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Dell Colludes With RIAA, Disables Stereo Mix
Posted by
timothy
on Thu Jul 10, 2008 09:50 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.)
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Any...facts in this case? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Any...facts in this case? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Any...facts in this case? (Score:5, Informative)
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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.
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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]!
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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.
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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...
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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!
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Re:Next Story: (Score:5, Informative)
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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.
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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).
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Re:Next Story: (Score:5, Funny)
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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.
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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...
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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
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
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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.
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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)
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Re:packard bell? (Score:5, Funny)
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This is just another useless annoyance (Score:5, Insightful)
Sometimes... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What does Dell stand to gain? (Score:5, Informative)
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