Copy Control
Encyclopedia
Sony BMG Music Entertainment
Sony BMG Music Entertainment was a recorded music company, which was a 50–50 joint venture between the Sony Corporation of America and Bertelsmann AG...
in several regions (Europe, Canada, United States, and Australia). It should not be confused with the CopyControl computer software copy protection system introduced by Microcosm Ltd
Microcosm Ltd
Microcosm Ltd is a UK company established in 1979. Its early claims to fame included Silicon Disk System in 1981 and Microcache in 1982 ....
in 1989.
Several types of protection existed. While basically intended as a means of copy-protecting compact disc
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
s, Copy Control discs cannot properly be referred to as CDs because the system introduces incompatible data, making the discs non-compliant with the Red Book
Red Book (audio CD standard)
Red Book is the standard for audio CDs . It is named after one of the Rainbow Books, a series of books that contain the technical specifications for all CD and CD-ROM formats.The first edition of the Red Book was released in 1980 by Philips and Sony; it was adopted by the Digital Audio Disc...
standard for audio CDs. The system is intended to prevent digital audio extraction
CD ripper
A CD ripper, CD grabber or CD extractor is software that convert tracks on a CD to standard computer sound files, such as WAV, MP3, or Ogg Vorbis.It rips raw digital audio in CDDA format on a compact disc to a file or other output.- History :...
("ripping") from the protected discs, and thus limit the file sharing
File sharing
File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digitally stored information, such as computer programs, multimedia , documents, or electronic books. It may be implemented through a variety of ways...
of ripped music. The techniques used are:
- Multisession (Blue BookBlue Book specificationThe Blue Book or Enhanced Music CD specification describes the Enhanced Music CD format. The first session of an Enhanced Music CD contains audio information according to the Red Book...
) information is included which effectively hides the audio tracks from most CD-ROMCD-ROMA CD-ROM is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data....
drives; - Error-correctionCross-Interleaved Reed-Solomon CodingIn the compact disc system, cross-interleaved Reed-Solomon code provides error detection and error correction. CIRC adds to every three data bytes one redundant parity byte.-Overview:...
codes for the audio data are corrupted, which may introduce audible errors to ripped copies. - The data area of the disc usually includes DRMDigital rights managementDigital rights management is a class of access control technologies that are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals with the intent to limit the use of digital content and devices after sale. DRM is any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that...
-restricted copies of the audio content, for which a player only exists on the dominant PC operating systemOperating systemAn operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
, Microsoft WindowsMicrosoft WindowsMicrosoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
.
In the Netherlands, the record labels Sony and Universal experimented with copy control until 2004. EMI
EMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
kept using it until June 2006, when they dropped it.
In the United States, Universal Music Group
Universal Music Group
Universal Music Group is an American music group, the largest of the "big four" record companies by its commanding market share and its multitude of global operations...
experimented with copy control on a few soundtracks in 2001 and 2002, but abandoned it afterwards; Warner Music Group
Warner Music Group
Warner Music Group is the third largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry, making it one of the big four record companies...
has only used it in Europe on such releases as Red Hot Chili Peppers
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Red Hot Chili Peppers is an American rock band, formed in Los Angeles in 1983. The group's musical style primarily consists of rock with an emphasis on funk, as well as elements from other genres such as punk, hip hop and psychedelic rock...
' Greatest Hits
Greatest Hits (Red Hot Chili Peppers album)
Greatest Hits is the second compilation album by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. It was released on November 18, 2003 by Warner Bros. Records. Aside from their cover of "Higher Ground", all songs on the compilation are from their tenure on Warner Bros...
. As of September 2006, Cactus Data Shield
Cactus Data Shield
Cactus Data Shield is a form of CD/DVD copy protection for audio compact discs developed by Midbar Tech now owned by Macrovision. It has been used extensively by EMI and BMG and their subsidiaries...
, the Macrovision
Macrovision
Rovi Corporation is a globally operating, US-based company that provides guidance technology, entertainment data, copy protection, industry standard networking and media management technology for digital entertainment devices and services...
technology behind Copy Control, is no longer listed as a product on Macrovision's website and has completely been abandoned in countries such as Australia.
A December 2006 issue of Billboard magazine
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
announced that EMI had decided to abandon Copy Control worldwide. Until then, it had been unclear whether EMI had completely abandoned it. There was no press release.
Background
The Copy Control protections were devised in response to the file sharingFile sharing
File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digitally stored information, such as computer programs, multimedia , documents, or electronic books. It may be implemented through a variety of ways...
and casual CD copying that has become commonplace in recent years, allegedly causing the music industry significant losses, or "ungained" revenues. Neither issue was particularly relevant when the CD standard was introduced in the early 1980s, and thus, unlike the more recent DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
s, the CD standard specifies no inherent form of copy protection or other digital rights management
Digital rights management
Digital rights management is a class of access control technologies that are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals with the intent to limit the use of digital content and devices after sale. DRM is any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that...
. Copy Control is one of a number of attempts to apply copy protection on top of the CD standard, but since it is merely a modification of the already unrestricted standard which must still yield usable results in most CD players, the efficacy of the system varies significantly. Nevertheless, EMI's labelling of some Copy Controlled discs attempted to override consumers' statutory rights with the disclaimer "except for defective product resulting from the manufacturing process, no exchange, return or refund is permitted".
As the Copy Control discs do not conform to the requirements of the CD standard
Red Book (audio CD standard)
Red Book is the standard for audio CDs . It is named after one of the Rainbow Books, a series of books that contain the technical specifications for all CD and CD-ROM formats.The first edition of the Red Book was released in 1980 by Philips and Sony; it was adopted by the Digital Audio Disc...
, they are not labeled with the CDDA logo, which is trademarked by Philips
Philips
Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , more commonly known as Philips, is a multinational Dutch electronics company....
. A Copy Control "CD" which would not play in a car CD player was deemed "defective" in a French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
2003 lawsuit, and every recent Copy Control released disc carries visible Copy Control notices stating merely compatibility with CDs and the possibility of playback problems "on some equipment, for example car CD players". Nevertheless, the discs are frequently referred to as CDs or "copy-protected CDs" in music stores and in colloquial language.
Circumvention
A Copy Control disc will appear as a mixed-mode disc, with audio and data content. Under Windows, inserting the disc will usually autorunAutorun
AutoRun and the companion feature AutoPlay are components of the Microsoft Windows operating system that dictate what actions the system takes when a drive is mounted....
an audio player utility, which plays the DRM-protected audio files provided. This can be temporarily disabled by holding down the shift key
Shift key
The shift key is a modifier key on a keyboard, used to type capital letters and other alternate "upper" characters. There are typically two shift keys, on the left and right sides of the row below the home row...
while inserting the disc on Windows XP and earlier, users of Windows Vista and 7 may simply choose not to run the DRM content.
The ability to extract the CD-Audio tracks is otherwise largely dependent on the disc drive used. The first obstacle is the "fake" Table of Contents (ToC), which is intended to mask the audio tracks from CD-ROM drives. However CD-R/RW drives, and similar, can usually access all session data on a disc, and thus can properly read the audio segment.
The other major obstacle is the incompatible (and technically corrupted) error-correction data. Again, the effect of this is dependent on the disc drive; some drives will be able to read the data without problems, but others will produce audio files with loud pops every few seconds. As a consequence of having faulty error-correction codes, the discs may be less resilient to anything that might cause a read error, such as dust and scratches resulting from normal use.
Copy Control also does not prevent copying a disc by recording it as analog audio through a computer's sound card, which only causes a slight degradation in audio quality. More substantial is the loss in recording speed. This weakness, inherent in all digital copy prevention systems, is known as the "analog hole
Analog hole
The analog hole is a fundamental and inevitable vulnerability in copy protection schemes for noninteractive works in digital formats which can be exploited to duplicate copy-protected works that are ultimately reproduced using analog means...
". As an alternative that does not rely on the "analog hole", it may be possible to copy the content using a digital link while playing it through a sound card that has a digital audio output.
Usually a CD-R/RW drive will play the disc but with occasional stops (about every 10 seconds) and DVD-R/RW drives will be able to read the data without problems and can be ripped straight to the PC. CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drives in a computer will usually refuse to play the data except in the provided player.
Systems other than Windows, however, can easily play Copy Control discs, as many players on Windows are proprietary and respect the copy-restrictions. Similarly, the auto-launchers are only written for Windows and will only ambush Windows users (This can be mitigated by disabling autorun.). There is little that can be done to stop a user that is not running Windows from ripping a Copy Control disc.
In Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
, Copy Control discs are easily accessed through cdparanoia
Cdparanoia
cdparanoia is a compact disc ripper for *nix and BeOS, developed by Xiph.org. It is designed to be a minimalistic, high-quality CD ripper that would be able to compensate for and adjust to poor hardware to produce a flawless rip....
or any other software that uses it, such as the KDE
KDE
KDE is an international free software community producing an integrated set of cross-platform applications designed to run on Linux, FreeBSD, Microsoft Windows, Solaris and Mac OS X systems...
"audiocd:/" service.
In Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
, these discs are easily accessed through iTunes and Quicktime (When a CDDA track is dragged to a folder other than the CD, Quicktime automatically converts it to AIFF
AIFF
Audio Interchange File Format is an audio file format standard used for storing sound data for personal computers and other electronic audio devices...
, which is a lossless PCM format).
Content on the CD extra
CDS-100 or CDS-200- A player and a media file database (a copy of the audio contents in Windows Media). The player will only play the audio contents in the media file database.
CDS-300
- A player and the anti-copy program only. The player can ignore the anti-copy program to read the audio tracks. The player allow users to play the tracks, rip the audio tracks as DRMDigital rights managementDigital rights management is a class of access control technologies that are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals with the intent to limit the use of digital content and devices after sale. DRM is any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that...
-enabled WMA files and burn CD for 3 times (The player will rip the CD as 320 kbit/s WMA files, then burn the audio on a CD-R, notice that the volume is lower and the quality is worse on the burned CD)
See also
- Copy protection for audio CDs
- MediaMax CD-3MediaMax CD-3MediaMax CD-3 is a software package created by SunnComm and was sold as a form of copy protection for compact discs. It was used by the record label RCA Records/BMG, and targets both Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. Some users regard the software as a form of malware since its purpose is to...
- Key2AudioKey2Audiokey2audio is a copy restriction system for Audio CDs, developed by Sony DADC. The system gained notoriety after it was discovered that one can effectively disable the system by tracing the outer edge of a CD with a felt-tip marker....
- Extended Copy ProtectionExtended Copy ProtectionExtended Copy Protection is a software package developed by the British company First 4 Internet, and sold as a copy protection or digital rights management scheme for Compact Discs...
External links
- EMIEMIThe EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
- [Copy Control information]
- [Disc Playback Problems] - Questions and Answers
- Consumer petition against Copy Control
- IFPI Press Release - IFPIIFPIThe International Federation of the Phonographic Industry is the organisation that represents the interests of the recording industry worldwide. It is a not-for-profit members' organisation registered in Switzerland...
issues labeling guidelines for Copy Control discs - Evaluating New Copy-Prevention Techniques for Audio CDs (PDFPortable Document FormatPortable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....
format), by J. Alex Halderman - padawan.info: Protected CD judged abusive in France
- Guide to Copying Copy-Protected Music discs
- EMI Music & Sony/BMG Anti-Copy Control Information
- Publishers Copyright Infringement Protection