Copy Controlled CD's comes with shitty player !

[hokiethang]

There is another program that could be useful in copying the MP3s from the disc. I use a program called TotalRecorder that takes the stream right out before it hits the sound card and writes it to an MP3. The stereo mix version can work too, but TotalRecorder works very well.

Also, if the CD is playable on a regular CD player you should be able to rip it with either ripping software, or using some other type of OS (like Knoppix) which overlooks windows crap to rip the music off the CD audio track directly. If not playable on a regular CD player, I would take it back in protest of the crippling of the disc.

A copyright tax has always confused me, why do other governments immediately assume that any blank media is going to be used to copy someone else's work? I definitely use CDs and DVDs to store my own personal content, so I would want my tax payment back. I am glad a tax like that has not been applied here in the States.

[freerider]

Originally Posted by MXM

What's more stupid, here in Finland for example: when we buy any kind of empty media, we must pay so called "copyright tax" to support artists, whose songs (or videos, etc) will be copied to this media, or some other nonsence like that. That applies to videos, casettes, cd's, dvd's and so on. So we basicly pay tax for potentially doing something that is illegal (or even impossible)

Same here(although it's possible to get them without taxes on a online shop legally). The thing is, that making cd's/dvd's copy protected is illegal. The law says that you must be able to make a backup of your cd/dvd. So making it impossible to copy isn't legit. The same with the taxes. You should be able to make copies, so putting taxes on empty discs is illegal, bc you're paying twice. Here in Belgium an organisation for consumers (Test Aankoop) started a lawsuit against all of this.

Greetz Johan

[Prez808]

Originally Posted by tloekke

I think Virgin Europe (bastards!) has copy-controll on all cds, but they don't call them cds, they call them Cactus or something.
I read somewhere that if you cover the part on the cd where the copy-controll program is located with a permanent marker, your computer will ignore the program on the cd, and allow ripping. The catch is that you can't play it on a regular cd-player.

If you can cover with a marker, and the copy control is bypassed then you should be able to rip a copy that's playable anywhere. Besides, a "permanent" marker can be removed with some isopropyl alcohol.

Are there even any cda files on the disc?

[tloekke]

^I really don't know much about this, but I looked it up on google when I couldn't burn a copy of a newly bought cd for my car. I found a site with pictures, but I didn't dare trying it out.

[bigfoot1942]

Originally Posted by Mischief007

Same here. Same form of tax on blank media.

idd, thats the way it goes over here as well.
But fortunately i remembered that they didnt have that in Germany last lime i was there, so i bought 100 DVD's and 50 CD-R's
Over here both CD's and DVD's are twice as expensive.

[freerider]

Originally Posted by bigfoot1942

idd, thats the way it goes over here as well.
But fortunately i remembered that they didnt have that in Germany last lime i was there, so i bought 100 DVD's and 50 CD-R's
Over here both CD's and DVD's are twice as expensive.

I see you're from Holland. Here's a link of an online shop. Very cheap and fast. http://www.cdrwinkel.com/
Only shipping to Belgium and Netherlands.

Greetz Johan

[monkeymax]

I hate this new idea of copy protecting CDs - as you've already pointed out earlier, they're just making the paying customer suffer... Why can't they spend the money wasted on this copy protection on something more... worthwhile. Like more decent music...

I've unknowingly bought 3 of these but the CD player in my Mum's car refuses to play these (this was a problem when I borrowed the car for a couple of months 6 months back). 2 of them I complained about to the record company's distributor here in England - BMG records - and they exchanged both CDs with actual versions without copy protection very happily, and easily. Unfortunately the third one is a limited special edition version and the record company for that will only swap it with a standard edition one. Bastards.


Anyway, in Windoze, you can (or at least I can with CDs I've tried) prevent the crappy player the companies give you from popping up by holding shift when you put the CD into the player - this stops the auto run from running on your PC. Whether your standard player will then play it is another issue, I've had Windows Media Player happy with one, but then refusing with the others, while iTunes has been okay with another but only sometimes... but then my computer can be wierd like that.

To then rip it, I suggest using a great program called Easy CD-DA Extractor by Poikosoft: http://www.poikosoft.com/
I use it for all my CDs, but so far it's ripped every copy protected CD I've thrown at it (but in a couple of cases, ripping was SLLLOOOWWW compared to normal CDs....)
The creator of this program actually tries to work around the Copy Protection...

I can't remember the button to press to prevent autoplay on the Mac - as I disabled this from happening all the time from within the Quicktime Control Panel (sorry, still using Mac OS 9) my Mac hasn't autoplayed in ages. And I use iTunes to rip everything on the Mac, so far it hasn't compained about hte Copy Protected CDs...

I can't guarantee my tips will work for you, just know they work for me. Nonetheless, hope that helps!

-Max

[Roman]

Originally Posted by Mischief007

Same here. Same form of tax on blank media.

I heard about it a few years back but never thought it went through, are you sure Mischief ? Or is it Ontario but not Québec ? ?

And hell yes they are ripping off paying customers with that copy protected crap.

[Mischief007]

Originally Posted by Roman

I heard about it a few years back but never thought it went through, are you sure Mischief ? Or is it Ontario but not Québec ? ?

And hell yes they are ripping off paying customers with that copy protected crap.

It was like the Marijuana thing. On and off, on and off. So we may still have it or they dumped without letting anybody know. I know the prices did go up a bit on blank media. This is all from another forum that was discussing this same thing as well and they mentioned that Canada still has that tax on blank media. Mind you it could be only Ontario. Ontarians get gauged left, right, and center and most of them like it