[free-sklyarov] corrupt music CDs

[Izel Sulam]

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You wrote:

Next time when i go to buy music CD i am going to ask whether i will
be able to rip it to mp3 with software i use for this purpose.
If the answer is "No" i will not buy the CD, if "yes" i will ask for
garantees and full money-back if i fail to rip it.

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IMHO this would be the worst way to go about impacting the bottom 
line of music cartels.

If you do this, you will be having no impact whatsoever. You will be 
told that you may not be able to rip mp3's, you will walk away as a 
non-customer, and it will be like you never even walked into the 
shop.

The best way to have an impact would be to purchase the 
copy-controlled CD (preferably using a credit card), bring it home, 
make a good-faith effort to rip mp3's from it in the same way that you 
rip mp3's from any regular CD, and if you fail, take it back to the 
shop and ask for your money back.

I have heard that Universal has given clear directions to retail 
outlets to refund the customer's money should this sort of thing ever 
happen. Obviously Universal is afraid of negative public relations 
and eventual protests and visibility.

Should the store refuse to refund one's money, one should contact 
one's credit card company, complain that he was sold defective 
merchandise and furthermore refused a refund, and one should ask 
for a chargeback at the expense of the retail outlet. These sorts of 
disputes are almost always resolved in the customer's favor, 
especially when the facts are on the customer's side, as would be 
the case here.

Doing this will have a clear financial impact on the bottom lines of 
retail outlets and ultimately the music cartels. This is the only way to 
get music cartels to do the "right thing", because the only language 
that the cartels understand is that of profit and loss. We must 
associate a significant financial loss with shipping copy-controlled 
media.

- izel

P.S. An important point was made a couple of months ago about 
how the using term "crippled" to refer to copy-controlled 
technologies may be offensive to disabled people. This is 
especially embarrassing because I originally proposed this 
particular use of the term on this list. I now realize that we really want 
disabled people, and organizations representing them, to be on our 
side, because open formats empower disabled people to access 
information in ways that copy-controlled and 
cryptographically-encapsulated formats do not and cannot. This is 
a very important argument favoring the use of open formats.

Fat Chuck's website uses the term "corrupt" CD's, which I think is a 
great choice. The word "corrupt" is strong, memorable, descriptive 
of the CDs and the moral state of the corporations producing them, 
and not offensive to any people or organizations we may want to 
have on our side.

I respectfully ask list members to stop using the term "crippled" to 
refer to cryptographically-encapsulated data, and media housing 
such. I apologize for establishing this association in the first place.