Manhattan conditionally approved the asking of this question…
On several downloaded music files, there is a swirly sound or 3 beeps, similar to the one you get when you reach a disconnected phone number, several times throughout the file, making it unusable. What is this? On several other files for the same title, these swirls and beeps do not exist.
I am not asking for advice on how to eliminate the noises, or do anything else which may or may not be legal, lest this thread be locked. I am merely curious what the noises are.
Depending upon where these songs were downloaded from, could it be the label or the RIAA perhaps sending out ruined versions of the songs to detract people from downloading their material? I’ve never heard what you’re referring to, so I don’t know; just a guess.
But not all the versions of the file had it, and not all from the same source. Say there were 10 versions of “The Cecil Adam’s Boogie” by the Teeming Millions Jugband, from 10 different sources available for download. 4 files would have the swirl and/or beeps, while the other (um, three, carry the two, multiply by five, divide by eight…)6 files would be good copies.
I tend to think it’s an anti-copy protection, as well, but wouldn’t all of the files be tainted?
If you download music from several subscription based MP3 site, the music will only last as long as the subscription. They give you a limited number of downloads for unlimited usage (usually less than 10). I believe Apple’s current music net allows you to make several copies of said music on a more permanent basis but does not allow you to redistribute. The other subscription sites do not necessarily allow you to even transport said files to an MP3 player or any other portable device.
Anyway, the beeping is probably a security check that allows you to listen or not to listen to said music based on your current subscription status. By paying a subscription fee you can probably get rid of those beeps. However, I am not really very familiar with all of the nuances involved with current MP3 security. It may be as simple as the people who ripped the MP3’s had bad CD copies and/or bad MP3 software.
I would also add this point: many, many people who share files are sharing a LOT of them. They may not even know what they’ve got - and so it’s possible that they’d have a corrupted / copy-protected file and not even know it. Since they don’t know, they don’t get rid of it - and it continues to be shared time and again.
I e-mailed Manhattan, asking his approval for the OP, word for word. He said it would be OK provided I stick to the question at hand.
I will e-mail them now and ask for this thread to be closed. I believe I have the answer I was looking for (amp confirmed my suspicion), and I don’t want this thread to take a bad turn and face the firing squad.
Could they be copy-protected files/discs that were sent out to reviewers/industry types? That would explain why only some of them have the beeps (i.e., many people bought and ripped legit copies, w/o beeps, while others took their protected, early-release reviewers’ copies and posted them).
They’re released by the record company as false “pre-release” songs. Downloaders think they’re getting a song before it’s in stores, but it’s ruined by beeps. I imagine the idea is to get people so frustrated by the fake songs that they stop trying to get the real ones.
(After release, of course, people rip their own copies, and that’s how you get the “clean” versions.)
I’m unaware of any MP3 copy protection. AFAIK, all the subscription music services that disable your music after a certain amount of time use different formats that have support for that, like AAC or LiquidAudio, not MP3.
“Swirly sound” sounds like an MP3 artifact, so I’d bet they’re just bad rips made by lazy people. They could also be intentionally spoiled files, either to discourage reviewers from trading promo copies online, or to frustrate downloaders.