Copy Protected CD's - is this a joke?

[hech54]

Just curious...does the copy protection on a CD really work on anyone elses computer....cause it sure as hell doesn't on mine. I have about 5 European CD's (I'm in Germany) that are clearly and proudly marked and "Copy Protected"....mostly BMG releases....that I can do ANYTHING I want with. MP3....WAV.....MP3Pro....ANYTHING.
I use Roxio Easy CD Creator 5 Platinum and can convert to anything I want. Am I just lucky or what?..

[garryheather]

You've been quite lucky - some of them don't even play properly on regular players (I had White Lillies Island a while back and got a non-copy protected version out of BMG when I listed 4 or 5 players it would not play properly on).

It depends a lot on your hardware, some handle these discs better than others. I refuse to buy such discs now, as they usually tamper with the error correction mechanism reducing the efficiency of such by lowering the headroom. If I wanted substandard copies I'd buy bootleg cassettes from the market.

Don't forget copy protected CD's can not display the CDDA Compact Disc logo because they are not compliant. If any of yours do, complain for the sake of it because if you ever change your hardware, you could find your collection is useless...

[MOVIEGEEK]

As garryheather mentioned it depends on hardware,software and Windows settings.
If you use a Lite-On or Plextor drive to rip and turn off Auto Insert Notification(autorun) in Device Manager you can defeat most copy-protection. IsoBuster and CloneCD are very good ripping tools.

[tompika]

My experiences with copy protected CD's

1. I always run AnyDVD 3 in the background thats supposed to remove audio protection
2. I always keep the 'SHIFT' key pressed while inserting CD's
3. Some pressed discs identify themselves as CD-R with one or more sessions open.
4. Both DVD writers of mine handle them much better than CD or DVD-ROM drives.
5. I usually make a Global Image or WAV with RecordNow DX/Max
6. Sometimes I copy them on-the-fly with Nero
(from DVDwriter to CD writer, AnyDVD, SHIFT as always)
and get error at the end of the burning but its no music track but those open data sessions I was talking about...

Got lots of copy protected CD's lately, managed to backup all

[hech54]

I have XP Pro and I have been using my LG4040B burner for reading(playing) CD's recently simply because it is MUCH quieter than my Samsung combo drive. It's funny because when "exploring" the cd in Roxio Easy CD Creator....I can see the "player" built in to the CD...then another folder with the tracks. My autorun is ON. I have CloneCD for just such emergencies but I only use it to copy my SVCD's. I did come across a "dead static" area at the end of this disc ( Die Happy - The Weight Of The Circumstances)I'm playing right now but have only come across it once....never heard it again.
I would boycott copy protected CD's too....if they gave me trouble...but so far everything the recording industry has done has failed miserably.
Even with the existance of stuff like CloneCD...you'd think they would just give up.

[Lobe]

well, the only one I've encounted was the new John Cale on EMI, and it won't play on my regular CD players without stopping and skipping, but I was able to make on copy and mp3's that play fine. (under OSX)
Really stupid... had to return the cd since it won't play.