from on this one. Windows 98 second edition CDROM that I got a year and a half ago, didn't come in a jewel pack, but I thought, yeah, CD's last a good while, so I never bothered to make a backup of it. And now it's unreadable! Whoops! It means that I'm on my guard a bit more than I used to be, though.

[grif_mcrenolds]

I have hope in how hackers will always find a way around encryption. Remember when they said the CSS encryption in DVDs was unbreakable? HA! We hackers destroyed thier puny sytem and now we have the ability to backup our DVDs. I am so sick of how the entertainment industry always trys to feed us bull**** that the media belongs to them and not to the person that actually paid for the thing. And it's not like I'm gonna sell a DVD rip at school afterwards (I've tried and those stupid freshmen didn't even know how to pronounce DivX, or play it). I just wanna make backups of my stuff because in my house, if you don't backup or hide your ****, some 7yr will destroy it just because I wouldn't let him watch it with all the language and violence. The media belongs to us and not them! Remember when the drummer to metalica complained about Napster stealing thier business? Look at the facts: when napster was still existed, CD sales only dropped about 2%, and it's the same situation with Kazaa and movies. I downloaded a DVD rip of Fight Club and i'll buy the DVD anyway. Why? Because the picture looked like ****! The guys who ripped it cut the framerate down to 12.5 fps and the sound was like 22khz. So even though I saw it on the internet, they will still be getting my business. But if the DMCA ever tries this encypted CD bull****, I will be leading a boycott of the music industry

Who's with me?

[squidgy]

Yay! Totally with you! :D

Do you reckon there's a chance that we might get the press on our side too? I'm a bit worried by the fact that movie and music publishers tend to be big media companies that control TV and newspapers too, like Bertelsmann for example, but hey, we'll try not to let that get in the way. :) (oh whoops, forgot, it's actually bertelsmann media that owns Napster now .... still, you know how popular that's made Napster recently .... NOT!!)

[Sachankara]

Originally posted by grif_mcrenolds
I have hope in how hackers will always find a way around encryption. Remember when they said the CSS encryption in DVDs was unbreakable? HA! We hackers destroyed thier puny sytem and now we have the ability to backup our DVDs.Unfortunatly no one has "hacked" the DVD-Audio encryption just yet... Even though it´s been out for some time now... The lack of interest must be the main reason... :(

[admin]

Unfortunatly no one has "hacked" the DVD-Audio encryption just yet... Even though it´s been out for some time now... The lack of interest must be the main reason...

Good point!! :bglaugh2:

On related news, Philips, one of the founders of the compact disc, has come out in defense of consumers and wants Audio CDs with copy protection to be excluded from using the official "Compact Disc" logo, since these copy protected CDs may no longer playback on computers, and obviously doesn't fit into the original CD specifications.

More information here :

http://www.eff.org/alerts/20020206_eff_philips_alert.html

What do you think?

[grif_mcrenolds]

(Sigh of relief) When I first read an article that announced the plan to copy protect CDs, I almost smashed the moniter (but I couldn't because it was a PC in the school computer lab.) The idea of copy protecting CDs in such a manner of preventing them from even PLAYING on computers is proposterous! I don't even share music anyway! I just backup audio to MP3s or try remixing songs for fun. I don't do anything that breaks the law. Why should I be punished when I don't even violate copyright law in the first place? Preventing CDs from even PLAYING on computers would suck because my stereo IS a computer! I use my PCs surround card for playing CDs so I can hear the music in surround (simulated, the CDs don't come in surround.)

A funny thing about all this is that whoever tried to pull this (ie record companies) stunt did it in such a crude fashion. Instead of trying something interesting like CSS, like DVDs, they tried changing the physical attributes of the CD itself (which is probably why Phillips wouldn't let them call it Compact Disc.) They changed the way it's pressed so the data layer is intentially damaged so CD-ROM drives would reject the disc, but CD players wouldn't detect errors. Even if they succeeded at this, all we would have to do is design a CD-ROM drive that wouldn't reject damaged discs (but they would predictably sue the manufacturer, being as evil as record companies are.) Luckilly, our hero Phillips, who helped design the CD and DVD, saved the day in this cowardly attempt by the DMCA to screw the consumer. I'm not one of those liberals who think all businesses are evil, but I do know when I'm getting screwed by the producer.

Off topic: Has anybody heard any news about development of the 148 minute CD (1.2 GB)? I learned in infotech today that there's such thing as 99 minute CDs (I was embarresed that I didn't know about them before), and that the fabled 148 mintute disc was in development. Is it supposed to be dual layered or something? And will it be compatible with average CD players and drives?

[ShieldWolf]

I use a computer as the hub of my entertainment system. I have hundreds of CD's, and I keep them all on my hard drive. When I buy a new one, I rip it at high quality, burn a backup of the rip so I don't need to waste my time doing it again, and throw all the CD's in the closet. I don't even own a stereo anymore, just a nice set of speakers and a good sound card.

I know what I'll do the day I buy one of these CD's that won't play in the computer I spend all this money on. I'll be getting a friend to bring his stereo by my place, feeding the stereo into my sound card, and capturing the music I paid for. Then I'll be compiling a protection free conventional cd, burning 50 copies, and leaving them on peoples doorsteps with a nice letter of explanation. Perhaps I'll also send a copy of CD and letter to some TV station or newspaper, just to draw attention to the whole thing.

Dunno what the prices are like elsewhere, but CD's are 30 bucks here, so I can buy 50 blank disks out of my own pocket and cost the recording companies 1500 dollars. If anyone copies my idea, it'll cost them lots more.

Laws are all well and good, but in the meantime, I don't mind spending a little money to punish the bastards for ripping me off. I'm actually a little anxious to get my first bum disk!

[Simon T]

I just know some things:

1. You can ALWAYS copy cd's. They can protect cd's digitally but never analogue. So if you have a protected cd's and you own a good soundcard and a good cd-player just use the line-in and start recoding.
I assure you: there's no loss of quality.

2. For DVD's. The DVD is a great invention BUT the entertainment industry and particalary the movie industrie is digging his own grave. They saw what happened with music when mp3 was born and Napster. But they were too stupid to realise what will happen with the movie industry = the same thing!!

[grif_mcrenolds]

Remember when napster first appeared and we all thought it was the only way to download music? I remember in 8th grade when in science class we had to read this article in scholastic (gayest magazine ever, i hate it) about napster. It explained to the class what MP3 was, but they were so stupid that they didn't understand it themselves. They said that MPEG audio was a "brand new renovation" or something along those lines. Ahhhem... MPEG audio has been around for years! It's not until a few years ago that layer 3 became popular!

The article even had a stupid quiz at the end that we had to take. It asked "how did music get on computers?" like we had to solve esome crime or something. I wrote "Audio tracks are extracted from the CD to PCM format, then encoded into MPEG layer 3 for playback. The teacher marked me wrong! You know what they said the answere was? "Music is changed from sound into little ones and zeros." Holy crap! This is what won over my answere?? Are these people that stupid??

The same thing with other news types. I read this article that was written about DVD ripping and how it'll never last since it's too complicated. They said that the "mainstream" would never get into it because thier own tech guys couldn't figure out how it works. More supid people in the news! I've been ripping DVDs since the old 3.11 days and I'm only a lowly freshman!

[virtualXTC]

:smashead:

I have a parinoid friend who dosent trust the goverment about alot of things (chemtrials, biowarfare, the whole hoax war against the taliban, the rewritten constitution) but I think she finally found something worth worrying about

http://www.stoppoliceware.com/

I had heard MS win XP was already doing something like that, but hell - this seems kinda insane - but they did pass that DMCA thing

the site has some reasonably credible sites with similar parinoa so I guess it's actually true.

Is there any way we could just get a whole new goverment?


this is my small cry for anarchy!
-Jason

[grif_mcrenolds]

Holy crap! This is the same thing I've been worrying about since Napster went down. I just read the article you told me about and now I'm alittle scared too:mad: .

For those of you who didn't read the article, it adresses a new law that the industry is trying to pass called SSSCA. The bill would force ALL operating systems to have spyware to be built in to ensure that all of us "bad little children" don't do anything to break copyright laws, like ripping DVDs.

I've always been for copyright laws since without them there would be no reason for the artists to make any thing. I myself rip DVDs and CDs for my own use and for backups. But they don't want us even doing THAT! This time they've gone too far! Now they're putting spyware in our OS! And even worse, it's LAW!

I know that many of you will take this as a hoax, but I did alittle web search on SSSCA and there's a whole bunch of site about this. And I can belive it, too. Read the article and I assure you - YOU WILL BE PISSED OFF. I trust that all of you wil not stand for such intrusion as this and neither will I. So join my thread at http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=3986 and give your protests there. If we can construct some kind of boycott against the industry, maybe we can show these *******s that we don't take any bull****. Pardon my french.

That article again is at http://stoppoliceware.com

[owenowen]

I've returned 5 CD's to Border's Book store. They love me, well not really. I buy em, burn em to mini disc, and bring em back.

I check out Fat Chucks site to get my shopping list together, and it's time to go shoppin.

I love this country

:smashead:

[rokatoh]

HI everybody,
I found a digital way to copy those copyprotected audio cd's to your pc!
I have the new celine Dion cd, which says clearly in the front and back that it "will not play on pc/mac". Of course you can copy it with those new copy programs, but i wanted it to be on my pc as an mp3 file. In the end I found a program called windac 32 1.53 at www.windac.de which copy's the audio to the harddisk withaout any problems!!

While i was trying to break the protection(before i found windac) I read somewere that the protection works like this: All audio cd have a table of contents(TOC) copyprotected cd's have two. the first one is the one that contains the right info, and the second one, directs to a non existing track outside of the cd range. Normal/standalone cd players read the first toc, while cd-rom players always read the newest toc(the second). If you think of it it's all quite logical

good luck
Ps this Celine dion cd did not cary the Compact disk logo at all!!

[EighteenthVoid]

The idea of putting a diferent TOC in the second or last sessions of audio cds to hide the data in the audio session, also known as the Cactus Data Sheild protection, is very VERY futile.

Ok, Sure, *by default* cd-rom drives read the last session of the cd get their TOC, but can be overridden by many programs.

One being NERO burning rom.
Anyone who uses even a demo copy of nero knows that it installes a program that integrates into explorer's shell. It's accessible thru right-clicking a cd-rom drive and selecting the "Properties" option. There you will find a tab called "Volumes".
Say you have one of these "copy-protected" cds in your drive, or any cd-extra disc for that matter, you will see a list of all audio tracks, as well as the cd-xa data track. You'll notice, the data track has a check mark next to it, meaning it is the session that windows is currently getting the disc's TOC. A simple click-highlight on any audio track and a touch of the aplly button and boom:
As far as windows is concerned, Your cd is nothing more than an audio CD, and can be ripped as a normal audio cd.

But, oh, it gets better. There is a freeware program that can literally take a cd (or cd image) apart: ISOBuster.
This program can read the entire layout of a cd. Load it up, select the first session and biggity bam... there is all the audio tracks. BUt here it the icing on this cake, isobuster can also extract the tracks to wav format.

So, in conclusion, the cactus data sheild was obsolete before it hit the cd manufacturers.
Booyah

http://www.ahead.de/
http://www.smart-projects.net/isobuster/

[hounslow]

If this motion goes ahead wouldnt it make it easier for hackers to get into other peoples PC's? ie the linux users (dont mean to single you guys out), all they would have to do is use the ports that the government uses and it wouldnt show up on any firewall the would it?

:missile:

[Ostaf]

I think someone misunderstood here. It won't make it legal to copy CDs and DVDs, it just won't make it impossible.
Believe me, though, you don't want it to be legal to make backups of CDs and DVDs. Not just two years ago, the copywrite laws in Canada were changed to allow consumers to make personal copies of music they owned. Recording companies somehow managed to slip a levy on all CDs, meaning that even if I have no intention of copying music onto a CD, I still have to give 21 cents to the music industry. Considering I pay 30 cents per CD, this really pisses me off (see my post on CD Levy)

Anywho, the spyware OS thing will never fly, because the instant that ANY of my computer data crosses the border (remember, I'm Canadian) there are going to be some heavy law suits. Furthermore, it's actually quite difficult to do. They'd have to force firewalls to conform to this new law so that it couldn't be blocked anywhere.
As for the hacking thing, it would most likely be an out port, meaning that it still wouldn't allow hackers anymore access in.