Consumers sue over anti-copy CDs

bbc ^ | Tuesday, 6 January, 2004

[demlosers]

Major record labels are being sued by a European consumer group over copy-protected CDs that fans say are faulty. Belgium-based Test-Achats says new technology that stops CD copying also stops fans playing them on some devices and making legitimate back-up copies.

The group wants EMI, Universal, Sony and BMG to stop releasing copy-protected CDs and to reimburse fans.

But the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), a trade group, said the suit was baseless.

The copy protection technology was introduced two years ago by record companies who faced a sales slump and wanted to stop pirated CDs reaching the black market.

The music industry has been
cracking down on CD copying

A CD by Shakira was among those affected, Test-Achats said It usually works by placing a layer of data on a CD that only enables playback on a home stereo or portable hi-fi device.

But Test-Achats, known as Test-Aankoop in Dutch, said it had received 200 complaints from fans who were angry at the fact that they could not listen to the discs on some CD players.

Big-selling releases including Shakira's Laundry Service and Radiohead's Hail to the Thief were affected, they said.

Test-Achats spokesman Mechels Ivo said: "We are trying to establish legal precedent in this matter. Then we expect other consumer organisations will follow."

'Protect'

But an IFPI statement said: "European law is clear that record companies and other copyright holders have the right to protect their works through technical means."

Industry observers say the lawsuit is the biggest European legal challenge yet to the music industry's practice of releasing copy-protected discs, according to the Reuters news agency.

The lawsuit is expected to be heard in a Belgium court this week.

Warner Music is the only one of the five major music labels not named.

[RightWhale]

new technology that stops CD copying also stops fans playing them on some devices and making legitimate back-up copies

A weak case. DVDs don't play in my VCR, so is this actionable?

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[steve-b]

A weak case.

Nope; an iron-clad case.

DVDs don't play in my VCR, so is this actionable?

In general, the sale of a product carries an "implied warranty of suitability". That is, if it doesn't work as a reasonable and prudent purchaser would expect, it's defective and the purchaser is entitled to recourse.

A reasonable and prudent purchaser would not expect a DVD to play in a VCR. A reasonable and prudent purchaser would expect a CD to play in a CD player (of whatever type -- stereo rack, car, computer, etc).

[mvpel]

Your analogy doesn't hold, as VCRs are not designed nor intended to be able to play DVDs. The copy protection keeps individuals from using the CDs on devices designed and intended to play audio CDs:

Not only will the Celine Dion audio disc fail to play on new flat-screen iMacs but it will lock the CD tray and prevent the machine from been rebooted properly. This is not something users can fix themselves and means a trip to a dealer for repairs. An article on Apple's knowledge base explains the issue in more depth.

There's an easy workaround for this, though, documented in that same article in The Register in the UK: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/25274.html

[Revolting cat!]

[Paul C. Jesup]

A weak case. DVDs don't play in my VCR, so is this actionable?

You sue on the basis of false advertising if they sell a disc (with no warning labels) as a CD and it does no conform to CD standards and will not play in your player.

[Prime Choice]

A weak case. DVDs don't play in my VCR, so is this actionable?

There is no reasonable expectation that a DVD should play on a VCR. On the other hand, there is a reasonable expectation that an ISO-9660 CD should play on any ISO-9660-compliant CD player on the market.

[DonQ]

Anti-copying technology tends to have a short lifespan and unexpected side-effects.

I once was an afficianado of the steam-driven Commodore 64 computer. At some point some of the software publishers (the C64 used those old five and half inch very floppy floppy disks) tried to make their stuff copy-proof by drilling tiny holes in their floppies in sectors that the software never referenced but which most standard wall-to-wall copying programs would read while making copies; trying to read the sector with a hole in it would cause the disk drive to blow a fuse. This backfired mightily: It was VERY common among users that, when software became obsolete for some reason (such as a revised edition), the disk of the old version would be re-used for storage, so trying to recycle these perforated disks in a perfectly legitimate way destroyed disk drives.

Oh, and the use of holes to prevent copying (and some other tricks, such as requiring a special "dongle" to be plugged into one of the C64's sockets to generate a particular register value without which the software wouldn't run), was eventually circumvented by more innovative copying techniques that simply duplicated what was loaded inside the computer's memory instead of on the disk.

[an amused spectator]

"Music Server 2004" bump

[RightWhale]

CD standards

The truth is in your phrase. There is more than one standard. At most the consumer should expect to be able to return the product and get his money back.

[RightWhale]

I still have a couple VIC-20s around, and a couple disc drives. I haven't fired them up in a while.
I also have here, at hand, a pile of 8" floppies. There is a circle of holes in an uneven pattern like what you mentioned in each one. It was semi-annoying that they would work in a Tektronix, but not an IBM, and often enough not in any drive but the one they were written in.
That you can pop a floppy into just about any computer these days and find it readable is close to a miracle to me.

[mvpel]

If it's an 8" floppy, those holes are probably evidence of "hard sectors" rather than copy protection:

http://www.discinterchange.com/TechTalk_floppy_disks_.html
---
There are hard sector and soft sector disks, with soft sector the most common. Hard sector disks have small holes punched in a circle near the center hole of the disk that mark the locations of the sectors on the disk. Soft sector disks write magnetic marks on each track to indicate the start of a sector. Most disks are soft sector; Wang is the largest user of hard sector 8" disks.

[mvpel]

The consumer might also have a cause of action for payment of the iMac repair bill, too.

[Paul C. Jesup]

Officially, for music CDs, there is only ONE standard.

[Paul C. Jesup]

And if the music companies pretend to sell a disc as that standard but in truth their dics do not conform to that standard, then they are guilty of fraud.

[Rockitz]

Until such time as music publishers are prepared to replace (at media cost) defective media, whether due to age, damage, or otherwise, recording music for personal use should be completely legitimate. Paying artists or publishers multiple times for the right to listen to the same recording is an abomination. Purchase of a recording should include lifetime rights to that piece of music for the purchaser or his assignee regardless of on what media that recording resides.

[Havoc]

A weak defense. If I can't make backup copies of the software I buy, it goes back to the store. Same with music and videos. If I can't protect the investment, which is quite a large one in my case as with others, then their product isn't worth owning. Period. I'm not into being scammed to buy the same thing over and over because they can't create a quality product to begin with. Nor will I.
The bottom line is that these idiots are trying to play the same game the auto industry did - build a product that goes to crap in short order so it must be replaced regularly. The auto industry just didn't blame it on Car thieves. They were honest enough to admit they were being greedy and underhanded.

As a consumer, I have rights too. When the rights of two parties colide, that doesn't mean that the second party has no rights in the matter. Business has a right to protect it's investment; but, so to does the consumer.

[dannyc1]

I should have the ability to play a CD on my computer, I should have the right to make acopy of the cd so If I trash it I still have the original. I do not have the right to hand a copy to friends.

[aruanan]

A CD by Shakira was among those affected, Test-Achats said It usually works by placing a layer of data on a CD that only enables playback on a home stereo or portable hi-fi device.

The computer CD player looks for data tracks first. If it finds one on an "anti-copy" CD, it'll just stay there. But you can use black or blue magic marker to ink out the easily visible data track--or just interrupt it. The computer CD player is then unable to see the data track and then will go directly to the music tracks.