This is an E-mail interview with Corey Moss of MTVi.  The finished
article seemed to me to be rather industry-oriented, or at least
heavily "down-beat":

  http://www.sonicnet.com/news/story.jhtml?id=1451252

He only quoted the "bad-news" stuff that I wrote, missing out the
upbeat "what we can do about it" and "don't stand for this" stuff.
For that reason I'm posting the interview again here.  I can't let
them have the last word !!

Jim

----- Forwarded message -----

Corey Moss wrote:
> Apparently, Universal is releasing the More Fast and Furious
> soundtrack in the US as the first "advertised" copy protected CD. Do
> you believe it is really the first?

Well, I don't know a huge amount about the US situation as I'm based
in the UK, but it's certainly not the first CD that has been sold in
the US with a label on it -- the Charley Pride CD did have a small
label on, as I understand it, and that was one of the first that got
public attention in the States (with a court case in California).

However, if they are advertising the so-called "copy-protection" as a
`feature', then this would certainly be a novel approach! -- trying to
blind the public with glitter to hide the corruption and degraded
quality beneath the surface.

> What are the harms in copy protecting CDs?

The biggest problem is that the whole idea of "copy protection" for
CDs is nonsense.  CDs were simply not designed for this.  Instead they
were designed to be as compatible as possible, to work equally well on
*any* CD-playing device made according to the audio CD standard.

This means that to stop a CD from playing in a computer, the only way
to do this is by creating an intentionally faulty CD, and this is
exactly what they have done.  They have distorted the CD format in
certain ways that cause problems for most computers, but don't cause
problems for most normal CD players.  However, as you might guess,
this isn't a very precise art, and these modified CDs also cause
problems for other devices than computers -- for instance some DVD
players, PlayStation2 machines, home cinema systems, car CD players,
older CD players and so on.  (We have had individual reports from
people with all of these types of systems who have had problems with
"copy-protected" CDs).

Apart from computers, the record companies are also trying to stop
playback on anything via a digital output, since this could
potentially be used to make a digital copy.  This includes digital
outputs of normal CD players and games consoles, and the internal
digital connection within a computer.  This affects very many people,
for instance anyone who uses a digital connection to their amplifier,
as is common in some home cinema systems, or anyone who uses Window
Media Player 7 on a PC with the "digital" setting turned on, which
gives much improved sound quality.

The whole thing is such a bad idea, it ought really to have been
scrapped before they even started.

Regarding the modifications that they are making to the CDs -- these
are not just slight modifications, these are major corruptions to the
data.  On several of these formats (including the SunnComm and Cactus
protection systems) the audio data itself is corrupted by either
distorting the error-correction codes on the CD, or inserting bad
chunks of data into the audio stream.  The error-correction codes are
designed to help a CD player cope with scratches on the disk, so by
corrupting these, they are effectively degrading the CD's scratch-
resistance.

A BBC engineer we are in contact with tested one of these CDs on a
professional reference CD player that shows the level of errors on a
CD on a scale from 0 to 9.  A new unscratched CD would normally score
0, and a very badly scratched CD would score 9.  The "copy-protected"
CD scored between 5 and 7 on the scale.  So you can see that in this
case, the corruption on the disk was about as high as it could
possibly get without causing problems on normal CD players.

But what if you scratched one of these disks ?  CD players are very
clever -- even if they can't fully correct a scratch, they'll do
everything they can to avoid skipping or going silent, filling in the
gap with a guess at what should be there.  So a scratched CD won't go
wrong in an obvious way to begin with -- it will just start sounding a
a little bit worse, as the CD player has to work harder to invent
parts of the sound which it can't fix from the error correction codes.

This is why it's such an underhand thing to do.  Everyday people
aren't going to notice this kind of degradation of the sound right
away, and even experts might suspect their equipment before blaming
the CD.

It's like putting substandard components into a car or an aircraft.
No-one's going to notice right away, but a year or two down the line
and you have a serious problem.  The same is true of corrupt CDs.

As another example, the recent BMG releases in the UK have used a
special MP3-style player on the disk for Windows machines.  This seems
fair enough -- giving Windows users the ability to play the music
(albeit at a very poor quality of 80kbps/32kHz).  But what about in a
few years time ?  Already someone has reported problems with this
player on Windows 2000.  Is it likely to work on Windows 2005 or 2010,
do you think ?

You've got to remember that CDs from 18 years ago, when CDs were first
introduced, still play perfectly on modern CD players.  Are today's
copy-protected CDs going to play on computers and CD players in 2020 ?
I don't really think so.  They don't even play properly on computers
and CD players from 2001.

That is the reason why we have to stop these CDs.  Certainly, the
record companies can fool people with advertising and gizmos, but
anyone who really cares about their music, who actually wants to be
able to listen to it in 5 or 10 years time, is really going to have to
get aware of the issues and make a point of ASKING retailers whether
CDs are "copy-protected", and REFUSING to buy *any* CD that isn't a
100% standard audio CD.

Letting them get away with it and buying one of these CDs is just
asking to be ripped off again and again by the record companies.  Many
people have now replaced their vinyl record collection with CDs, but
if all CDs are going to be useless from now on, are they expecting us
all to upgrade to the next audio-disk format instead ?  How long do
they think we're going to be fooled by this trick -- the man in the
street is going wake up sooner or later.

We simply can't let them get away with it.

> Do you think the record labels will really have all new CDs copy
> protected in six months?

Technically, yes, they could do it.  It seems that many pressing
plants are now geared up to produce these CDs, and the extra work is
only necessary when creating the glass master of the CD.  The actual
pressing and printing of the CD is exactly the same as for a standard
audio CD.  So, yes, all CDs could be protected in six months.

The only reason they're not doing it yet, I believe, is because
they're afraid of the consumer backlash.  They're trying to sneak it
in in a way that people don't notice, just a few releases at a time.

> If they did, would it stop MP3 trading?

Not at all.  Even if the record companies manage to find a way to
corrupt the CDs in a way that makes them impossible to copy digitally,
people can still make analogue copies through the audio inputs of
their PCs.  If you think that the inconvenience would put people off,
think again.  People have been making analogue copies onto tape for
years -- it's just the same on a computer, only not quite as fast as
running a modern MP3 CD-extractor.  As someone else pointed out --
bootleggers put many times more work than this into doing a bootleg
MP3 of a concert.  Is digital copy-protection on CDs really going to
stop people like this ?

> Thanks,

You're welcome -

Jim

----- End forwarded message -----