Well, just read this: http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991367 story about a new N'Sync CD which you will not be able to play on a computer at all. They will also release three different versions of it (each protected by a different method).

Now, I'd boycott this but I was never gonna buy this crap anyway . However, it usually starts with a few items and then just progresses to all of the other CDs as well. This is really gonna suck since we won't be able to backup CDs at digital quality in the near future. Has anyone played around with these 'protected' CDs?

Thoughts?

Well, first off, if it can be played in a standard CD, I don't see how you wouldn't be able to use CloneCD to make an image, and then mess with the image until your able to use it.

Also, as long as they don't start requiring a special CD player, there isn't a problem. Just use your RF or SPDIF connection from your CD players output to your soundcards digital input, and record. This will produce a perfect copy (minus jitter of course, which is a problem anywhere and can be 'solved' with a DIP box or the other myriad of clock matching solutions) every single time.

So much for copy protected discs. If you plan to make quality rips, encoding at 1X shouldn't be that much of a problem, considering the files last forever. I just don't see the point of all this.

It's IMPOSSIBLE to protect the data without making it incompatible with existing equipment.

Period.

Not if playing around with them would involve buying an N'Sync album :-)

muahahaha.. lol :D

well since i'm not keen about garbage music like this, it hardly disturbs me

what i find quite odd though is that the germans are always getting screwed with stupid innovations like that:



while america, britain, and even the rest of europe dont:



this has happened in the past with BMG music in germany and whats is called, that copy protection system from midbar that worked like crap and wouldn't let people play the CD even on a legit CD player.. yikes

Unfortunately, N'Sync is just a big test for copy protection. The record labels are trying to see how consumers react. Considering how well N'Sync CDs normally sell, this should prove to be a good test case for them.

Vivendi/Universal Music (whose subsidiaries include one of my favorite labels -- Deustche Gramophone) is considering copy protecting all CDs by sometime next year.

Here are some links:

Wall Street Journal Story

ZDNet Article

Copy protection and N'Sync in the same thread - seems like a good opportunity to let this little fella do his thang:
:puke:

Oh well, we can only hope that these copy protection technologies will turn into an expensive and heavily patented option, so the record companies can't afford it.

BTW, even if they did implement it, it would only work on us, the archivers. The average music listener wouldn't really mind or even notice any quality drop. :enraged:

What about all the people out there with portable mp3 players? Are they not prevented from making fair use of their cd's?

This is so arbitrary. The people making rio's and nomads surely have a stake in this copy technology. Does anyone know if they have made any statements?

There are reports (er one report, in fact, http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/09/2...242&mode=thread ) saying that computer drives don't even load the CD. In that case, CloneCD can't do anything, of course. Maybe CloneCD compatible drives can load the CD anyway.



There will be NO jitter problem as computer hard drives use asychronous transfers, for which jitter has no meaning, since there is no clock. There will be no difference with an extraction, exept that to have a secure copy, like with EAC, two copies would be needed, so that they can be compared.

The problems may come from SACD readers, DVD readers, MP3 readers, burners, DVD burners etc, that may try to access the TOC, thus being unable to play them.

Have you noticed that those protection schemes are sold to record companies by third party companies ? Their marketing is convincing record companies to buy their protection, that may, after all, only annoy common users with mp3 players etc... while pirates can easily make analog or digital copies with an old hifi player, and companies selling the protection earn money...

If a drive is truely 100% CloneCD compatible, it should be able to create a raw 1:1 copy of the disc -- copy protection and all. I have a Mitusmi 4804TE here and I'm definately going to try to get my hands on one of these copy protected discs.

Regarding jitter and the comment I made, I was referring to using RF or SPDIF digital to connect a component CD player to your computer, and record the digital data from there, thus, some jitter may be introduced and might be minimzied by use with a DIP box or similar, unless your card supports using external clock.