MQA is Vaporware

[witchdoctor]

4 hours ago, Jud said:

 

The trouble is that the labels have historically seen customers as pirates or potential pirates.  Apple came along and gave people the chance to preview a song and see if they liked it, and if they did, to purchase it for 99 cents.  This was in contrast to the labels, who wanted everyone to buy $15-$16 CDs on the basis of advertising and hearing one of a dozen or more songs on the radio.  People didn't bother much to pirate what they could get so easily from Apple.  Problem solved!

 

But the industry is still blaming many of its ills on piracy - better than blaming them on the record company execs, eh?

The problem is solved? You and I both know that pirating is still a major problem. Artists lose, labels, and actually consumers lose too IMO. Today they even have new ways to pirate via mobile:

 

http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2016/05/05/what-music-piracy-really-looks-like/

[The Computer Audiophile]

5 minutes ago, witchdoctor said:

The problem is solved? You and I both know that pirating is still a major problem. Artists lose, labels, and actually consumers lose too IMO. Today they even have new ways to pirate via mobile:

 

http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2016/05/05/what-music-piracy-really-looks-like/

 

Pirates will always be pirates. Legal methods keep honest people honest by giving the a reasonable way to purchase. 

[Fitzcaraldo215]

3 minutes ago, Don Hills said:

 

I believe it does contain such a mechanism, according to Mansr's analysis of the control bitstream.

Nothing against mansr, in general.  Like me, like all of us, he gets carried away on emotion at times, like here in this debate.  Sorry, I find that particular analysis agenda driven and speculative rather than factual.  Any corroboration, hopefully,  multiple, independent, impartial ones from somewhere else?  If there is even one, it has escaped my notice, but I am always open to new information.  It's entirely possible I have missed something.

 

Also, this seems at odds with @Rt66indierockunderstanding.

[crenca]

54 minutes ago, Fitzcaraldo215 said:

 

 

So, how is it then DRM as so many insist?  Sorry, I do not follow that logic, at the risk of being pelted from all sides here.  But, though many proclaim this is as obvious as 1+1=2, I just do not get it.  I am trying to be rational

 

 

 

You (probably) don't get it because you only see DRM as necessarily linked to copy management and/or encryption.  It is not - DRM is broader in that it is about managing any and all consumer rights, not just copy protection.  It is also not necessarily linked to "piracy" and the like - it can be a method to restrict the rights of a consumer to use a product in a certain geographic region, or for a certain defined time period,or perhaps to manage what a consumer hears based on his licensed software/hardware (such is the case with MQA).

 

In the future, DRM will be linked to biometrics and used to manage a consumer based on his or her personal characteristics such as eye color of some beauty software/hardware product, or height in some game where the licensor does not wish you to compete as if you are someone else with different characteristics.

 

Read the first two sentences of Wikipedia's entry "DRM" and explain how MQA is not an example of DRM.

[Rt66indierock]

1 hour ago, Fitzcaraldo215 said:

Got it.  MQA does not prevent piracy, and it contains no mechanism for tracing illegal copies back to their bootleg sources, as far as any public explantanations to date of MQA technology are concerned.  It does, as we know, certify "authenticity" of a played or streamed copy to the user during playback.

 

So, how is it then DRM as so many insist?  Sorry, I do not follow that logic, at the risk of being pelted from all sides here.  But, though many proclaim this is as obvious as 1+1=2, I just do not get it.  I am trying to be rational and objective, not trying to reopen old wounds or debates.  Call me an idiot.  But, though repeated over and over with great fury and alarm, the charge falls completely on its face,  IMHO.  Especially, given the lynch mob fervor of the nay sayers.

 

You also seem unsure of the question of whether an MQA recording can be copied.  All the evidence that I have seen suggests it is just a file in a normal FLAC/PCM wrapper, so it can therefore be copied with existing technology.  Do you have evidence to the contrary? Does anyone?   Again, I do not see DRM here.  

 

 

 

If you were trying to be rational or objective you would have read the original post at least so let me summarize. A file has to be encoded to the MQA format. This requires purchase of licensed hardware and payment of royalties. The license and the hardware at this stage are managing digital rights. To playback an MQA file requires a licensed hardware or software decoder the payment of license fees and royalties. Again this is managing digital rights.  Utimaco created the encryption to “secure and safeguard end-to-end transmission of intellectual property.” That encryption is managing the digital rights in the licenses.

 

When there is an album I want (a prior post has a list available in Europe) encoded with MQA available in the United States I will buy it. Then I will make a copy and put it on my music laptop. I will make no claims about coping MQA files until I actually copy one. You aren’t supposed to see DRM in the file that’s why all the people claiming there isn’t DRM say look here. I’m just one of the first who looked at the encoders and decoders and saw DRM.

 

I’m also the first person to question the master part of MQA last year with The Doors “Riders on the Storm.” There is no master. I had a pretty good source the guy who played keyboards in The Doors.

 

Please don’t twist my words I have been specific about the DRM in MQA since I found the Utimaco case study shortly after T.H.E Show in Irvine last year. The DRM in MQA is very similar to the DRM required by the IRS to be in 2016 professional tax programs. In the tax programs its software at both ends nobody denies it’s DRM.

[Jud]

1 hour ago, Don Hills said:

 

Unlike the majors, Linn cares about audio quality.

 

So does the 2L label, though.  (Again, I personally think MQA sounds slightly worse than equivalent non-MQA files.)

[Don Hills]

1 hour ago, Fitzcaraldo215 said:

... Sorry, I find that particular analysis agenda driven and speculative rather than factual. ...

 

Sticking to the facts:

- The control stream contains metadata fields which can be used for origin identification / fingerprinting. 

- The option exists to encrypt some of the data stream to further reduce the quality of non-decoded playback.

You can come to your own conclusions as to the scenarios where these capabilities might be used.

[Fitzcaraldo215]

15 minutes ago, crenca said:

 

You (probably) don't get it because you only see DRM as necessarily linked to copy management and/or encryption.  It is not - DRM is broader in that it is about managing any and all consumer rights, not just copy protection.  It is also not necessarily linked to "piracy" and the like - it can be a method to restrict the rights of a consumer to use a product in a certain geographic region, or for a certain defined time period,or perhaps to manage what a consumer hears based on his licensed software/hardware (such is the case with MQA).

 

In the future, DRM will be linked to biometrics and used to manage a consumer based on his or her personal characteristics such as eye color of some beauty software/hardware product, or height in some game where the licensor does not wish you to compete as if you are someone else with different characteristics.

 

Read the first two sentences of Wikipedia's entry "DRM" and explain how MQA is not an example of DRM.

Ok, I have looked up the wiki article, and I am as perplexed as ever. Those first two sentences seem to revolve around the phrase  "restrict usage" and its implications.  But, it seems to me that every playback format "restricts usage" by the very nature of its unique specifications and requirements, whether it is encoded via special, licensed access privileges or not.  You can't play an LP on a CD player.  But, is that restriction sufficient to call the CD an example of DRM?  Clearly, no. So, the definition in those first two sentences is insufficient to fully define what DRM is.

 

So,  we are back to the chasm between you and me.  You think MQA is QED provable to be DRM, but I do not agree completely.  MQA = DRM? Yes and no.  

 

And, please, you are exaggerating to mind numbing proportions if you believe that MQA can encapsulate sufficient information in the 8 bits or so of noise floor it consumes to link DRM to user biometrics, like iris scans.  You may be right about scary DRM's of the future, but that speculation has nothing whatsoever to do with the MQA of today.  What is your point?  MQA is like big brother?  That is just ridiculous posturing and baseless scare tactics.

 

I do know what DRM is.  I have thousands of SACDs on my NAS, in Mch, I might add.  Now that WAS a robust DRM, which took experts many years to crack, involving both hardware and software.  I capitalized the WAS in the last sentence,  because, as we know, it, too, was cracked years ago, difficult as that was.

 

MQA parallels Sony's sophisticated "hybrid" DRM of SACD in many ways.  Neither "restrict" access to the RBCD layer.  No DRM there.  Both, however, attempt to "restrict" access to the hi rez "layers" of the playback stream to only licensed players.  SACD is actually even more restrictive, in that the output of a licensed player in hi rez could ONLY be via analog or via HDMI with HDCP.  MQA is actually somewhat less restrictive.  The hi rez layers are also available purely through software and/or hardware, as the Tidal PC app demonstrates.  To me, it is a given that it is only a matter of time before that software app is cracked allowing most everyone to have free access to the folded hi rez layers of MQA streams, though not with full MQA processing in their DACS.

 

There is also an interesting and very telling point you made early on that reveals your true agenda.  "DRM is about managing any and all consumer rights".  What "rights" do consumers really have, though they have paid no license or other fees to access hi rez program material contained in MQA streams or files?  My opinion is they have none, as in zero.  You seem to think their rights to that material for free is a given.  

 

I think viewing the world as utopian as though all doors should be unlocked, all goods and services should be free and available to all is very noble.  Unfortunately, not here on earth with real human beings.

 

 

[Kal Rubinson]

1 hour ago, Rt66indierock said:

When there is an album I want (a prior post has a list available in Europe) encoded with MQA available in the United States I will buy it. Then I will make a copy and put it on my music laptop. I will make no claims about coping MQA files until I actually copy one.

They copy just like any other file and the copies play fine, whether with MQA-enabled DACs or others.  Surely, that is what makes them downloadable.

[rickca]

3 hours ago, Rt66indierock said:

The labels still have to spend money to track the sources and distributors of your illegally copied music. Nothing has changed.

I think you did an effective job of identifying the holes in my argument.  I was just trying to come up with an anti-piracy business case for the labels to adopt MQA.

[crenca]

Just now, Fitzcaraldo215 said:

Ok, I have looked up the wiki article, and I am as perplexed as ever. Those first two sentences seem to revolve around the phrase  "restrict usage" and its implications.  But, it seems to me that every playback format "restricts usage" by the very nature of its unique specifications and requirements, whether it is encoded via special, licensed access privileges or not.  You can't play an LP on a CD player.  But, is that restriction sufficient to call the CD an example of DRM?  Clearly, no. So, the definition in those first two sentences is insufficient to fully define what DRM is.

 

 

 

 

I did not read further than this paragraph because this is where you are "stuck".  DRM is what it is in its own "domain" which is the digital - that is the software/hardware of machines (made by man) that are computers - that is, they compute (the add and subract).  By your reasoning, the invention of the wheel, or man's discovery of fire, is "DRM" because if you don't have an axel to take advantage of a wheel then you are stuch with "DRM" or perhaps you lost the two sticks you rub together to create fire and thus are a victim of "DRM".  Your right, this is nonsense.

 

What is the first word in DRM?  Digital.  What is it about (the second word)?  Rights (of consumers).  What is it doing to those rights?  Management.  It is only a concept legal entity that makes sense in a certain domain (i.e. the digital world). 

 

With all that in mind, go back and read the first two sentences again...

[Rt66indierock]

1 hour ago, Fitzcaraldo215 said:

Ok, I have looked up the wiki article, and I am as perplexed as ever. Those first two sentences seem to revolve around the phrase  "restrict usage" and its implications.  But, it seems to me that every playback format "restricts usage" by the very nature of its unique specifications and requirements, whether it is encoded via special, licensed access privileges or not.  You can't play an LP on a CD player.  But, is that restriction sufficient to call the CD an example of DRM?  Clearly, no. So, the definition in those first two sentences is insufficient to fully define what DRM is.

 

So,  we are back to the chasm between you and me.  You think MQA is QED provable to be DRM, but I do not agree completely.  MQA = DRM? Yes and no.  

 

And, please, you are exaggerating to mind numbing proportions if you believe that MQA can encapsulate sufficient information in the 8 bits or so of noise floor it consumes to link DRM to user biometrics, like iris scans.  You may be right about scary DRM's of the future, but that speculation has nothing whatsoever to do with the MQA of today.  What is your point?  MQA is like big brother?  That is just ridiculous posturing and baseless scare tactics.

 

I do know what DRM is.  I have thousands of SACDs on my NAS, in Mch, I might add.  Now that WAS a robust DRM, which took experts many years to crack, involving both hardware and software.  I capitalized the WAS in the last sentence,  because, as we know, it, too, was cracked years ago, difficult as that was.

 

MQA parallels Sony's sophisticated "hybrid" DRM of SACD in many ways.  Neither "restrict" access to the RBCD layer.  No DRM there.  Both, however, attempt to "restrict" access to the hi rez "layers" of the playback stream to only licensed players.  SACD is actually even more restrictive, in that the output of a licensed player in hi rez could ONLY be via analog or via HDMI with HDCP.  MQA is actually somewhat less restrictive.  The hi rez layers are also available purely through software and/or hardware, as the Tidal PC app demonstrates.  To me, it is a given that it is only a matter of time before that software app is cracked allowing most everyone to have free access to the folded hi rez layers of MQA streams, though not with full MQA processing in their DACS.

 

There is also an interesting and very telling point you made early on that reveals your true agenda.  "DRM is about managing any and all consumer rights".  What "rights" do consumers really have, though they have paid no license or other fees to access hi rez program material contained in MQA streams or files?  My opinion is they have none, as in zero.  You seem to think their rights to that material for free is a given.  

 

I think viewing the world as utopian as though all doors should be unlocked, all goods and services should be free and available to all is very noble.  Unfortunately, not here on earth with real human beings.

 

 

 

Let’s talk about a few things. First when you buy a Mytek Brooklyn ADC part of what you are paying for is licensing and royalties on the MQA Kernel. When you purchase an MQA download part of the cost is a royalty to MQA. When you listen to the file on a Mytek Brooklyn DAC part of the cost of the DAC is licensing and royalties on the MQA hardware decoder. So as a producer and consumer you are paying for the right to use MQA.

 

I do wonder now about your agenda. You are doing everything possible to avoid connecting MQA and DRM. Including admitting you violated the law with your SACDs. This must be vital to you in some way.

 

What you are saying is if you buy one my videos you can do whatever you want with it. When the reality is I have restricted your right to modify it. You can make as many copies as you want to give to staff or clients and I’m fine with that. You take 10 minutes out and you have violated my right to keep the file unmodified. And of course the copyright laws of the United States which I will enforce.

[esldude]

I am perplexed. 

 

Do we need an MQA sub-forum?

 

Do we need a DRM sub-forum?

 

Do we need a legal copyright/DRM sub-forum and anyone not an attorney can only ask questions of members that are attorneys?

 

 

[fung0]

8 hours ago, witchdoctor said:

The problem is solved? You and I both know that pirating is still a major problem. Artists lose, labels, and actually consumers lose too IMO. Today they even have new ways to pirate via mobile:

 

1. Depends what you mean by "problem." In a global economy that has been stalled for decades, entertainment content is one of the few industries that somehow continues to grow its very healthy profits from year to year. So it's rather odd to suggest that publishers are losing huge amounts of revenue to 'piracy.' However, it's rather easy to understand why they'd want us to think so, and why they'd continue to build up the terrifying chimera of piracy using every means at their disposal.

 

2. When we speak of DRM in relation to MQA, we're not talking about classic "copy protection." What is clear is that the rigorous hardware-based authentication (needlessly) built into MQA will allow for all sorts of shenanigans.

 

For example, we can envision buying an MQA recording and applying some sort of digital processing during playback (i.e. without making even a personal copy) - then finding that the altered recording fails 'authentication' and our expensive, legally-owned DAC refuses to play it. This would not only be classic DRM, it would be a particularly egregious application of DRM to rob us of our legal rights. (A form of, er... 'piracy,' if you will.)

 

3. A recent comment raised the question of consumers' rights. It's worth a reminder that copyright law traditionally assumes the 'public domain' to be the default state of all content. That is, it takes as its first axiom that the rights of the public are fundamental.

 

The content industry has been talking endlessly about "protecting creators' rights," until we've forgotten that consumers are meant to have still greater rights - and failed to notice that nobody is doing much to protect those rights. Maybe what we need is some form of, for lack of a better term, 'digital rights management' technology, that would let us protect our rights. A good start might be mandating open formats that let us use content in all the ways the law allows.

[Jud]

6 hours ago, esldude said:

 

Do we need a legal copyright/DRM sub-forum and anyone not an attorney can only ask questions of members that are attorneys?

 

Do we need attorneys who are foolish enough to try to answer?

[esldude]

2 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

Do we need attorneys who are foolish enough to try to answer?

I don't believe I am qualified to answer that question itself. 

[lucretius]

23 hours ago, Sal1950 said:

Chris, we can't forget that there are a few people at labels with ethics.

Remember Linn

https://www.linn.co.uk/blog/mqa-is-bad-for-music

 

The argument at that website location is so flawed, it's ridiculous -- I hope we don't need to go through it?

[Fitzcaraldo215]

14 hours ago, Rt66indierock said:

 

Let’s talk about a few things. First when you buy a Mytek Brooklyn ADC part of what you are paying for is licensing and royalties on the MQA Kernel. When you purchase an MQA download part of the cost is a royalty to MQA. When you listen to the file on a Mytek Brooklyn DAC part of the cost of the DAC is licensing and royalties on the MQA hardware decoder. So as a producer and consumer you are paying for the right to use MQA.

 

I do wonder now about your agenda. You are doing everything possible to avoid connecting MQA and DRM. Including admitting you violated the law with your SACDs. This must be vital to you in some way.

 

What you are saying is if you buy one my videos you can do whatever you want with it. When the reality is I have restricted your right to modify it. You can make as many copies as you want to give to staff or clients and I’m fine with that. You take 10 minutes out and you have violated my right to keep the file unmodified. And of course the copyright laws of the United States which I will enforce.

When I bought my first CD player in 1983, there were royalties included in the price of that player that its maker paid to Sony/Philips.  Each time I bought a CD to play in it, there were royalties included in the cost of that.  Also, for a very long time, there was no way for an average consumer to copy or "back up" his CD collection to other media, such as a PC.  

 

There were licensing and royalty agreements across the industry covering the use of CD technology.  As a consumer, I paid a price to use the technology of CD.  If I wanted to use the technology, I paid the price, including bundled in licensing fees.  But, was there DRM?  No.  How does this differ from MQA?  You seem to be saying that these agreements and fee payments alone are evidence of DRM.  But, the above example would indicate that is not true.  

 

The point is I think arguments about what is or is not DRM are not simple, as is the unfounded claim that I am "violating the law". They are complicated and legalistic and beyond anyone's expertise in this forum, including me.  So, the simple-minded claim  MQA  = DRM is not as clear cut as many here want to make it, in my view.

 

My agenda?  I have no personal plans for MQA at the current time.  I am just watching the technology to see if it develops into something I want.  In the mean time, I just hate to see a mob that does not have all the facts, is speculating and rushing to judgement clog the airwaves of this forum with stuff that may not be true.  My agenda is let's see what MQA can do when we have more information and it gets wider market exposure.  In other words, I support Chris's view, and I question factual inaccuracy when I think I see it.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[lucretius]

9 minutes ago, Fitzcaraldo215 said:

The point is I think arguments about what is or is not DRM are not simple, as is the unfounded claim that I am "violating the law". They are complicated and legalistic and beyond anyone's expertise in this forum, including me.  So, the simple-minded claim  MQA  = DRM is not as clear cut as many here want to make it, in my view.

 

If I can copy an MQA file and give it to 100 friends and they can play it fine, including the unfolding on their MQA enabled DAC, then where is the DRM?

[rickca]

Sounds like Sony and Merlin have joined the MQA partner list, announced today at Munich High End.  Could someone at the show confirm this please?

[The Computer Audiophile]

Merlin joined. Waiting on another press release ...

[witchdoctor]

11 hours ago, fung0 said:

 

1. Depends what you mean by "problem." In a global economy that has been stalled for decades, entertainment content is one of the few industries that somehow continues to grow its very healthy profits from year to year. So it's rather odd to suggest that publishers are losing huge amounts of revenue to 'piracy.' However, it's rather easy to understand why they'd want us to think so, and why they'd continue to build up the terrifying chimera of piracy using every means at their disposal.

 

2. When we speak of DRM in relation to MQA, we're not talking about classic "copy protection." What is clear is that the rigorous hardware-based authentication (needlessly) built into MQA will allow for all sorts of shenanigans.

 

For example, we can envision buying an MQA recording and applying some sort of digital processing during playback (i.e. without making even a personal copy) - then finding that the altered recording fails 'authentication' and our expensive, legally-owned DAC refuses to play it. This would not only be classic DRM, it would be a particularly egregious application of DRM to rob us of our legal rights. (A form of, er... 'piracy,' if you will.)

 

3. A recent comment raised the question of consumers' rights. It's worth a reminder that copyright law traditionally assumes the 'public domain' to be the default state of all content. That is, it takes as its first axiom that the rights of the public are fundamental.

 

The content industry has been talking endlessly about "protecting creators' rights," until we've forgotten that consumers are meant to have still greater rights - and failed to notice that nobody is doing much to protect those rights. Maybe what we need is some form of, for lack of a better term, 'digital rights management' technology, that would let us protect our rights. A good start might be mandating open formats that let us use content in all the ways the law allows.

Welcome to the board Fungo and thanks for the info. 

[crenca]

11 hours ago, fung0 said:

 

The content industry has been talking endlessly about "protecting creators' rights," until we've forgotten that consumers are meant to have still greater rights - and failed to notice that nobody is doing much to protect those rights. Maybe what we need is some form of, for lack of a better term, 'digital rights management' technology, that would let us protect our rights. A good start might be mandating open formats that let us use content in all the ways the law allows.

 

I have wondered along the lines of a "consumers union" as well.  However, there is no money in it, so who is going to fund and energize it?  Our "democracies" are really run by and for those who have the willingness and resources to run for office and to lobby those in office.  The "content industry" obviously has both of those, but what do consumers have?  The internet has evened things up a bit - a consumer can now talk to other consumers through forums like these, to the great consternation of content providers and their willing dupes in "the press" but beyond that who is going to really speak for us and our rights in our respective capitals & halls of power?

[witchdoctor]

34 minutes ago, rickca said:

Sounds like Sony and Merlin have joined the MQA partner list, announced today at Munich High End.  Could someone at the show confirm this please?

Yes, Sony joined MQA

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 minutes ago, crenca said:

 

I have wondered along the lines of a "consumers union" as well.  However, there is no money in it, so who is going to fund and energize it?  Our "democracies" are really run by and for those who have the willingness and resources to run for office and to lobby those in office.  The "content industry" obviously has both of those, but what do consumers have?  The internet has evened things up a bit - a consumer can now talk to other consumers through forums like these, to the great consternation of content providers and their willing dupes in "the press" but beyond that who is going to really speak for us and our rights in our respective capitals & halls of power?

 

As consumers we have the ultimate power when it comes to life's non-essential goods. We don't purchase them. The product goes away. The company goes away.