Slashdot Mirror

The proper term is CORRUPTED, not copy protected.They do not conform to Red Book Standards.

Congressman Rick Boucher of VA has written a letter to the IFPI and the RIAA suggesting that under the AHRA this may illegal and asking for explanations of the methods used. Under the AHRA there is a 2% surcharge on every CD recorder sold in the US at the wholesale level (See section 1004), that goes to the RIAA, just as there is a 2% surcharge on "Music" designated CDR media.

In addition Philips refers to these corrupted discs as "silver disks with music on them, but which do not resemble CD's" See this article

Boycott-riaa and Fat Chucks are maintaining a list of the corrupted CDs. Also, Check out the Home Recording Rights Coalition

Actually, being DOS'd is exponentially worse than being Slashdotted. My site has been Slashdotted three times in three months and the most traffic (unique pageviews) I ever got was for 200,000 pv's in about 24 hours. A good DDOS attack will generate that in under an hour I suspect (don't know for sure).

There certainly is: Boycott-riaa.com and Fatchucks.com lists all corrupted CDs not just UMG

Here's some good stuff, there's even an automated email form to some retailers:

http://www.fatchucks.com/corruptcds/action.html

You understand and agree that any unauthorized use of the Player or Content would result in irreparable injury to us and/or our affiliates or licensors for which money damages would be inadequate,...

My unauthorized use will cause them so much harm and injury that even money will not suffice??? Isn't the whole reason they are doing this to make people buy more cds (because you can't make copies so yours don't get scratched, stolen, etc.) and disallow the use of the cd to burn MP3s so that they can make more money?

Stupid. I'm going to try and fashion some sort of letter to the editor to let people know this is going on. I told me dad, and he was quite concerned. I think that other non-technical types who haven't heard about this will be as disgusted as we all are. I know our local paper won't provide any info about this.

BTW, one cd that's not on the list provided but that we bought that certainly had problems playing in many of our players (old car cd player and old home cd player)is Warren G's Return of the Regulators, put out Dec. 11 by Universal.

http://www.fatchucks.com/corruptcds/ is a another source for lists of copyrighted cds, not just the ones by Universal.

Fat Chuck's has a list of "copy protected" CDs. Please contribute if you find a new one, thanks.

The article says 'sightings are rare' - don't think so, see here.

As described in a comment on FatChucks

(Tested it on 'Natalie Imbruglia - White Lillies Island' with a Yamaha 6x4x16x SCSI CDRW drive)

1) Get IsoBuster (A Win32 app)

2) Rip the entire disc as raw data. May struggle/take a while. Tell it to ignore any read errors

3) Open the raw file in CoolEdit (or any decent audio editor) as a 44.1Kz 16-bit stereo sample (with Intel byte ordering)

4) There you have it! The entire CD as one big sample!

5) In CoolEdit, you can use 'Edit->AutoCue->Find Phrases and Mark' to split the tracks up automatically

6) Save 'em out, and convert to MP3/Ogg if neccesssary

Fat Chuck's.

If you click the titles, they give you a detailed report. It seems that most people reorted it as NOT protected.

If you won't buy them they won't stock them. Basic business 101. These CDs are a corrupted version of the Redbook specification, and should be called that, "Corrupted" Over the past two years the recording industry has been winning the war of words. To even discuss "copy-protected" cds, implies the acceptance of the term, which is in fact should be refered to as "corrupted".

The LA Times has a quote from the CEO of the company that operates Tower Records states they will refund the money if need be. The Fast and Furious CD is supposed to have a sticker that designates that it is a protected CD. Boycott-riaa.com has a list known corrupted CDs as well as Fatchucks.

Perhaps a better alternative to buying then returning for refund, is to tell the store manager you will not purchase ANY copy protected discs, and then don't.

I first went to Fatchucks to see which cd's are currently being copy protected.....

I then hopped on Morpheus (musiccity.com) and typed in the name of the album that was copy protected....

guess what?!
All the ones that I tried are there. So what does that tell you Mr. RIAA....?

Also, keep a watch on Fatchuck's Corrupt CD list to tell you what batches to avoid and who to contact.

I've made my call to the Federal Trade Commission. Have you?

Writing clearly and correctly helps. IMO if you really want to generate attention, you need to address a concern that affects many people or a smaller concern that affects a more rabid group of people. Pop culture wonders like "All your base," the dancing hamsters, and (going back to the 70's) the pet rock are pretty cool, but I don't have a clue how you maintain long-term interest in that, :-). YMMV?

Take care,
Chuck

This might be one of those times where being a smaller fish in the big computing pond will actually help...apparently the AC who posted the previous comment is right, Macintosh and Linux machines are in fact immune to these problems. Follow this link, read more, and love your non-MS OS.

I own at least one CD on that list and it ripped just fine, so perhaps that are different versions of the CDs on the market

Yes correct. There are limited batches