OFF: Anti-piracy encryption article

[Andrew A. Apold]

>Brian Halligan <bthalligan at EARTHLINK.NET> writes:
>
>> June 29, 1999
>
>> SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The latest round of portable digital music players will
>> soon be available in stores nationwide, equipped with security features
>> designed to prevent piracy, designers say.
>
>Isn't this nicely written. At first glance it appears to
>suggest that these features are there for our benefit. The
>music industry always argues that *piracy* is bad for listeners
>because it reduces sales and hence the amount of money that
>they can put into nurturing new talent like Steps. Of course
>most of their money (apart from that going up the noses
>of A and R men) goes into the established acts. Isn't it
>about time we had some new *product* from Phil Collins?

If anything, currently the mp3 market is dominated by
bands that can't get much exposure otherwise...

>They can claim whatever they like 'cause new formats can be
>developed that their technology won't work against :-)

I certainly hope so...

>Additionally even if the encryption prevents CD to MP3 it
>cannot prevent CD to cassette to WAV to MP3, for instance.
>And, finally, it will have absolutely no effect upon the
>activities of genuine pirates and their CD pressing plants in
>some Asian countries. The only people affected will be fans
>who want to put a few tracks in a Rio for personal use to
>share some music on the 'net.

I have a rio, I keep a large library on my computer of my favorite
stuff, all of which I have bought, BTW.  I like to be able to
load it up with stuff before going out...   I'm not sure how
they're gonna come by this, they're not talking of releasing
something that existing cd players can't play, are they?  And if
an existing cd player can play it, how can they stop it from being
scratched?  I could just keep my current versions of my software...
I suppose they could add new features and stuff, but I'll just keep
an old version and have a new one too.  I was considering upgrading
to the new Diamond Rio model when it comes out (it has a backlit
display, displays the name of the track, etc.).

>> New devices, available as early as Christmas, would initially support all
>
>Christmas eh? Why would they release a new format then?
>
>> implemented and the machines' software is upgraded, the only new songs that
>> work on the machines will be ones that are digitally encoded with copyright
>> protections.
>> Even with the new protections, the players will still be able to play old
music
>> already illegally copied using the MP3 format
>
>Now how does the player know it's a new song with encryption or
>an old song without it?

Precisely, I figure it may be something at the start (I suppose it will
have to transcend sampling levels, or perhaps they only care about the
128 kbps (cd-quality)... FWIW, when I go rollerblading, I use mostly
96 kbps, I can fit more on my player (I only have the base 32 meg of
memory right now).  BTW, if you see them saying these things hold
an "hour of music", that's not at cd quality.  You can get a little
over half an hour at cd quality without buying some flash memory.

The new versions coming out will have more base memory, one of the
main reasons I was looking at getting one... but now I may just
consider the original, "pre-protection" version, superior...

============================================
"I was corrupt before I had power!" - Random

Andrew Apold