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April 8, 2002 Why CD Copy Protection May Not Work According to this CNET story, BMG is the latest major label to throw their hat in the ring with CD copy protection technology. The company will test the copy protection waters with promotional releases that are sent to music industry professionals. Since the labels do not provide us with any promotional material, we have nothing to worry about. Is CD copy protection technology really the solution to the labels' internet piracy dilemma or is it just an expensive investment which only serves to infuriate the average music consumer - and makes the technology provider wealthy. One can only hope the labels have not been duped into throwing big bucks into a technology which may be easily bypassed. |
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Say you are an average Joe who is unfortunate enough to pay your hard earned money for one of those copy protected CDs. The retail store will not take the disc back because you already opened it. Now you are pissed off. You want to encode your copy protected CD into MP3 files to listen to the music on your computer or on a portable MP3 player such as the Rio Riot. So you have had no luck in encoding the music by throwing it into your computer CD drive. The copy protected CD will not play on your computer, or worse, makes your system crash. |
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Where do you go from here? You are not a techno geek, nor are you a hacker who can decode the copy protection in a few minutes. In fact, you are just happy to know how to encode CD audio files to MP3. How about if you try this? You have another CD player in your home that plays the dreaded copy protected CD just fine. Take this other CD player and plug the line out to the sound input of your computer. You then play the music and record it onto your computer using any good sound recording software. Does CD copy protection prevent you from recording the music onto your computer using the aforementioned connection procedure? Unfortunately, we do not know (nor do we care) since we have not had the "good fortune" of running across a copy protected CD because we no longer purchase CDs (we only spend our money on non-copy protected media like vinyl). However, if you are the average Joe, it may be worth a try since the procedure is quick and easy. And, of course, every average Joe knows that the Fair Use Doctrine permits you to copy music from a CD for your own personal use. If you hate nasty little surprises, here is a list of copy protected CDs which are currently on the market. If you do happen to purchase a copy protected CD, take it back to the retailer and tell them you will not shop there again if they do not take it back. Let the retailer get on the label's case. Disclaimer: this article is in no way advocating or promoting the purchasing of copy protected CDs. Sphinx |
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