RIAA Sues 12 Year Old Girl for $2,000

[a_unique_person]

Yeah, so take that you criminal.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=501&u=/ap/20030909/ap_on_en_mu/downloading_music_11&printer=1

[Sundog]

This whole thing is outrageous. I definitely consider downloading mp3's stealing and always have, but this cure is far worse than the disease.

I really hope it backfires on them. For my part, I have taken a pledge to never again buy a CD from any of the established record companies. I will support independents or nothing at all.

[Sundog]

"Will rip-proof CD's save the music business?"

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/ptech/09/10/bus2.feat.cd.save/index.html

What a laugh. It is IMPOSSIBLE to copy-protect a CD, ultimately, because no matter what they do, you can simply re-sample it from the audio. What are these fools thinking? There's no way anyone can be prosecuted for writing cracking programs, either, unless RIAA manages to push through a law outlawing digital recording itself.

Screw the RIAA.

[Mauler]

At what age does stealing become wrong? As you pointed out there is nothing they can do to technology to prevent copyright infringement so the only recourse left is civil action by the violators.

[Occasional Chemist]

Originally posted by Sundog
What a laugh. It is IMPOSSIBLE to copy-protect a CD, ultimately, because no matter what they do, you can simply re-sample it from the audio. What are these fools thinking?


The same thing that the software industry thought in its infancy. Look back at the C=64 / Apple II / Atari 8-bit era and you'll find software producers putting out games with copy protection that actually damaged the disk drive of the computer loading the game.

Eventually, they stopped doing this and started making money instead by providing extras and charging reasonable prices for stuff. (Okay, oversimplification - so shoot me :) )

Eventually, perhaps, they'll realize that it's not worth it to copy-protect the stuff and they'll make more money by lowering their prices a bit.



Screw the RIAA.

The industry's doing a good job of that themselves. :)

[Occasional Chemist]

Originally posted by Mauler
As you pointed out there is nothing they can do to technology to prevent copyright infringement so the only recourse left is civil action by the violators.

The funny thing is that if these lawsuits and copy-protected CDs became commonplace, I'd predict that sales would eventually go down. No music sharing means less people get exposed to new styles of music or new artists, which leads to these folks not buying records.

From the article (which I finished reading after writing the above :) ) -


In Germany and Japan, where the labels began selling copy-protected CDs in 2000, sales have continued to decline.

[Wudang]

There's been a lot of coverage in The Register (http://www.theregister.co.uk) about the RIAA, its policies, its history and so on. It's a very good site for IT and related industry news without the company spin.

[Psi Baba]

This is as bad as Warner going after 12-year-old girls who were running Harry Potter fan sites. But since Warner owns everything anyway, I guess they and the RIAA are one in the same, so it's probably the same bunch of scumbag lawyers (sorry about the redundancy there) who are pertetrating this stunt. Good PR move: piss off all of your customers. Way to go RIAA.

[WildCat]

Originally posted by Sundog
What a laugh. It is IMPOSSIBLE to copy-protect a CD, ultimately, because no matter what they do, you can simply re-sample it from the audio.
Exactly, if you can play it, you can copy it. No one would notice the extra A/D conversion.

I heard some of the songs the people they're suing shared - "99 Luftballons" and other crap. These poor people only downloaded it because it was too embarassing to buy. :D

[UnrepentantSinner]

Originally posted by WildCat

Exactly, if you can play it, you can copy it. No one would notice the extra A/D conversion.

I heard some of the songs the people they're suing shared - "99 Luftballons" and other crap. These poor people only downloaded it because it was too embarassing to buy. :D

Hey! I have that track on my harddrive, it was a song from my teens that I liked.

Now about suing this 12 year old girl - good it's about time that we started getting tough on these criminals. And that reminds me..

Bill O'Reilly: And now for a look at our Viewer Mail, about a story on overcrowding in kindergarten classrooms.

Janet Miller of Park City, Utah writes: "Bill, normally I'm a fan of 'The Factor's' hard hitting style, but your interview with the five-year old girl about class size was a little too rough. Telling her she was 'out of her mind' was simply uncalled for."

Janet, here at The Factor, we pull no punches, When you come on the show, you gotta know that.

Ed Gekas, Emhurst, Illinois: "Bill, your tough, incisive questions had that five year old girl squirming. The bottom line is, you had the facts. She didn't."

And finally, Paul Jemino of Islip, New York writes: "Bill, even though the girl hurt her case by crying, she was right, and you were wrong. Albany, not New York City, is the capital of New York State."

Well, Paul, I thank you for watching. But I still say New York City is the state capital. We'll just have to agree to disagree.

[Occasional Chemist]

Originally posted by WildCat

Exactly, if you can play it, you can copy it. No one would notice the extra A/D conversion.


I have a Terapin CD/VCD recorder (excellent for getting those old VHS tapes to play on your computer or DVD player, and it was a lot cheaper than the DVD recorders then on the market :) ). It'll do digital or analog recordings, though it won't make a digital copy-of-a-copy thanks to "rights management".

Just for kicks, I made two copies of a CD - one via a direct digital copy and the other was via the Terapin's analog inputs.

Shuffle 'em up and I couldn't tell from playing them back which copy was which. That's one data point.

Edited to add: The stereo system in question features a Lexicon DC-1 preamp, Adcom 545 amplifier, NHT SuperOne speakers with an NHT SubTwo subwoofer. Admittedly, not the audiophile's dream system, but no boom box either.

[Andonyx]

You don't have to make even analogue copies of the discs.

There are two different methods of copy protection currently in use in widespread CD recording:

Cactus Data Shield type protection:

This type actually inserts random invalid samples into places within the music that would cause popping or spiking if some oversampling and error correction are not done during the D/A process. Normally samples that are obviously invalid are corrected by CD players one the way out as the samples are interpolated and oversampled to "smooth" out the waveform. So the invalid samples are never heard by the listener, although some self styled audio-philes claim they can hear an over-all degredation of the music. (I think they're self important idiots.)

This method works because oversampling is not done when a CDDA track is ripped from the CD and the track actually copies to the hard drive in PCM format sample for sample. Now the errors remain and any attempts to play this WAV or AIF file will cause blips and pops to be heard, and proper conversaion to another format is also made impossible since the invalid sample information will destroy most conversion algorithms.

The other type is based on multi-session recording.

CDs can be recorded in multiple sessions and each time a new session is added the TOC area, near the center of the disc is updated by appending new TOC information. The thing is an Audio CD player always looks for the first session recorded on the disc and chooses its TOC from there.

Mean while CD-ROM drives or drives which look for a file structure always look for the most recent TOC information and parse the file structure of the CD from that information. This is the key to making so called, "Multimedia Enhanced CDs" also called orange book standard CDs. They have the audio session burned first, and then an additional session containing say, studio clips in Quicktime, or other computer information. In this way when the disc is placed in an audio CD player it sees only the audio, and you don't get the problem of the data track being read as a long silent audio track. Likewise when the disc is placed in a computer drive, it sees only the data session. At least this was true of the older OSs like 98. Windows XP can read multisession by default and you have the choice to examine the data or play as an audio CD.

In either case, one piece of equipment will allow you to make digital copies.

Any semi-pro DJ style CD player deck with SPDIF outs will work. They cost between $150-$200. It will play the proper session on multi-session protected style CDs and it will also over-sample out the errors in data shield type techniques. The remaining digital data will then pass through unhindered to your SPDIF in equipped sound card to create a proper wave file. The dis-advantage of course is that it takes longer than ripping because it's real time.

Anyway lest anyone think I'm handing out sensitive information on how to circumvent a copy-protection device (which is illegal to talk about now thank you, DMCA) I'm not because I've left one or two steps out of each of the above that would make it impossible for someone who didn't already know to copy the CD digitally.

But this should illustrate how stupid these techniques are. It's only going to stop the casual user from making a copy to keep in his car, or rip a disc they already own to their MP3 player. It's going to do absolutely nothing to stop a serious pirate.

Of course the RIAA claims that now everyone is a potential serious pirate because of file sharing services. Well guess what, it only takes one good digital copy, and out of the thousand of people who use them everyday you're telling me that at least 100 of them don't know how to do what I've outlined above?

Copy protected CDs are just another in a string of absolutely idiotic maneuvers made by the RIAA they make no technical, economic, or even common sense whatsoever.

[scribble]

Originally posted by Occasional Chemist
Shuffle 'em up and I couldn't tell from playing them back which copy was which. That's one data point.


AS much as I'm sure you're right, I cant' resist the opportunity to say...

The plural of anecdote is not 'data'.

:P

[Occasional Chemist]

Originally posted by scribble
The plural of anecdote is not 'data'.

Alternatively, you could have said that there's no such thing as data where audio quality is concerned. Audiophiles run and hide when words such as "double blind test" are uttered.

[WildCat]

Originally posted by Andonyx

Any semi-pro DJ style CD player deck with SPDIF outs will work. They cost between $150-$200. It will play the proper session on multi-session protected style CDs and it will also over-sample out the errors in data shield type techniques. The remaining digital data will then pass through unhindered to your SPDIF in equipped sound card to create a proper wave file. The dis-advantage of course is that it takes longer than ripping because it's real time.

I have a 14 year old cd player that has a S/PDIF out on it, many older cd players do and you can get a used one cheap. Be careful of the sound card you buy - many "digital" sound cards with S/PDIF inputs resample the data stream - even if it's already 44.1 kHz. For example, every card made by Creative Labs (Sound Blaster) does this. I have no idea why...

[davidhorman]

Shuffle 'em up and I couldn't tell from playing them back which copy was which. That's one data point.

What kind of connection is there between the player and the amp?

Be careful of the sound card you buy - many "digital" sound cards with S/PDIF inputs resample the data stream

I had that trouble. I thought I could digitally rip the Dolby Digital audio from a laserdisc with a Creative soundcard. In the end I remembered I bought USB digital in/out box for my laptop, which recorded the stream (almost) perfectly. Maybe 2 times out of 3 there would be one of two errors per hour, and it was easier just to try again until there were no errors.

David

[Andonyx]

First you can choose in your control panel the preferred sample rate for recording, and as long as it matches the incoming sample rate it will not resample, even on Sound Blaster cards.

Second the default sample rate for DD is 48 kHz not 44.1 like CDs, so be careful of that.

If you use a semi-high end program like Vegas or Sound Forge to record, you can choose your recording device as the correct sound card drivers as opposed to MS Sound Mapper, and then make sure your project settings sample rate and the source sample rate all match and you will avoid this issue.

Finally, here's an article form the artists perspective:

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/09/11/MN12066.DTL


"They're protecting an archaic industry," said the Grateful Dead's Bob Weir.
"They should turn their attention to new models."
"This is not rocket science," said David Draiman of Disturbed, a hard-rock band with a platinum debut album on the charts. "Instead of spending all this money litigating against kids who are the people they're trying to sell things to in the first place, they have to learn how to effectively use the Internet."

[Occasional Chemist]

Originally posted by davidhorman
What kind of connection is there between the player and the amp?

Digital (coaxial) from the CD player to the preamp. The Lexicon DC-1 digitizes all analog inputs anyway to add its fancy effects, as near as I can tell.

The CD player is hooked to the Terapin CD/VCD recorcer via digital (optical) and analog hookups.

I should probably add that it's of course possible to make an analog copy of a CD that you could easily distinguish from a digital copy - and that's if you set the gain on the recorder way too high. I accidentally did that once by knocking the gain knob and not realizing it. :)

Now to counter the "you pirate!" argument that SOMEONE's bound to inject on this thread, I copy my CDs for the car. If you lived and worked where I did, you would too. Theives don't break your windows to steal CDRs because they can't get quick cash from 'em.


I had that trouble. I thought I could digitally rip the Dolby Digital audio from a laserdisc with a Creative soundcard. In the end I remembered I bought USB digital in/out box for my laptop, which recorded the stream (almost) perfectly. Maybe 2 times out of 3 there would be one of two errors per hour, and it was easier just to try again until there were no errors.

Seems like it'd just be easier to buy the DVD and rip that. Are there any AC3 laserdiscs that aren't already out on DVD? (Is one of the Star Wars box sets AC3? My CLV set is plain old Dolby Surround)

[WildCat]

Originally posted by Andonyx
First you can choose in your control panel the preferred sample rate for recording, and as long as it matches the incoming sample rate it will not resample, even on Sound Blaster cards.

That's not true. Sound Blaster cards resample ALL digital inputs, and there's no way to set it up so as not to. These cards are made for gaming and multi-media uses, and not for serious audio work. They will actually resample a 44.1 signal to 48, and then back to 44.1.

I know a lot about this, I record live bands as my hobby and do a lot of digital transferring from Dat > hard disc. I use a Delta DiO 2496 sound card for this purpose.

More info here from a Dat discussion list:
http://www.solorb.com/dat-heads/digests/V5.700/D733#Msg19
http://www.solorb.com/dat-heads/digests/V5.600/D633#Msg14

[Andonyx]

Originally posted by WildCat

That's not true. Sound Blaster cards resample ALL digital inputs, and there's no way to set it up so as not to. These cards are made for gaming and multi-media uses, and not for serious audio work. They will actually resample a 44.1 signal to 48, and then back to 44.1.



I see and when you sample at 48kHz?

You see the reason I say this is because you can transfer DTS CDs thorugh card's SPDIF input and then the tracks still work fine when you place them back into your DVD player, and the resulting signal is read as a perfect DTS stream. This could NOT happen if they were resampled in anyway.

You may be correct that 44.1 signals are resampled, but it still is effective in terms of the CD ripping on protected discs as mentioned above.


I know a lot about this, I record live bands as my hobby


Oh, I see then. I guess I won't argue anymore.

I just do it as part of my job working for a recording studio.

But I will agree that the card is not a proper card for professional audio, which is why I run a Digi-IO.


Do appreciate the links. This site has a better discussion on the issue about the cards being rate locked:

http://members.optushome.com.au/skinah/choosecard.htm

However I think they hit the root of our disagreement:


The only Sound blaster not to resample is the Audigy2 Platinum EX model, the other two versions of the audigy 2 will do the resampling to 16bit 48khz. Even with the Audigy2 platinum ex if you cant work in 44.1 without resampling, you MUST work with the asio driver in 16bit48khz or 24bit 96khz to get around the resampling. Sound on Sound the UK magazine has a review on the audigy as a recording card in their March 2003 issue.

This is of course the card I use at home, and that would explain the discrepancy in our experiences.

[a_unique_person]

Anyway, all you have to do is go to the shops selling DVDs to see why CD sales are falling.

[WildCat]

Originally posted by Andonyx

Oh, I see then. I guess I won't argue anymore.

I just do it as part of my job working for a recording studio.

But I will agree that the card is not a proper card for professional audio, which is why I run a Digi-IO.
Do appreciate the links. This site has a better discussion on the issue about the cards being rate locked:

http://members.optushome.com.au/skinah/choosecard.htm

However I think they hit the root of our disagreement:

This is of course the card I use at home, and that would explain the discrepancy in our experiences.
Looks like I'm trumped, thanks for the added info! I'll definitely check out that site. I had first heard about this problem in a sound blaster discussion site, but I was unable to find it so I posted the dat-head links. As far as I knew, all Creative Labs cards worked off of the AC97 codec, I guess yours doesn't.

[rockoon]

Originally posted by Sundog
"Will rip-proof CD's save the music business?"

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/ptech/09/10/bus2.feat.cd.save/index.html

What a laugh. It is IMPOSSIBLE to copy-protect a CD, ultimately, because no matter what they do, you can simply re-sample it from the audio. What are these fools thinking? There's no way anyone can be prosecuted for writing cracking programs, either, unless RIAA manages to push through a law outlawing digital recording itself.

Screw the RIAA.

I hope they spend a ton of money on this idea.

[Andonyx]

Originally posted by WildCat

Looks like I'm trumped, thanks for the added info! I'll definitely check out that site. I had first heard about this problem in a sound blaster discussion site, but I was unable to find it so I posted the dat-head links. As far as I knew, all Creative Labs cards worked off of the AC97 codec, I guess yours doesn't.

Thank you for the other info. The audigy 2 was my first experience using an SB card for any kind of audio work. So it's good to know about the reasmple issue. Especially since my first post is incorrect, and this will stop me from spreading bad information.

[davidhorman]

Seems like it'd just be easier to buy the DVD and rip that. Are there any AC3 laserdiscs that aren't already out on DVD? (Is one of the Star Wars box sets AC3? My CLV set is plain old Dolby Surround)

You've got it - Star Wars. The American Special Edition laserdiscs are 5.1 AC3.

David

[WildCat]

There's a little bit of an artist backlash to all this suing. from here: (http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/0903/11rocked.html?urac=n&urvf=10637615723640.029074539710790437)
"Lawsuits on 12-year-old kids for downloading music, duping a mother into paying a $2,000 settlement for her kid?" said rapper Chuck D of Public Enemy. "Those scare tactics are pure Gestapo."
More from other artists at the link.