CD Copy Protection (1 Viewer)

[Ken Custodio]

I realize the music industry and the artists are trying to protect what they spent a lot of time to make. But does anyone else hate the copy protection on the new audio cd's?

I have a sony mega cd changer that has CD-Text capabilities so that when I switch to a cd with cd text it displays the artist and the song titles. But most CD's don't have the cd-text on it so I have to burn a copy of the cd with the cd-text. But with this new copy protection I can't do that anymore. If they are going to spend so much money and time on trying to copy protect a cd they could atleast put the CD-text on it also. The cd protection doesn't last long anyways, the people that want to copy the disks find a way to do it.

Sorry, just had to vent. But all this crap makes me not want to buy CD's anymore and just "steal" it like everyone else.

 

[KeithH]

Ken asked:

But does anyone else hate the copy protection on the new audio cd's?

I think everyone here hates copy protection. What's to like about it? On the other hand, I suppose some musicians in the crowd might be in favor of it. Still, copy protection will ultimately do more harm to the record industry than good. Furthermore, no matter what copy protection scheme is employed, someone will find a way around it. Let me say that I do no condone piracy, but it is a fact of life. People will always find a way to defeat copy protection, either to make copies and distribute them illegally or just to show that it can be defeated.
Note that copy-protected CDs are still relatively uncommon in the US, so you shouldn't have much of a problem. Sony Music's Celine Dion A New Day Has Come and Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones CDs released in Europe are copy-protected, but the US versions aren't.
Anyone in Europe who wants the Dion and/or Star Wars CDs should buy them from www.amazon.com out of the US. Alternatively, buy the European versions and a marker to block out the "bad" tracks.

 

[Martin Fontaine]

I've always been against piracy and stuff but I have to say this.

Sure, the MP3s off Napters/Kazaa/Morpheus/WinMX/Whatever are illegal, immoral, lower quality but if YOU CANNOT EVEN LISTEN to the the proper legal CD, then they are the way to go!

Just like I would most likely download a shitty looking DivX of Snow Dogs that was done by someone who sneaked in a camera in a movie theater because unlike the proper legal DVD, IT IS OAR!!!

These are probably the only cases where I would actually feel good about pirating something.

 

[KeithH]

Martin, yeah, it is a problem when you buy the original CD and can't play it on your computer. What's worse is that Sony's copy-protected CD cause Macs to crash.

 

[MichaelPe]

The "felt-tip marker trick", anyone?

 

[Todd H]

Copy protection will never work. No matter how sophisticated, someone will always a) break the protection scheme or b) just make an analog copy and convert it to mp3. The only people copy protection hurts is the legitimate consumer. It keeps these users from making backups, ripping to mp3 to upload to portable mp3 players, and playing these disc on computers. If you treat your customers like thieves, then eventually they'll stop buying your product.

 

[Christian Behrens]

Ken,

I am fully with you. At least they could give you a decent product, i.e. with CD text. It's not like it's rocket science.

What pisses me also off (pardon my language) is the fact that the music industry for some reason thinks they should be the only ones still making higher profits, while everyone else is in a recession.

Oh yeah, profits are down due to more copying going on! Riiight!

-Christian