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Love sony ericsson products, and even sony. Hardware is awesome and well designed.
And we can all thank our lucky stars that ATRAC has not been included on their Music Phones (a sign that Sony are seeing the light)
But their approach to DRM is still really rank. The latest Sony idiocy is to install a root kit that hides itself on your harddrive when inserting specially protected cd's. The root kit prevents unlimited copying of the cd. You never get asked, it does it behind the scenes without any user knowledge. This is even more insidious than crap search bars. It's an invasion of privacy IMHO.
The root kit opens up a vulnurability on your computer that can be exploited by trojans. The latest Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool detects the rootkit and removes it (which means you can't play the CD on your computer, a cd that you legally paid for) due to the security hole the rootkit punches in your computer. So this shows how invasive it is, since Microsoft support the DRM line.
I'm not arguing against DRM (although I vote with my feet and wouldn't buy these DRM cd's in a pink fit), just against the sly manipulative and dishonest way in which they go about it. Like atrac and the inability to convert to external formats, thereby locking you into Sony hardware for all your music playing needs. (even if you have an audio source that is not copyright protected, such as your own recording using a minidisc recorder for example, or the inability to convert to mp3 format so you can play your LEGALLY PAID FOR MUSIC on your mp3 player). Or MagicGate technology which adds atleast 25% to the cost of memory sticks. I NEVER use magicgate, because the only purpose of it is to encode atrac and I don't use the crappy codec, so I'm paying for the money Sony "save" by implementing DRM. I haven't bought a Sony Walkman since the NetMD debarcle (the K750 is the closest I've come). Maybe now they are not so rigid (support mp3 now for example) I should consider it, but I just don't trust them.
I am at once in complete awe of Sony's engineering expertise, and completely blown over by the disrespect they show their customer base with this sort of DRM crap.
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Posted: 2005-11-15 07:49:37
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that is wrong, Sony do get some crap ideas don't they, mind you it wouldnt surprise me if others follow
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Posted: 2005-11-15 09:20:55
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This has been on theregister for a while now. They think there are 49 CDs this is affecting. Microsfot has classed it as malicious code and there are, to my knowledge, at least three class action law suits under way already.
They're gonna get in so much PR trouble over this
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Posted: 2005-11-15 17:27:26
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ha ha, great stuff, those b**tards at sony. I love sony there stuff is great even use a set of sony headphones on my ipod, but to do that is just dumb
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Posted: 2005-11-15 17:29:27
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it quite funny why they bother doing these things. saw a survey the other day in a mag (cant remeber which one) and it showed people who got there music and films from less than reputable places.
went onto spend nearly 3 times what a non downloader spent in itunes hmv etc.
so it just goes to show if people like what they hear or watch they will still buy the original.
i notice these big companies never offer money to customers when they release a real turkey of a film or album they just expect us to put up or shut up.maybe its time they did the same
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Posted: 2005-11-15 18:05:27
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Quite funny really, if it hadn't of been Sony Music, it would have been another of them doing it. Don't kid yourself thinking its only Sony trying to protect its musical investments, they're all out to do it. Simple fact is Sony was just found out first
Look how dumb any singer is when they talk about rank piracy and MP3. It's like they've been taught to hate the word mp3 because it must mean that some lil kid is burning their music to CD's and distributing it around the school yard for 50 cents a pop..
TBH I walked away from buying most artists cd's a long time ago unelss they were local. There's very few artists I'll buy now, though I am tempted by the beastie boys greatest hits
(And any offspring or lords of acid cd is always purchased if I don't have it
)
At least the movie industry hasn't gotten thsi bad yet, but then they have their own format wars
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Posted: 2005-11-15 22:01:50
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Residentevil Posts: > 500
That was a real Harakiri move from Sony.
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Posted: 2005-11-15 22:05:10
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Atrac is allright im not saying its the best but u can still fit more music than WMA or AAC
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Posted: 2005-11-15 22:19:46
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yes but imho the compression is lifeless, tinny, and has some VERY strange compression artifacts that i find very disturbing. The only reason you can fit more atrac is due to the miniscule bitrate they use. To get any space saving over AAC you have to use Atrac plus, which records at 48Kbps for god's sake!!
Atrac mdlp2 (132Kbps) is the only level of atrac I'd consider usable, and it's tracks are bigger than AAC 128Kbps, and way bigger than 96Kbps AAC (and the aac is still better at 96Kbps than mdlp2 imho)
Atrac compression is based on the concept that certain sounds aren't heard by the human ear when heard at the same time (just to drastically over simplify!), and ATRAC averages these sounds out, dropping the timbre of the music drastically as far as I'm concerned. While it's a very clever attempt, I believe the sony engineers over estimated what can be dropped from the audio without affecting the quality. The result is boring flat music.
The original SP ATRAC was much better than anything they call atrac these days. But of course the files sizes are massive compared to even MP3.
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Posted: 2005-11-16 09:46:40
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Residentevil Posts: > 500
That will teach them
http://money.cnn.com/2005/11/[....]ony_bmg.reut/index.htm?cnn=yes
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Posted: 2005-11-16 21:41:31
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