Slashdot Mirror
More Copy Protected CDs?
Mahonrimoriancumer writes "There are a lot of CDs that have been released recently which can't be played on the computer or *laugh* ripped. Apparently only a few markets have the 'copy protected' CDs while the rest don't. Here is a list of some that are 'protected.' Does anyone know of other CDs with this problem?" 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
I remember reading somewhere that there was a copy protected cd released, that you could play on your computer, it had propeitary software and 128 kbps mp3s.
I got a CD the other day with the only truly unbreakable copy protection I've seen. They did it by leaving out the metal layer and, apparrently, the pits which seem so easily copyable. The result is a disc which is almost completely transparent.
Sadly, the disc is unplayable on any of my equipment. Perhaps the publisher anticipated that kind of problem, and that's why they didn't label it, and included it for free on the top of a spindle of CD-R's I bought.
Hopefully, someday all copy-protected CD's will be distributed that way.
The funniest thing is, that most cds are being ripped months before offical release... probably from a source that does not have such protection. And I bet all those albums on protected list are already ripped and availbile on internet.
As far as i'm concerned... such protection just lowers overall quality of CD.
I would like to request that people stop using the phrase "copy protection" and instead use the term "copy prevention"
This has a number of advantages:
- copy protection implies that copying is bad (which it is not)
- copy prevention implies that the music industry is preventing me from making a legitimate copy. (which it is)
- copy prevention (somewhat) signifies that it is futile to prevent people to make copies. They can try and they might stop 90% of the people but it just takes 1 person to get this on MP3 and upload it to the net for the cat to be out of the bag
.
ah shit, that worked well. I put in some angle brackets that got misinterpreted as html
what I meant to say was:
sooner o^&%$r later )(^the p@#$%rogrammer@$#%s of the w#$%#$orld wi@$#%ll find@#$% a wa%^&@#y past (*&^:the ju"%@#$nk data~!$ in thos^$@e CD's, mu}_(ch how hu:_^mans %*%will fin":?+d our w#@%!%^ay throug_){"h this (fi%$#rst?) po#$st
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
[This is directly copied from: http://cdprot.cjb.net/ ... I'm copying it here so it doesn't get /.'ed]
;-) A friend tried copying this CD with a custom audio CD copier (Philips CDR 765) which actually worked. But if you haven't patched yours to be able to write low-cost non-copyrighted CD-R's with it this is quite expensive. This copy will be able to be grabbed on a normal way.
:-)
:-) Then I removed the stickers and pushed the CD back in. The last part I had to push a bit harder to make sure the CD would be totally inserted and fit on the spindle again.
;-)
:-) If the first track will play but not grab skip the first 0.01 seconds or the first block. I use Easy CD-DA Extractor which offers this option (at the bottom of the extract window).
Let me start off by saying that I don't even know for sure if the protection I am talking about is indeed MediaCloQ(TM)....... The symptoms look like it, but I read that MediaCloQ(TM) protected CD's would transfer you to the MediaCloQ(TM) website automatically (as soon as you insert the CD into a CD-ROM drive) where you can download music files.
I recently wanted to make a personal backup of my own CD called "The Loveparade Compilation 2001". CD2 copied fine, but CD1 could not be read by any CD-ROM player or CD burner. It would however play in any normal audio CD player. Now as a decent reverser you must understand my frustration
So, next evenings I spend trying to understand what was going on here. I found out that after insertion the laser first goes to the center of the CD (the TOC or Table Of Contents where the index of the CD is stored). After this the laser went to somewhere on the outer side of the disc and started to try to read there. This is where the reader would never stop doing this and some players will hang forever in this phase.....
So what idea could be easier than to prevent the reader from reading this outer part? I made 3 paper stickers of about 25 x 20 mm and placed them on the outer side of the CD. Now the reader would read the inner TOC, then go to the outside again and after not being able to read anything there because of the stickers, the reader would be 'smart' enough to decide to stick with the inner TOC, go back to the center and read this TOC as the one and only TOC
I am certainly not an expert on CD readers but I think this is what is going on here. If anyone has better ideas, let me know. This protected CD has a so called Multi Session TOC. This is the same when you burn a CD-R and set it to MODE2 / Multi Session when you burn an empty CD-R for the first time. After this a MODE2 CD-R can have multi sessions appended afterwards. For every new session a new TOC is written (with the old data about the files already on the CD-R included). My theory is that this protected CD has also a MODE2 / Multi Session TOC which makes a CD-ROM player and burner decide to search for the latest TOC from the outside to the inner side. With the placed stickers it will not be able to and most CD-ROM players will decide to stick with the center TOC.
So now the CD-ROM player will read the CD but unfortunately it will not be able to read the last tracks because my stickers are placed there. So now a second trick is needed. I used a paperclip to push into the little hole on the front of my CD-ROM player to open the door manually. The reader has no idea at all I was doing this so it came out spinning
Guess what? I could now play and grab all tracks as I would do with any non-protected CD! I must say that on one CD-ROM player (TEAC) I had to skip the first block (or 0.01 seconds) in Easy CD-DA Extractor for the first track only (still have no clue why). My Plextor 16/10/40A burner and another CD-ROM player had no problem with this first track.
I did try to move the stickers to the outside of the CD until my audio CD player would just be able to play the last track until the last second but the CD-ROM player would not read it anymore. In fact, I would have to move the stickers a whole lot more to the center of the CD before it would be able to read it again. It might be possible that there is no TOC at all on the outside; the inner TOC just points to some music track which will of course not be understood by the CD-ROM player as a valid MODE2 TOC...... The reason why this CD does not automatically transfer you to the MediaCloQ(TM) website like a MediaCloQ(TM) protected CD would do could be that the protection I discuss here isn't MediaCloQ(TM) at all. But it could also be due to the fact that this CD was almost full and that there was simply no space left for a real TOC and a valid data section where an autorun.inf file could be stored which transfers you to their website.
Now to summarize this little trick:
Place 3 (or maybe more on better CD-ROM players / burners) non-transparent stickers of about 25 x 20 mm on the outside of your CD along the edge. Make sure that they wont stick outside of the CD and press them well, otherwise your CD-ROM player will start making funny noises
Insert the CD into your CD-ROM player and see if the CD-ROM player accepts it (you can see the tracks in your Explorer). If not you can try to move the stickers a bit to the center or place more stickers. Note that my laptop CD-ROM player and one burner I've seen would not be able to read it at all so no guarantees are given here......
Now we have to wait until we are sure that the CD is not spinning anymore. After the CD-ROM player accepted the CD it can still be spinning for a few minutes (my TEAC stopped after more than 3 minutes). I guess to be sure, wait about 5 minutes. If you are impatient here you risk to eject it while it is still spinning and this could damage your CD and who knows the laser of your CD-ROM player, so be warned!
Now using a fine screw driver or a paper clip push into the little hole in the door of your CD-ROM player. The trays of some CD-ROM players can be opened totally without the CD-ROM player noticing but I saw one that would re-read the CD after closing the tray again so I would have to open it until halfway, until I was just able to get the CD out. Push your paper clip into the hole until the tray opens. Then pull it out manually (be careful and do it slowly!).
Now remove the CD, remove the stickers and place it back.
Now push the tray to close it again. Do it carefully. At the end you have to push a little faster to make sure the CD will be inserted entirely. If not, take it out again and try again.
Now you can play it and grab it like you would normally do
Enjoy and be happy !
So I am starting to wonder. If it hasn't begun to occur already, what has to be done to bring a class action suit to the offending record companies? There are three things I see as a defense on our side.
1. It seems to me that someone would be able to find equipment that the CDs actually sound worse in.
2. Prove the lost ability to make a backup copy.
3. Show how you are suddenly limited to where you can play the $20 cd at.
Without a warning, I just can't believe its possible for them to do this. However, at the same time, I'm uncertain what law says "this cd must play in all cd players." I understand it isn't our right to play the cd anywhere, but at the same time, it is also our consumer right to know what we are buying can and can not do.
Copy-protection shouldn't affect Winamp anyhow since it only affects digital playback, and Winamp uses analog playback (unless you swap out the CD player plugin with one that uses digital ripping).
yea, but if a company makes it hard or near imposssible to copy it, there's nothing illegal or wrong with that.
They are selling the items as "Compact Discs." My computers, JVC MP3/CD car stereo, and Riovolt portable MP3/CD player all play Compact Discs. So if I buy a disc and it does not play in them, it is not a Compact Disc. The companies producing the disc in question will have wasted my time -- with is worth far more than the $19 price of the CD.
There is a standard for audio CDs and it is well documented. If these companies are going to sell something that does not meet the standard, then they should not be advertising them as being "Compact Discs."
I have a feeling this will backfire in one of two ways: 1) they will drop the copy prevention after a public outcry, or 2) there will be new drivers or tools published that make it possible to rip/play these CDs, and they become common enough to make the copy prevention irrelevant. This will mean that the only people truly affected will be innocent people with limited technical expertise (mom goes and buys a PC, puts her new CD in the tray, and it doesn't play; mom gets mad and calls you). This will only further giving a black eye to the RIAA.
A third possibility is the nightmare of DeCSS -- that someone publishes a method to defeat this copy prevention, gets sued, goes to court, etc. But as we've seen with DeCSS, it's pretty hard to stop it once it's out.
Robotiq.com is heavily tested on animals
I question follows me everytime I hear anything about copy protected CDs.:
Does the owner of this technology (AFAIK Philips owns the patent) have any kind of official opinion about this? Is it allowed to modify the technology and keep using the compatible logo?
Can anybody help me with this question? (thanks in advance)
-=-=-=-=
I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
It's pretty clear to me why records companies are distributing both clean and copy protected versions of the same CD. They are collecting statistics on consumer acceptance for the copy protection scheme. They release two versions and then look at the return rates for the two versions to figure out how many people have CD players that reject the copy protection scheme.
jeff
Except, the requirement to use the little CD icon is paying money, not meeting the standard. They never claim to meet the standard anywhere.
If you sell something as a Compact Disc, you are advertising that it meets the standards for a Compact Disc. Philips/Sony licenses the logo, but they do not verify conformity with specs for each item that bears that logo. It is the responsibility of the manufacturers using the logo to assure that the products that they sell meet the specification for audio Compact Discs.
Licensing issues have nothing to do with false advertisement claims. Suppose I license the USB logo and then produce a "USB mouse" that doesn't work with the USB ports on most computers. I would still be guilty of false advertisement even though I licensed the USB logo.
I dont think it really matters. The radio station I work at gets the CDs weeks (if not months) before the release date. We also receive a single of what we are forced to play, of course. The CDs we normally get (with some exceptions) are not the same you buy in the store. The ones we get to give away are, but not the first sample we get in. Since we may need to copy all of the tracks for an album show (every saturday at 1am we play through a new cd) to our system, if it was copy-protected, we couldn't do dick with it. That also means that I get a copy for myself, and then soon so does the world.
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
Hmmm....
Household CD Player +
pair of phono to quarter inch jack +
Decent soundcard +
Computer +
WAV Recorder +
WAV -> MP3 converter
= circumvention device.
How about :
Radio + Cassette tape + a bit of patience = circumvention device.
How about :
Sky Satellite dish + Digital box + The Box (music channel) + Decent TV Card + computer
= circumvention device letting you get music videos as a bonus
Think that the computer is the common denominator? How about:
Home CD PLayer +
Phono leads +
mp3 recorder
= circumvention device
Hmm... maybe ban phono -> jack leads?
finally:
Home CD player +
Speakers +
Microphone +
Computer +
WAV Recorder +
WAV -> MP3 convertor
So it looks like the only way to get rid of all circumvention devices is, in fact, to ban computers, leads, speakers, microphones, mp3's, wavs, and, just to be on the safe side, let's lock up anyone who happens to hum whilst walking down the street, just in case they are humming copy-protected material.
If you don't know, the paper version of the canary trap is the idea of altering the punctuation, but not the text of a document in a certain way uniquely for each copy of the document you give out, and keeping track of who gets what. Then, if a copy of your document is leaked to the media, and they show text from the document, you can find the snitch in your organisation.
Couldn't something similar be done with music? Not that it wouldn't be possible to undo, but if you don't know exactly what's been done, it's difficult to be 100% sure that you've undone the trap. Then the RIAA couldn't threaten very serious penalties. First off, you'd be certain to lose your job, but they couldn't also conceivably go after you for lost revenue for every copy of the song derived from the copy you originally made. And they'd have a method to prove that they came from your copy too. That'd be enough to bankrupt anyone.
. --- If you're looking for free e-mail you won't find it here! http://www.noemailhere.com
More importantly, return the darned unrippable CD's ! I was horrified to see people on here saying "yeah, I have this CD and I can't rip it..."
If you can't rip it, it's defective and you should have the store replace it. If the repalcement can't be ripped there's something wrong with the production run and you should demand a refund.
If every slashdot user stopped buying CD's today, the industry would note a certain percentage downturn in sales and mark it up to the economy.
However, if every slashdot user returned every unrippable CD we get to the store/vendor, the stores would start wondering why the hell certain CDs are getting returned all the time and start complaining to the labels. Then the labels would have their sales channel angry with them and would be more likely to have to do something about it. A returned CD is an expense to the store: they have to store it until they have a batch to go back, and then return it to the label and wait for a refund or credit. If they start getting a lot of returns on one album they'll pull it from the shelves. (Hasn't that already happened once with Tower Records?) The stores will put up with much less nonsense than the labels are willing to either deal with or create.
And, of course, we could have the correctly mastered CDs which give us no problems, which really we have no gripe with in the first place.
I do, however, also recommend learning about your local musicians and independent musicians who may pass through your area. In the last year I've bought maybe a dozen CDs, just about all of which were purchased directly from independent musicians, and I must say I'm much happier with that music than with any of the commercially produced garbage they play on the radio these days.
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.
From the artical (my Translation:)
"Possibly soon German judges will have to deal with the question whether intentional violation of the Red Book Standard by manipulating the TOC is a criminal use of 'incorrect or incomplete data'. It will be also important wether digitally reading an Audio CD into computer memory is considered as data processing."
The German Criminal Law has in the section "fraud" a the special Paragraph 263a about "computer fraud", which I translate as follows(IANAL, but I am married to one):
263a StGB Computer fraud
(1) Who damages the assets of another person with the intention of providing himself or a third person an illegal pecuniary advantage by the fact that he affects the result of a data processing procedure by incorrect design of the program, by use of incorrect or incomplete data, by unauthorized use of data or otherwise by unauthorized interference with the process is punished with imprisonment up to five years or with fine.
This paragraph is usually used against people tampering with ATMs or a company's computer systems, but I see no reason why my personal computer should not be protected by this law, and for me it is unquestionable that all these CD copy prevention systems are feeding incomplete an incorrect data to my computer, and reading a CD into the memory of my computer is definitely a data processing procedure.
As I know the courts, proving damage is often the crucial point. I think that a clear label stating "This CD is intentionally damaged so that it does not play on most computers and some CD players." would probably save the publisher, but anything short of this IMO constitutes fraud.
In this case there was no warning sign on the CD, so when I buy such a CD I do not get what I pay for. If I bought the CD just to listen to it on my MP3 Player or use a duplicate in my car stereo (my CDs do not last very long when using them in the car), then the value of the CD is zero. And even if I get a refund, it probably takes more than an hour to manage it all, which is a significant amount that easily surmounts the value of the CD: I am tricked, my assets are damaged. This is even simple fraud under 263 StGB, and even a particularly serious case under subsection 3 (repeatedly defrauding a large number of people), which is punished with imprisonement up to ten years.
I am very curious about the outcome of this case, but I would be happy if courts would stop greedy corporations trying to screw me with intentionally damaged products.
If not, I will react like many people: I will stop to buy any music at all; I will fill up a terabyte disk with enough music for the rest of my life in one afternoon, and those record companies can fuck themself.
p.
Without order, nothing can exist. Without chaos, nothing can be created.
The RIAA and MPAA announced today that a deal has been reached with manufacturers of consumer audio and video equipment. Beginning next year, new CD and DVD players will drop the letter "L" from the Play button, which will be linked to the consumer's credit card at the time of purchase.
Edith Keeler Must Die
Your argument runs along the opposite line, that if copyright law doesn't say you can, then you cannot. Again, if you believe the rhetoric of the "intellectual property" cartels, sure. But if you believe the people who founded this nation and the ideals embodied in the U.S. Constitution, then that view is clearly incompatible with freedom.
This is the insidious nature of the re-education effort being undertaken by media publishers, the BSA, etc.. The criminalization of copyright infringement (before it was a civil matter), the outlandish extension of copyrights, the aggressive litigation, the shift from sale of a product to a license, and the broad use of terms such as "stealing", "piracy", "protection" are all part of this effort. And people have integrated these ideas into their worldview. People are shifting to a "it's only legal if the shrink-wrap license says it's legal" mindset.
Robotiq.com is heavily tested on animals