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DVD Drives Defeat Cactus Data Shield
jsepeta sends in a story about Cactus Data Shield, one of the schemes to be used for copy-protecting compact discs. A reporter for TechTV notes that DVD drives see right through the disc corruption that Cactus uses to supposedly prevent those CDs from being ripped.
The article stated that the NEC dvd drive (which Dell uses in much of its computer line) read the TOC (table of contents of the CD) normally.
What it didn't say, however, is if other DVD drives, such as the famous slot-loading Pioneer (which I am blessed to have), also exhibit this behavior.
In any case, this whole copy-protection of audio CD's is a sham. If I use my computer as a CD player (which many people at work do), I should be able to play the CD normally, and do what I want with it.
"It's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."
since the data on dvds is compressed & the bits are closer together they are more sensitive to scratches & dust beacuse it affects more data. BUT the error correction system on a dvd player is usually 10x greater than that on a reg. cd player so it reads around the 'copy protection' errors.
Man and Goat