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New Audio CD DRM Defeated by Use of ''SHIFT'' Key
Posted by Ernest Miller on Monday, October 06 @ 10:54:22 EDT File Sharing
On September 23, BMG released a new CD by Anthony Hamilton. The interesting thing about the CD is that it incorporates a new type of CD protection, as noted in the Des Moines Register (New anti-piracy CD limits sharing of songs). The DRM system is supposed to let you copy tracks to your computer, but not be able to share them freely with another computer (although you can email a version of the song that will expire after 10 days or burn a copy to CD 3 times). It is designed by SunnComm and is called MediaMax 3D.

Alex Halderman, a graduate student at Princeton's computer science department and the author of a report on first generation CD copy protection (Evaluating New Copy-Prevention Techniques for Audio CDs [PDF]), has analyzed the new DRM system and found it wanting (Analysis of the MediaMax CD3 Copy-Prevention System).

Apparently the system can be defeated, among other ways, by holding down the "SHIFT" key when inserting a CD in your computer's CD drive.

Ed Felten on Freedom to Tinker asks, "Is this the end of the road for CD copy protection?" His answer? "It ought to be." Perhaps it will be, for one company at least. SunComm is traded on the "Pink Sheets" and I doubt that this will encourage investors.

 
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Yuck (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Monday, October 06 @ 13:36:09 EDT
All of these DRM solutions assume you are running MS Windows, or at best, MS Windows or MacOS.

Will they continue to work with newer versions of Windows? What about new operating systems?

The CD format is a nice standard and anything which is going to be widely accepted should also be standardized so that everyone can implement it.


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Re: New Audio CD DRM Defeated by Use of ''SHIFT'' Key (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Thursday, October 09 @ 05:58:35 EDT
Given that the DMCA makes it illegal to circumvent copy protection schemes, does this mean that it is now illegal, under some operating systems and conditions, to press your Shift key?


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