Copy Controlled CD's

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by cliff barua, Jul 9, 2004.

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  1. cliff barua

    cliff barua New Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Toronto
    I have a question about copy-controlled CD's: other than they won't play in some computer devices, what is the major fuss about these discs? I ask this sincerely. Here in Canada, I believe EMI is the only company using this technology. I decided I wanted a copy of Radiohead's "Hail To The Thief" for the car (I'm one of those "paranoid" folks who likes to take a back-up into the car :), and I also like to add CD-Text). I padded it out (to 80 minutes) with a few of the b-sides from the album's singles (other than the first single, "There There", they are also copy-protected).

    Using Roxio's CD Creator, I was able to extract the WAV files no problemo (under a sub-directory of the disc, "audio tracks"). The CD sounded fine in the car this morning. So, I ask, how come some people get really angry about these discs? Is it just principle? (and believe me, I'm no saint, and I'm no fan of the record companies). What is the technology meant to stop?? (ripping the tracks was easy enough). Is there something I'm missing??

    Please enlighten me.

    Cliff :)
     
  2. chaz

    chaz Senior Member

    Location:
    Canada
    I can't speak to how you could rip that disc but as far as I'm concerned copy protection does not make the discs reliable. The one and only copy protected disc I bought Let It Be Naked would not play properly in my cd walkman. The music sounded distorted. I complained to EMI and they ended up sending me non copy protected US discs. IMO this process inherently futzes with the sound (or at least has the potential to).

    I absolutely refuse to buy any cd now with copy protection. Have to buy my Bowie cd's now from either the UK or the US :realmad:
     
  3. JorgeGvb

    JorgeGvb Senior Member

    Location:
    Virginia Beach
    Velvet Revolver's new CD claimed copy protection on it and it copied just fine for me. I later read an article that stated if you have auto-detect turned off in Windows on your computer, in most cases these CDs will copy. Some types require the shift-key to be held down while loading the CD to bypass the copy protection.
     
  4. soundboy

    soundboy Senior Member

    Almost all of Hong Kong EMI's "CDs" are copy-protected. And HK EMI is the only music company there doing it.

    Just curiousity, do any of your copy-protected discs have the terms of "CD", Compact Disc, or the Compact Disc logo on them? Since Sony and Philips insisted that any copy protection violate their rights to the specs of the CD, the forementioned terms and logo don't appear on neither the disc or the packaging.
     
  5. VR does for sure. When this was being discussed for that title, I at first thought not, but its there, its just very, very small.

    Somehow, I have a feeling that the conventional wisdom that a copy protected CD can not have the CD Logo is just an urban audio legend. At the very least, if it is true, the VR folks are ignoring it.

    BGL
     
  6. ptaheldaoud

    ptaheldaoud Forum Resident

    Location:
    U.K
    I have a Meridian DVD player which has an OSD function which lets you see how many errors it has to correct on CD's. Usually none are reported unless the disc has a fault, but on a copy protected version of the Kings Of Leon CD it was in the millions before the end of the first track, which can't be a good thing from an audio point of view.

    Will
     
  7. Vivaldinization

    Vivaldinization Active Member

    Not exactly. The Velvet Revolver disc uses a really weak form of copy protection that doesn't actually violate the CD-Digital Audio standards.

    Cliff, you had a better experience than most. In its weakest form, copy protection just installs software that prevents you from copying the disc. In its stronger forms, TOC's are altered, error correction codes are messed with...it's just really, really ugly.

    Why don't people like this? Let's see:

    a) People don't like things that keep them from doing what they want with their media.
    b) Copy protection screws with TOCs, error correction codes, etc. Theoretically, "dumb" standalone players will still play them, as they ignore weirdness in TOCs, interpolate the correct error codes, etc. "Smart" CD players *will* run into problems. Smart players include the players inside game consoles, PC drives, car drives, certain next-gen audio players (my CE-775 has choked on them), etc.
    c) Copy protection screws with TOCs, error correction codes, etc. If we ever move to a point in society where primary players are "smart"--already true in many cases--who's going to keep around the legacy equiptment to play those discs?
    d) Copy protection screws with error correction codes. Thus, the slightest scratch (which normally the player can interpolate around) can become a BIG problem, as the data recovery points to the wrong information. The longevity of these CDs is in question.
    e) Copy protection does not deter pirates. All it does is inconvinience the end user. This causes people to ask how to get around the protection.
    f) The US Congress is very much in the hands of entertainment companies, and this bothers people. It bothers people that there's a law on the books that makes it illegal to discuss how to get around copy protection. People joked when the guy whose name I'm blanking on came out with the paper on how to beat SunnComm's software-only solution that he was going to get sued. This became less funny when SunnComm actually threatened to sue him. They backed down. This doesn't always happen.

    I always wonder how the people at Macrovision can go home for the day. They're people, just like you and me, yet they work for a company that creates mandatory technology that impedes progress, and that 99.9% of the world (the people who don't work at Disney) doesn't want to have. Nobody wants DRM. And it's devilishly hard to convince consumers/citizens that a company that develops things that muck with their freedoms should be applauded. Macrovision is frighteningly powerful at this stage, and I'm really not looking forward to their future metamorphoses. Heck, theregister just came out with an interview with their head honcho, where he brags about a new CDDA copy protection technology they're about to come out with that'll make it even harder to digitally rip tracks from CDs. BECAUSE THIS IS WHAT WE WANT. I don't want to be able to compare tracks from CDs, or do what I want with them. What planet are these people from? How do they live with themselves? They're consumers, yet they're anti-consumer; they're citizens, but they're anti-citizen. They get to create intellectual property--their encryption schemes--that become mandatory, and that it's currently illegal to criticize or dissemble. I'm sure many University professors would love to have the same sort of clout.

    (/RANT)
     
  8. cliff barua

    cliff barua New Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Toronto
    Well, thanks all for the information. As I said, this is the second time that I've been able to rip (in the "normal" way) the audio files from a copy-controlled CD without any fuss (or using any of the myriad of "work-arounds" on the Internet).

    David's rant is more in tune with how I generally feel about the recording industry and their current attempts to sell music online (low-grade MP3's, while the rest of the world graduates to lossless bittorrent files). While they'll never be able to truly beat the pirates or anyone that wants to download for free, why not try to work with the consumer as opposed to against them. I guess they're just too "download weary" to notice or care.

    Cliff :)
     
  9. ACK!

    ACK! Senior Member

    Location:
    New Hampshire
    Copy-protected or "copy-controlled" discs are inherently evil. You should be allowed to make backup or mix discs without any restrictions. Considering that many CDs are over-priced to begin with, I have no sympathy for the big record companies and this just makes it worse.

    If copy-protected discs proliferate, it's only a matter of time before software along the lines of say, DVD-X-Copy, will come along. The record companies may litigate the software off the market after a certain period of time, but by that point, enough copies will be out there to allow us to have choice over what we want to copy. :righton:
     
  10. Raf

    Raf Senior Member

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    Just like Cliff's experience, I've never gotten a copy-protected CD that I've been unable to rip. I do wonder whether the audio signal has been futzed with, though. Anyone know for sure?
     
  11. Vivaldinization

    Vivaldinization Active Member

    Again, it depends. If you get a clean rip...well, you're probably lucky.
     
  12. Claude

    Claude Senior Member

    Location:
    Luxembourg
    I´ve posted my experience with the copycontrolled Norah Jones "Feels like home" CD on the Organissimo board:

    http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=6310&st=120�entry138826#
     
  13. MITBeta

    MITBeta New Member

    Location:
    Plymouth, MA
    So for the people who are able to actually copy a disk, does the copy sound better? Does the copy play in drives that didn't play the original? Does the "copy protection" copy over?
     
  14. JohnS

    JohnS Senior Member

    Location:
    London, UK
    I've only bought one copy-controlled disc, an EMI Stan Freberg 'best of' and I didn't notice at the time because it's in a range of generically-packaged 'comedy classics' compilations, some of which I have already and which DON'T have copy protection - the CP logo on the CD packaging is buried away on the back cover and if you're not looking for it you probably wouldn't see it. I was a bit dischuffed about this - if anything it *inspired* me to try and make a copy of the damn thing! A red rag to a bull so to speak...
    I use a 'hifi separates' Pioneer CDR recorder - it has an 'auto-CD-copy' mode which burns a CDR while the source CD is playing; it's idiot-proof (which suits me fine!) But when I tried to use it in this case I got an 'unable to recognise disc' message on the display window, so presumably the software was kicking in. I simply opted to copy it as an 'analogue source' - exactly like doing a needle drop of an LP. It's slightly trickier in that you have to set the Rec level and manually insert track index points as the source is playing, but it can still be done. I got perfectly acceptable results.
     
  15. Raf

    Raf Senior Member

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    Um, no. How could it? :confused:

    I've never had a copy-protected disc that didn't play in all my players (two CD players, one DVD player and a DVD-RW drive).

    Well, since the copy protection didn't work in the first place, I guess not. :D

    Edited to add: For the record, I have a Mac, and I use iTunes for ripping and Toast 6 for copying. I never see any error messages and the like. If it weren't for the copy-protection notice on the packaging, I wouldn't even know there was anything different about these discs.
     
  16. Arto Suomi

    Arto Suomi Senior Member

    Location:
    Helsinki, Finland
    Same here. All copy protected discs that I have (about 20 or so) play OK on all my CD players and on my computer. And I have had no problems ripping or copying them.

    For me, the most annoying thing about the copy protection is that stupid "Copy Controlled" logo that they now seem to put on the front cover.
     
  17. Nobby

    Nobby Senior Member

    Location:
    France
    Just for fun....

    I've just tried to copy an EMI "protected disc" as a data CD and the protection has copied over as well!

    Not sure whether this is a good thing, a bad thing or a very amusing thing!?

    The copy is currently blasting away on my CD player :confused:
     
  18. AudioEnz

    AudioEnz Senior Member

    On recent Macs running OSX (my iBook is two years old), "copy controlled" "CDs" appear with two disk icons on the desktop. One contains the CD tracks, the other the rest of the crap (low res versions, copy control technology).

    When I try and duplicate a disk using Roxio's Toast (the most common third party CDR software on the Mac) the "CD" copies just fine, but leaves behind all of the copy control nonsense, resulting in a CD that can be played in any player!

    Older Macs (my old G4 desktop, five years old) cannot play copy controlled "CDs" at all. A friend has to make illegal copies of copy controlled discs so that his wife can play the music on her older Mac G4!
     
  19. jrice

    jrice Senior Member

    Location:
    Halifax, NS Canada
    I don't claim to be a technical expert but just speaking from personal experiences with copy controlled discs it seems like the copy control is in the TOC area of the disc. So if you try to do a disc-to-disc copy your PC kicks like a mule when it tries to examine the TOC. If you take the time to extract the individual tracks you're sort of bypassing the original TOC and then when you burn your new disc you are of course creating a brand new TOC. A year or so ago I hit a disc that did not claim to be copy-controlled but I couldn't do a disc-to-disc copy. Turns out that the TOC said there were 19 tracks but there were only 18 tracks of music. An early form of copy protection? I extracted the 18 tracks individually without a problem.

    Jim
     
  20. Claude

    Claude Senior Member

    Location:
    Luxembourg
    The problems and the work-arounds are different for every copyprotection scheme.

    With the infamous Sunncom scheme (used by BMG) copyprotection could be circumvened by avoiding the automatic loading of a driver installation on trhe PC (hold the shift key while inserting the disc).

    With the EMI scheme (Macrovision Cactus Data Shield CDS200) this doesn't help. The TOC also doesn't seem to be the problem. But with the right CD drive and software is is still possible to exttract the tracks normally.
     
  21. MITBeta

    MITBeta New Member

    Location:
    Plymouth, MA
    Well, some have said that the sonic qualities of the copy protected disk are poor, and that there is a lot of error correction occurring. I was just thinking that if this is the case, then if you make a copy that doesn't have the copy protection then the player would have an easier time playing it and the sonic properties might therefore improve.

    We've discussed this before with regards to jitter and the possibility of copies sounding better than originals if burned on a low jitter drive.
     
  22. Vivaldinization

    Vivaldinization Active Member

    It might if your player is especially susceptible to that sort of thing, but at least on a mint disc the differences would probably not be audible.
     
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