Slashdot Log In
Dell Colludes With RIAA, Disables Stereo Mix
Posted by
timothy
on Thu Jul 10, 2008 08:50 PM
from the please-test-for-crazy-conspiracy dept.
from the please-test-for-crazy-conspiracy dept.
RCTrucker7 writes with a link to a Maximum PC story, which begins: "Details of Dell's surreptitious collusion with RIAA (Record Industry Association of America) have emerged. Apparently, the computer manufacturer disabled the Stereo Mix/Mono Mix/Wave Out sound recording function on certain notebooks to assuage RIAA. The hardware functionality is being disabled without any prior notice and one blogger has even alleged that he was asked by Dell's customer support staff to [shell] out $99 if he desired the stereo mix option. Gateway and Pac Bell are the other two manufacturers to have bowed to RIAA at the expense of their customers' satisfaction and disabled stereo mix without warning." (There are some workarounds posted in the comments of the linked article.)
Related Stories
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Any...facts in this case? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Any...facts in this case? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Any...facts in this case? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Any...facts in this case? (Score:5, Insightful)
Right, which is still mostly conjecture and RIAA bashing. I don't see any evidence they were involved - if someone's got REAL links with REAL data, let's have them! Linking to a Dell page with a workaround for an issue isn't proof of all the wild speculation making the rounds.
Parent
Re:Any...facts in this case? (Score:5, Informative)
From the techdirt link posted above:
However, there seems to be no evidence whatsoever that the RIAA had any part in this. On the whole, it sounds like someone just made a bad decision in terms of how to configure certain sound cards. If someone can provide any evidence that the RIAA actually had a role in this, we'll post an update, but there's no reason to jump to conclusions without any evidence. That's what the RIAA does.
Yep, plenty of facts! Can't get more conclusive than that! RIAA is caught red-handed.
I guess FUD works both ways.
-Em
Parent
Re:Any...facts in this case? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Wouldn't work (Score:5, Funny)
Nah, that would make Slashdot outright unusable. I mean, half the headlines would be identical then. Can you imagine trying to find anything? ;)
Parent
Re:What editors? (Score:5, Funny)
I'm eight and have ADD, you insensitive.. LOOK! A BUNNY!
Parent
Re:Any...facts in this case? (Score:5, Interesting)
What's really funny is that I bet those machines run Vista.
And Vista has the Stereo Mix functionality built into the OS [microsoft.com]!
Parent
Allegedly...? (Score:5, Insightful)
Dell Allegedly Colludes with RIAA, Stereo Mix Disabled without Forewarning
Slashdot:
Dell Colludes With RIAA, Disables Stereo Mix
Parent
Re:Use? (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry to reply to myself, but I forgot to add that Dell is not the only one that distributes drivers that disable stereo mix. Lenovo has these problems too:
http://forums.lenovo.com/lnv/board/message?board.id=Special_Interest_General&thread.id=316&view=by_date_ascending&page=1
It's quite a popular thread, and Lenovo reps have posted too.
Parent
Re:Use? (Score:5, Insightful)
The only use I see is for a program like FRAPS, which records your screen and sound.
Exactly, and I for one am a person that uses that functionality to record stuff legally (voiced go lessons on the Kiseido Go Server to be exact). Heck, it is impossible to do it illegally as it falls under the same category as recording videos. Why should I be restricted from using my own computer as I wish.
What I am really afraid of however is how these people are colluding by using a mix of cryptography and laws to prevent "unauthorized" equipment from being able to interface with the system. Right now I can always get another more free piece of equipment, but what about in 10-15 years when you can't run the software on anything but authorized hardware, and trying to bypass that is a federal offense.
The above may be a nightmare to me, but for some rich people it is an utopian vision. I mean it when I say that I am afraid. Afraid because people tolerate minor restrictions being added all the time with just minor protests. It will become worse much worse and by the time people wake up it will be too late...again. Have you heard some of the people behind this. They are not acting as individuals but instead as lunatic powerhungry agents for powerful immoral organisations.
And I used immoral instead of amoral deliberatly. Earning money is an amoral stance, but the idea of earning money above anything else is simply immoral.
Parent
Re:Use? (Score:5, Informative)
What's also funny is that typically the Stereo Mix functionality is implemented post-DAC. So when you're recording from stereo mix, the signal goes:
Output->DAC->ADC->Stereo Mix
So modulo electrical noise on the microphone and headphone jack, you get essentially the same result you'd get as if you went:
Output->DAC->Headphone Jack-> $6.00 Cable [radioshack.com]->Line In Jack->ADC->Line In
Parent
Re:Use? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yep it's ridiculous but true. For all you disbelievers, try recording "silence" on your Stereo Mix. Not so silent now, is it ?
I actually hadn't used this feature in ages, but I did a few weeks ago to rip a friend's tune on some lame-ass artist site... the MP3 download was "disabled" and the guy wasn't answering his phone, so I just recorded the streamed output from my onboard sound. Hello noise! I was seeing -48db peaks, maybe -58db average; it's almost inaudible but still not what I expected.
So just to be sure it wasn't the actual source file that was noisy, I did the same thing via my old M-Audio Audiophile 2496, using its "Monitor Mixer", and that one was perfectly clean. I would expect any card with an Envy24 chip to perform the same, as it does this virtual mixing at the digital stage, right on the chip.
There used to be a nice "virtual audio cable" freeware, but Google only turns up some $30 whoreware offering that's clogging up the index.
Parent
Re:Use? (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.fridgesoft.de/downloads.php [fridgesoft.de]
"UPDATE: HarddiskOgg is now Open Source, the source code is available on SourceForge."
It says it's not for streaming audio, but it worked on the radio interview I mentioned above.
Parent
Re:Use? (Score:5, Interesting)
this MAY be only for the 'junk' cards like creative.
yes, you heard me. creative resamples (!) to 48k. always. even if the input is ALREADY at 48k!
historically, they have been evil like this.
and so, its not surprising that you get resampled junk when you put silence on the input.
also, while I'm on the subject, 'dolby digital LIVE' is also junk. it tried to convert regular stereo to '5.1' but it does some analog conversions (I'm pretty sure) where you should have an all digital chain. the fidelity is NOT there, its NOT good and should be avoided. if you have 2 channel audio, just LEAVE it as 2 channel and don't get caught in this marketing LIE about upsampling to 5.1 channel mode. you gain nothing good from that and the DD live chipsets are junk.
good ones: cmedia (cmi) 8738 series. better one: envy24 chipset. those do NOT resample and are bit-perfect.
Parent
Next Story: (Score:5, Funny)
The MPAA has decided that asking large computer manufacturers to disable any Video Out options, so pirates are thwarted.
Re:Next Story: (Score:5, Insightful)
Oddly enough the screenshot feature of Mac OS X is disabled when you are playing a DVD. I'd take a screenshot of the error message, but I obviously can't.
This seems to be the current trend. You can't print bank notes from Photoshop, you can't record audio on your computer, you can't take screenshots. I'm sure this is just scratching the surface of treacherous computing...
Parent
Re:Next Story: (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually you can still take screenshots. There are three easy ways. One is to use Grab.app. Another is to use the 'screencapture' command line tool in Terminal. And lastly you can use any third-party screen capture program. Apple half-assedly only disables the standard keyboard shortcuts. This is typical of their compliance with required terms for media playback. For example, the standard DVD player contract also requires making a reasonable effort to disable debuggers. Apple does this by calling ptrace(PT_DENY_ATTACH, 0, 0, 0) during application startup. This causes the application to crash if it's being run in the debugger, and causes any debugger attached to the application later to crash. It's laughably easy to work around, though; just set a breakpoint on the ptrace function, then tell the debugger to return immediately when it's hit. Presto!
Parent
Re:Next Story: (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Next Story: (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Next Story: (Score:5, Informative)
You have to turn your hardware acceleration off.
Right-click
Properties
Settings Tab
Advanced
Troubleshoot Tab
Drag slider to the left
Take you pictures and just slide it back to the right.
Parent
Re:Next Story: (Score:4, Informative)
Welcome to the dreadful hack that is the Windows graphics overlay system. It allocates a very specific color that will be treated as a video area by the video card, so that it won't overlap windows that should be on top. It's clever, but XVideo in the open source world is much better. As usual.
Parent
Re:Next Story: (Score:5, Informative)
I seriously doubt Photoshop would stop you, but that's just me. It seems a little pointless to have photo-editing software try to do that.
That said, for years scanners, copiers, and I believe laser prints have been designed to try to detect people copying currency and refuse to print. It may happen in ink jets and other printers too. I believe it is only the high end models though.
There is also the "invisible" yellow dot tracking that so many printers do today (you can Google it, or I know it's been discussed here years ago).
Parent
Re:Next Story: (Score:4, Informative)
I seriously doubt Photoshop would stop you, but that's just me. It seems a little pointless to have photo-editing software try to do that.
Are you sure [slashdot.org] about that?
There is also the "invisible" yellow dot tracking that so many printers do today (you can Google it, or I know it's been discussed here years ago).
I'm well aware of it. I guess the anonymous "printing press" was just too much for the Government to contemplate leaving around.
Parent
Re:Next Story: (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Next Story: (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Why is RIAA asking this? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why is RIAA asking this? (Score:5, Insightful)
>Is this to prevent home grown artists from recording their own high quality material?
As a musician, I would want to challenge this as abridgement of my rights, and I'd want to make a (worth $Billions$) anti-trust case out of it.
Parent
Re:Why is RIAA asking this? (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent modded as "Funny", but you know, the "Independent musician invoking antitrust against the RIAA" thing might just have something going for it.
Too bad you'd need a huge chunk of capital just to get the legal ball rolling...
Parent
Re:Why is RIAA asking this? (Score:4, Informative)
Dismissed at the pleading stage for failure to state a claim for which relief can be granted. There is no legal theory on this planet that would make a third party (even a disreputable one like the RIAA) responsible for the Dell's choice to include or exclude some features from a driver. Perhaps you could proceed in a fraud case against Dell IF somewhere they claimed stereo-mix as a feature or, and this is a huge stretch, general merchantability.
More broadly, I suggest you stop thinking of the legal system is a cure-all for every practice you don't like. The law is not meant to be an all-encompassing tool for redressing every wrong but rather a minimal standard of civilized decency. While I'm no fan of the RIAA, and many of their tactics are indeed illegal (I'll let NYCL flesh those out), this particular odious act is still well within the law.
Parent
Re:Why is RIAA asking this? (Score:5, Insightful)
>It isn't about recording audio input from microphones, it is about making a copy of whats going out to the speakers.
Don't try to dictate to me how I may, or may not, use my tools, thank you.
Parent
Re:Why is RIAA asking this? (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Why is RIAA asking this? (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Because they are probably not.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this to prevent home grown artists from recording their own high quality material?
Basically we are talking about Dell screwing up one driver to which people are ascribing various conspiracy theories. If you are actually read any of the blogs they are all just speculating and pointing to each other. Some of the more serious blogs outright say it is just random speculation, but that does not stop them from spreading the FUD. Something tells me if Dell made some secret deal, this would affect ALL of their computers, not just ones based on specific chipset. They wouldn't be selling alternative audiocards, and they would not be posting workarounds all over the place.I think that old variation of Occam's razor applies - "don't attribute to malice what can easily be explained by stupidity." Its not the first driver Dell screwed up - its not going to be the last. This one just happened to somewhat fit into a conspiracy theory.
-Em
Parent
Re:Why is RIAA asking this? (Score:4, Informative)
correct - any musician wanting decent sound quality will use an spdif (or similar) interface and do the analog/digital conversion outside the computer.
these days, if you need only 2 channel stereo you can use a usb-audio input device and there are ones that have spdif toslink (opto) inputs. then you front-end that with an a/d converter, maybe a small mixer and you're all set. can be done for $100 or so and you'll get bit-perfect recording. usb-audio (asynch) drivers are driverless! so there's nothing 'they' can disable on you.
same with usb-audio style spdif out devices. those run in synch mode and they are also driverless (mac, win, linux, bsd, you name it). you can find usb audio dongles that support 2496 samplerates and even DD5.1/DTS via raw mode.
no one that would be 'serious' would use the analog i/o ports on a notebook for recording.
BUT that does not let dell off the hook for hobling their own goddamn hardware. no excuse for that kind of behavior. shame on dell. I will remember this stunt for the next time an IT manager type asks me which brand of hardware we should go with.
vote with your dollars. avoid dell and when asked, TELL them why.
Parent
Re:Why is RIAA asking this? (Score:5, Insightful)
What has been disabled is the loopback, which lets you record the music that the computer is playing. Youtube for example.
Yeah, or even your own LEGALLY COPYRIGHTED drum/beat/synthesizer loops. Or even the audio off your home videos to use for your own LEGAL reuse in your own LEGAL compilation home videos. Or even your own LEGAL automated answering service that may need to record messages. Or any of a plethora of other LEGAL uses.
As a poster has already stated, do NOT tell me how I should/can or shouldn't/cannot use MY hardware.
Parent
packard bell? (Score:5, Funny)
Gateway and Pac Bell are the other two manufacturers to have bowed to RIAA at the expense of their customers' satisfaction and disabled stereo mix without warning."
Is that the Packard Bell that so many of us loved to hate? Really, did they even reach the technological prowess of having stereo recording in their systems?
I really thought their systems pretty well disappeared back in the mid to late 90s, and were buried in a junkyard with rusted-out Yugos somewhere.
Re:packard bell? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:packard bell? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
This is just another useless annoyance (Score:5, Insightful)
A lawsuit waiting to happen? (Score:4, Interesting)
If Dell advertises "ACME sound chipset ABC123" but doesn't deliver all the features of that chipset, are they guilty of false advertising?
Just asking.
Sometimes... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Firehose (Score:5, Insightful)
I submitted a story that didn't make it beyond blue in the firehose, but which was selected for one of the subsections. I submitted another which made to red, and it wasn't selected.
Firehose popularity may be something editors consider, but it is by no means the deciding factor. This story is on the front page because an editor thought it ought to be there.
Parent
Really? Is this a big huge problem? (Score:4, Interesting)
Just use the non-Dell drivers. If it's a Sigmatel, download a Sigmatel driver from somewhere else for the same chipset. Use Everest or something to report what chipset it actually is, and just go get someone else's driver. I've dived through the .INF files for some of these, and this kind of thing is something you can enable/disable directly within there, if you were so inclined and knew where to look (and had the time and patience to change it in about six different places in the same file). It's actually pretty easy to figure out if you're used to looking at config files, even if it really is a different beast.
I just wanted to say... (Score:5, Informative)
I did some googling of my own and found other users who located a Dell driver (R171789) for XP that can be installed in Vista using the XP-SP2 compatibility mode option. I found this driver, installed it as prescribed, went into Vista's Recording Devices, told it to show and enable all disabled devices, and boom, there was my stereo mix. So far I have been recording without any issues.
So yeah, without question it sucks that I even had to go through that, but it took me 10 minutes of research and even less than that to enable and configure.
I hope this helps somebody.
They caught me! (Score:5, Interesting)
Here is the kicker though; if I couldn't do that, I still would not buy the CD. On the contrary, being able to sample music like this brings me closer to caving in and buying a CD( but I typically only buy used CDs because I am more willing to pay the discounted, still marked up price when I know the profit goes to the small business, so suck on that secondary market RIAA ).
Lenovo ThinkPads also have a disabled waveout (Score:5, Interesting)
I just got a new T61p through the upgrade program at work, and spent literally hours a few nights ago trying to figure out how to re-enable this function.
I use it for one reason only: I call into telecons from our VOIP client, and record them so I can post them online internally as MP3s (along with meeting minutes) for those that miss the discussion. I dial in from my phone, dial in again from the laptop, hit record in Audacity, and have the whole thing recorded and done.
I'm really quite annoyed because this simple function won't prevent pirates from pirating audio. Clever folks will always figure out a workaround.
And yep, I'm an IBMer. I work in Power Systems development (Power 575, 595, etc., NOT at Lenovo). There's even one or two random posts on our intranet message boards mentioning that folks couldn't get this to work on the latest systems, but no one's posted a solution.
This is a common problem on Analog Devices SoundMax Digital HD audio chips. I was able to modify the INF file for the SoundMax driver to give me the GUI option to record the audio, but when I select that device, it records nothing, so obviously something else isn't quite correct.
At least I'm not the only one with these problems. Hopefully if enough people make a fuss, AD will re-enable this function.
~ Mike
Grumpy bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
OK, here is ALL of the evidence that the RIAA has been strongarming Dell into this behaviour:
(from http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/aspnet/32286847/vista-audio-solution--wh.aspx [eggheadcafe.com])
"Many of you may have been as frustrated as myself by Micrsoft bowing to the RIAA
and pressuring the soundcard manufacturers to remove the "What You Hear" feature
from their drivers."
Oh, yeah, and there's the other article which points to it, on http://www.ripten.com/2008/07/07/bend-over-dude-youre-getting-a-dell/ [ripten.com]:
"Some believe that Dell, and several other computer manufacturers such as Gateway and Pac Bell, were pressured by the RIAA (Record Industry Association of America) into disabling the stereo mix functionality." ...
"So that we are all clear, the evidence points to Dell appeasing the RIAA by disabling hardware, only to have their customer service reps turn around and offer a solution to their consumers that reverses the alteration they made in the first place at a premium price."
Yep, that's it. One guy claimed it with absolutely no evidence, and so it's apparently true. Another guy wilfully misinterpreted some random tech support guy's suggestion, and now we have a collusion between Dell and the RIAA. Wow, this is investigative reporting at its finest!
My Dell laptop at work didn't have a way of turning off the damned 'tap to click' feature of the touchpad. I spent ages looking for a downloadable driver to make that feature work. Based on the rules of logic illustrated above, this is clearly a sign of collusion between Dell and Logitech.
Honestly, aren't there enough examples of corporate bullshit that we don't have to invent false ones?
Re:What does Dell stand to gain? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent