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RE: Do you really think CDs will be protected in future?


From: "David Vincent" <david.vincent () mightyoaks com>
Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2003 09:18:48 -0700

I don`t know what you think about this, but in my opinion
will never exist a method to REALLY protect CDs, just because
I think that "if I can ear it, I can reproduce (and record) it".

There will never be a point where you can't make an analogue copy by
simply recording the output.
What the RIAA are afraid of is *digital* copies where each 
copy is as good
if not better than the original. If they can make it 
impossible to "rip" a
track to a computer or degrade the copy once ripped, then we 
go back to
the old days of poor-copy audio-to-audio copies being sold on street
markets (rather than the current situation with cd-quality 
albums being
sold at near production cost rather than the 5,000% markup for RIAA
"overheads" now common - if CDs only cost true production 
cost (mastering
cost divided by number of copies made, plus stamping, packaging and
royalties per-copy) you would get change out of 30p.... and I don't
consider bribes for "airplay" a true cost.

to put my mind at ease, please define "better" than the original.

MP3 is a lossy codec, by design it cannot create a "better" sounding
recording.  there are other formats which aren't so lossy and the actual
difference is pretty darn negligible (especially if you're playing them in
your car where the background noise of driving would likely mask any minor
"flaws" in the encoding).

by "better" do you may mean more portable, as in I can now put several
albums on a single CDR and play that in a laptop etc. for more hours of
music from a single CD form factor.

"if I can ear it, I can reproduce (and record) it"

exactly, there is nothing stopping me from using my discman, plugging the
audio jack into the back of my pc and doing a good old fashioned dub of the
disc.  sure it is slow, but since these copy "protected" cds will play on
standard equipment the only real degradation of the sound would be from the
analog cable and some (likely) minor noise from the pc's internal
components.

-d

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