Jim Reith wrote:

At 10:19 AM 8/5/2005, you wrote:

James Oltman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> if it can be read, it can be cracked.
>

There are two issues: 1) technical, 2) philosophical (the priciple of the
idea).


i don't see a philosophical issue if you own the CD and are ripping it for
personal use. If they infringe on your personal use, that's a problem.

And I find the technical description of only allowing it to be ripped a
fixed number of times silly. If it's a read only media, how  can they
enforce that. Just go to another untainted machine (I'm assuming the rip
count is a cookie somewhere)


There isn't valid red-book CD Audio on the disc. What is stored there may or may not work with standards-compliant CD players, though generally not anything that moves such as a car or, portable player.

The rip restrictions rely on a unique ID written to some sectors of the disc. When you try to rip with Windows Media Player (other rippers are liable to choke on the non-CD data), your ID is verified against a database, to see whether you have permission to rip. If not, tough luck. If so, you rip to protected WMA files which include your ID number, and perform lookups against Microsoft's databases per-play.

Results: If your computer's ID number changes (e.g. you reformat Windows), all your music is rendered useless, unless the per-disc restrictions allow you to re-acquire a license to your files. If your disk crashes, you need to re-rip your music, ticking down your counter.

Again, in many cases (especially with Linux, or by employing a felt-tipped pen) you can bypass the copy protection mechanisms. Should you need to? Should you encourage their use by buying the technology and calling it good?

--Jo Shields
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