[DMCA-Activists] All CDs will be protected and you are a filthy pirate

[Matthew Caron]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/28009.html

All CDs will be protected and you are a filthy pirate
By John Lettice
Posted: 08/11/2002 at 11:42 GMT

One mad consumer relations team might be an isolated incident, two
begins to look like a trend. The dismissive response Bertelsmann Music
Group's copy protection team recently issued to a consumer's query
essentially boiled down to, 'all Cds will be copy protected, it's not
our problem that they won't play on some devices, so tough.' But
apparently, it's a competition. EMI Germany is taking pretty much the
same attitude, and its humorously-tagged Consumer Relations team is
calling the customers pirates while it's about it.

Thanks to DeeKay for drawing our attention to this little stunner, and
for help in the translation. German speakers can view the original in
all its glory here, but we think the following loose translation
captures the flavour of the atrocity (our bold on the best bits).

"Dear Mr. xxx,
We will refrain from addressing the points in your email that are
clearly erroneous. We also don't want to bore you with a lengthy
explanation of why the music industry is forced to use copy protection
measures, even though we would prefer to do something else. Only this
much: There are 250 Million blank CDRs and tapes bought and used this
year for copying music in comparison to 213 Million prerecorded audio
media. This means the owners are only being paid for 46 per cent of the
musical content. For a comparison: In 1998 almost 90% of all audio media
was paid for. Even without a degree in economics everyone should realise
that such trends will result in the music industry ceasing to exist.
Only one measure can be used against widespread cloning of prerecorded
audio media by burning CDRs: copy protection! This is also the reason
why record companies increasingly have to protect their CDs. An
alternative solution for stopping this abuse is unfortunately not within
sight. But we fear that these facts don't interest you at all. Because
these measures mean the end of free music, something that must cause you
much grief.

"Should you really have a problem with playing the CD in question, we
would like you to name the exact model of your player. Then we can
compare this model with the list we have of players that our CDs run on
without any trouble. Then we'll see if the problem really is the copy
protection or if there are completely different reasons. The case you
are reporting that even multiple players refuse to function can, in our
experience, only originate from the realm of fairytales. The copy
protection we employ is state of the art, this means there's nothing
better available to date. If there will be something better, we won't
hesitate to use it. Problems with playing on common CD-players are
minimal, but every now and then it happens that copy protected CDs don't
work on a player. We forward these cases immediately to our copy
protection-provider, which is trying hard to adapt the technology
accordingly and solve the problems.

"If you plan on cracking copy protection measures and burning the CD by
other means we must point out to you that this will be illegal in the
near future when the new European Intellectual Property law is
introduced in Germany. Such breaches of intellectual property will then
also be legally pursued by the state. The officials of the consumer
rights ministry won't tell you anything different - after all it was the
politicians who urged us to finally introduce copy protection measures.

"If you plan to continue protesting about future audio media releases
with copy protection, forget it; copy protection is a reality, and
within a matter of months more or less all audio media worldwide are
copy protected. And this is a good thing for the music industry. In
order to make this happen we will do anything within our power - whether
you like it or not."

Good, isn't it? What it has in common with the BMG response is first,
that it is written from the standpoint that the company will not readily
accept the argument that a protected CD that won't play in some players,
meaning that consumers rejecting copy protection will therefore face a
long slog if they pursue the matter with the music company. And they
might also get a visit from the anti-piracy squad. It still seems
relatively easy to get a refund from stores, because most of them seem
not as yet to be parroting the music companies' 'it's not broken' line,
but their attitude may change. Note however EMI's introduction of the
consumer rights card â this suggests the company intends to use the new
copyright laws to fuzz up the consumer's existing rights to have
products that actually work. Or perhaps even to overthrow these rights.

Second, the 'all CDs will be protected' line is clearly massively
important to them. If it's possible to buy CDs that aren't protected,
and consumers are aware of the differentiation, then not a lot of people
are likely to want to buy the protected versions, so the introduction of
copy protection will fail. If however it becomes more difficult, and
finally impossible, then refuseniks will be driven back to recording
from the audio output. Still not an ideal outcome for the music
business, but they no doubt calculate that the added inconvenience will
reduce copying substantially, and besides, they're not finished yet.

Finally, view these two responses (and no doubt many others out there)
as an example of how cuddly, responsive and customer-centric the music
business will be when it has DRM. They really are looking forward to the
day when you have no rights. ®

-- 
U.S. Federal Taxes support terrible things,
if you pay taxes, you might too.
 ~~ Matt Caron ~~