No-copy Music CDs Burn Me Up

topgold

I'm a little hesitant mentioning that I bought "White Lilies Island" by Natalie Imbruglia. When I tried to rip the thing into my MP3 player, it turned out that the CD was copy protected.

Now what entitles the record company to choose the player that I will listen to the CD? I think it's a little much to assume that I want to carry Natalie along with me to hear the tracks.

As far as I can figure, I can play the CD on a dedicated music CD player, but not on a PC. Fortunately, a friend's iMac can rip it without a bother, so I'm sorted for now. But I'm still peeved that I can't use my playback technology.

Monkey

Here's how you can do it: Get a cable to hook your stereo up to your PC and play the CD over the computer while recording it with some sort of sound recording program.

irishguy

we sell the cables in argos 4 about 10 quid there is a load of other cables wit it 2

PiE

Surely there's a cr*ck.

Bard

Originally posted by irishguy
we sell the cables in argos 4 about 10 quid there is a load of other cables wit it 2

£10?

Bit expensive, that, isn't it?

Screw Argos... go to an Irish company... Peats parts department will make them up for you. You specify the length of cable and what jacks you want on either end. It'll work out a lot cheaper... particularly if all you want to do is connect your stereo to the Line-In socket! ( :rolleyes: )

b20uvkft6m5xwg

Surely an RCA cable or one of 3.5mm twin jack is not goin to cost a tenner. I bought one a few years ago for about 2 squid in Totterdells in Stillorgan SC

BTW There is some software to get around the problem in question AFAIK;)

[go google it !]

topgold

What I don't like is how the record companies have started messing with CDs I buy. They're trying to influence how I use them and I didn't ask for that kind of hand-holding when I decided to spend my money. And I don't like the industry trying to clamp down on MP3 as my music format of choice.

pencil

Bought 'Groove Armada's' new album 'goodbye country (hello nightclub)' on Sunday and there are no readable files on the Cd, just a exe which brings you to a site which lets you download 'bonus' (fuc*k you!) tracks. Must have the anti-copy stuff.

The problem is I listen to must of my music in work on the computer, so this CD is no good to me. There is no mention of this on the packaging.

I read on somewhere (can't remember) that someone had gotten back onto the store/record company and had the CD replaced.

Anyone know anything about this?

I'm going to get these mp3's and host permanently with with my AG Satellite.

pencil

Originally posted by 80project
Surely an RCA cable or one of 3.5mm twin jack is not goin to cost a tenner. I bought one a few years ago for about 2 squid in Totterdells in Stillorgan SC

More to the point, what's the point in buying 'Digital Media' if you have to resort to this too listen to it!

I

Mike Hammy

"pencil: I read on somewhere (can't remember) that someone had gotten back onto the store/record company and had the CD replaced."

Apparently this has happened all over the UK and Ireland with people returning Natatie Imbrugagugilillia's* album to HMV and Virgin and demanding a normal, non-protected copy.
And they've been getting them, too.




*phew

b20uvkft6m5xwg

I hear Y'all:)

mp3 has become a generic term for "lets rip off the music biz", when in fact thats plainly untrue. mp3 is just a different transportation and storage device for audio- like the way vinyl, tapes and cds were.

Of course certain indivduals will abuse the convienience of the medium to engage in widespread copyright infringement, but what is the problem with me, as the owner of a CD ripping it and storing it as an mp3 for my convienence & Nothing Else!!??

NADA is the answer.

This particular topic is very much of a personal interest and I researched alot about it last year in relation to International Trade Law and the TRIPS (Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights) Agreement. The issue has cropped up before with free to air radio and twin-cassette tape decks and will probably die down over time if we kick up enough! Perhaps ppl getting an exchange on these protected CD's as stated is the music industry seeing sense already:)[I hope!]

Mike Hammy

Right, here we go, from http://www.cdrinfo.com

Fans get free replacement of copy-protected CD

"...The new Natalie Imbruglia CD, White Lilies Island, was launched in Europe furnished with software designed to hinder illegal copying. But listeners complained that it hijacks their PC to play only in low-fi, refuses to play on some Apple Macs and does not play properly on some consumer players. As sold, the CD carries no warning that it is copy-protected, just a small print credit to "Cactus Data Shield 200 by Courtesy of Midbar Tech Ltd, Tel-Aviv, Israel". Unhappy UK consumers can now claim their replacement. The US version, launched on 27 November, will not be protected.

Philips controls the CD standard and their spokesman says: "Any changes that put a disc outside the CD standard result in a disc that should no longer be described or marketed as a CD."

The Natalie Imbruglia disk is a "multisession" mix of twelve ordinary 16 bit CD music tracks, and one data track containing the same music compressed by a proprietory process into a 29.4 megabyte file. When played on a Windows PC, without any attempt at copying, a program on the CD over-rides Windows Media Player, and plays a highly compressed version of the music at 80 kbps - the normal CD standard is 1.4 mbps.

This stops some PC copy software working. But it also means people who legitimately choose to listen to the disk through a PC get poor sound. Other ways of playing the disk have also been affected. Some Macs play no music, while others cannot play Track 1. The disk cannot be listened to when the Philips CD recorder is used as a player. And Track 1 will not play on a Sony PlayStation 2 deck, although Track 2 will..."

b20uvkft6m5xwg

See... the Music Indus. seeing sense already

Bard

As the big white on black sticker on Elana Kehoe's Mac Laptop says:

MP3 IS NOT A CRIME!

tribble

I know that it's not the point but -
you can copy (cd to cd-r) the protected disc's using
clone cd www.elby.de/CloneCD/english

It read's and writes the disc as raw data - no error correction, exact bit for bit copy...

I know this doesn't help you rip it to mp3 but i thought you may be interested all the same...

Mike Hammy

MP3 IS NOT A CRIME!

...unless you download all your music from Audiogalaxy Satellite, that is.

b20uvkft6m5xwg

Originally posted by Bard
As the big white on black sticker on Elana Kehoe's Mac Laptop says:

MP3 IS NOT A CRIME!

I knew I remembered posting that scan somewhere...

Might need to turn your monitor upside down to really get a good glimpse:)

FatB

Did I see somewhere that the promo cd that was sent to radio stations was protected by writing an error at the start of the disk so that a pc would read the error and go no further where as a cd player will skip the error as it does not reconise it!?!?! this was to stop the track getting around before it was officially released, but like has been said before a line-in cable would sort it all out!!!

dahamsta

As the big white on black sticker on Elana Kehoe's Mac Laptop says:

Would you like fries with your McLaptop?

*snort*

adam

DeadBankClerk

Originally posted by Bard
As the big white on black sticker on Elana Kehoe's Mac Laptop says:

MP3 IS NOT A CRIME!

how do u know its black and white?

b20uvkft6m5xwg

Because a few of us have been privelged enough to see it in the flesh;)

sceptre

Change the cdfs.vxd file (if you're using Win95/98) with that updated file available on the Net. It'll display the .cda tracks as regular wav tracks that you can just drag to your HD. Rip them from there - gives you a perfect copy of the audio tracks.

I laughed when I heard that Virgin and HMV were pulling the Cactus-protected disc from the shelves. Why? Because I'd persuaded quite a few people in Ireland and the UK to buy it and return it for cash.

Sick of record companies sneaking copy-protected CDs on to the market in test runs without telling people (some copies of Destiny's Child, Daft Punk, Starsailor, Dido - all of which I copied without any hassle using DiscJuggler)

At least with the Nat Imbruglia release the Cactus name was on the outside of the album (although I do realise that it would mean little to most people). In any case, I had it two months before it was released o it was a bit silly copy-protecting it - when the danm thing was available for bloody ages.

Off to sleep before I get incoherent.

Net music/Napster/copy protection and so on is basically my final year thesis btw (it's a little more coherent than the above).

Mike Hammy

Originally posted by sceptre
In any case, I had it two months before it was released o it was a bit silly copy-protecting it - when the danm thing was available for bloody ages.

Off to sleep before I get incoherent.

Net music/Napster/copy protection and so on is basically my final year thesis btw (it's a little more coherent than the above).

Hopefully.

Does your thesis cover the technical aspects only or does it handle the moral and business implications of Net music?

sceptre

Actually there's not that much emphasis on the technical aspects. I will mention them but mostly only in passing - stuff like unf**k.exe with regard to wma, present failure of SDMI and other techy things.

It started as a purely legal examination of the Napster phenomenon and examining the potential of mp3, influence on the record industry and so on. While it'll still do that, it's broadened into divx and net video, more emphasis on people's attitudes to the concept and the attempts of the industry to head Napster off at the pass with pay-services like PressPlay and its competitors.

So it's now more an examination of new technologies and copyright than anything else. Law crossed with business.

Mike Hammy

Originally posted by sceptre
Law crossed with business.

Lawiness?