More CD Copy Protections Coming: No More CDs Here
from the wait-a-second... dept
For all the talk here on Techdirt about file sharing, I don’t use any file sharing programs. I still prefer to have the actual CD. While I would like to be able to use file sharing apps to hear new songs in figuring out what to buy, the legality question is still very much up in the air, and it’s not worth messing around with those apps until it’s settled. A few months ago, I finally got around to the big project of converting my music to MP3s so I could listen to it on an MP3 player. Last week I bought a new CD online — and it was the first time I’ve received a CD that had copy protection on it (it points it out in tiny print on the CD — if I’d known beforehand, I wouldn’t have bought it). Since I started converting my collection to MP3, I no longer listen to CDs — even if I still like to have them for the backup and the full liner notes. It’s just more convenient to have everything on the MP3 player. So, here’s a CD that is more or less useless to me. I legally bought it — and yet I’m unlikely to listen to it at all, because I can’t turn it into MP3s. If anything, this only makes me more interested in finding the same songs on a file sharing program — and less interested in ever buying a CD again. How is this possibly beneficial to the recording industry? With that in mind, it’s amazing to see that EMI is following Sony BMG’s lead in making more CDs copy protected, and they even admit that it’s not to stop piracy, but just to annoy the legal purchasers: “Executives at EMI and Sony BMG said the point was to rein in copying by the everyday music fan, not to stop determined bootleggers.” That “everyday copying” is to make it so we can actually listen to the music we bought in a way that’s convenient. Since the “determined bootleggers” are getting the content on file sharing networks anyway — there appears to be absolutely no benefit whatsoever to putting copy protection on CDs. The only thing it does is give people less incentive to buy CDs.
Comments on “More CD Copy Protections Coming: No More CDs Here”
napster
The last time I bought CDs, long time ago, was because I found some songs on napster that I wanted to buy. Haven’t bought a CD since napster shut down. (The free service, I dont know what it is now)
Re: hallo
haool sir plz give cd pror ectyed
Why did you bother keeping the CD?
If you bought it from an on-line retail site, isn’t there any sort of return policy? If you’re stuck with the CD and you bought with a credit card, contest the charge claiming the CD is unusable to you and the merchant won’t accept it for a return. Most credit card companies allow this within 60 days of billing for the purchase.
No Subject Given
Well actually Mike, they don’t really care if you can listen to the CD or not. As long as you bought it, they laugh all the way to the bank (so to speak)…
Re: No Subject Given
Well Sony won’t be laughing all the way to the bank when I don’t purchase the new CD by Neil Diamond. He is my favorite artist and I have everything he’s recorded but I will not have the new CD “12 Songs”.
There is not a word to describe the jerks who run the music industry in this country.
I agree with...
Michael Vilain; dispute the charges, if possible, then send the useless piece of plastic, postage due, to the Manufacturer, or the Music Company, etc.
Send some AOL discs while you’re at it.
can't convert it
So, here’s a CD that is more or less useless to me. I legally bought it — and yet I’m unlikely to listen to it at all, because I can’t turn it into MP3s.
solution
Shiny plastic discs...
People still buy CD’s??? Wow….
I’ve not been in a CD store in probably five years…and i’m speaking as a *producer*…
I think the shiny plastic disc should immediately go the way of the dido….it’s wasteful, environmentally harmful, and its physical distribution system is monopolized and corrupt.
Corrupt audio discs
Copy-restricted audio discs are implemented by violating the CD standards; they have a below-standard error rate, deliberately introduced to foil computer CD players.
http://ukcdr.org/issues/cd/quick/
Return the disc, complaining that it doesn’t play in a standard player as required by the “Compact Disc” mark, and is thus *not* a CD as advertised.
The only way the retail chain will care is if they don’t get your sale.
Re: Corrupt audio discs
Most Copy Protected CDs (at least from overseas) do not have the “CD” Mark on them since they are not (technically) CDs.
Best Bet — grab AudioGrabber, or CDDA and encode away.
Audiograbber has successfully ripped copy protected CDs that my Car CD player will not even play.
Re: Re: Corrupt audio discs
Best Bet — grab AudioGrabber, or CDDA and encode away.
I actually do use AudioGrabber already, so I tried it out. It actually does get most of the songs — but not all of them (and, actually, not the one song I really bought the album to hear).
What silly lengths to go through just to listen to the music I legally bought.
Re: Re: Re: Corrupt audio discs
I had the same problem when I bought the (at the time) new Beatie Boys album…The silly thing was that it wqas perfectly possible to rip mp3’s off of it when I used my girlfriends pc. She had an older CD-ROM player, that just didn’t respond to the copy protection!
This is getting silly though, copy protection that makes it harder to listen to the actual cd.
Re: Re: Re:2 Corrupt audio discs
Grrr..I hate spelling errors, especially my own! No edit function here, I meant Beastie Boys of course :p
No Subject Given
I used to buy CDs – But – A couple of years ago I bought a CD and I couldn’t rip the songs to my Mac. Turned out it was copy protected or whatever. Haven’t bought a CD since then. Don’t plan to, either. So it goes.
linux?
Did you try ripping the CD using linux? I’ve never encountered a problem ripping a CD in Debian.
the right ripper is irrelevant in some cases
i recently bought the dualdisc version of nine inch nails – with teeth and discovered that it’s cd-audio side is not cd standards compliant (read: copy protected). apparently this is “standard” for all dualdisc discs. the problem is not that i cant rip the cd, the problem is my computer will not recognize any content on the disc at all. i cannot copy, rip, or even play. the dvd-a side works fine and is easily ripped & copied. seems a mixed message here. (i should mention a friend of mine with the same disc is able to rip the cda with no problem. my disc drives are NEC ND-2500A dvd+/-rw & NEC DV-5800C dvd)
Re: the right ripper is irrelevant in some cases
I bought the regular version of “With Teeth” as well as the remastered 10 Year Anniversary version of “The Downward Spiral” and have absolutely no problems ripping either of them with CDex from downloads.com. In fact, I was not aware there was such a thing as audio CD protection until I read about copy protection on the new LOA album. Actually, trying to find out more about it led me here…lol.
BTW: I have an older LG burner, but I rip my CDs with a generic Matshushita 52x CD-ROM.
Download it
technically, if you own the CD, you CAN download it from a p2p network. That’s the legal pretense all the p2p networks/programs are operating under.
My First Time
Like most here, I listen to my CDs exclusively from my PC in the living room, in MP3 or similar format. All of my CD’s are digitized, which is great.
I figured it was only fair to buy the CD if I liked to artist. At the concert of Eleanor McEvoy, I bought her “Early Hours” CD. I figured it would support the artist more if I bought it there, as opposed to some online shop. She signed the CD personally, the last thing on my mind was that I would not be able to play the CD, and that I would not be able to bring it back to some shop…
After I ran into the no-play-on-CDROM problem, I figured I’d solve it with Audiograbber or something, but none of these programs helped. Next, I tried to download the music, since I have the right to, but I couldn’t find the music online.
Now this CD is NOT by BMG/Sony/EMI: it was a CD by Market Square Records, and it carries the “Compact Disk” label. I didn’t notice it at first, but it does mention the SA-CD technology, but it explicitly also say it has normal “Stereo CD”. The lesson here: don’t trust the copy protection labeling.
I simply will not buy CD’s anymore. Not a single one.
Nine Inch Nails CD Protection
Wow I too never had a problem with copying my cds till the with teeth cd by NIN. Im kinda thinking trent sucks at this point and should be tossed in the dumpster with metallica the greedy grubbing artists!
Copy Protection
No more CDs ever for me. We have all our audio via PC and Ipod and I am sick and tired of buying CDs which are useless to us. Sorry all you highly paid music company executives and artists you may have to forego the odd lunch if many more of us start thinking like this!