Floyd

iTrader: (9)

My son was given the Gorrilas CD for his birthday and I tried to put it on his MP3 player but the disc has some sort of protection??

Is there a way round this please? It doesn't seem fair that you can buy a CD but not choose to listen to it the way you want to.

F

MJW

Just download the tracks with your favourite P2P software.

Floyd

iTrader: (9)

P2P, like? WMP didn't want to know.

F

Freak

Use something like Nero to rip it track by track, or if that doesnt work (although it should do), then use again Nero to copy the disc, then rip it. Copying an audio cd doesnt copy the copy protection

There are other ways, but those are the easiest two.

Floyd

iTrader: (9)

Ta, of course!

F

Brendan Hughes

PMSL at the millions that probably went into developing that technology - for what, if the fix is that simple?

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

For nothing, really, except that the record labels are insisting on it more and more in the belief that it reduces piracy and therefore increases sales.

Unfortunately, they fail to understand that distribution via a P2P network is exponential - so (for example) if only 1 in 10 people who want to rip the CD actually have the equipment and knowledge to do so, that only delays the mass availability of the music on the P2P networks by a few days.

In the meantime, it's the legitimate buyers who are faced with the inconvenience of not being able to play the music they've paid for on the equipment of their choice.

My best advice, in all seriousness, is to take the disc back and return it as defective. Record labels do monitor returns, and the more of them they get (and the more bad press associated with it), the more money they lose. That's the one language they do seem to understand.

I personally make a point of never buying any protected CD.

Chip Sengravy

Same here, just rip it first

vindaloo

This worked for me....

Obtain ClonyXXL. It'll tell you how the CD is protected.

Setup the CD ripper (I've used Plextool and EAC). Tell it to read only the first CD session. This avoids the duplicate, screwed TOC.

Rip the CD at 1x speed to avoid any clicks, pops, farts engineered into the tracks to catch out high speed ripping.

J.

eldudereno

On the same theme, how do you copy a dvd that is protected?

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Bit harder as most are 8 gig dual layer (normal blank DVDs are 4.7gig). And you need to rip and decode the entire disc to your hard drive (takes a couple of hours), then compress it all to fit on a blank DVD.....

Use this (free): http://www.afterdawn.com/software/vi...dvd_shrink.cfm

(although it does require Nero DVD to be installed to burn the discs)

Guide on how to use is here: http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/arch...dvd_shrink.cfm

MJW

As above, DVD Shrink will reduce the 8Gb discs down to 4.7Gb by compressing the video content. You can also use it to knock off extra stuff like foreign language soundtracks and any extras you don't want.
For backing up protected DVDs there's a utility called AnyDVD which sits in the system tray while DVD Shrink does its stuff.

2.2 Civic

With a copy protected CD can you not just cover the dummy track to enable ripping (the track on the outer edge of the disk) or have they now put something within the tracks ??

boomer

I got "Demon Days" on optical disk for Xmas, but was very cautious because nowhere on the box/label did it actually say "CD". After hearing about all the rootkit problem with Sony, i loaded the disk onto my computer with the SHIFT key very much depressed.

There were no obvious signs of copy protection (e.g. autorun), but i haven't yet tried to make a (legitimate) copy for my car, er, backup purposes.

If you purchased a "CD", and it does not conform to the CD standard then you are entitled to your money back.

mb

p.s. Just playing it now - will report on any problems!

Thomas Wainwright

You could install Limeware and download the tracks.

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

Wise move. I certainly no longer regard Sony or any of other the major media corporations as 'trusted sources' when deciding whether or not to expose my computers to their products.

I also run Linux these days. You can download it for free (legally, of course!) and run it direct from the CD without having to install anything on your hard disc, which might be a good, safe way to check out exactly what's on a new CD before risking a Windows machine.

Thomas Wainwright

Can you post a link to the Linux link and explain how to check a cd please Andy?

Chip Sengravy

How can a CD bought from a high street music shop corrupt a windows install?

Lum

You know when you buy a software product, and as soon as you pop it in, it launches a nice friendly menu offering options to install the product, read the manual etc.

The same technique is used, except it doesn't bother to display a window or menu, and it installs sneaky drivers and **** behind your back that limits your use of your own CD-ROM drive.

To add insult to injury, they also install something called a rootkit which in this case makes certain files completely invisible to windows. The Sony rootkit is so widespread that there are viruses out there now that make use of it to hide themselves from anti-virus products.

http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/200...al-rights.html contains more information about this than you'll ever need to know.

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

There's also a series of good, readable news stories about the whole 'Sony rootkit' fiasco here - it's really quite shocking what they thought they could get away with. Several lawsuits are still ongoing, I believe.

The particular flavour of Linux I use is called 'Ubuntu' and you can download it here. You want the 'PC (Intel x86) live CD' (unless you have a Mac, in which case there's a separate version for that too), and you can download it in the usual way or via BitTorrent if you prefer. Once you have the .ISO file, your usual CD burning software should be able to produce the Linux boot CD from it - look for an option called 'Burn CD from image' or similar.

Once you have the CD, put it in your CD-ROM drive and reboot the PC. If it doesn't boot from the CD then there's a BIOS setting you'll need to change - reboot again, enter 'BIOS setup' and look for options labelled 'boot order' or similar. Make sure the CD-ROM drive is higher priority than the hard disc; without a CD in the drive it'll boot from the hard disc anyway, so you should be able to leave this alone afterwards.

When the Ubuntu Live CD has finished booting, you should find yourself staring at a GUI not unlike the Windows desktop. Double click the CD icon and you'll see a list of the files on the CD.

Now - hopefullly (and I should check this!) you should be able to pop out the Ubuntu CD and insert your new music CD instead. Once the CD icon reappears, double-click it to explore what's on it. If it has an 'autorun.exe' file then be aware, it will try to run code as soon as you mount it in Windows.

BigGT3Fan

You MUST disable CD autorun on your PC to stop the protection software installing immediately you put the CD in. I actually rebuilt my home PC to remove all root kits etc and then changed the policy on it (XP PRO), or there's a registry key for XP home. Just google for "disable CD autoplay" or something.

You can apparently also hold shift down when inserting every CD but I prefer the definite disable route as if you miss it once you're stuffed

You can of course download the tracks from Kazaa/etc but:

1. That's illegal
2. You might be stuck with lower quality than you want

I have a SliMP3 player, and have my entire collection on PC and also iPod, haven't played a CD in ages. I don't download music illegally other than to listen to an album I might want to buy as I prefer to get it at high quality (I rip at 320 bit rate as lower rates are detectable through my decent NAIM stereo.)

It does really annoy me that I can't transfer music I PAID FOR onto my PC to play through my 2 prefered methods of playing.

Except of course I can, because every protection mechanism has a way round it. I've found audiograbber is very good, and it's free.

HTH,

Alex