response 83 of 151:

Aug 3 06:00 UTC 2001

(In Douglas Hofsteader's book _Goedel, Escher, Bach,_ he comes up with an
analogy for proof by counterexample using record players.  The Tortoise keeps
buying new record players.  The Crab can always come up with a record that
will blow the latest player to bits.  In that sense, he's got
the advantage.

Sometimes, the Crab thinks he's noticed a pattern in the Tortoise's
players.  He takes advantage of that pattern to make a record that will
destroy -- he hopes -- any player at all.  But the Tortoise can always
gain the upper hand by making a new player that doesn't follow the old
pattern.  In that sense, the Tortoise has the advantage.

Douglas Hofsteader is a strange, strange man.)

response 85 of 151:

Aug 3 18:32 UTC 2001

Speakers don't tolerate square waves at high volumes well.  Back before CD
players were savvy enough to refuse to play data CDs, it was pretty well
known that the digital 'hash' generated by trying to play one could blow
speakers.

response 87 of 151:

Aug 3 21:32 UTC 2001

Another review of Jessica Litman's discouraging book "Digital Copyright:"
   http://writ.news.findlaw.com/books/reviews/20010720_hodes.html
The reviewer writes that Litman's optimistic conclusion that the DMCA
would end up being ignored has been overturned by the destruction of 
Napster, which had not yet happened when the book was written.
Other than that, the reviewer agress with Litman:  copyright law no 
longer represents the will of the people expressed through their 
legislators, but instead it is dictated by the large corporations and 
becomes a club to beat the public with.

-----

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010802/re/music_internet_dc_1.html

A Reuters story on proposed legislation being developed in the US House 
by Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va) and Rep. Christopher Cannon (R-Utah).
They propose to loosen copyright laws to help online music businesses
get up and running without being destroyed by lawsuits.

The key seems to be a plan to extend radio-style compulsory mechanical
licensing to online music services.  "This would mean there would be 
one royalty pool, elminating the need for a Web-based service to 
negotiate with individual artists, labels, music publishers and 
songwriters."  ((I *told* y'all this was coming.))

-----

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/cn/20010727/tc/net_music_faces_patent_squeeze_
1.html

(careful with the wrapped URL)

The Intouch Group has been given a patent which they claim covers most
or all downloaded music.  Lawsuits are flying.  The courts have not 
yet had the sense to laugh this patent out of existence.

response 89 of 151:

Aug 4 02:57 UTC 2001

A square wave is easily maintained through even a cheap receiver and amp. 
It's the speakers which have trouble moving instantaneously from + to -.

response 91 of 151:

Aug 4 05:43 UTC 2001

That really doesn't make sense - it's all digital stuff - just 576 byte
blocks of data -- either you copy it, or you don't -- a CD-R is going to
see just the same bits on the disk that a CD player will, baring weird
chemistry or physics trying to play "tricks" with different kinds of
lasers.

response 93 of 151:

Aug 4 13:11 UTC 2001

The theory is that an audio CD player will realize that the data makes no
sense, and fix the obvious errors.  Normally such errors would be the result
of corrupted data; ie a scratch or other physical damage.  A CD data read
would read the data as-is, then lay it down on a new CD as good data.  But
yeah, why wouldn't the audio read of the copy fix the same problem?  Maybe
there's a checksum involved which aids the fixing of the bad data on the
original?

response 95 of 151:

Aug 6 14:35 UTC 2001

It probably has something to do with the underlying subcode tracks on the CD
that audio players use but CD-ROM drives can't copy, but that's just a
guess.  I remember that this was why Playstation CDs couldn't be copied and
the copies run in an unmodified Playstation -- the boot code for the
Playstation was hidden in those subcodes.  Supposedly you can fit about 2
megabytes in there, spread across the entire disc.

response 97 of 151:

Aug 7 07:02 UTC 2001

At least some CD-RW players are (as best I can tell) capable of copying
all the subcode data as well.  Any CD-RW player has to be capable of
copying the P and Q subcodes - I believe it's integral to how it knows
the difference between data & audio, and other important stuff.  Some
common tricks used for copyprotection include a bad table of contents
block (apparently audio players don't need to use it...?), and
scattering bad sectors or data on the disk.  The bad sectors can cause
data under-runs if you're copying from CD to CD, but I don't see how
those can break things if you use the HD as a buffer.  I don't entirely
understand how a bad table of contents can break things, but that's the
claim.  It sounds to me like something that could at least in theory be
programmed around, if you were "clever".

response 99 of 151:

Aug 9 17:50 UTC 2001

The MusicDish article is amusing.  Serious math/logic errors in the first
paragraph.  I really doubt that 30 million people are getting their music via
online sharing, especially not for one specific album.

response 101 of 151:

Aug 10 14:58 UTC 2001

  I'm not sure I want my music to be recorded on media "the size of a quarter"
  if the record companies are going to pesist in charging nearly twenty
  dollars for new recordings.

response 103 of 151:

Aug 10 16:29 UTC 2001

Considering that these players cost four times what a low-end CD player does
now, and that the discs aren't likely to sound any better than CDs (maybe
even worse, since they're compressed), this is going to be a hard sell.

response 105 of 151:

Aug 10 21:37 UTC 2001

        The size of a quarter? How about the durability of a quarter? you stick
CD recording technology in you're pocket, and you destroy it.

response 107 of 151:

Aug 11 16:36 UTC 2001

I was thinking about this yesterday after I talked to Drew at work -- he went
to Borders to buy the "O Brother Where art Thou?" and "Songcatcher"
soundtracks. And he said that the clerks were so unhelpful and so unclued that
he gave up and went to Best Buy. (Which is a comment on the staffing at teh
downtown Borders going downhill... in and of itself). But then I was thinking
that a major reason for people not buying records is the problem of where to
get them -- I know that a lot of people do buy on line, but most of the people
I know don't as a rule. Music for a lot of people is something they still want
to look at, ponder, all that -- and without some record stores that cater to
that need, a lot of people will stop buying. And of course the cost factor
doesn't help. Just some random musings.