The moronic and behind the times record industry has made some of their best selling artists have copy protection on their CDs. It only happens on Windows machines and here's what happens: if you have auto run on enabled and you put the copy protected CD into your CD drive it puts up some type of license agreement. If you accept this license agreement then a little piece of turd software is loaded onto your system and does all sorts of digital signature stuff. Once this occurs you cannot rip the songs from your CD at all but can only use the WMA files on the CD, which are not the top quality files.
So, an iPod user like me cannot load the files on my iPod. I also like to rip all the Switchfoot and U2 into Apple Lossless format. This allows me to be able to make copies of CDs or mix CDs that I can play on my CD player in the car or take it to work. This whole thing really ticks off consumers who legally buy the CDs and just want to enjoy them in there own way.
Now that our Switchfoot guys are considered a big player, with the release of Nothing Is Sound they got stuck with stupid copy protection. There was quite a bit of outrage from the Switchfoot fans so the band responded (full text below).
I'm hopeful that their record company, Columbia Records will accept that Tim Foreman has done the right thing for the fans. They may even have a legal case against Tim but he's not written anything that hasn't been written before. Of course, with the latest news that Nothing Is Sound is debuting at number 3, the record company might be a bit more foregiving. I definitely don't want any trouble for the band, especially Tim. He's a guy I know a little bit and consider him a friend. Heck, we even share the same birthday. A great musician, more than anything, he's a great man who is only trying to do the right thing by their fans. This is a band that truly gets it so please support them, especially during the rough times.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Scott
Or just download them illegally... because this disc has been on p2p for weeks. Just another incentive not to buy music. Thanks RIAA and major labels. FU!
2 - Chris Beaumont
Illegal downloading doesn't help the artist.
And i agree that the copy protection is going too far...
3 - Guppusmaximus
If you wanna rip any cd(doesn't matter if it has copy protection) just use dBpowerAMP Music Converter(free program)....
You should load the program first then insert the CD....Rip it to wave.
4 - DJRadiohead
I am glad to hear an artist come out and address this directly- especially because I am a Switchfoot fan. Fans have unfairly directed their frustrations. The labels are behind this. I had already posted a workaround here.
5 - Tom Johnson
All you need to do is hold down the Shift key while the disc is loading. No need for extra software. As long as the Sony crap doesn't get loaded, Itunes should see the disc just fine.
But, people, please, download TweakUI, which is a part of the PowerToys bundle for XP, and disable Autorun. You won't have to deal with this crap ever again . . until the labels come up with something that works around this. (I've seen comments about something called XCP that is being used in Europe that does not require anything to be loaded onto the computer that plays the disc in order to prevent copying. From what I understand, this technology has not been used in the US yet. YET. I wouldn't be surprised if we see it soon . . . )
A couple other recent/upcoming titles that I know are copy-protection laden:
Dave Matthews Band: Stand Up
David Gray: Life in Slow Motion
Fiona Apple: Extraordinary Machine (keep those leaked copies from earlier this year - you're going to need them!)
I'm surprised Switchfoot's okay with the DualDisc version of their albums - that format is notoriously incompatible with a huge number of audio equipment, from the cheapest of the cheap to extremely high-end stuff. DualDisc is pure crap.
6 - DJRadiohead
Tom, actually just hitting the shift key was not enough in the case of Switchfoot. Somehow, iTunes was unable to recognize that I a CD in the CD player so it did not work. I wound up having to go with the CDEx option - which worked.
Holding down the SHIFT key is important though to all you kids out there who want Switchfoot, DMB, etc. on your iPod.
7 - Mark Saleski
the problem is that if you allow the software to install once (which i did with the latest Leo Kottke cd), things are screwed up until you reboot your computer.
in my case it wouldn't even play the cd, popping up instead some diaglog box indicating that a valid copy wasn't inserted.
i had to reboot because my CdMax player was would no longer function properly.
moronic is indeed a good description.
8 - Matt
I am not a Switchfoot fan, but props to them for addressing this and seeming genuinely sincere about it.
I disagree with Tim on one point, though:
"there is no possible way to avoid this new industry policy."
Uhh, yeah there is--don't deal with a major label.
9 - Sarah
See, another problem is that the companies that are making these c.d.'s are not addressing the problems that blind ppl cna't access the player. I was trying to put in another copy protected c.d. Natahsa Bedingfield, and didn't know why it wouldn't play and installed the software. I can load the player but my screen reader Jaws, won't read anothing on the player so I can't even click to play the c.d. in the computer. That's the whole reason why I have a problem with the copyright stuff. It's not fair. I payed like 13.99 for the Tasha B. c.d. and can't even put the songs on my mp3 player. crapy! oh yah, and don't have new switchfoot c.d. yet but love the band! Beautiful letdown is da'bomb! God bless!
10 - Temple Stark
Music Editor Matt picked this his pick of the week. Go HERE to find out why. And thank you very much.
11 - Ethan Hereth
hey.... I tryed the CDex 1.51 solution but I couldn't get it to work. I extracted the tracks to WAV files and tryed to drag them from my "mymusic" folder to iTunes but I get a message saying that "the songs being added are in the protected WMA format and could not be converted." does anyone know what I'm doing wrong?? I would really like to be able to add this CD to my iTunes.
Thanks for any help. Ethan Alan
12 - Lance Fisher
Hey, way to post the full text of Tim's post. I just posted a link to the forum post on Sony's website, and they have removed it now.
13 - Winter Knight
Please forgive me for making several posts, but I'm getting a "banned word" error, and I have to do this to figure out what the word is so I can change it.
14 - Winter Knight
This copy protection software is a "trogan". The EULA is misleading, and you should not load it under any circumstances.
15 - Winter Knight
....If you have already gotten yourself infected,
16 - Winter Knight
...there are software tools that can erradicate or
17 - Winter Knight
...help you to erradicate this,
18 - Winter Knight
...antivirus,
19 - Winter Knight
***********, and of course hijack this. I'm not sure, but I think Spybot S&D detects and removes this one. And I would recommend against installing Microsoft ***********, as they have a severe conflict of interest regarding ******* and trojans.
20 - Winter Knight
To prevent further infection, it is imperative that you disable autorun. As mentioned above, Microsoft TweakUI can do this. Some viruses also spread through CDs, and tweaking this "feature" will curb that.
You can press Shift to prevent the loading of trojans such as these, but this is only a temporary fix, and because this is a security issue, I wouldn't recommend it unless you're using someone else's pc. (Like work or school (wouldn't recommend that either, really) or a friend's (But please refer your friend to one of the tens of thousands of articles on the internet regarding this.))
Also, I'm pretty sure that it is perfectly legal to download the mp3s from p2p software if you own a license to listen to the music. I wouldn't want to go through this hassle if I had the CD in front of me, but it is an option.
As far as special software required for certain protected CDs, I don't know, I stopped buying CDs when the RIAA started harrassing and threatening people. I just stick to downloading mp3s for free now.