X

Now who's going to complain about this? But then that's probably part of the plan. And now my plans to duplicate Celine Dion CDs and sell them to uhh, err... well somebody are spoiled!

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...sers&printer=1

Dion's new CD crashing party for some users
Wed Apr 3, 1:57 AM ET

By Chris Marlowe

LOS ANGELES (The Hollywood Reporter) --- Celine Dion's latest release is generating heated discussions on Internet message boards. But the subject under fire is not the star's music -- it's that the CD will not play on computer CD drives.

Epic/Sony released "A New Day Has Come" embedded with Key2Audio copy protection in Germany and several other European countries. According to a spokeswoman for Sony Music Entertainment, it is clearly stated on the front of the booklet and on the back of the jewel box that the CD "will not play on a PC or a Mac" in the language of the country in which it is sold. Besides those notices, which the spokeswoman said were readable before purchase, the disc itself bears the same warning.

Should the consumer try to play Dion's CD on a PC or Macintosh (news - web sites), the computer likely will crash.

Some fans believe that the CD is more damaging than that, however. On the German discussion boards at MacFixit, Mac users claim that the CD will not eject using normal methods and that the intentional corruption of the disc's session data could unpredictably affect the drive's firmware. (Firmware is a combination of hardware and software instructions that are permanently embedded in the hardware's controlling chips, such as with a computer's CD-ROM, and altering it could cause permanent damage.)

Sony denied these allegations. "The CD will probably cause a system to crash, but it will not alter anything," the spokeswoman said. "And it won't eject properly, but that's just because the computer has crashed."

"New Day" was released in the United States on Tuesday. Industry watchers expect it to sell more than 500,000 copies by the end of its first week.

More than 10 million discs using Key2Audio CD-audio copy protection have been produced and sold, primarily in Europe. Key2Audio is a product of Sony DADC, a 100% affiliate of Sony Corp (news - web sites). of America headquartered in Austria.

tygloalex

If manufacturers want to stop copying, fine. If they want my computer to crash, then

D.Pham5GLTE (>60GB)

anyone know how they're doing this? what type of mechanism are they using to determine it's a computer?

Seeker

I want this cd, but I will not buy it.

das Monkey

It just amuses the hell out of me that the idiots in the recording industry actually believe things like this will do anything to help their sales. Even if you disagree that music sharing increases album sales (arguable), nonsense like this does more to harm sales than any copying could ever do. As if this will actually stop anyone anyway. Thanks for another challenge, guys. As always, we'll figure a way around it in a fraction of the time (and money) it took you to develop it.

das

D.Pham5GLTE (>60GB)

definately...just like the "u************ble" DVD code

Aaron Amos

How will this affect people (like me) who do not copy CD's? I buy them. Will it ruin my computer too?I also do not have a CD burner as I 'd rather buy the actual CD than make a CD. Besides CD burners cost a couple hundred bucks at my job.

Did'nt the music recording industry know what it was getting into with having CD-R, CD-RW's and CD burners out there for the public to buy? Or even blank CD's for that matter?Just wondering.

D.Pham5GLTE (>60GB)

i think the music industry was against releasing burners

kevin75

if they end up going through with this, then i may never buy another cd again. the recording industry.

X

They seem to be saying that you can't even play it on your computer, much less make a copy of it. And it may even junk up your computer every time you try to play it.

D.Pham5GLTE (>60GB)

just a thought...if you used the the digital out on the DVD player, and the digital in on your computer, would the quality be the same?

Gunshy

what's really funny is that I've got a stack of blank Sony recordable CDRs right here on my desk that say "For Music" right on the covers! Oh, but were not supposed to use them to store pre-recorded material just our own music - suuuuure!

-Gunshy

D.Pham5GLTE (>60GB)

you can use it for prerecorded material that's not copyrighted... though it's kinda faulty logic

Josh-da-man

A quick note to the recording industry:

Here's how you effectively combat piracy:

1. Lower prices. At $20.00 a CD, you make it too tempting to send your potential customers to P2P services to download songs. Knock CD prices down to under $10.00, and you'll more than make the difference in volume.

2. Put out better music. The consumers have caught on to the fact that there's only one good song on the typical album. They'll just go to a P2P network and download that one good song. See #1.

D.Pham5GLTE (>60GB)

i agree...i'm sure it doesn't cost close to that much to make a CD, even after everyone gets a cut

einTier

It probably won't play in your DVD player either. Or any high-end car CD players. This is because the "copy protection" is simply intentional errors in the CD. Normal "dumb" CD players read right through it, using the error correction to interpret what the bits should be. The computer-based CD players are smarter, and hang up trying to re-read the "bad" bits because they see the intentional errors and they don't seem to make any sense. It's considerably more complicated than this, but that's the gist of it. There's also the issue that since these are basically just errors, the disc will be more prone to scuffing and scratching and may not last as long or be as durable as an unprotected CD.

There is word that these Sony CDs may not be released in North America (though they've been released in Europe) because of the incredible liability behind them. Even though they have very large warning labels on them, the act of putting a warning sign up can possibly increase the chance of being sued. The reason being that it is much easier to prove that the defendent knew that they had a dangerous situation and didn't do anything about it. There are 4 elements needed for a negligence case.

1. The defendent must have a defined duty -- in this case to produce working products and not snake oil.
2. Breach of duty: act or ommision must be shown -- Sony knew about the defective CD's and any reasonable person would think that they should play in ALL cd players. Sony also knows that most people would try to use them in computer CD players which is why they have a warning.
3. The Breach of Duty must be shown to be considered a reasonable cause of damage -- Clear cut case here.
4. Damages must be shown.

Oh, and Gunshy, since those are audio CD-Rs, you paid a nice heavy premium on top of them that goes directly to the RIAA -- because they assume that you are going to put pirated tunes on every single one of them. However, none of this money goes to the artists whose work was "pirated".

heimerSWT

All this comes a week after I "saw" this entire CD on alt.binaries.sounds.[insert group suffix here]

There will always be a workaround.

big whoppa

No Celine Dion jokes?? Actually, I like most of her music.

Gunshy

Arggg! Yea, I had heard about this premium and forgot all about it. (I think I got these CDRs using some coupon or rebate but still...) D@mn record companie$! They score the cash to make up for it (potential copying) and still they complain

-Gunshy

AndyCapps

I'd be very surprised if they didn't show up here. I know of engineers(I interviewed to be one) working for a Sony disc manufacturing plant here who were going over to Germany about 2 years ago to learn all about the format. But, I still believe this is going to fail miserably.

I like listening to CDs in my PC. If there's a CD I want to buy, and I know it won't work in my PC, that increases the chance that I'll just download the mp3s, if I can find them(wonder if they'll employ this method with the demos sent to radio stations), and keep my money.

D.Pham5GLTE (>60GB)

is there something on the label that says it won't place on DVD players either? if not, then they might be in some trouble.

einTier

Well, I don't doubt it'll come over here sooner or later, as it did with the "More Fast and the Furious" CD, but for now, this copy protection is staying overseas. Currently, I can buy this CD from Amazon, and there's no mention that it won't play in my computer or DVD player. The Yahoo! article specifically mentions Germany and "other european countries", and while it's misleading about copy protection being on the US CDs, it's never specifically mentioned, and I'm finding stories of people buying them in the US and Canada with no copy protection.

Though, as with you, I don't understand how this stops piracy. You sell your consumers what they will see as a defective product ("Whadda mean this won't play in my computer, every other CD I own does!"), which just basically forces all the honest people to either deal with your crippled product or become pirates themselves. It won't stop the real pirates.

El Scorcho

I see this as a great thing!

First Creed, now Celine Dion. Soon, our world's p2p network will be free of horrible music! I sure hope they do Limp Bizkit next!

Myster X

When will the recording get their heads out of the sand and learn.

First Creed, now Celine Dion. Soon, our world's p2p network will be free of horrible music! I sure hope they do Limp Bizkit next!

This list can go on for a mile...

Seeker

I don't understand --- I'm reading "this is in Europe, not USA", but isn't the Celine Dion disc (available in USA) copy protected in this manner?