Life, the Universe, and Stuff

I recently bought two fantastic CDs produced by EMI in Brasil: Marisa Monte's "Infinito Particular" and Moska's "Nova Bis". I listened to them, fell in love with the music, and threw them into my Windows XP computer so that I could rip the music to upload to my iPod. The first surprise: I got asked if I wanted to run the application on the CD. I said yes (ok, you're saying "sheesh, Felipe, come on, you teach this stuff!", but I was curious), so this cute little program started to run. It displayed the CD track list and allowed me to have random access to any track I wanted. Ok, nice, but totally unnecessary since I already had a CD player application (actually about five different ones) installed with the same functionality.

What I really wanted was to put the content for which I had paid in my iPod, so I kickstarted iTunes only to discover that it didn't see the CD! (It's turns out to be a multisession disc.) All right, by then I started to get annoyed. Upon some more inspection on the CD's back cover, I noticed a funky little icon and a few notices indicating that it was a "Copy Controlled" CD. I took the time to visit http://www.emimusic.info to get to the bottom line. Quoted from the link to "Copy Control":

Copyright is absolutely crucial for all musicians, songwriters and other artists who wish to work by using their talent. It is automatic and applies to all creative fields. Without it, there is no way for the copyright holder to ensure that their work is seen, heard, experienced or used in the ways and with the quality intended. Without it there is no way to ensure that those who actually are responsible for creating all the wonderful art and entertainment around us are the beneficiaries of that work.

Nowhere in this discussion there any mention that EMI or anyone has the right to determine how you will enjoy the music you bought not knowing of any restrictions. "This CD may not play correctly in some car players" seems to be the extent of the notice they want to give you when you buy the CD. How about this: of the two titles I have with this technology, one plays in my dying Dell Latitude D600, the other doesn't. Nothing in the back cover mentions the new commandment:

"Thou shalt not rip this music or encode it unless it's in the way we prescribe." That means, rip to WMA 128 kbps. Want better quality in the encoding? Want the music in a different format? Sucker! You've been had!!! Or maybe not; keep reading.

EMI used to have a forum for discussion of their Copy Control technology at http://www.emimusic.com.au/copyControlNotice.asp - what has survived at this URL is just a little notice that the forum has been closed because people were posting ways to circumvent the copy protection scheme. Wow. It took me a whole of 2 minutes to discover an effective method to circumvent the darned protection around content that I had legally purchased, which prevented me from enjoy the music in the way that I, the customer, saw most fit for me.

All one has to do is to pop the disc into a Linux machine and run grip or cdparanoia to rip the .wav tracks. After this, all that needs to be done is to encode the .wav in the way that makes one happy. So much for their technology. One wonders how much money went into building it and how much money is being lost due to the annoyance that EMI has inflicted on their own customers. Note that the people who are being hurt here are the people who legally buy their CDs! I am willing to bet that a good percentage of the people who share music on P2P networks are computer geeks with enough technical qualification to figure out this workaround. They are not being hampered by the Copy Control "technology". Considering these factors, I'm not sure that the company's attitude makes sense and that the time and the money spent into developing this marvel of security technology was worth a half-ounce of spit. Here's a quote from their own website at http://www.emimusic.info/us_EN/ made on June 22:

Recall of Switchfoot, "Nothing is Sound," Discs

As previously indicated on our public website, www.emicmgdistribution.com and displayed in retail stores, Sparrow Records has initiated a recall of a limited number Switchfoot "Nothing is Sound" discs that bear the UPC number: 094631138300. It was inadvertently manufactured with incorrect settings for the content protection technology. The incorrect settings only affect your ability to make digital copies or export the music to a portable player.. It does not affect your ability to listen to the disc on playback devices as indicated on the back label.

One could think that, in this day and age, making digital copies of the music for which you pay is not very important to their business model. However, they recalled the CDs and offered replacements on which the copy control error is still present but with bugs fixed. Oh, boy. Is the replacement enough? Shouldn't EMI be compensating people for the annoyance that was caused and for the hassle of having to go back to the point of purchase to exchange the CDs? Who should own up to the responsibility of being fair to the customer?

Google your way around with a search for "emi copy control" and enjoy what you find. I was amused by the following two links:

• http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/lawpoli/copyright/2005012001.php
• http://illuminosity.net/writing/satire/emicds/