No more CD copying for you, not even analog!!!

[SaSi]

You may call me heretic, but I've actually visited the Darknoise web site and read their descriptions and white papers.

I believe there is more truth there than we acknowledge, although this truth is masked off with marketing BS.

They claim that they mask ultrasonic noises with the actual content. This is feasible. They claim that when this content is recorded, this ultrasonic material will oscilate over the actual content.

This is quite possible to work, if the audio is recorded on normal audio cassette.

Actually, recording on plain cassette is made possible by overlaying a bias frequency over the audio, which sortof activates the tape grains to be able to properly record. This bias frequency is (if memory serves) in the 60~80kHz range. Obviously inaudible and carefully selected so that it doesn't distort audio content.

Since a CD has a nominal sampling frequency of 44kHz, no higher frequencies are allowed, so only ultrasonic frequencies up to 40~44kHz will survive the mastering process - not that they can properly be sampled though.

What if a 40kHz burst sound pattern is overlayed with the audio of a CD? I will try to do such a test with Cool Edit and record that to my Cassette recorder and see what happens.

Of course, people don't nowadays copy a CD on a cassette tape unless they genuinely want to listen to it in their car. Many cars have cassette players, don't they. This will surely piss off some legitimate users.

This scheme can however easily be broken just by encoding to MP3. The basis of the MP3 encoding is to cut off anything above 16kHz, 20kHz in some cases. So there goes the protection.

What may be interesting is playing such content - IF IT EVER REACHES THE MARKET - on a high end Hi Fi system with $500 tweeters with a frequency response in excess of 40kHz. Such audio energy in high frequencies will certainly fry the tweeters. Lawsuits will be in order...

[BJ_M]

Tannoy speakers like the Eyris DC3 (and most of thiers now) all have super tweeters good untill 51khz

http://www.tannoy.com/product.cfm?D=1&ID=200

[Perro Grande]

I have a lot of problems, conceptually, with the operation of this product.

Their claim that a microphone placed in front of speakers would produce an unusable copy just makes no sense to me. Their set of claims creates connundrum after connundrum.

I'm an old-timer. I know how analog recording devices, speakers, and microphones work. Their claims just make no sense. Analog recordings cannot and do not perfectly reproduce the incoming content. This produces a connundrum -- if a non-perfect (analog) copy is somehow defeated due to its imperfection, then a perfect copy (bit-for-bit digital) would work (yet they claim it will not). Again, it makes no sense.

Further problems are introduced by the frequency response characteristics of such analog devices. Even high-end open-reel tape decks have an upper limit of around 22KHz, with most being lower. Microphones can have the same problem and often are the weakest link in the recording process. I simply don't buy their "plug the analogue hole" claim.

Additionally, they admit to messing with the source -- something which will NEVER fly in the audiophile community. I'd like to see what those high amplitude "sentinels" do to a good high-end tweeter when one has the music playing loudly!

I wonder if they claim to also be able to protect FM broadcasts (which roll-off at about 15KHz high-end)!! What a freaking joke!!

Even considering the digital domain, where more "tricks" are possible, their claims don't make much sense.

I wonder if there is a player-side component that they're not telling us about (not that even this would stop analog recording). They claim otherwise, of course, but the entire site is so laughable, and the industry so pathetic, I wouldn't put it past them to try something like that. It might be interesting for someone to actually look up their alleged patent applications. Anyone can slap up a web-site claiming practically anything they want...


*******

Technologies of this nature are doomed to failure. The recording industry idiots are blatently ignoring what the public is telling them. We want good, well-produced, well-recorded, affordable music where and when we want it! Instead of focusing on technologies that punish and hinder only the honest music purchaser, they should focus on technologies that will deliver what people want.

The software, movie, and music industry have created one of the few, if not only, industries where the consumer has little to no recourse when the product is even grossly substandard. While I certainly don't condone or participate in piracy, I can see why people turn to the various 'alternate' sources for the products these industries continue to churn out. That, of course, does not make it right. The industries in question staunchly hold to their old monopolistic, recourse-free models against an overwhelming tide against these ideas. People are voting with their actions, and the vote isn't even close -- the old ways just won't work.

So instead of trying to shore-up the old, leaky dam with more concrete and stones, they should find ways to let the water flow and make electricity ($) for themselves... Just my rambling thoughts.

[scottymac]

One of the biggest (the biggest?) music stores over here is HMV. New chart cds they charge maybe £10/$18 for on release - because the supermarkets do. Then after a month or so, it'll change to £16/$25 because the supermarkets are no longer selling it.

That is disgusting.

[FOO]

Actually, recording on plain cassette is made possible by overlaying a bias frequency over the audio, which sortof activates the tape grains to be able to properly record. This bias frequency is (if memory serves) in the 60~80kHz range. Obviously inaudible and carefully selected so that it doesn't distort audio content.

The bias is added to overcome magnetic hysteresis. It does not end up on the tape.

[ViRaL1]

I have faith in human ingenuity, it'll be cracked...and if it can't be cracked so may people will just stop buying.

[C53248]

For so many reasons given, this stuff is hopeless. I can't believe for a moment that for speaker-to-microphone or speaker-to-digitizer (or CD to WAV! ) it goes crazy, but through the infinite variety of consumer audio setups it passes through cleanly. Not a chance! But let them believe it.

The first thing many of us want to do when we get a CD is put it in our MP3 catalog so we can listen to it. Record companies are going to have to figure this out sooner or later. They can't keep fighting the market like this and expect to win. I hope they buy into this non-sense and in a big way just so they might learn that much faster the error of their ways. Er, or at least get embarrassed for their arrogance on their way down. :P

Soon they'll just sell us blank CD's and tell us that if we can't hear it, we must be doing something illegal.

[Kolosus]

Soon they'll just sell us blank CD's and tell us that if we can't hear it, we must be doing something illegal.

LOL. Don't give them any idea's.

[JoachimS]

Not strictly true. What they're describing is some tricky playing around with the phases of the waveforms. You can render a sound completely inaudible by playing the phase-inverted version of the same sound at the same time.

Hm. So what happens if you play such music track through your Dolby Surround System? The decoder evaluates the phase difference between stereo channels. You would have to turn off the decoder or you have the signal in your rear speakers.

Another thought:
Some older CD players have a few milliseconds delay between stereo channels, would that make the signal audible?

Cheers,

Joachim

[SaSi]

Actually, recording on plain cassette is made possible by overlaying a bias frequency over the audio, which sortof activates the tape grains to be able to properly record. This bias frequency is (if memory serves) in the 60~80kHz range. Obviously inaudible and carefully selected so that it doesn't distort audio content.

The bias is added to overcome magnetic hysteresis. It does not end up on the tape.

Yes, sure it doesn't. But I a not sure what the result would be if bias frequency was in beat with a set of random pulses in the 30~40kHz range. It might render the recording (on cassette tape) impossible or reduce the quality.

What I'm saying (after spending more time with marketing people than I would have liked) is that some marketing people take a truth (of limited importance) and extrapolate it beyond reason.

I really don't believe such claims are worth the trouble. Just gave me an idea for an interesting experiment. Unfortunatelly, my cassette recorder is not working - after more than a year that I've not used it... The belt drive to the main spool is broken in pieces (!!!)

[crashnburn]

this is just to show how desperate Record companies are going to prevent priracy. They are willing to try anything and pay any price to stupid company like SunComm with their bullshit technology. What they need is a slap in the face because no matter what, it will eventually be cracked. So why pay millions of $$ to company like Suncomm who claims all the shit they can do to protect/prevent people from copying when in fact they know damn well that it is useless and canot be stopped. Down and desperate is what I see. Very funny artical indeed!!

[FOO]

I wish those jerks would start working on something actually
usefull like arresting spammers. I'd support them alll the way.

[zilog_jones]

Sorry for replying to such old news, but there's one I don't get: Why are these record companies spending all this money to develop copy protection systems for CDs, a (nearly) 25-year-old format which is most certainly coming close to its sell-by date, with the advent of the likes of SACD and DVD-Audio. I'm not sure about DVD-Audio, as it also uses PCM like CD audio (but at a much higher sampling rate), but surely there's not a chance in hell that this kind of copy protection can be applied to the totally different, and (in a way) much simpler and direct system used for SACD?

Also, I bet you these darknoise guys haven't tested *every* form of digital or analogue recording reasonably available to the consumer. Take for example, recording audio on its own onto a VHS tape (using a Hi-Fi Stereo recorder, of course)? I've tried it before - was pretty handy for recording a 4 hour opera off the radio for a friend without having to change tapes or anything (well, it was recorded in LP, of couse). All you need is a 3.5mm headphone jack -> stereo RCA cable (to connect it to the radio), something with a composite video output that'll make a (preferably blank) video source (I used my old Nintendo without any cartridge in it), and (if you're in Europe) a RCA-to-SCART adaptor to plug these into the VCR's inputs.

Hi-fi VHS sound is stored in a very much different way to any linear audio tape - is there a chance that the copy protection won't work, or won't work too well, with this?

Also, did they try copying it to old 4-track reel tapes? I know people who still have them. What about DATs? Or other video tape formats, like Beta (and its many many variants), 8mm, Hi-8, Digital8, miniDV, etc.?

It'd be quite odd if something really obscure dead format like Video2000 was immune to this copy protection. Then again, that would be pretty useless

I barely know what I'm talking about here, so what you guys think/know about my (possibly retarded) theory?

[burlyboy]

Interesting thread...

Up here in Canada it's actually LEGAL (based on a 1998 change to the Canadian Music Copywrite Act) to copy music for your own private use! You can borrow from a friend, from the library, rent, steal, or any other method to get an original CD, then copy as long as it's for your own personal use. You are not allowed to copy and then give the copy away.

cheers

[Defcon]

This is the way I see it......

Just like DVD players, the same goes for CD players the format cannot change otherwise everything we own (DVD and/or CD Players) would become obsolete, And that won't happen

They can put on copy protection on CD's but there will be a program like "CD Decrypter" or "CD Shrink" that will remove it......

I would like to get more information on their "random" format copy protection and start examining how to counter it by the time it comes out

[Karlos]

This is utter crack pot sorry guys, its a load of bull firstly the principle stands, as to the idea working its similar to Einsteins theory of time travel it looks good on paper but aint never gonna happen. The only thing you'll end up with is an inferior recording due to such manipulation.
In truth the nature of such a manipulation would leave huge unavoidable errors in reproduction etc its more likely some money making corporate bull that makes a few quid for those at the top then disapears into obscurity.
And just think when guys like myself and others with the right gear and know how remove the phase manipulation return the cd saying "dont work refund please" then post it on the net. Of course im a law abiding citizen and would never do such a thing but theres some unscrupulous people out there... "no not the record companys "He He!". Ain't gonna happen, its an amusing crack pot idea though.
if you can apply it you can remove it!!!!!!.
These half wits would do better to invest research money for piracy prevention in reducing CD costs to reduce the problem, we'd all prefer the original with art work well packaged etc but not at current high costs, solution reduce the cost.
.
Just think of the losses that companys such as sony, phillips and many others would loose in hardware sales why have a burner if you can't burn.
Look at how very reasonable ideas such as SACD have sunk quicker than the Titanic, great concept, problem is a standard DVD players wont play them even though they were supposed to because the standard laser gets confused either not playing the second layer at all or thinking its a standard CD, maybe i drifted a bit what im trying to say is with resonable concepts falling to hardware constraints to try something like this is suicide unless you cut peoples hands off and remove there brains you aint gonna stop piracy.
And surely all that will happen should they manage the un manageable is releases of these recordings will be made prior to manifacture very similar to the DVD screeners that have been ripped prior to release as most if not all engineers making these recording wont touch such an act of vandalism with a barge pole so i assume it will go elsewhere to have this done to it open another loop hole in transit not to mention the already temperamentle producers and artists dislike to the manipulation and the resulting sound.

[flaninacupboard]

if it relies on phase manipulation then it will be audible for sure. on a stereo system you can hear when a sound would be coming from the rear in a surround system, it's qute obvious actually. they've lost me as a customer right there. how could it work with MD and not MP3? well MP3 uses joint stereo wheras standard play MD uses dicrete stereo. the MDLP2 and 4 format does however uses joint stereo. amusing thought - record the left channel on it's own, record the right channel on its own. well done, you have a discrete recording. also the chnace of you exactly mixing the left and right back at precisely the right time is next to none so any system like this would fail.