ArtistBlog.ME

I’m going to dedicate an entire section on my site about my encounters with technology. The good and the bad sides. I’ll discuss these throughout with my wits and perspective.

In some parts I’d already be dreaming of gadgets which are still not available on this planet. The current age has created us toys which can be as small as a phone, to the size of a cricket.

Still, I am amazed what this world spawns. From armored card machines to automatic vacuum cleaners. Still, with an expense. The software is often out-to-date, slow, not userfriendly or even insecure to use while sitting in that nice armored behemot.

Topics to be opened soon (with short introduction):

• Personal Computer Widescreen is the only way to go?You can’t walk over the street without seeing these fancy laptops with glossy screens. I can’t stand glossy but I must say this is rather a preference. Still, where are those normal LCD screens which are NOT widescreen? I have to buy a 22″ widescreen before I can use the normal resolution of a normal 20 inch screen!
• Computer systems a menace for the tactical audiophile?Lot’s of DJ’s prefer MP3’s and computer systems to mix. I don’t give a damn, these things don’t give any tactical feedback at all. Same for the production of music. Fruityloops, Cubase, Reason or good sequencer can be used for dance tracks. One small detail, you’re working on a screen without any buttons, unless you got your controller placed in front of you. Still, where’s the fun of having seperate devices and using them modular? Different outputs, controls, feedback and learning curve. Everything can be done in software but you’ll still be limited by that software. I’ve been working with software for over 10 years, abandoned it for real hardware and have been producing ever well since that change!
• Noisy slow computer-systems everywhere!Last time I was sitting at a desk I was terribly annoyed by the vacuum cleaner next to my ear. Not only this vacuum cleaner had an alternating noise, just like my PC has at home, but it was slow as freak too. Remarkable, like the PC at home too! I am missing that age of silent computing. The P3 and P4 were pretty stable in sound, why do these newer CPU’s have to immitate that 5$ vacuum cleaner you found at the pawn shop?
• Data storage, a window to a black age for the greedy?
  
  Data storage opened a portal to many ways. For audio and video it was the solution for high-definition productions. It opened an entire new door to distributed computing, bloated software and operating systems with the size you could yank “MOMMA?” at! It also opened a bad doorway to those who are greedy and out of empowering their wealth. Data collection happens at governmental level but in end 2000 also at corporation level. This data can be used and abused at any given time; for as long as it exists. Do you still feel safe with that innocent mail which became illegal 50 years later?
• Immortality at a price of knowledge.Want to be immortal? Too bad! You got to die! Still, you can be immortal in many ways. The information high-way has evolved to an entire incorporated society which can pass your soul for many ages! Immortality at the price of bandwidth. If you create content which is worthy surviving for eternity you should sure think about the Internet to do so!
• Updates & Windows still not the safest way to go!Those updates, together with one of the top-best virus-scanners are still not best. This month a hacker tried to access one of my XP systems while I was working on it. Stupid. This system was fully patched, fully firewalled with F-secure Internet Security. It didn’t help. After cleaning the system completely of any backdoors (and there were 3 installed!) I noticed another box popping up. A nice Courtesy Shell. This was time to reinstall this machine, put it on another IP, firewall it externally and honeynet this attacker. Bottom line of the story: Updates and firewalls installed on machine level are not always as safe as you think!
• Defective public transportation automation.In Belgium we got these armored machines, running under a very cheap system which provides tickets to use the public transportation. It’s a nice system when it’s broken for sure! If only these tram-drivers would have the guts to price for the normal price when it’s broken!
• Cards everywhere! Do I need a new wallet?A card for these 2 shops I go to and one for the bakery where I buy croissants at, two to get a pizza at the corner, one for these office supplies, credit card, SIS card and I’m for sure not ending here. These cards often are not fully understood in policy…
• Windows Vista, is bloat really necessary?Windows Vista, the new flagship of Microsoft is not really more than an upgraded XP, with new screen/presentation enhancements, much slower and uses lots more memory. Together with the vacuum cleaner mentioned before.. Great! I knew there was a reason to live!
• Lots more …

My soulmate wanted to rip the CD to put on his Archos Jukebox, since he is not using CD’s anymore but still buys them to be legal and to have the full version.

Since I have put in the CD I can’t run my company invoice system anymore, can’t do anything at all with that cdrom drive, can’t even play a game. Every time I put in the CD it cannot be recognized by my system.

I already tried to uninstall the software but the problem stays, which forces me to reinstall the PC completely (which I definitely don’t have the time for now at the moment and will cost me days to get my invoicing and updates done).

Is this legal ? Can this be allowed ? I am literally loosing money now just because I wanted to rip that legal and bought cd for him straight to his Archos. It’s not even music I like to listen to… (no offense intended to all fans around here) …

Apparantly it is legal folks ..
CD’s that demolish your PC ready to reinstall!…

I am really starting to get even more annoyed since I do not know which CD’s I can even TRUST anymore without the need to re-install my PC? To stay on topic ; A lot of data is on backup but also a lot of data (my vinyl and protected CD’s ripped to WAV format) will be lost after this re-install.

These copyprotections are taking more time than I have; to be even more specific, certain CD’s like Solid Sounds I need to rip manually to be able to USE this CD in my older car cd player and pro Denon DJ CD player!!! Since I am DJ and using vinyl and CD’s a lot I find this unacceptable. Put in this pro-DJ player and you got to wait up to 6 minutes before the CD *might* get read; which is too long for a clubDJ to mix to the next song; unless I have a 8-10 minute song running from vinyl…

Is this copyprotection a convenience only for the record company or should the audio CD be a convenience for the listener? Where’s the time you put in the CD in your favorite cd player you like to listen to the music you like ? The time of putting your cd in your car cdplayer, cd-rom drive or professional CD player is over and it’s only getting worse, looking to this example of the latest CD I tried to rip for my friend.

And this is not even the end, my soulmate has bought 2 other CD’s, which one of them is the new Faithless CD (the other one I can’t remember because we have a different taste (and yet the same) of music) and he can’t rip it to use on his MP3 player *and* he can’t use it on his home CD player (unreadable disks).

I used to buy 2 to 5 cd’s a month, since I am not sure anymore which cd’s work or not I started buying more vinyl again, but hell, I do not want to buy ANY releases of the same producers that cripple the audio CD’s I have bought for 20 EURO or more!

The recording industry has lost at least 600 EURO last year only because I do not want to buy or use cd’s anymore.. what’s the use to buy a cd if I can’t use it?

I have built up a nice record collection of +30000 vinyl records and +2000 cd’s. Probably the collection of my cd’s will not be updated anymore as I protest to this kind of behavior towards the consumer. I currently have about 62 cd’s of the last 2 years that I cannot use at all unless I rip it and copy it. This is about 1200 EURO/$ I have lost because I cannot use them as DJ.

This will conclude the recording industry will not get MY money of minimally 720 EURO/$ per year anymore, which I will spend on independent vinyl recording companies which are not related to the ones that cripple MY cd’s I have bought with my well-deserved money which I pay my taxes on.

For so far my rant … for the ones that care ; I started to care a lot since I have lost my cd-rom drive on a very mysterious way

Bertelsmann (BMG Music) will stop to sell uncrippled CD’s. This means such cd’s will not play at certain older & newer CD players, certain car players and will not play in your computer. This for the price of 20US$ to 22US$ per CD !

As DJ I am very worried because one scratch crashes my CD into oblivion. The copyprotection does not let me play half of my cd’s on my old cd players in my house (and I have three of those).

The protection on these cd’s is the Cactus Data Shield from Midbar. The protection is currently only being used on EUROPEAN cd’s. A lot of the cd’s being used in Europe are not available in the US what leaves only one option, buying them here and praying they do not get damaged + work in the CD players you use at that time.

The error is in your player, not in our copyprotected cd’s.
BMG distributes a lot of the cd’s that are currently being used by me as DJ and shows no respect for their customers whatsoever by creating CD’s that work on only 80% of the home/pro audio equipment. Additionally they say “the error is your player’s, and not in our CD’s”.

I am at a very moral dillemma because every time I buy music I first search the MP3’s and then write down the titles I want to find. Some of these titles are only to be found on CD’s and some of ‘m are only to be found on vinyl.

legally bought music is working against me now!
I used to go to the recordstore and get about 20-30 records whereof 1 or 2 where usable. Whenever I go to the recordstore now I give 20 titles and get 15 useful numbers out of it. I currently have over 800 CD’s and over 22.000 records of vinyl. Currently I am buying more on CD because carrying all the vinyl is breaking my back

Since I cannot use the cd’s wherever I want and 1 scratch can kill the CD because of this lousy copy protection I need to buy the CD *and* burn the same MP3’s to seperate CD’s to be sure I can keep using the music I want to play legally!

The secret agent not working everywhere!
I have bought the CD of James Bond (Universal) and it seems not to work in my PC (where I play the most of my music, my PC speakers are the best in my house!) and they seem not to work in my old cd players of my own DJ equipment! Next to that the shop does not want to take the Bond CD back. With the line of defence BMG has by saying “their cd’s are fully redbook compliant and it’s your player’s fault” they also tell you you can bugger off by bringing it back to the shop where you bought your precious CD.

I have bought several other CD’s like “Solid Sounds” which is giving me errors as well. Currently I am trying to recover one of the legally bought CD’s by searching the MP3’s and burning them in the same order on another CD because I cannot just copy it and the CD is damaged by (over)usage as DJ.

BMG’s reply of one of their CD’s
Whenever you send a note to BMG you get the following mail back (unaltered):

“we are sorry you have troubles with our copy protection technology. The copy protection reacts on the special new technology that is build in in burners. Unfortunately htis technics was built in many new CD players, even if they can’t copy a cd.
“The copy protection yet does not recognize wheather that burner technics is build in a cd player or in a burner. That’s why the cd playern might not play a copy protected CD. Since burner technics are also built in car radios, this may be the reason, why you can’t listen to a copyprotected cd in your car.
“As far as we were adviced, our copy protection is according to the Red Book Standart as well as all labelling on the cd.
“A standart home CD player is one that has no burner technics built in. Our Cds play on all Cd players without burner technics.
“There will be no cd manufactured without copyprotection any more.”

This seems to limit a lot of options and costs me a lot more to find the numbers, import these from wherever possible and find them on mp3 to have a backup CD of my original CD! Of’course they tell “we are sorry” though they also tell us “the fault is in our bought players and there will be no cd’s manufactured without protection anymore”… I wish I should not have read this blasphamy towards a lot of customers!

Moral dillema, I am for the music, not against!
Because I am a DJ I cannot tolerate (for myself) to be using illegal material! I live by the music and I live FOR the music and not AGAINST. Seems to be BMG has the same reason but not only FOR the music but to protect their precious wallet!

What about radio stations ?
A lot of radiostations use MP3 jukebox software hooked up to the mixing board. A lot of bars/discotheques use that same kind of software. This means CD’s cannot be used for these kinds of commercial purposes anymore.

More information here
BMG’s line of defence can be found here. Another news article can be found here.

Please, sign the petition at petitiononline if you are also worried or if you do agree with this article.

A older article from me about this matter can be found here and if you wish to give your comments to the guestbook, please leave them here