Universal Music sings for the Mac OS (sort of)

Once upon a time, in faraway Spain…

A few days ago we received a very curious message. Someone who identified himself as one of our readers wrote in to say that he had a very good story concerning a music CD that wouldn’t play for Mac and how he had managed to solve it… and asked us to phone him if we wanted details.

We get quite a number of contacts with different sort of stories, rumors and complaints. We answer most of them (never before by phone) and occasionally find a good news lead among the data. This time we expected little… but we found quite a surprise.

The storyteller and the poisoned CD

We contacted someone who will remain as JMZ and he told us his story.

There is one very good Spanish pop singer called Rosana who has just published a new work through her publisher, Universal Music. This CD is being distributed as a normal music CD, but isn’t: it actually contains an encrypted set of files that is playable by CD players (don’t ask for too many details) but can’t be directly accessed by computer software: it needs a custom-built, enclosed auto-executable application that resembles WinAmp.

The problem is that it resembles WinAmp in one too many things: it’s for Windows. Just Windows. No compatibility for Macs or Linux, or anybody else.

So when JMZ bought his new CD and put it into his Mac to listen to music while he worked (just as hundreds of thousands of Mac users do every day) he found out he couldn’t. He tried all he could, but there was no way to play the files. He logically became quite angry.

The CD was not labelled as “Windows-only”. It was not even labelled as anything different from the usual, standarized AudioCD format. Yet it was evidently something new, different, improperly marketed and thoroughly unusable with a Mac.

The bandit and the lock

JMZ, himself a thoroughly law-abiding citizen, has some unusually gifted acquaintances. No-one he could name, of course, but one of them make a habit of mass-copying CDs for friends and family. They met while JMZ was still fuming about this Rosana CD, and they talked about the wisdom of Universal Music and the future of digital rights. The unusually gifted individual asked to take a look at the CD.

Shortly after, they met again and the unusually gifted person produced a newly-minted, thoroughly pirated Rosana CD. It was an AudioCD. Open to all and encryption-free. And he’d done it on a Mac, too.

The Mac-head and the lawyer

So JMZ decided to take a poke at the music company and contacted Universal Music’s offices in Spain. He asked for an explanation concerning his legally purchased, unplayable CD… and got some kind words and an offer of his money back.

But that wasn’t enough: JMZ was incensed at the fact that Universal Music was forging ahead with something that was incompatible with Mac users. He pointed at the fact that the CD broke the standard AudioCD format and didn’t say so, and generally tried to shame them into reconsidering. He couldn’t, but at least got to talk to the legal department.

And he sprang the trap: he told them he had had to buy a pirated version of the CD in order to listen to it. In other words, their magnificent new encryption system was broken within the week of publishing. That got their attention all right.

Fear and recalling in Universal Music

JMZ was then contacted by the head of the Universal Music legal department in Spain, Mr. Jose Luis Sanchez. A totally charming and approachable person, Mr. Sanchez listened to the detailed story and was shaken. JMZ was thanked and told that the company would act upon it (and of course, asked if he knew about the way to break the encryption).

After a short while, Mr Sanchez called again with the story’s happy ending: Universal Music was recalling the full edition of the CD and substituting it with a standard AudioCD product. Mr Sanchez also showed his good breeding and promised a copy of the rebuilt CD as soon as it was available.

The inside story

Of course, we don’t take any story as truth until we double-check it (unless it is for our Rumors section ;-)), so we started an investigation that has led to even more interesting pieces of news.

We first contacted a very kind person in the production department of Universal Music, who told us that his work in the music ended with the finished tracks: those were then sent to a printing facility (usually in Germany, but the Rosana CD was sent to a new place in England) and that was that for him. He told us he didn’t know about a new cryptography system and that he disbelieved that Universal Music was shipping something that was unplayable on Macs… it struck him as something the company wouldn’t do, but he promised to check and tell. And he couldn’t confirm the recalling.

Then we went directly to the head and contacted Mr Sanchez. The head of Universal Music’s lawyers, in turn, confirmed every word in JMZ’s report and provided some more detail about the process and the reasons for the decisions.

To start with, he told us about the (well known) piracy problem that afflicts the industry, and their desire to at least tackle the home-copying problem. Nothing really new nor relevant to the story, but good to set the frame of mind.

Then he spoke about the brand-new encryption system, which was incorporated in a British plant apparently belonging to the technology’s owner. We got the distinct sensation that Universal Music paid for the service.

And finally he confirmed the recall decision, and gave its reasons: they would never want to antagonize Mac users, God forbid… at least, not for a protection system that did not work ;-). As he said, if the encryption had done its job, “I’d had done what I had to do”, but in the present situation it was indefensible.

Then, just to return him the favor, we told him what we had found out about the code breaking: that it didn’t exist. It wasn’t necessary, if one simply applied logic to it… and the method works for every single encryption system, current of future. There is no way out.

The end… or the beginning: enter the gangster

Well, that should have been the end of the story, and a good one too. But there is a small reflection to make.

Universal Music is not the only company implementing new-fangled digital rights protection aimed mainly at the home-copying problem: Sony Music is releasing the next Michael Jackson album using a very similar scheme. It seems like they like the idea. But we believe it’s radically wrong.

First and foremost, because they seem to be doing it before it’s ready, and that means “before it’s available for all software platforms”. It is therefore a very bad public relations idea which will be a hard sell to the very companies’ workers, who happen to work on Macs. As always, putting technology ahead of business is downright silly.

But that’s not all. By putting a lid on the small-scale, home copying problem (which author’s associations are already dealing with by levying a charge on digital media producers –at least in Spain- in the name of all would-be-copied authors) they are opening a brand new hole in their flotation line. They are inventing their own Prohibition and putting a whole new market in the hands of large-scale, organized pirates who can both buy cheaper media, print in cheaper places, pay for the code-breaking, bring the cost of music radically lower and concentrate the music-piracy business in few, potent hands. They are inviting serious trouble.

Home-copying can be bad for them, but there are intelligent ways of dealing with it like the “author’s tax” on media. Mass-copying in the hands of people who can pay for breaking any codes and can build a whole new mafia out of it… that can be really deadly for their money.

They will do whatever they choose and reap what they sow. Mac users will buy their music from whoever makes it available best. Period.