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  1. If it is bullshit, it wouldn't be the first time a technology company has gone to the music/movie industry with a "solution". They sell it and only later is it revealed that it's easily defeated but someone has already made a buck on it and so they move on to the next "solution" (there's a sucker born every minute, even among CEOs, CIOs, and CTOs).

    I originally thought this post was going to be about Microsoft's Secure Audio Path, which I heard about years ago but haven't heard about since (I think it was a way to incorporate controls into computer components to prevent copying music whether through rips or analog capture). Old article about that here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/17851.html . Anybody heard anything about that?
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  2. I'm not buying this for a minute...

    Over the past three years, the music recording industry has seen their revenue declined dramatically -- and it continues to be on a downward slope. There are many reasons for this, and one key issue is the cost of CD's to consumers. People are fed up with paying bookoo bucks for a CD with one or two good tracks on it -- the rest, filler. Adding further playback restrictions on CD's will do nothing but hurt the industry further. Thousands of Portable MP3 Player users would find their investment severly limited.

    Even if this were true -- which I sincerly doubt for a minute -- is there anything that can be created which can't also be hacked?
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  3. Originally Posted by Tom Lewandowski
    People are fed up with paying bookoo bucks for a CD with one or two good tracks on it -- the rest, filler.
    I was just reading an article about Tower Records filing for bankruptcy. One of the things they mentioned was that Tower was selling CDs for $18 to $19 when other retailers were selling them for $4 to $5 less. Makes you wonder what the thought processes are in these kinds of decisions. And I remember when CDs first came out. They were priced $18 to $20 each and the word at the time was that "prices would come down when the format is more ubiquitious". I don't think that ever really happened. What's fascinating about all of this is the popularity of paid online music. Do the record companies see people being happy with and being willing to pay for music if they can pick and choose the songs they want in a format they like and not think, "Hmmm...something is wrong with this old business model of forcing people to buy the whole CD when what they want is songs X, Y, and Z".

    Why not a setup in record stores where all the music is stored in a central location accessible via a network interface, you listen to a bunch of songs you like, pick the ones you want, and have just those burned onto a CD while you wait (it takes me *5* minutes to burn a CD full of music)? Not only would people be more willing to pay to get exactly what they want, you'd cut WAY back on production, distribution and storage costs for CDs (and, someday, DVDs) not to mention unsold inventory, etc.
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    Originally Posted by mrmungus
    ...edit...
    Why not a setup in record stores where all the music is stored in a central location accessible via a network interface, you listen to a bunch of songs you like, pick the ones you want, and have just those burned onto a CD while you wait (it takes me *5* minutes to burn a CD full of music)? ...edit...
    This was tried, years ago, with kiosks that would record your selection of songs to cassette. I think "Django" (sp?) music stores tried it with CDs, just a few years ago.

    The problem in the past has always been the money, and "not invented here". Price per track was always too much, selection of tracks was always limited, and the record labels didn't seem to want any third-party taking away from their sales of cassettes/records/cds.

    With Apple's iTMS opening the flood-gates of multi-label catalogs being available to anyone online, only people without a computer, cd-r, and internet connection would seem to be the target audience for an in-store listening-station and cd-burner.

    The only advantages, for me, would be if I could listen to more than 30-seconds of each song, and get better than 128-bit (160-bit?) mp3/aac files. I always rip my own CDs at highest quality. I'm concerned with audio quality, not saving space on my drive.

    Mike
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  5. Originally Posted by MikieV
    The problem in the past has always been the money, and "not invented here". Price per track was always too much, selection of tracks was always limited, and the record labels didn't seem to want any third-party taking away from their sales of cassettes/records/cds.
    Well, yeah, because the music industry didn't have much incentive to change their way of doing business. Do more record store chains have to go out of business before they adopt this kind of model? It's not like this model for music delivery hasn't been proven. Kazaa, et. al., proved that this is what people want.
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  6. Lies in the sands of time. If it can be played, it can be copied. These guys are so full of baloney that it's almost hilarious.
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    Originally Posted by mrmungus
    It's not like this model for music delivery hasn't been proven. Kazaa, et. al., proved that this is what people want.
    I would be happy to see the in-store model, myself - but the music industry seems to be forced by online-sharing into jumping past in-store distribution to online distribution.

    I haven't bought anything from the online music stores, because I don't want my "permanent" (as long as the DRM is supported) copy of the music I buy to be based on medium-quality mp3/aac/wma files.

    Music sharing has exploded because access to DSL/Broadband has exploded - and yet they are still limiting the quality of the files they sell online.

    If they want my business, they would have to start selling flac (sp?) loss-less compressed aiff files.

    Of course, I don't expect to see anything like that in my lifetime.

    Mike
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    It seems to me the sound they are referring to would have to be audible to human ears. Otherwise based what MP3 does:
    "MP3 music files are CD quality compressed recordings that occupy approximately one tenth to one twelfth less file space than the equivalent CD format WAV/AIFF file, which is achieved by filtering out all noise that is not detectable to the human ear."
    Just converting to MP3 would filter out the sound. I'm not sure how all this stuff works (nor do I care), all I know is everytime they pay all this money out to keep me from copying movies or music, someone on the internet develops a nice tool to over-ride it and gives it to me for free.
    My personal thanks to all the "un-greedy" out there willing to share the fruits of their labor with me
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  9. Even though PT Barnium never said "One born every minute" it fits this.

    I hate to tell these people but we are way passed the old low/high/bandpass filters. The one you can encode into a DSP are vastly better and most are adative! I can tell when its a Suit/Marketing geek and an engineer writing this fluff.

    Oh well they will learn.... when it a failure at the cost of money for a flawd system.
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  10. Member vhelp's Avatar
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    So, in a sense, our hearing is cause when we start to record to our
    brains, and press "replay", our ears will buzz'zz'zz or something - sheesh.

    What'a crock.. crooks too.
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  11. Yes, I Know Roundabout's Avatar
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    I got a laugh out of this opinion I found, titled:
    "Yet another brainless CD copy protection scheme"

    SunnComm, the CD copy protection snake-oil vendors of “shift-key” fame, bought another vendor of CD protection snake oil, DarkNoise Technologies. DarkNoise claims to have developed a technology for audio CDs analogous to Macrovision for video signals, making the content unlistenable when copied via analog means.

    What they claim isn’t entirely nonsensical. They say they have two methods of fouling up analog recordings of protected content. First, they include what they call “packets” – short bursts of audio intended to fool automatic gain control circuitry. That’s how Macrovision works. But you can’t see Macrovision pulses because they occur between frames in the video program, in what’s called the Vertical Blanking Interval. There is no such space in audio signals; any abrupt changes in level that would screw up AGC circuits would be audible (and really, really annoying).

    Second, they include harmonics that create beats when recorded by analog means, but that they claim cancel each other out when a person is just listening. It might be possible to create a signal that would get fouled up by the filtering inherent in analog-to-digital audio conversion by placing harmonics right at the edge of the frequency range – for CDs, that would require loud harmonics at exactly 22.05KHz, which they’re hoping would turn into loud harmonics at 11.025KHz through imperfections in the filter. That might work. Maybe. On cheap analog-to-digital converter chips. But you’d be able to hear it on good equipment, and with good ears, even in the original. And I can’t think of any way you could foul up the analog-to-digital conversion that wouldn’t stand a good chance of also fouling up the digital-to-analog conversion. There might be some way to make it cancel out in the speaker, but not reliably; even if they could, you could just re-record with a microphone, which they claim you can’t do.

    Regardless, a number of the claims they make are clearly false. For instance:

    On page 5 of the white paper, they claim that the technology will foul up conversions from CDs straight to WAV files. This cannot be so. A ripped WAV file is a perfect, bit-for-bit copy of the PCM audio data on the CD. If the CD plays perfectly, so will the WAVs; the exact same bits are hitting the sound card in each case.
    Also on page 5, they claim that the technology will foul up conversions from CDs to MP3s. On this page, they claim that “The embedded Q-Spoiler frequencies are placed according to The Psychoacoustic Model, i.e. beyond the audible response of the human ear.” MP3 compression works by removing all audio data not audible to the human ear, according to the same psychoacoustic model. Anything you can’t hear will get taken out; that’s how MP3 achieves such high compression ratios. MP3 encoding is likely to take out anything you can’t hear, which includes the copy protection frequencies. More importantly, the same page says that protected content can be distributed on MiniDisc. MiniDiscs use lossy ATRAC compression, which works in substantially the same way as MP3. There’s no way they managed to foul up MP3 encoding without fouling up ATRAC encoding.
    Even if this did work, it would reduce the audio quality significantly, by introducing unpleasant harmonics that cannot be counted upon to cancel each other out reliably.
    Let’s say you had the technology that DarkNoise claims they have. Let’s say it worked. You want to publicize your technology, so that people will buy it. Do you: (a) post a web page with a bunch of colorful graphs pretty clearly drawn in Adobe Illustrator and post a white paper with no real technical detail, or do you (b) maybe include a few audio samples, so people can hear your technology at work? This is an incredibly easy thing to demonstrate, if it works; you could even post before-and-after WAV files. And even if you needed to stick to your (dubious) story that WAV file encoding fouls up protected audio, you could at least include a sample of the fouled up audio to prove your point. But there’s nothing.

    I think they’re bluffing. Whatever SunnComm paid, it was probably too much. (Of course, we’ll never know what SunnComm paid, since SunnComm is trading on the Pink Sheets and has elected not to report financial data to the SEC or its shareholders. Not a great sign.)
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  12. Can someone give me a little background to this "shift-key hack" .

    And I agree with lowering prices on CDs. I went to fry's today and picked up the NEW Incubus CD for $10, only having heard one song. This has been the first music CD I have bought in years. If I can find more CDs at his price range I would definitely buy more.
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    What this requires is not only the Disc with a flag that tells of copy infringement, but also a player that implements the crappy sound.
    My advice....be wary of upgrades, keep your old stuff.

    I read a few articles where they're talking about implementing this crap
    into DVD/CD players, but it will not be activated in the machine until maybe
    a year after you bought it. Like a time delayed fuse. You won't know you bought a POS until it's too late.

    Who knows, maybe it won't matter and we'll all be using the Chinese
    EVD system by then. And the Chinese really don't give a flying f***
    about Hollywood. Why should they.
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  14. Roundabout some good info there thanks a lot sounds like you no a lot about this kind of stuff



    Thanks for the info


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  15. The Old One SatStorm's Avatar
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    Hi hi hi hi....

    "human ear".....

    Hi hi hi hi....

    Just imagine:

    Dogs & cats get crazy and start attacking people each time you tried to listen to those copy protected CDs..
    A sound like this gonna drive them crazy.

    Bugs of any kind, which are using those frequencies for love mating, start attacking your speakers, thinking that somewhere inside those speakers, there is a sex mate for them...
    I see many housewifes in the hospital if this happens....

    Don't mention the headaches this freq gonna affect people. Hell, one of the reasons DJs are still using Vinyl discs, is because even electronic music (techno) sounds better with them, than listening the same songs with CDs. I know, I use to be a DJ (some years ago...). When I played techno with Vinyl, hours later and the people still danced. When I played the same songs the next day with CDs, people needed drugs to stand the music! Because we don't listening some stuff, doesn't mean that our brain don't get the info. I bet my ass this protection system add headaches to all the listeners!

    Not to mention: What about radio transmissions? With a source like this, and IF that thing works as they claim, radio stations could not broadcast the songs anymore! Same story also with the digital satellite radios, etc...
    What they gonna do? Gonna release different CDs just for them? Next day, the mp3s gonna be on the net and already downloaded from anyone!

    Hi hi hi hi...
    Those big ones are more than silly.
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  16. No Longer Mod tgpo's Avatar
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    Screw it. I'll just dl it from IMS and put it on my iPod and burn CDs. I can then rip those CDs.
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  17. Haven't read all the posts, but just have one comment: Something that developers like these fail to realize (seemingly) is that there are always people out there smarter than they are -- there will always be someone out there with the knowledge and ability to get around their ideas...
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  18. Originally Posted by MikieV
    If they want my business, they would have to start selling flac (sp?) loss-less compressed aiff files.

    Of course, I don't expect to see anything like that in my lifetime.

    Mike
    The reason they might not be offering better quality files is becasue it's *hard* to make money selling music online. I hear the profit margins are razor thin and that most companies are doing it as a loss leader (e.g., Apple selling songs cheap because it helps drive iPod sales). Offering stuff in a better format that costs more to store and deliver (due to storage/bandwidth costs) would erode that razor-thin margin even more.
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  19. Member ebenton's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by SatStorm
    Dogs & cats get crazy and start attacking people each time you tried to listen to those copy protected CDs..
    THAT'S IT!! That's how it's going to work! All of the dogs and cats and other pets of the world will become the enforcers for the RIAA! You play your latest home-burned copy of Slim Whitman's "Una Paloma Blanca", and suddenly your poodle comes charging at you from across the room, foaming at the mouth, barking hysterically, and launches itself at your throat.
    Soon, the Animal Shelters would all be full to overflowing with discarded pets..."I don't know why Fluffy suddenly attacked me, but I can't have an unstable dog in my house..."
    Then PETA would get all upset about all of the pets being euthanized, and soon they would be bitching at the RIAA. Then we would have the best possible scenario: Hollywood Rock Stars fighting with Animal Rights activists.
    It might not turn out so bad after all.
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    Originally Posted by mrmungus
    The reason they might not be offering better quality files is becasue it's *hard* to make money selling music online. I hear the profit margins are razor thin and that most companies are doing it as a loss leader (e.g., Apple selling songs cheap because it helps drive iPod sales). Offering stuff in a better format that costs more to store and deliver (due to storage/bandwidth costs) would erode that razor-thin margin even more.
    Agreed.

    Especially with them trying to hit the lowest possible price-point, so that the people who are already getting it for free won't feel too put-out by the price.

    And, as soon as the first says 99-cents per song, the next says 89 or 79-cents a song - as if 99-cents is a rip-off?

    With all the servers, online storage, bandwidth costs, programming the site, album-cover jpegs, 30-second samples of each song, royalities to label/artist... My God, I'm surprised they make any money at all.

    Maybe online distribution will only be useful (to the Music biz) as an alternative to file-sharing, but if it is ever going to replace physical distribution - for my money - it would have to be in higher-quality formats than they are using now.

    Mike
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    So in that context 20 bucks a disc does not sound so outrageous anymore, he? There's always a cost to indroduction of new technology. Steam engine has put horses out of work. No single horse's complaint was ever recorded. RIAA looks like a bunch of whiners and loosers compared to that. One of the judges said that regulating technology "is like chasing the wind". There will be winners and loosers. Has a profit shifted from one company to another there wouldn't be an issue. Since for the first time in history intellectual property become available to so many so quickly that it almost became a "public domain" is a byproduct of new technologies beeing introduced almost daily. And it's gonna be only worse. More new protection schemes, but also more computing power to those who want to take on them. This is a true industrial revolution "part II" in full swing.
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  22. The Old One SatStorm's Avatar
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    The music indestry follows the same model the last 35 years.

    The world changed a lot in the last 35 years.

    The music indestry needs heavy update.
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  23. To be honest, I see the current "record company" model going out of business within the next 10 years. Why? Because there's no need for them anymore!

    As things stand, an artist can easily get access to a recording studio and have their own material digitally mastered. Now with new encryption systems and the internet, it is possible for artists to directly market and sell their songs to the public. This can be done at very low cost and still make plenty for the artist as they don't have any "middle men" to pay. I think this will be the future, with artists having direct contact with their public.
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    Anyone want to know 'How they Do it'? Come on folks, this isn't hard.

    Read up on how MP3's work. Basically Humans do not here linerally from 0-20,000 hertz. There are bands of frequencies we simply don't here very well. There are also bands that we typically don't hear because they are outside our vocal range.

    That's one key to MP3's. They don't bother with certain frequency bands. Thats what helps make the files smaller, eliminate stuff we don't hear that well. There's more to it than that, but that's a part of it.

    Now how do you mess up an analog recorder? You put in extra sounds and waveforms designed specifically to mess-up standard MP3/WMA encoding schemes, as well as analog microphones and AtoD convertors. So, of course, a little judicious programming/filtering and it's a useless protection scheme.

    It's all marketing hype, it's not a practical solution. You can't do it and adhere to the standard CDDA format.
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    Originally Posted by proxyx99
    So in that context 20 bucks a disc does not sound so outrageous anymore, he? There's always a cost to indroduction of new technology.
    Yes, "in that context" being all the un-seen distribution costs that have nothing to do with the production of the music. "They" decided on the price first, then had to fight amongst each-other for a piece of that fixed price. They are all in it for the money, so I'm not going to lose sleep feeling sorry for them. It just kills me when the 99-cents vs. 89/79-cents stuff started. Who gave-up that 10/20-cents a song? The record label? HA HA HA HA!

    As far as costs of introduction - I remember waiting, in the 80's, for CD players to drop far-enough below $1000 USD, so I could afford to buy one. And then, hoping more non-Classical music would be released on CD - so it wouldn't be a limited-use buy for me.

    My concern here is not the price, but the content, and the quality of that content. Because, if I think it is worth it, I will buy it. Even if it takes me awhile to save-up the cash.

    Would the online stores be charging $20 for a disc of CD-quality music, or $20 for a disc of mp3/wma/aac-quality music?

    Would they charge more for SACD or DVD-Audio - probably. Because of the increased file size?, because of the increased "perceived value"?, because they had to buy new equipment and remaster for those formats? My vote would be - "D. All of the above."

    Would I have a choice of which songs fill the $20 disc, or will I be limited to pre-packaged collections?

    I don't expect all the underlying technology to be provided free of charge, but their "business model" doesn't seem sustainable beyond any initial sales surge.

    Mike
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    Originally Posted by proxyx99
    There's always a cost to indroduction of new technology. Steam engine has put horses out of work. No single horse's complaint was ever recorded. RIAA looks like a bunch of whiners and loosers compared to that.
    Interesting analogy.

    Horses didn't complain, but the textile workers in England had riots and damaged factories as their jobs were lost. The "Wobblies" and other "monkey-wrench" gangs make the RIAA look pretty tame. :P

    Mike
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    Originally Posted by energy80s
    To be honest, I see the current "record company" model going out of business within the next 10 years. Why? Because there's no need for them anymore!
    I would tend to agree.

    Originally Posted by energy80s
    with new encryption systems and the internet, it is possible for artists to directly market and sell their songs to the public. This can be done at very low cost and still make plenty for the artist as they don't have any "middle men" to pay.
    I see two problems with this: encryption and "middle-men".

    Reading these forums should convince anyone that encryption will never work. If there aren't enough people willing to buy the music, without depending on encryption to deter file-trading, the artists shouldn't quit their day-job.

    The internet allows "self-publishing". But, on a larger scale, you start trading the music industry "middle-men" for the ISP/bandwidth "middle-men". Does the artist/group want a small site? Or are they looking to handle international orders - with credit card sales, currency conversion, sales tax (VAT) details??

    But, from what I have read, I think I would rather pay for the bandwidth than sign a contract with a record label. As if a complete non-artist like me will ever have to make that choice.

    Mike[/b]
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    What I don't understand is why can't you just make a copy with your computer? Because if you can make an exact copy (bit-for-bit) with your computer (and why couldn't you, since it's just data on a CD?*), then that sound should still be there in the file, exactly as it is in the original file, but since it wasn't copied "incorrectly" (with a mic held to a speaker, or via the "analog loop"), why would it cause the sound to come out?

    If anyone can explain this to me, please do.....

    Otherwise, I don't see what they wish to accomplish with this, other than looking like a$$holes.........



    *Granted, there may be other copy protection on the disc, to try to keep you from copying it onto your computer, but how long will that last? Until someone figures out that you need to hold down shift+alt?
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  29. People who invent encryption schemes for consumer products are wasting their time.

    The simple fact is, that for a human to be able to watch the movie, listen to the music or play the computer game (to name but 3) the encrypted data has to be decrypted so either our brains can interpret it correctly (see a video picture or hear a music track) or the CPU in whatever we use to play games is able to execute the code.

    The people who invent the encryption/protection scheme are the first link in the "cracking" chain because they have to write the decryption algorithm in the first place.

    Give up and spend your R&D money on something useful!
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  30. Going Mad TheFamilyMan's Avatar
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    This "copy protection" really seems like smoke and mirrors, basically an elaborate hoax. Anything that is added to the actual analog signal in the audiable range will distort the original quality. Maybe they are aiming this solely at playback on cheap, no-audiophile grade equipment upon which most recordings are played. I know I would refuse to buy this corrupted music (but then again, the types of releases this would be aimed at I probably wouldn't buy anyways).

    I think an important factor is that most people don't really care much about sound quality of what they listen to. If they can get it into their ipod or MP3 player, that is all that matters. If people thought, "man this MP3, WMA, etc. sounds like crap" the file sharing problem would be much less of an issue due to the file sizes involved. Unfortunately this is not true, and the recording industry will crash and burn because of it, unless they can figure out how to make money getting cheap, disposable music to the masses.
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