Creative removing FM recording from players
By Paul Miller 
posted October 16th 2006 3:55PM
posted October 16th 2006 3:55PM
Oh noes! Creative looks like it's the latest manufacturer to fall prey to the RIAA's war on FM recording. Yeah, we thought this all blew over back in the "Home taping is killing music!" days, but slowly we've been seeing modern recording functionality be disabled, with satellite radio devices being some of the first casualties. Now Creative has released a firmware "update" for its Zen MicroPhoto and Zen Vision:M players, which adds Audible support and other minor fixes to the former, video zooming and language support to the latter, but removes FM recording functionality from both players. No telling where this kind of consumer trampling stops, but for now it looks like another win for the RIAA types.[Thanks, Doug R.]
Read - Zen Vision:M
Read - Zen MicroPhoto
Wait, so no one cracked down on this during the heyday of FM, but now that it's obsolete, we have to ban it? Has the RIAA become such greedy assholes that they need to protect something so archaic as FM radio?
This is pathetic.
I will be the first, and certainly not the last to say it:
F*** the RIAA.
the cnet asia post says it is firmware version 1.50.02 that strips this feature but, the firmware version up for download on creatives website is 1.41.01, did creative change their minds?
I guess they did, I actually downloaded 1.50 but now they've replaced the download with 1.41
Good thing i got my zen nano plus on saturday
you know there are those times when you listen to a song on the radio and it sticks in your mind all day. Is that now illegal ?
No they retracted the newer firmware because of DRM playback issues with it. This is all found from epiZENter.net. Read up on everything here: http://www.epizenter.net/comment.php?comment.news.207
glad i dont have a creative
The next step is to ban MP3 playback altogether. MP3 files may have been obtained illegally, so the best thing is to remove MP3 playback functionality.
Users are encouraged to use DRM-enabled files, such as protected WMA.
I agree, this is really retarded. But I wasn't planning on recording FM anyways. The last time I recorded FM music with a cassette tape was in the mid to late 80's ; and I don't want to go back in the 80's. Love the music though.
good thing www.cowon.com still makes among the best portable audio and doesn't care about the RIAA.
Who really listens to FM radio anyway? FCC fined FM to death years ago. Satellite is the way to go now.
Fuck the FCC!! ...and RIAA of course!!
I was disappointed that Creative refused to support OGG files, but this... this just sucks. Creative used to be my favorite MP3 player source... I think i'll go with Iriver from now on.
oh no! i can't record FM!! wait.. who records FM?
It's the principle of it Brandon. You are right, no one in their right mind would want to record FM, but the fact is that the device had the functionality, with the new firmware it wont.
I would class action this one for sure if I owned one. We need to teach the equipment manufacturers to stop listening to the RIAA.
RIAA shame on you for strong-arming a company in to a potential class action suit.
Creative's support also sucks. I recently had a problem with a MuVo TX-FM player. I contacted them and after going through a few automated responses via email, finally got the suggestion to try to get the vendor to replace it, because it's usually faster than going through them.
I contacted Amazon and they immediately agreed to refund my entire purchase price since they no longer had that model. I took that money and bought a SanDisk Sansa.
I would not recommend anyone purchase a Creative MP3 player.
In response to someone earlier:
I actually HAVEN'T heard of anyone getting sued for downloading music. What I've heard of is a bunch of people getting sued for SHARING music. Remember that technically, it's not the downloading that's illegal, it is distributing content without the rights to do so.
Man, this is bad stuff. I'm glad that I have a SanDisk (hopefully other companies won't follow suit!). As was said, it is the principle of it.. who ever heard of removing features in a firmware update???
I did want to chime in on a pet peeve. The RIAA and the major labels are not equivilant to "the music industry". If you want to really effect change, don't just pirate the music of the companies being stupid. Instead, support those that are trying to do the right thing.
I shop now at places like eMusic or Magnatune that sell non-DRM mp3s from indie artists. You can preview tracks on myspace or band homepages. There's relatively cheap CDs from places like CDBaby. Some great artists like Brad Sucks even have free music available. I haven't bought any music from a major label in a while now and I don't feel like I'm missing much.
For all you people that are dismissing the argument as "well, who records crappy FM audio anyway?", that's hardly the only reason one might record FM broadcasts.
As a former radio DJ, we routinely recorded our own broadcasts for the purpose of self-improvement, and regularly recorded other stations to see what the other guys were up to. A tool like this would have been a huge boon for us, and would certainly have fallen under the banner of "fair use".
Make no mistake, organized radio is no fan of the RIAA. The RIAA is made up of parasites who are unable to see the forest for the trees.
Is there a list online of other companies who have done similar things (removing one form of functionality or another)? If not, that might be a good thing to start up, so people can start buying from more honest companies, giving all companies monetary incentive to start (or continue, as the case may be) treating their customers with some level of respect.
It's on all their FM recording models, not just the MicroPhoto and Zen M. All models shipping this month from the factory will have the FM recorder disabled.
This won't stop me if I ever wanted to even though I don't atm, I have a creative zen like the photo one but before that was released ;)
Radio? What is this that you speak of?
I only know of getting free music from Napster.
Does anybody know if the Creative AutoUpdate will warn consumers that their FM Radio Recorder will be removed?
Hey, Kevin. Google for "Audio Home Recording Act". Recording off of FM radio is explicitly legal.
Nice troll, though.
You think this is bad, just wait a little while longer and see how you like it. Let me paint a little picture for you.
You and your family get ready on friday night to go out to eat, so as your walking out, you remember that Smallville is on, so you tell your VCR/TIVO to record it while you are out, but wait, what's this, "This show cannot be recorded or time-shifted do to copyright restrictions" pops up. You try everything you can, but nothing works. Then you have an idea, a few minutes later before you lock the door on the way out, you set the volume, and make sure your camcorder is still zoomed in corectly on your $3000 Plasma, and press record, and close the door behind you, quitely. Welcome to the future. Well in the land of the free, anyway.
Bet you wish you hadn't thrown away that old analog Betamax now, don't cha.
I find it intriguing that the RIAA can amass sufficient clout to convince the governments of the world to police file-sharing sites and networks, and to arrest, fine, and even imprison those consumers it deems guilty of 'piracy,' and whose real crime is keeping a few dollars in THEIR pockets instead of in the pockets of overpaid executives and millionare recording artists.
At the same time, governments worldwide claim to lack the resources to fight the continued spread of internet child pornography. As a victim of a childhood sexual assault, I can tell you that the effects are devastating on the children harmed by this. And yet, our governments prefer to expend all their cyber-policing resources investigating file-sharing sites? Hmm.
Respectfully submitted;
Taliesin
My Lost Childhood
Apologies for the double post, forgot to link to my blog ;)
I find it intriguing that the RIAA can amass sufficient clout to
convince the governments of the world to police file-sharing sites
and networks, and to arrest, fine, and even imprison those consumers
it deems guilty of 'piracy,' and whose real crime is keeping a few
dollars in THEIR pockets instead of in the pockets of overpaid
executives and millionare recording artists.At the same time,
governments worldwide claim to lack the resources to fight the
continued spread of internet child pornography. As a victim of a
childhood sexual assault, I can tell you that the effects are
devastating on the children harmed by this. And yet, our governments
prefer to expend all their cyber-policing resources investigating
file-sharing sites? Hmm.
Respectfully submitted;
Taliesin
http://mylostchildhood.blogspot.com
Thank you for the article, I was still in the return window for my Zen Vision:M and was able to return it and get my money back.
I was happy with the reviews and finally felt comfortable enough to actually buy one of these things and this....
Damnit, If I pay for something, it better be there if I use it or not. I was going to use this feature to record stations while traveling. Which doesn't happen often, but it was one of the reasons I bought this model..
i saw this on their website earlier... it is so dumb.
the RIAA is actually stealing from us now by taking away functionality that was advertised and promised with these players!
someone needs to tell them no, and i'm a little suprised Creative wouldn't!
You need this image as well.
http://www.voidstar.com/images/ipodpirate3.png
Someone needs to pirate the firmware creation to give us the improvements and preserve the FM recording. After all, I don't think Creative is happy about this so...get the message out that their techs can make a pirate firmware available elsewhere.
Kind of sucks, of course we don't have to update but then we're missing out possible fixes to our zen vision. Although I hardly use the FM record, when I bought it that was one of the few specs I was looking at that lead me to the decision of buying it or not.
You know I was reading through all this, and there are some good points all around. I think it would be interesting to see if there would or would not be any legal ramifications if Creative Labs were to simply alter the latest firmware file, and post two different choices. In other words, in one column post a "streamlined" firmware file that addresses all of the issues except FM Radio Recording (hopefully radio can be "listened to" legally; the above comments regarding this are really not simply humor), and then in another column post the "full meal deal" firmware. The reason this isn't as remedial as it sounds, is that this happens all the time, especially with "legal" features that some users cannot and would not want to upgrade in their hardware devices, for backwards compatibility, and so that anything "homemade" or configured in certain ways doesn't get "broken". The EULA permits self-configuration of the provided software.
The problem with this is...some of actually use our players at the gym. The TV's are broadcast using a FM modulator and this allows us to watch the game while on the treadmill. When hitting the weights, just switch over to MP3 music. This is personally why I bought a creative player, and don't take my ipod to the gym. It's bad enough we cannot get AM, but no FM either? That's basically eliminates any reason to buy another product over Apple's.