It seems that most of the new CDs here in Japan are being released with copy protection. I’m wondering whether Japanese consumers are complaining about this?
As far as I can decipher from the labels (the image here is a big sticker on the front of the CD; there’s more detailed usage information on the back), you cannot rip music from these CDs into a digital format of your choice. You can listen to the CD on a computer, but only if you’re using Windows and a media player with digital rights restrictions. You can’t listen to one of these CDs on your computer if you’re using a Macintosh. They also won’t work in DVD players (including Sony’s PlayStation).
At least they’re labeled well — you can’t miss that you’re about to buy music that limits listening options.
There have been several new releases that I’ve wanted to purchase, but I don’t even own a CD player. All of my listening is done on my Mac or with an MP3 player. That means no new CDs for me.
The strange thing about these copy protected CDs appearing in Japan is that there’s a huge market for renting CDs here. At any number of big rental stores, you can grab a CD along with the DVD you rent for the night. I thought I remembered reading once that the Japanese music industry never really complained about this because there was a tax built into either the rentals or the sale of blank CD-Rs, and that money went to compensate for any copying that occurred. Or maybe it was because widespread CD copying didn’t occur until just recently. Anyone know more about this than I do?
We all need to remember that unless consumers complain about these copy protected CDs, the recording industry is going to get away with restricting the lawful rights of fair use. You pay for the music — it’s yours to do with what you want (within the law). Listening to the music you purchased on the device of your choice is not breaking the law.
8 thoughts on “Copy Protected CDs In Japan”
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yeah, i’m not a big fan. i bought a new CD at tsutaya last week… the way it works is that the CD you _give_ them at the counter is actually an empty case, and the reach behind the ocunter and pull out a real CD. i could have sworn that nothing about CCCD was written on the display CD.
but when i got home, it wouldn’t play in my DVD player (which can even play CD-Rs) and i could listen to it on my computer, but not in the usual sense: they have some proprietary player that plays REALLY low quality mp3s… you can’t even browse the CD.
it totally sucks, and only pushes people towards kazaa et. al., i imagine.
You might not be aware that copy-protected CDs are not actually CDs. Compact Disc Digital Audio is a universal standard set by both Philips and Sony. Tecnhically, all CDs are legally required to be compatible with any technology constructed for their playback, be it a Discman or the disc drive of a Macintosh. However, if you take a closer look, copy protected CDs don’t (or shouldn’t, at least) carry that familiar and distinct Compact Disc logo. In fact, copy protected CDs are really an entirely new, and potentially proprietary, format.
I don’t know how copyright works in Japan, but here in the country of commodification (that’s the US), there’s a provision called “first purchase.” When you buy a new CD (or book, or any other copyrighted work), you are free to do with that what you wish: give it away, sell it to someone else, etc., as long as you aren’t making copies and distributing them to other people. This is how used CD and book shops (and the library) operate without breaking the law. Seems reasonable so far…
I love the way that the music industry’s effort to reduce piracy leaves the consumer with ever-dwindling options for products we just dropped $17 for. I read that the new CD by the Donnas can’t be played in computers at all. It’ll be interesting to see what the backlash is. We’ll likely see a shift to purely digital formats that are liscensed rather than purchased, giving distributers even more control over the files.
CNET News.com has an article on copy-protected CDs, and how foreign introduction is just the first step.
100 million copyproof CDs sold?
Copy-resistant CDs may still be scarce in the United States, but signs are growing that the technology is becoming increasingly mainstream elsewhere and may finally break into the American market this year.
Silicon Valley company Macrovision said Wednesday that its anticopying technology had now been applied to more than 100 million CDs worldwide, the bulk of them released in Europe and Japan. Over the last six months, the company has seen shipments of 10 million discs a month distributed across those markets, it said.
“People are getting used to the idea (in those areas,)” Macrovision CEO Bill Krepick said. “I think the sense is that consumers in those countries tend to be a little less vocal than American consumers.”
Avoid these CDs if at all possible, and if you end up with one by mistake, angrily demand your money back.
The entire purpose of copyright law, as stated in the constitution, is to accept a “temporary” abridgement of normally existing rights with the ultimate goal of putting more content into the public domain.
In other words, we have a fundamental right to copy documents, and the only reason copyright exists is to create even more copyable content.
Read it yourself if ya doesn’t believe me. :-)
Only thing I can say is that these CDs will probably work fine if you are using MacOS X. For some reason the copy protection – and the included mp3-player – only works for Windows. This has been the case for all of these protected CDs I purchased. I won’t guarantee it but you might want to try it out.
The situation in Japan is really getting bad with the protected cds. Now you can go in and find up to 90% of the cds are copy restricted. I vowed never to buy one of them and “relented” when I bought a Radiohead album which was copy-protected but not labelled.
I’ve bought approximately 400 cds in japan, all of them legal (but some of them second hand). Now that they’re changing over to this new BCD format (broken compact disc), they are forcing me to get my music elsewhere. Like Kazaa… How friggin dumb can they get? It only takes one person to crack the protection (and it’s oh so doable) then to upload it to the net. The whole situation would actually be funny if it didn’t suck so much.
Right after eading the article, it seems that the Japanese recording companies want to fight piracy. They should have done it in China since China has the largest piracy in the world! Also, mp3s do help on bringing to us foreign artists we just knew by today.
In the end, everone loses, but the biggest losers are the working class (READ: Middle class)