"Copy Controlled" CDs: another failed scheme?

Just how stupid does EMI think we are?

Related question: lately I've bought CD-Rs that were not designated for "music" use, and they play on PCs - but not on real stereos. This is fucked up, and extremely annoying. For example, I bought some Memorex x40 CD-Rs, and they were great; I got some x48 speed (the box looked the same) and they wouldn't even play in my car or my living room stereo. But they played on every PC I put them into. What the fuck?

I've started buying the Music CD-Rs but sometimes they cost more (for "licensing fees," not a dime of which probably goes to anyone who's ever picked up a musical instrument). I'm wondering if this is a copy protection scheme to force us to use the Music CD-Rs.

Supposedly it's a non-issue in Canada so far anyhow in terms of redistributing the wealth to the actual musicians: the money has been collected--to the tune of something like $22 million dollars so far--but it's up until this point been stuck in administration, and not a single cent of it has been sent on to any of the musicians that theoretically have been impacted by copying. The sad thing is that even when the money does start to get sent on, it's going to be the big-name artists that are going to get the majority of the cashola...in other words, the ones who have sold the most CDs and are likely not the ones that are being widely bootlegged due to speculative downloading. The smaller artists that aren't seeing any money at all from the labels will be getting screwed all over again.

Rather than trying to prevent people from copying their records online, record companies should change their reportoaire policy instead. I mean, there are groups of fans who are likely to download music rather than buy it and there are groups of fans who aren't. Plus compilations are no use in the mp3 age, so record companies may as well give up compilations at once.

So my advice - rather than make copy protected "CDs" that do actually destroy CD players - to the business is the following:

- Concentrate on building up album oriented acts over time rather than acts who will have one or two hits and the disappear.

- The teen audience is a lot more likely to download music than older fans are. Thus, stop signing acts that are supposed to appeal to a teen audience and try getting through to older audiences instead. As much as most younger fans may regret it, I am afraid that there will be more Helmut Lotis coming up in the future (the good thing being that there will be more Coldplay's and more Travis's too :-) ).

- Increase the cover art budgets. Make sure that your albums have so great covers that the fans feel they will have to buy the album to get that wonderful cover. (All serious fans know that the cover is an important part of any album)

- Forget about putting together compilations, leave that up to Rhino (whose extensive liner notes are so impressive fans will eventually keep buying their compilations anyway)

Can't you just plug a cable from your amplifier/discman into your MD recorder?

Firstly, TLC's last album.

The other:

I made the same mistake. I was looking for re-writable 80 minute discs, and I accidentally bought some "computer-only" discs. Luckily, I was able to get my money back, so I picked up some plain old "digital audio" one use discs. In my area, at least, Re-writable discs for both Stereo play and Stereo burners (which is what I have) are real hard to come by, which sucks because

"I've started buying the Music CD-Rs but sometimes they cost more (for "licensing fees," not a dime of which probably goes to anyone who's ever picked up a musical instrument). I'm wondering if this is a copy protection scheme to force us to use the Music CD-Rs."

Most likely. I surprised they haven't tried to tax them in the U.S.

"It's encoded so we'll have a name and a number - so we'll know which disc it is, who distributed it and who they distributed it to. And that person is going to go down.

"He is either going to get some sort of legal intervention or he certainly won't receive an album from our record company ever again."

Ooh.

I bought some CDs on EMI recently. they seemed to be "copy protected", in that my CD player (a cheap philips CD recorder) won't actually play some of them. If I want to listen to them, I have to listen to the .wav files I ripped into my computer using EAC. This is a bit stupid, surely?

"Music > CDs > Rock > Glam"

glam ?

oh, and mike .. i never had issue in ripping anything to Windows Media yet, Sony's SonicStage (to drop music onto the flash toy) i have at times had a block in importing, but easy workaround - rip to WMA and import these files. so, i too have yet to understand the grief re these copy protested discs ..

I will have to try again.

Strange, I had no problems with that one.

Anyway, if you have a hifi CD player and an input jack you can plug into your computer, no CD is copy-protected. As blueski points out - analogue, duh.

I think a lot of the reason some discs work for some people and not for others is just because putting all of this extra crap onto the CD basically makes them defective when you look at the original CD spec, and because of fluctuations in manufacturing of the CD drives some discs are good for some but "defective" for others.

The whole issue of rootkits on your system from Sony BMG CDs make me glad that I've never EVER installed anything on my machines from one of those copy-protected CDs. There's an episode of the Security Now podcast that talks about this: http://www.grc.com/SecurityNow.htm

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/computersecurity/2005-11-02-sony-patch_x.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/02/AR2005110202362.html

absolutely no coverage from any music magazines, print or online. I sort of expected PFM to take it on, but I guess not.

http://www.alcei.org/index.php/archives/105