Dion's new CD crashing party for some users

The Hollywood Reporter via Yahoo ^ | 4/3/02 | Chris Marlowe

[jalisco555]

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.

[jalisco555]

If the entertainment industry and it's wholly owned subsidiary, Fritz Hollings, have their way all CD's will have this "feature".

[martin_fierro]

Already posted here

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/660285/posts

and here

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/659071/posts

Oh, and the copy protection's already been cracked.

[js1138]

More than 10 million discs using Key2Audio CD-audio copy protection have been produced and sold, primarily in Europe.

Sheep.

[js1138]

Your cracker site is down.

[martin_fierro]

Eh, so try this.

[Quix]

SOUNDS LIKE TIME FOR A MAJOR BOYCOT OF NEW MUSIC UNTIL THE COPYRIGHT EXCESSES ARE DEALT WITH.

[Lockbox]

This has interesting implications. The Stereo system of the 1970’s and 1980’s is merging into the entertainment system of the 2000’s, the computer. But what good is the ‘new’ entertainment system if it will not play the entertainment. Sony, the same company which markets its computer system as an entertainment system, is now supplying entertainment which will not play on its computer.

While the entertainment group tries to force the entertainment system group to standardize anti-copying devices in the computer, millions of users are going to be unhappy and possible look for another form of ‘audio’ system. What a balancing act, force the computers companies to install anti-copying devices, while not driving away the users.

Suggestion to Sony, send a memo to the computer group, install a device to play but not allow copying of the ‘new’ CDs. Market this new computer and beat the competition to the market.

[Balding_Eagle]

Someone is going to 'invent' a new gadget.

It will be a set of stereo speakers that you hook up to a normal CD player. Each speaker will have a built in microphone. The microphones will plug into your computer mic jack. Presto! recordable CD's.

[daviddennis]

You wouldn't need that. Just feed the line output of your CD player into your computer's line input and you can record. The quality will be slightly lower than the CD's, but the odds are that most won't notice.

D

[randog]

No need to invent anything--just plug a cable from the LINE OUT connector on your CD player into the LINE IN connector on your sound card and record to your heart's content.

[randog]

GMTA :>)

[sigSEGV]

Its my understanding that Philips is going to stop licensing its CD logo to companies that are doing this.

[Jakarta ex-pat]

I have always disliked Celine Dion. And her music.

[Lockbox]

Don't let the secret out, after all the CD makers will have to find a way to defeat that method. Remember you are just ‘renting’ the music, its not yours, and the laws about coping don’t apply like they do to VCRs and tapes.

[randog]

The CD player manufacturers could, of course, just do away with the line out jack, but that would necessitate incorporating the power amp into the CD player so you would have to drive the speakers directly from the CD player. Doing so, however, would mean that every component in a stereo system would have to be setup this way, making modular stereo systems and 'home entertainment' systems obsolete. You'd basically end up with a big box that had all your components integrated into it (including the speakers) to prevent the hardware hackers from copying stuff. A 'one size fits all' sound system just isn't going to happen because it just wouldn't sell.

All these gyrations by the entertainment industry to prevent copying are meaningless. Us engineers have a saying--anything that can be scrambled (hardware or software) can be unscrambled.

[Taiwan Bocks]

Gee, the ones for sale for under two dollars in China work great.

[FreedomFriend]

Yeah, and they'll destroy the industry. It doesn't bother me, for most popular music is garbage.

[Osinski]

If you don't like it, don't buy it. If you want to get their attention, hit 'em in the pocketbook. Enough dismal sales, and this scheme wil be long gone.