TrueAudio2
join:2005-08-06
|  TO: Old_Repub "Unnamed Gov't Official"
TO: Old_Repub "Unnamed Gov't Official"
I quote most of your comments on this topic to set the stage for what I will say subsequent to your quotes: "She is right about bad effects of P2P companies and their policies. P2P software is inherently neutral, but how the main P2P providers advertise their products is hardly neutral. They push their products with the idea that it can be used for stealing music. And that is why the SC ruled against Grokster. So you really won't be successful legislating against the software. But you can legislate how the products are advertised and punish companies that push the illegal uses of the P2P software."
"Then don't buy it. But don't steal it either or you are a lowly thief."
"You can download individual tracks legally from many online LEGAL music sources for nominal fees(99cents and less). There is no excuse to steal them, except by those with no morals(about 75% of young adults it seems)."
"It is theft. Copyright infringement is a euphemism for theft and is used by people who don't like to admit they are thieves."
"All the legal music services allow you to listen to at least a portion if not all of a track before paying for it and downloading. Have you ever gone to a LEGAL music site?"
--Time for you to WAKE THE HELL UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE OLD_REPUB
SO-CALLED LEGAL MUSIC IS CRIPPLED, DESTROYED GARBAGE POISONED WITH DRM ***CRAP*** THAT INFRINGES UPON ***MY DIGITAL RIGHTS***, I dont listen to ANYTHING
excpet PURE UNADULTERATED 1440 KBPS 16 Bit, 44.1Khz .WAV Files, or FLAC compressed files from pure .wav which is ZERO degradation. I CHALLENGE you to read
the following, and I hope indeed that you are a "Government Official" because then maybe there will be another voice fighting for consumer's digital rights (as per U.S. Supreme Court Sony Betamax of 1984 and the American Home Recording Act.)
This is an older post I made at audioasylum.com, I felt like posting it here today to give you all a technical perspective of the problem with DRM'd CD's, being that everything seems to be going so downhill, this relieves me a bit.
DISCLAIMER, PLEASE READ 1ST: THIS MESSAGE IS TARGETED AGAINST ANY AND ALL COPY CONTROL/COPY PROTECTION COMPANIES WHO SPECIFICALLY CORRUPT MUSIC CD'S. THIS POST IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES TO HELP PRESERVE FAIR USE RIGHTS AND FREEDOM OF CHOICE IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. WHEN I USE THE WORD "YOU", "YOUR" OR "YOUR COMPANY" REMEMBER I AM **NOT** ADDRESSING YOU THE READER, *NOR ADDRESSING OR DIRECTING MY SPEECH AT AUDIOASYLUM.COM*, I AM TALKING TO THESE CD CORRUPTING COMPANIES, AS THIS IS THE LETTER THEY WILL SOON ALL RECEIVE.
The preservation of true audio fidelity and the problem with anti-ripping measures.
As an audiophile for over 10 years, a man who has an immensely deep appreciation for music, a highly technical understanding of the technologies available which bring music reproduction closer to the original event. I am absolutely appalled by the existence of companies such as you, desecrating the pristine unadulterated masterpiece that is the Glass Master. You people *claim* that there is no loss in sound quality. Who are you to think that your subjective opinion is to be believed by me or any free-thinking human beings in the free world? Here’s how simple the principle is: IF THE LASER PASSES OVER YOUR ANTI COPY/ANTI RIPPING MEASURES WHEN READING A CD THEN IT AFFECTS THE SOUND QUALITY WHETHER **YOU** CAN HEAR IT OR NOT. Any foreign information that is picked up by the laser even if “ignored” WILL modulate its power supply, affecting the voltage rails, inducing jitter [Time domain distortion] into the digital signal.
Any digital data read by the laser must be decoded, processed, and interpolated (where applicable-as in CIRC error correction). All of this activity demands that all of the logic chip circuitry assigned to their specific tasks handle the incoming information as they were designed, this requires consistent power. Any irregular or non-standard data read by the laser [Copy Protection algorithms, encryption/decryption etc.] within the incoming digital data stream will stress the CD player’s logic chips to demand irregular, over and under voltage/currents within the power supply to compensate for these extra bits in the DataStream.
Ringing and power supply modulation induced JITTER results—the worst type of distortion that Redbook CD is already plagued with inherently! This can be scientifically proven with sophisticated laboratory equipment, but far more important it is AUDIBLE to anyone who has any degree of hearing acuity, and a high resolution stereo playback system such as me.
Should your “Copy Protection” fail to meet any of the following characteristics, your technology would be violating Philips Redbook CD standard, and will be utterly rejected by many should they ever come across the media, not to mention me informing and educating as many people as possible of your insidious intentions.
1] If your process alters the discs Table of Contents [TOC] in ANY way, you are violating Redbook specification.
2] If your encoding process alters, replaces, damages (causes BIT/BYTE loss or removal/modification to) the C1 or C2 error correction pits and lands used by the CD player/ROM CIRC chip you are violating Redbook CD specification.
3] If C1/C2/CU Analysis of your encoded media by a Plextor Premium Drive using Q-check shows the presence of C2 errors (there should be ZERO, NONE) OR if it shows even ONE CU error [Uncorrectable C2 error] you violating Redbook specification, and the disc itself is a reject, an outright throwaway piece of polycarbonate trash. This analysis is applicable because it represents how the pressed media will be seen by any CD player.
Violating the Redbook CD standard in ANY way would mean: Per Philips Electronics, it is unlawful for this pseudo compact disc to display the Philips logo “COMPACT DISC DIGITAL AUDIO” on any portion of corrupted media or the case. It would also be in your best interest to clearly and visibly denote that your encoded media is copy controlled with said technology.
Should there be a piece of music protected by your technology that I happen upon and already have an unadulterated version of the same album, and I successfully extract tracks of the same songs and compare via wave comparator [i.e. Adobe Audition] and sample by sample comparison [SoundForge 7.0] and find even ONE sample difference that I can conclude through exhaustive tests is the result of your encoding, your process will have FAILED to achieve perfect transparency to the original audio data.
Mind you, the following MAY NOT entirely apply to your company; however pay attention to the principle behind this as that is what matters. You stop the loss of sales not buy engineering super advanced copy controlled music and smashing everyone over the head with LAW and the “DMCA” you do it by CREATING VALUE AND A TRUE INCENTIVE TO BUY A PRODUCT. It’s called: DROP THE PRICE OF CD’S down to $5-$7 per disc AND DROP THE PRICE OF LEGAL INTERNET MUSIC DOWNLOADS TO $0.29 PER SONG INSTEAD OF $0.99 and give the Musician who created the music half. This will sufficiently suppress the number of pirates and will eliminate the need for programming software that violates ANY aspect of consumer fair use rights. This may never happen however, You have all jumped on this new lucrative market, nice fat-cat cushy jobs which you probably tell yourself you’d be damned to give up a $80,000+ a year job for the sake of standing up for and defending these things called “Fair Use” and “Freedom of Choice” In the United States of America. The RIAA is infinite in its gluttonous unmitigated pursuit and lust of obscene profit, power, monopolistic control and unchallengeable, sovereign communist-like reign worldwide. You have along rough road ahead especially with those like me, exercising their First Amendment Freedom of Speech Right, who are not deaf, dumb and blind to technology and CD mastering like you want your consumers to be throughout the world.
If CD’s were an economical value sales would massively increase, because at that price we consumers (customers) would be getting value for our hard earned money, and many would also have more appreciation for the printed lyrics, the band photos, etc. People would say “Hey if I download music, I’m not getting the CD inlet with the lyrics, AND a CD will only cost me 5-7$--would turn a lot of people from STEALING TO BUYING THE MUSIC THE RIAA SO DESPERATELY WANTS TO SELL, NOT TO MENTION SUPERIOR QUALITY TO ANY COMPRESSED DOWNLOAD IN EXISTANCE, such as the laughably ridiculous 48Kbps .wma files the RIAA tries to pass of assuming music aficionado's would gleefully embrace included on Radiohead, Hail to The Thief. (ANY compression is laughable compared to uncompressed PCM 44.1Khz .wav files or CDDA)
It is monumentally saddening and abhorred that the very reason why we have ANY copy protection for audio CD’s has been directly caused by the inflated, asinine prices of CD’s. People at large have been sick of being ass-raped by their prices. In my view widespread peer-to-peer downloading exists partially as revenge on the RIAA to offset the fact millions of us have been ripped off severely over the last two decades. Instead of SOLVING the problem by permanently slashing prices and adding more value—such as throwing in a DVD with every cd package, with music videos (for example). Instead they have created a market for companies like you.
I will outline for you the horrendous effects that Massive Anti-ripping/copy measures will have and are having presently:
1) No new music would be playable (extractable without errors) on the most superior playback format (as far as I am concerned)—the hard drive, giving hardcore audiophiles like me the most unwelcome and unwarranted kick in the ass. I DON’T WASTE TIME WITH COMPRESSED DIGITAL GARBAGE-UPLOADING OR DOWNLOADING FROM THE INTERNET IN THE 1ST PLACE.
2) MILLIONS of Americans and others around the world would be FORCED [STEALING OUR FREEDOM IN A FREE COUNTRY] to use LIMITED brands of hardware [RIAA controlled, distributed, manufactured] for portable digital playback, FORCING people to possibly support companies like Sony (RIAA), First 4 Internet, Macrovision, Sonopress, Verance [directly or indirectly] whom they may have no desire to support—oh wait that’s just too bad for us isn’t it—too bad for you American-looks like you don’t have the FREEDOM of choice. Setting everything up to line your pockets again, in the most conniving, manipulative ways, hoping once again music listeners abroad are all just like a herd of, ignorant, oblivious and pacifistic sheep.
3) Attempting to appease consumers [not solving the real problem] who enjoy digital playback on PC’s MAC’s by developing proprietary media players (i.e. for CDS200) is AGAIN robbing the consumer of their freedom to use their own media player of personal preference. YOU DON’T PRE-DESTINE FOR ME THAT TO PLAY A DISC ON MY PC WHAT SOFTWARE I “MUST” INSTALL, RUN, OR OTHERWISE LOAD ON MY OPERATING SYSTEM TO LISTEN TO THE MUSIC DISC.
4) Corroborating with Microsoft Corporation misinforming the public abroad either out of sheer ignorance, indifference, and/or outright lying that Windows Media Audio files are “High Quality” or in the case of 128Kpbs per Microsoft deemed as “Audiophile quality”. This is akin to proclaiming Analog Cable TV reception is as good as the original master film. This is pathetically ignorant, disingenuous and shameful beyond measure and is without excuse in the 21st century. The RIAA is trying to stupefy the masses into accepting compressed digital as the norm so it will be easier to put a stranglehold on music availability and crippling usage rights in the name of their Golden Calf Idol dubbed “US Copyright Law”. Redbook CD is your Arch enemy, because you are confined to the format (for anti-copy R&D) due to the requirement of playability in all Redbook devices, subtly, however you are trying to intoxicate the public with lies, distractions and appeasement while trying to eradicate Redbook CD from the face of the earth, only to be replaced by horridly sub standard, super-encrypted 128Kbps quality compressed digital JUNK. All with the help of your unethical and bought friends in the US Senate and Congress.
5) Incorporating DISINGENOUS “VALUE-ADDS” within formats such as “Enhanced CD”, deceiving to the customer, thinking we’re getting something better than a Redbook CD, but wait, this type of disc isn’t often capable of undergoing digital audio extraction readily, and if so at the expense of tremendous errors. This so called value being: adding “backstage passes, so-called bonus online content, songs” WHO CARES when the corrupted media itself is a pock-marked battlefield of MASSIVE C1 errors, C2 and CU errors.
For example, Metallica St. Anger, this epitome of sonic degradation contains 25,000 CU errors (uncorrectable data errors) 25,000 C2 errors (severe data errors) and 250,000 C1 errors on the disc, along with up to 55ns of Jitter. The Redbook standard for MAXIMUM allowable jitter present is 35ns. Take a quality Redbook CD by contrast: 0 C2 errors, 0 CU errors and only 6500 C1 errors.
I will do everything in my power to fight to preserve the true fidelity of virgin Redbook CD, to petition honorable and constitutional upholding, freedom fighting United States Senators, encourage US consumers to take your retailers to court when buying pressed media infused with *YOUR* damaging software to demand full refund for a DEFECTIVE PRODUCT. On the other hand I do support artists and companies who use outstanding and significantly more advanced mastering processes than the standard 16bit such as 20 Bit K2 Super Coding [XRCD] by JVC www.xrcd.net. Now here is a Private record label that caters to audiophiles, a record label that CREATES VALUE, A REAL INCENTIVE to buy a CD.
Why do you ask? Because the sophisticated Ultra High End mastering process is so superior to the majority of mastering, and has such negligible jitter (if any). That any copy that could ever be made on a PC would inevitably be of lesser sound quality than the original because of the limitations of even the best cdrw’s electronics in the world (jitter induced during recording), and outright inferior recording mechanism compared against the original JVC XRCD mastering. This is geared toward audiophiles no doubt, and I highly doubt anyone would bother to steal it as they would want the best sound possible and thus would gladly buy the original, I know I have and am more than happy to do so, despite the fact that these CD's with this superior mastering technology are $30.00 USD.
“It’s like slashing the masterpiece paintings, the Van Gogh’s and the Picasso’s, so people won’t steal them.” MUSIC is an art of extremely high degree, one of the greatest expressions of the human soul, the pinnacle of creativity, innovation, love, passion, caring, and devotion. It is part of what has made the world a better place. MUSIC has helped everyone grow, laugh, cry, live, feel full of life, and countless other magnificent positive effects on mankind. To taint the work of the original musician, to forever lose their pure emotional intent of the recording to “protect profit”, is to me the same as the artist not even existing in the 1st place.
Be true to the original mastered recording, corrupting art is destroying the true expression of the musician and forfeiting their painstaking efforts in the studio. If a single “illegal” download is stealing from the artist, YOU are also stealing from BOTH the artist AND the consumer by adding or taking away (corrupting, altering) a single sample or a single bit of audio or error correction data on the original recording.
To end any debates about audio quality before they even begin—It doesn’t matter if no one can hear a difference (there is an audible difference however) with your copy control measures, if the audio information is reproduced generating one trillionth of a second of jitter more, or causing the drive to interpolate one extra sample, or a superimposed proprietary reflective layer or watermark that makes the laser work harder and end up applying just a little bit more error concealment---your technology be damned, you have still failed in terms of absolute fidelity. ABSOLUTE FIDELITY MUST BE THE REFERENCE.
How would you like it if I scratched your $2,000,000 Picasso while you were watching, with a utility knife? A heinous disregard for fine art—but WHAT WOULD YOU CARE IF YOU COULDN’T SEE THE SCRATCH?—the very thought of you KNOWING it was no longer the perfect original would weigh heavily upon you. You would feel shattering disappointment, utterly powerless, that majestic painting, its exquisite rendering of legend, brilliant colors and physical manifestations of masterwork skill, forever scarred, no longer representative of the true original…it was the original, [The artist never intended that scratch to be there] just like the corrupted CD that will never be available to be heard as the artist (whom you *claim* to protect) intended in its true original Philips approved Redbook format EVER AGAIN because of YOU and/or the RIAA.
An extremely concerned American in the free and great United States of America, Audiophile, lover of music
-Arnie
…”it is not true to the original, and thus cannot be considered a high-fidelity reproduction.” –Sam Tellig, Stereophile
“Give me Liberty or Give me Death” -Patrick Henry
»db.audioasylum.com/cgi/m.mpl?forum=dig ital&n=79255&highlight=Plextor+Premium&r=&ses sion=
Support INDEPENDENT Musicians at Dmusic.com who ENCOURAGE AND ALLOW you to FREELY download their music.
Boycott the RIAA for LIFE, REFUSE TO ACCEPT Compressed digital DRM'd JUNK that wastes your money because it is a HORRIBLE VALUE, the Customer is IN CHARGE, NEVER FORGET THAT.
"You have to remember that most of the people this type of protection is pitched to don't actually know a lot about technology. Business is their game.
If an analyst with a shiny PhD shows you some positive looking statistics and tells you how effective this new protection is at reducing piracy, you're probably going to agree to it unless it's obscenely expensive to implement. If you went into a major record label and proposed an internet distributed format with no protection you'd get shot down the minute you walked into the boardroom.
What they don't seem to realise is the vast majority of people who download music aren't concerned with fidelity. No matter what protection you put on a disc it will be able to be reproduced somehow, even if only by analogue recording. Yes, you will lose quality but as I said to most downloaders this isn't an issue. The end result is the majority of protection schemes do little to reduce piracy but inconvenience those of us who actually pay for our music.
"
»www.boycottriaa.com/article/17700 |
