Re: [NTLK] OT: portable cd player - copy protected audio CDs

From: Oliver Brose (oliver.brose_at_t-online.de)
Date: Tue Apr 09 2002 - 12:01:27 EDT


> Date: Tue, 09 Apr 2002 10:18:54 -0400
> Subject: Re: [NTLK] OT: portable cd player - copy protected audio CDs
> From: "Laurent Daudelin" <laurent_daudelin_at_fanniemae.com>
>
> Oliver,
>
> I guess we're reading the same newsgroups!
>
> For them to get sued, somebody has to stand up against those giants. I'm not
> sure when and if that will happen...

Just imagine, you get a new album from the store, you happily pop it into
your drive (you picked it from among all the other CDs in the store, those
have always worked just fine) while working on your latest and important
project for creative inspiration, and *BANG!* your $5000 G4 system comes to
a grinding halt, total crash, everything gone without saving the last
one/two/three hours of intense work or some critical processing is
interrupted, possibly this G4 also serves your co-workers' Macs, *BANG!*, no
way but reset. So you reset. The drive does not open, the Mac is frozen, you
cannot get back to work.
AFAIR the only possible way to eject the disc in some cases was to enter the
open firmware if you can, to use brute force, or to take it to service.
The disc you bought said, on a tiny little label on the backside, "will not
play on PC/Mac". It did not say "will wreck your system". So it was
improperly labeled. Sony openly admits that such discs might freeze your
computer, but it's not put on the label. That is very different from "does
not play". My Playstation CDs do not play on my Mac (except for the CD-Audio
part or with that emulator ;)), that's "does not play", my LD Player does
not play DVDs, that's "does not play", my (old) CD Player does not play data
CDs, that's "does not play".
Would you sue the producer of such a product that harms the honest customer
in such a blatant and thoughtless way?
They sold you a product of which they know that it can cause critical data
loss without saying it!

If such a product is sold, it needs to be sold apart from anything that is
labeled CD-Audio, and it has to have a red sticker covering half of it (back
and front) saying "URGENT WARNING! This product is no CD-Audio but a music
data carrier, do not insert this product into your
PC/Mac/Car-Stereo/Car-Navigation-System/DVD-Player/MP3-CD-Player, it will
not work and will possibly crash and/or damage your equipment, for use in a
CD-Audio-only-drive only!", with the same thing written in big bold letters
on the shelve these things are put on.

Getting angry again,

Oliver :/

--
You can take my Mac...
when you pry my cold dead fingers off the mouse!

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