This is an older post I made at
audioasylum.com, I felt like posting it here
today to give you all a technical
perspective of the problem with DRM'd CD's,
being that everything seems to be going so
downhill, this relieves me a bit.
DISCLAIMER, PLEASE READ 1ST: THIS MESSAGE IS
TARGETED AGAINST ANY AND ALL COPY
CONTROL/COPY PROTECTION COMPANIES WHO
SPECIFICALLY CORRUPT MUSIC CD'S. THIS POST
IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES TO HELP
PRESERVE FAIR USE RIGHTS AND FREEDOM OF
CHOICE IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. WHEN
I USE THE WORD "YOU", "YOUR" OR "YOUR
COMPANY" REMEMBER I AM **NOT** ADDRESSING
YOU THE READER, *NOR ADDRESSING OR DIRECTING
MY SPEECH AT AUDIOASYLUM.COM*, I AM TALKING
TO THESE CD CORRUPTING COMPANIES, AS THIS IS
THE LETTER THEY WILL SOON ALL RECEIVE.
The preservation of true audio fidelity and
the problem with anti-ripping measures.
As an audiophile for over 10 years, a man
who has an immensely deep appreciation for
music, a highly technical understanding of
the technologies available which bring music
reproduction closer to the original event. I
am absolutely appalled by the existence of
companies such as you, desecrating the
pristine unadulterated masterpiece that is
the Glass Master. You people *claim* that
there is no loss in sound quality. Who are
you to think that your subjective opinion is
to be believed by me or any free-thinking
human beings in the free world? Here’s how
simple the principle is: IF THE LASER PASSES
OVER YOUR ANTI COPY/ANTI RIPPING MEASURES
WHEN READING A CD THEN IT AFFECTS THE SOUND
QUALITY WHETHER **YOU** CAN HEAR IT OR NOT.
Any foreign information that is picked up by
the laser even if “ignored” WILL modulate
its power supply, affecting the voltage
rails, inducing jitter [Time domain distortion] into the digital
signal.
Any digital data read by the laser must be
decoded, processed, and interpolated (where
applicable-as in CIRC error correction). All
of this activity demands that all of the
logic chip circuitry assigned to their
specific tasks handle the incoming
information as they were designed, this
requires consistent power. Any irregular or
non-standard data read by the laser [Copy Protection algorithms, encryption/decryption etc.] within
the incoming digital data stream will stress
the CD player’s logic chips to demand
irregular, over and under voltage/currents
within the power supply to compensate for
these extra bits in the DataStream.
Ringing and power supply modulation induced
JITTER results—the worst type of distortion
that Redbook CD is already plagued with
inherently! This can be scientifically
proven with sophisticated laboratory
equipment, but far more important it is
AUDIBLE to anyone who has any degree of
hearing acuity, and a high resolution stereo
playback system such as me.
Should your “Copy Protection” fail to meet
any of the following characteristics, your
technology would be violating Philips
Redbook CD standard, and will be utterly
rejected by many should they ever come
across the media, not to mention me
informing and educating as many people as
possible of your insidious intentions.
1] If your process alters the discs Table of
Contents [TOC] in ANY way, you are violating
Redbook specification.
2] If your encoding process alters, replaces,
damages (causes BIT/BYTE loss or
removal/modification to) the C1 or C2 error
correction pits and lands used by the CD
player/ROM CIRC chip you are violating
Redbook CD specification.
3] If C1/C2/CU Analysis of your encoded media
by a Plextor Premium Drive using Q-check
shows the presence of C2 errors (there
should be ZERO, NONE) OR if it shows even
ONE CU error [Uncorrectable C2 error] you violating Redbook
specification, and the disc itself is a
reject, an outright throwaway piece of
polycarbonate trash. This analysis is
applicable because it represents how the
pressed media will be seen by any CD player.
Violating the Redbook CD standard in ANY way
would mean: Per Philips Electronics, it is
unlawful for this pseudo compact disc to
display the Philips logo “COMPACT DISC
DIGITAL AUDIO” on any portion of corrupted
media or the case. It would also be in your
best interest to clearly and visibly denote
that your encoded media is copy controlled
with said technology.
Should there be a piece of music protected
by your technology that I happen upon and
already have an unadulterated version of the
same album, and I successfully extract
tracks of the same songs and compare via
wave comparator [i.e. Adobe Audition] and sample by sample
comparison [SoundForge 7.0] and find even ONE sample
difference that I can conclude through
exhaustive tests is the result of your
encoding, your process will have FAILED to
achieve perfect transparency to the original
audio data.
Mind you, the following MAY NOT entirely
apply to your company; however pay attention
to the principle behind this as that is what
matters. You stop the loss of sales not buy
engineering super advanced copy controlled
music and smashing everyone over the head
with LAW and the “DMCA” you do it by
CREATING VALUE AND A TRUE INCENTIVE TO BUY A
PRODUCT. It’s called: DROP THE PRICE OF CD’S
down to $5-$7 per disc AND DROP THE PRICE OF
LEGAL INTERNET MUSIC DOWNLOADS TO $0.29 PER
SONG INSTEAD OF $0.99 and give the Musician
who created the music half. This will
sufficiently suppress the number of pirates
and will eliminate the need for programming
software that violates ANY aspect of
consumer fair use rights. This may never
happen however, You have all jumped on this
new lucrative market, nice fat-cat cushy
jobs which you probably tell yourself you’d
be damned to give up a $80,000+ a year job
for the sake of standing up for and
defending these things called “Fair Use” and
“Freedom of Choice” In the United States of
America. The RIAA is infinite in its
gluttonous unmitigated pursuit and lust of
obscene profit, power, monopolistic control
and unchallengeable, sovereign
communist-like reign worldwide. You have
along rough road ahead especially with those
like me, exercising their First Amendment
Freedom of Speech Right, who are not deaf,
dumb and blind to technology and CD
mastering like you want your consumers to be
throughout the world.
If CD’s were an economical value sales would
massively increase, because at that price we
consumers (customers) would be getting value
for our hard earned money, and many would
also have more appreciation for the printed
lyrics, the band photos, etc. People would
say “Hey if I download music, I’m not
getting the CD inlet with the lyrics, AND a
CD will only cost me 5-7$--would turn a lot
of people from STEALING TO BUYING THE MUSIC
THE RIAA SO DESPERATELY WANTS TO SELL, NOT
TO MENTION SUPERIOR QUALITY TO ANY
COMPRESSED DOWNLOAD IN EXISTANCE, such as
the laughably ridiculous 48Kbps .wma files
the RIAA tries to pass of assuming music
aficionado's would gleefully embrace
included on Radiohead, Hail to The Thief.
(ANY compression is laughable compared to
uncompressed PCM 44.1Khz .wav files or CDDA)
It is monumentally saddening and abhorred
that the very reason why we have ANY copy
protection for audio CD’s has been directly
caused by the inflated, asinine prices of
CD’s. People at large have been sick of
being ass-raped by their prices. In my view
widespread peer-to-peer downloading exists
partially as revenge on the RIAA to offset
the fact millions of us have been ripped off
severely over the last two decades. Instead
of SOLVING the problem by permanently
slashing prices and adding more value—such
as throwing in a DVD with every cd package,
with music videos (for example). Instead
they have created a market for companies
like you.
I will outline for you the horrendous
effects that Massive Anti-ripping/copy
measures will have and are having presently:
1) No new music would be playable
(extractable without errors) on the most
superior playback format (as far as I am
concerned)—the hard drive, giving hardcore
audiophiles like me the most unwelcome and
unwarranted kick in the ass. I DON’T WASTE
TIME WITH COMPRESSED DIGITAL
GARBAGE-UPLOADING OR DOWNLOADING FROM THE
INTERNET IN THE 1ST PLACE.
2) MILLIONS of Americans and others around
the world would be FORCED [STEALING OUR FREEDOM IN A FREE COUNTRY] to use LIMITED
brands of hardware [RIAA controlled, distributed, manufactured] for portable digital
playback, FORCING people to possibly support
companies like Sony (RIAA), First 4
Internet, Macrovision, Sonopress, Verance [directly or indirectly]
whom they may have no desire to support—oh
wait that’s just too bad for us isn’t it—too
bad for you American-looks like you don’t
have the FREEDOM of choice. Setting
everything up to line your pockets again, in
the most conniving, manipulative ways,
hoping once again music listeners abroad are
all just like a herd of, ignorant, oblivious
and pacifistic sheep.
3) Attempting to appease consumers [not solving the real problem] who
enjoy digital playback on PC’s MAC’s by
developing proprietary media players (i.e.
for CDS200) is AGAIN robbing the consumer of
their freedom to use their own media player
of personal preference. YOU DON’T
PRE-DESTINE FOR ME THAT TO PLAY A DISC ON MY
PC WHAT SOFTWARE I “MUST” INSTALL, RUN, OR
OTHERWISE LOAD ON MY OPERATING SYSTEM TO
LISTEN TO THE MUSIC DISC.
4) Corroborating with Microsoft Corporation
misinforming the public abroad either out of
sheer ignorance, indifference, and/or
outright lying that Windows Media Audio
files are “High Quality” or in the case of
128Kpbs per Microsoft deemed as “Audiophile
quality”. This is akin to proclaiming Analog
Cable TV reception is as good as the
original master film. This is pathetically
ignorant, disingenuous and shameful beyond
measure and is without excuse in the 21st
century. The RIAA is trying to stupefy the
masses into accepting compressed digital as
the norm so it will be easier to put a
stranglehold on music availability and
crippling usage rights in the name of their
Golden Calf Idol dubbed “US Copyright Law”.
Redbook CD is your Arch enemy, because you
are confined to the format (for anti-copy
R&D) due to the requirement of playability
in all Redbook devices, subtly, however you
are trying to intoxicate the public with
lies, distractions and appeasement while
trying to eradicate Redbook CD from the face
of the earth, only to be replaced by
horridly sub standard, super-encrypted
128Kbps quality compressed digital JUNK. All
with the help of your unethical and bought
friends in the US Senate and Congress.
5) Incorporating DISINGENOUS “VALUE-ADDS”
within formats such as “Enhanced CD”,
deceiving to the customer, thinking we’re
getting something better than a Redbook CD,
but wait, this type of disc isn’t often
capable of undergoing digital audio
extraction readily, and if so at the expense
of tremendous errors. This so called value
being: adding “backstage passes, so-called
bonus online content, songs” WHO CARES when
the corrupted media itself is a pock-marked
battlefield of MASSIVE C1 errors, C2 and CU
errors.
For example, Metallica St. Anger, this
epitome of sonic degradation contains 25,000
CU errors (uncorrectable data errors) 25,000
C2 errors (severe data errors) and 250,000
C1 errors on the disc, along with up to 55ns
of Jitter. The Redbook standard for MAXIMUM
allowable jitter present is 35ns. Take a
quality Redbook CD by contrast: 0 C2 errors,
0 CU errors and only 6500 C1 errors.
I will do everything in my power to fight to
preserve the true fidelity of virgin Redbook
CD, to petition honorable and constitutional
upholding, freedom fighting United States
Senators, encourage US consumers to take
your retailers to court when buying pressed
media infused with *YOUR* damaging software
to demand full refund for a DEFECTIVE
PRODUCT. On the other hand I do support
artists and companies who use outstanding
and significantly more advanced mastering
processes than the standard 16bit such as 20
Bit K2 Super Coding [XRCD] by JVC www.xrcd.net.
Now here is a Private record label that
caters to audiophiles, a record label that
CREATES VALUE, A REAL INCENTIVE to buy a CD.
Why do you ask? Because the sophisticated
Ultra High End mastering process is so
superior to the majority of mastering, and
has such negligible jitter (if any). That
any copy that could ever be made on a PC
would inevitably be of lesser sound quality
than the original because of the limitations
of even the best cdrw’s electronics in the
world (jitter induced during recording), and
outright inferior recording mechanism
compared against the original JVC XRCD
mastering. This is geared toward audiophiles
no doubt, and I highly doubt anyone would
bother to steal it as they would want the
best sound possible and thus would gladly
buy the original, I know I have and am more
than happy to do so, despite the fact that
these CD's with this superior mastering
technology are $30.00 USD.
“It’s like slashing the masterpiece
paintings, the Van Gogh’s and the Picasso’s,
so people won’t steal them.” MUSIC is an art
of extremely high degree, one of the
greatest expressions of the human soul, the
pinnacle of creativity, innovation, love,
passion, caring, and devotion. It is part of
what has made the world a better place.
MUSIC has helped everyone grow, laugh, cry,
live, feel full of life, and countless other
magnificent positive effects on mankind. To
taint the work of the original musician, to
forever lose their pure emotional intent of
the recording to “protect profit”, is to me
the same as the artist not even existing in
the 1st place.
Be true to the original mastered recording,
corrupting art is destroying the true
expression of the musician and forfeiting
their painstaking efforts in the studio. If
a single “illegal” download is stealing from
the artist, YOU are also stealing from BOTH
the artist AND the consumer by adding or
taking away (corrupting, altering) a single
sample or a single bit of audio or error
correction data on the original recording.
To end any debates about audio quality
before they even begin—It doesn’t matter if
no one can hear a difference (there is an
audible difference however) with your copy
control measures, if the audio information
is reproduced generating one trillionth of a
second of jitter more, or causing the drive
to interpolate one extra sample, or a
superimposed proprietary reflective layer or
watermark that makes the laser work harder
and end up applying just a little bit more
error concealment---your technology be
damned, you have still failed in terms of
absolute fidelity. ABSOLUTE FIDELITY MUST BE
THE REFERENCE.
How would you like it if I scratched your
$2,000,000 Picasso while you were watching,
with a utility knife? A heinous disregard
for fine art—but WHAT WOULD YOU CARE IF YOU
COULDN’T SEE THE SCRATCH?—the very thought
of you KNOWING it was no longer the perfect
original would weigh heavily upon you. You
would feel shattering disappointment,
utterly powerless, that majestic painting,
its exquisite rendering of legend, brilliant
colors and physical manifestations of
masterwork skill, forever scarred, no longer
representative of the true original…it was
the original, [The artist never intended that scratch to be there] just like the corrupted CD
that will never be available to be heard as
the artist (whom you *claim* to protect)
intended in its true original Philips
approved Redbook format EVER AGAIN because
of YOU and/or the RIAA.
An extremely concerned American in the free
and great United States of America,
Audiophile, lover of music
-Arnie
…”it is not true to the original, and thus
cannot be considered a high-fidelity
reproduction.” –Sam Tellig, Stereophile
“Give me Liberty or Give me Death” -Patrick
Henry
http://db.audioasylum.com/cgi/m.mpl?forum=digital&n=79255&highlight=Plextor+Premium&r=&session=
Mike (Shmoo)
gdZiemann
awehr
gfmlcka
INeedAlover
