Crack Sony's uncopyable CDs...with a pen!!!!

Hairy Homer

This popped up in my inbox and purports to be a report from the leading news agency Reuters.

They say they've cracked the security code on the latest protected Celine Dion CD.

Anyone out there brave enough to admit having bought a Celine Dion album to verify this?




"Copy-proof" CDs cracked with 99-cent marker pen

By Bernhard Warner, European Internet Correspondent

LONDON, May 20 (Reuters) - Technology buffs have cracked music publishing giant Sony Music's elaborate disc copy-protection technology with a decidedly low-tech method: scribbling around the rim of a disk with a felt-tip marker.

Internet newsgroups have been circulating news of the discovery for the past week, and in typical newsgroup style, users have pilloried Sony for deploying "hi-tech" copy protection that can be defeated by paying a visit to a stationery store.

"I wonder what type of copy protection will come next?" one posting on alt.music.prince read. "Maybe they'll ban markers."

Sony did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

Major music labels, including Sony and Universal Music, have begun selling the "copy-proof" discs as a means of tackling the rampant spread of music piracy, which they claim is eating into sales.

The new technology aims to prevent consumers from copying, or "burning," music onto recordable CDs or onto their computer hard drives, which can then be shared with other users over file-sharing Internet services such as Kazaa or Morpheus MusicCity.

SONY AGGRESSIVE ANTI-PIRACY PUSH

On Monday, Reuters obtained an ordinary copy of Celine Dion's newest release "A New Day Has Come," which comes embedded with Sony's "Key2Audio" technology. After an initial attempt to play the disc on a PC resulted in failure, the edge of the shiny side of the disc was blackened out with a felt tip marker. The second attempt with the marked-up CD played and copied to the hard drive without a hitch.

Internet postings claim that tape or even a sticky note can also be used to cover the security track, typically located on the outer rim of the disc. And there are suggestions that copy protection schemes used by other music labels can also be circumvented in a similar way.

Sony's proprietary technology, deployed on many recent releases, works by adding a track to the copy-protected disc that contains bogus data.

Because computer hard drives are programmed to read data files first, the computer will continuously try to play the bogus track first. It never gets to play the music tracks located elsewhere on the compact disc.

The effect is that the copy-protected disc will play on standard CD players but not on computer CD-Rom drives, some portable devices and even some car stereo systems.

Some Apple Macintosh users have reported that playing the disc in the computer's CD drive causes the computer to crash.

The cover of the copy-protected discs contain a warning that the album will not play on Macintoshes or other personal computers. Apple has since posted a warning on its website at:

http://kbase.info.apple.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/kbase.woa/wa/query?searchMode =Assisted&type=id&val=KC.106882

Sony Music Europe has taken the most aggressive anti-piracy stance in the business. Since last fall, the label has shipped more than 11 million copy-protected discs in Europe, with the largest proportion going to Germany, a market label executives claim is rife with illegal CD-burning.

sceptre

Here's a dumb question (and the only way we'll find out is if someone bought it)...

My PC is set up without Autorun on CDs - any CD Extra titles I get, I have to open the Director (or whatever) files manually
(it's a feature not a bug - I like it this way, DVDs do autorun)

So would the thing play just by me opening Media Player and pressing play in there?

If there are no actual data errors in the regular tracks (as opposed to say the last Destiny's Child album or the Dido one (which were both copyable anyway), what's stopping people from copying it without resorting to using the Mighty Marker?

Inspector Gadget

Those infernal contraptions have illegal TOCs that cause PCs (and particularly Macs) to calf on sight. There were some reports that this protection scheme was screwing up the firmware on Mac CD-ROM drives (how?) but generally the computer just fails to see them as being valid CDs.

Anyway, who wants to listen to oul' Sealion Dion?

Gadget

koneko

Heh very true Gadget.

The CDs had such a bad effect on Macs that not only would they lock up, your Mac couldn't restart from it and had to go back for repair, and according to even more reports, Apple's warranty doesn't support the repair, as these aren't standard discs anymore. You end up paying for the repair yourself.

Moral of the story? Don't buy Celine Dion CDs.

PiE

Er... if it locks up a computer and makes it need repairs, surely Sony are responsible? Anybody should be allowed play a Music CD on a PC's CD-ROM. If Sony want to stop music piracy they'd wanna think of a better way than fscking up the entire computer.

And it's not just a case of "its only Celine Dion who cares", if Sony get away with it then they'll implement it into future releases from different artists and then we're all screwed if we try that unimaginable horror of playing a Music CD on a PC.

Lemming

Originally posted by PiE
Er... if it locks up a computer and makes it need repairs, surely Sony are responsible? Anybody should be allowed play a Music CD on a PC's CD-ROM. If Sony want to stop music piracy they'd wanna think of a better way than fscking up the entire computer.

And it's not just a case of "its only Celine Dion who cares", if Sony get away with it then they'll implement it into future releases from different artists and then we're all screwed if we try that unimaginable horror of playing a Music CD on a PC.

Very well said PiE

Just another thing sprung to my mind. Celine Dion isn't exactly the most popular amonst the younger, more tech-savvy generations. Thus the fact that its got tech that prevents it's being used on a PC goes overlooked for the most part by the customers.

Which means that Sony can turn around when theres absolute uproar over the latest U2/Red Hot Chillies/WHoever's CD and they can say "but we've used it for month now .. look. See? Nobody complained about that, now did they?"

SantaHoe

At the end of the day, if a CD can be heard - it can be recorded and MP3'd ... all they can do is make it less convenient.
What about the people who buy the CD's and just want to rip them for the sake of not having to sift through a mountain of CD's to find one track.
I think the overpriced under-talented manufactured poo bands are more to blame for the decline in album sales than file sharing.

As for making these CD's unreadable on computer CD drives... what's the thinking behind that one?
Surly the very people who're copying these CD's wouldn't be arsed buying CD's that they can't listen to on their PC's anyway?

PPC

Clone CD will copy them.
Some lads i know copied one and it works.
Just turn off autorun and copy away.

Praetorian

True, Clone CD does works perfectly. I have had to do some "backups" recently myself