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.

response 109 of 151:

Aug 14 22:58 UTC 2001

http://www.thestandard.com/article/0,1902,28532,00.html
 
An anonymous source says that the Department of Justice antitrust probe
of the major labels and their online music ventures, which was revealed
this week, has been ongoing for months.
 
  'The source said that the probe was
   initiated out of the DOJ's antitrust
   division in response to "disillusionment
   with the business practices of the record
   companies" from "multiple parties at every level of the music
   value chain," including recording artists, record stores, and
   online music services.'

My my my.  

response 111 of 151:

Aug 19 16:05 UTC 2001

        I'm not into the tech, but with the lasers to read disks now
at a higher frequency, they can find the 1's and 0's closer together;
putting the same digital information is a smaller space.
        Also, wasn't the standard for the CD set up to be 4 discreet
audio channells, room for text and/or graphics, etc?  A new standard
could ignore those things the public rarely sees.
        Then again, DAT (digital audio tape) was tried as a new
pre-recorded format.  It failed.  The Mini-Disc (MD) was tried as
a pre-recorded format.  It, too failed to find a consumer market.

response 113 of 151:

Aug 20 16:35 UTC 2001

The New York Times has a collection of pieces today.  Besides the music
stories referenced below there are a few more on the impact of digital
technology on other arts.
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/20/technology/20ROSE.html
   is a puff piece on Hilary Rosen, the head of the Recording Industry
   Association of America.
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/20/arts/20ARTS.html
   "Why Just Listen to Pop When You Can Mix Your Own?"
   Discusses the rise of web sites where fans share their amateur
   remixes of work by their favorite artists, with a focus on Bjork.
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/20/arts/music/20CEED.html
   Popular music critic Neil Strauss writes about two weeks spent 
   listening only to music found on the net: one week before the 
   crushing of Napster file sharing, and one week recently.
   This article will mostly be of interest to geezers and trailing-edge
   folks like me.
 
   Quote:
> As a critic whose job is based on listening to
> new music, I have never been exposed to more high-quality artists in a
> shorter amount of time. Any musicians complaining about song-sharing
> services like Napster, any record executives trying to work out an Internet
> business model, and any fans who wants a glimpse of the way music
> consumption and distribution will change in the future should put aside 
> their stereos and try this experiment ((( internet-only listening))) 
> first. 

   and:

> In general, it seemed to be a rule that the
> more passwords you needed, the more
> personal information you had to submit, the
> more corporate logos you saw and the more
> special software you needed to download,
> the worse the site was. 

   ... and www.live365.com was singled out for special scorn.

In the post-Napster world of Summer 2001, Strauss seems to have found 
happiness with a mix of Aimster, IRC chat channels, and KaZaa.