Author: Peter Skarpetis

Copy Control is not for me

If you listen to the record companies they will tell you that it was introduced to try and stop music pirating, but the truth of the matter is that they are trying to get you to re-purchase music that you already own as each new medium comes out. Lets face it, if you cannot rip your CDs and put them on your portable media player, you would then have to buy the cd for your home stereo, and the mp3 or aac track from an online music store for your portable media player.

In the last few years record companies have introduced anit-copy technology such as Copy Control, in an attempt to further control how we use content that we pay for. If you listen to the record companies they will tell you that it was introduced to try and stop music piracy, while the truth is that they are trying to get you to re-purchase music that you already own as each new medium becomes available. If you cannot rip your CDs and put them on your portable music player, you would have to buy the cd for your home stereo, and the digital track from an online music store for your portable media player.

Ever since copy control technologies have been introduced I have stopped buying cds that use them. There have been at least 50 cds I have not purchased because of copy control. This decision is a matter of principle, after all my G5 Mac will happily rip them to aac for me.

Some of the CDS I have boycotted are:

Gorillaz Demon Days
Living End Modern Artilery
Norah Jones Feels Like Home
Kraftwerk Tour de France
Franz Ferdinand Franz Ferdinand
Jet Get Born

and countless others.

I urge everyone to stop buying cds that bear the copy control logo. It is easy to go without the album just try it, and eventually record companies will just stop doing it.

31 May 2005, This just in:

Wired News: BMG Cracks Piracy Whip:

One more type of copy control cds to look out for. If you encounter one of these when purchasing new music, just go without it. It is not the end of the world. If enough people avoid buying discs with copy protection the record companies will just have to stop doing it. Consumers have a lot more power than you think.

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iTunes 4.8 and iPod filenames

This time iTunes 4.8 obfuscates the filenames of songs when copying them over to the iPod…. Of course anyone with half a brain should be able to locate the required files using a combination of find and id3lib.

Apple just keeps on trying to stop people copying files back from their iPod. This time iTunes 4.8 obfuscates the filenames of songs when copying them over to the iPod. Previous versions of iTunes kept the original filenames which made locating them on the iPod a breeze. Of course anyone with half a brain should be able to locate the required files using a combination of find and id3lib.

Come on Apple stop bowing to the demands of the RIAA. They are my songs and if I want to copy them back to my computer I should be able to. What happens if my computer crashes or I accidentally delete a track? Do I have to go get the CD and RIP it again?
What if my CD gets scratched or destroyed? Will the RIAA replace it free of charge? I do not think so.

Here is a list of some of the obfuscated filenames generated for clarity’s sake.

-rw-rw-rw- 1 peters swdevel 5022700 May 14 01:15 F31/YSPH.mp3
-rw-rw-rw- 1 peters swdevel 5477057 May 14 01:15 F16/ZPTJ.mp3
-rw-rw-rw- 1 peters swdevel 5444628 May 14 01:15 F16/VQEY.mp3
-rw-rw-rw- 1 peters swdevel 4385412 May 14 01:15 F13/UCKB.mp3
-rw-rw-rw- 1 peters swdevel 8638385 May 16 08:28 F28/WKSG.mp3
-rw-rw-rw- 1 peters swdevel 9565521 May 20 08:17 F12/SFLU.mp3
-rw-rw-rw- 1 peters swdevel 13368477 May 21 19:04 F20/QMVH.mp3
-rw-rw-rw- 1 peters swdevel 19586500 May 22 10:17 F07/EOVF.mp3
-rw-rw-rw- 1 peters swdevel 5256689 May 22 14:34 F07/OTTA.mp3
-rw-rw-rw- 1 peters swdevel 32654329 May 23 10:43 F28/MLEH.mp3
-rw-rw-rw- 1 peters swdevel 5834719 May 23 17:34 F04/BWAF.mp3
-rw-rw-rw- 1 peters swdevel 4530355 May 23 22:37 F49/GOUH.mp3
-rw-rw-rw- 1 peters swdevel 14590556 May 23 22:37 F48/YZLL.mp3
-rw-rw-rw- 1 peters swdevel 9582575 May 23 22:37 F45/GHVM.mp3

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Slow as a dog

He is running Windows XP SP2 on a 800MHz Pentium III with about 512MB of RAM.Since I hate Windows I brought my trusty Knoppix CD with me and booted the system into Linux…. Nothing wrong with that connection, just the operating system holding it back.I left my cousin scratching his head and pondering an operating system switch.

Tonight I popped by my cousin’s place to check out his ADSL connection. He has been complaining that even though it is a 1.5Mbit service, he only achieves a download rate of about 10 KB/sec. He is running Windows XP SP2 on a 800MHz Pentium III with about 512MB of RAM.

Since I hate Windows I brought my trusty Knoppix CD with me and booted the system into Linux. Downloading a few large files from work gave an average download speed of 155 KB/sec. Nothing wrong with that connection, just the operating system holding it back.

I left my cousin scratching his head and pondering an operating system switch.

UPDATE: 2 June 2005. My cousin switched to an iMac G5 and now the internet runs at full speed, plus his kids reckon “This is the best computer we’ve ever had”