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Universal's CD Copy Protection Doesn't Work

Stupidity

from the try-again dept

Thu, Dec 20th 2001 3:06am — Mike Masnick
MP3me writes "Last Sunday, Universal Music Group announced that it is going to copy-protect all of its music CDs by mid-2002. The first UMG copy-protected CD (the soundtrack to the "Fast and the Furious" is protected by software made by Midbar. Maybe UMG needed to do more research on Midbar's software, because just a few days after UMG released the CD, a TV show on TechTV has already figured out how to crack the copy-protection. And it's not as hard to crack as it may seem to be." As has been pointed out many times before, nothing is uncrackable, but it is still funny to find out just how easy it is to crack. In the meantime, I reiterate that all Universal has done is annoy its customers. They've done nothing to actually prevent pirating music or to help them as a business.
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4 Comments

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  1. identicon
    R Dickson, 20 Dec 2001 @ 6:28am

    Annoy Them

    If you really want them to get the message, simply don't buy the CD. Let them do a quick analysis of sales lost by people stealing music and those who just no longer buy their product because of thier attempts at copy protection.

    [ link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 20 Dec 2001 @ 7:01am

    Re: Annoy Them

    even better is to buy it and take it back.

    [ link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 20 Dec 2001 @ 7:33am

    No Subject Given

    They don't care that it is easy to crack. It only needs to be difficult enough that an argument cannot be made that it was cracked accidentally. Cracking it then falls under the DCMA and can be harshly prosecuted.

    [ link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    the captain, 20 Dec 2001 @ 11:13am

    Let 'em try

    I just really really want to see them try to nail this Patrick guy (from the article..gonna have to check out this TechTV show/channel) under the DMCA. All we need is ANOTHER high profile case that really makes the record companies (and maybe the government) look stupid.

    [ link to this | view in thread ]


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