FC: More on Apple's warranties and copy-protected CDs

From: Declan McCullagh (declanat_private)
Date: Mon May 20 2002 - 16:01:03 PDT

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    Previous Politech message:
    
    "Clarification on Apple's warranties and copy-protected CDs"
    http://www.politechbot.com/p-03553.html
    
    Sorry, Matt, for the domain name typo!
    
    -Declan
    
    ---
    
    Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 11:26:14 -0500
    From: Matt Deatherage <mattdat_private>
    Subject: Re: FC: Clarification on Apple's warranties and copy-protected CDs
    To: declanat_private
    
    On 5/20/02 at 10:16 AM, Declan McCullagh <declanat_private> wrote:
    
     > [From MDJ, available at macjournal.com. --DBM]
    
    <http://www.macjournals.com/>.  We couldn't get the singular domain name,
    and there's now an Apple Design Award-winning shareware product named
    "MacJournal", written In Cocoa, for keeping diaries.
    
    --Matt
    
    ---
    
    Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 12:37:53 -0400 (EDT)
    From: "Matthew G. Saroff" <msaroffat_private>
    Reply-To: "Matthew G. Saroff" <msaroffat_private>
    To: Declan McCullagh <declanat_private>
    cc: politechat_private
    Subject: Re: FC: Clarification on Apple's warranties and copy-protected CDs
    
    	An interesting sideline on this is that there is a CD copy
    protection scheme that can be defeated through the use of a marker pen.
    Quoting:
     >Music disc copyright protection schemes such a Cactus Data Shield 100/200
     >and KeyAudio can be circumvented using tools as basic as marker pens and
     >electrical tape, crackers have discovered.
    
     >The Blue Peter-style hack, which was first unearthed by a reader of
     >chip.de works by covering up the outer ring of a copyright protected
    audio disc.
    
     >On copy protected discs this outer track is corrupted, which prevents
     >copying, or even playback, by PCs but is ignored (at least in theory) by
     >regular CD players.
    
     >Simply covering up the outer track disables the protection, allowing a
     >disc to be played as normal in a PC or Mac.
    
    	The story also makes mention of how it locks up Macs.
    	I'm wondering if Mac users can sue.  It sounds like an illegal
    hack of their machine to me.
    
    Link:
    http://www.theregus.com/content/54/24940.html
    
    -- 
    Matthew Saroff
    
    ---
    
    From: "Blane Warrene" <bwarreneat_private>
    To: declanat_private
    Subject: Re: FC: Clarification on Apple's warranties and copy-protected CDs
    Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 12:57:23 -0400
    
    As a Mac user - the warranty verbage is a bit muffled and disappointing.
    However, the underlying issue appears to be more that a company or group of 
    companies released a product which veered right or left of a known industry 
    standard (CD's with copy-protection technology).
    
    This caught me by suprise as well with some recent cd's which I was unable 
    to pull their songs into I-Tunes for listening to them on the hard 
    drive.  I have actually returned the media for a refund and no longer plan 
    to purchase media from those labels.  I of course sent them letters 
    regarding this hoping they would change their minds.
    
    ---
    Blano
    "The shell is the well"
    
    ---
    
    Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 14:55:52 -0600
    To: declanat_private
    From: Mark Armbrust <mark.armbrustat_private>
    Subject: Re: FC: Clarification on Apple's warranties and copy-protected
       CDs
    
     >   Apple first removed and then replaced the KnowledgeBase article
     >   [4] on the topic. The new version, dated 2002.05.16, says only
     >   this: "Audio discs that incorporate copyright protection
     >   technologies do not adhere to published Compact Disc standards.
     >   Apple designs its optical disc drives to support media that
     >   conform to such standards." The company suggests you take your
     >   computer in for service if a paranoid CD has crippled it. The word
     >   "warranty" is nowhere to be found in the new article. It's not
     >   clear if Apple has changed its policy or not, but at least the
     >   company isn't publicly blaming you for not reading the fine print
     >   on CDs. (MDJ_ 2002.05.12)
    
    Seems to me that the customer should then file in small claims court to
    recover the cost of the service call from the CD label.
    
    --Mark
    
    ---
    
    To: declanat_private, gnuat_private
    Subject: Re: FC: Clarification on Apple's warranties and copy-protected CDs
    Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 14:01:07 -0700
    From: John Gilmore <gnuat_private>
    
    Is Sony selling Apple the CD drives that lock up when consumers put
    Sony copy-protected discs into them?
    
    This is a point that would require more investigation, but I know that
    Sony used to make a lot of the parts that go into Macintoshes.  For
    example, the power supplies, some of the monitors, and the floppy drives.
    
    	John
    
    
    
    
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