New CD copy protection?

doctorfish wrote on 11/1/2003, 6:56 PM

I recently purchased the new Radiohead and Jane's Addiction cd's and
noticed some strange behavior. I don't have a stand alone cd player so
I listen to my cd's on the computer, usually with Siren, sometimes with
Real Player or Windows Media player. But in all three of these programs,
Ii can't play the first track. The other tracks play fine, but the first track
just doesn't.

Upon closer inspection of the CD in Windows explorer, I noticed that it isn't
just an audio CD, it's more like a cd-rom. There's even a special program
on the cd for listening to the music. I opened this program and using it I could
finally listen to the first track. But while it was playing I noticed that it said
96kbps. I know that .wav files are about 1400kbps so this prompted some
comparison using other programs and yes there does seem to be a
difference, like the other programs were playing .wav files and this special
player on the CD was playing a compressed file.

Has anyone else noticed this on these or other new CD's? I also bought
the soundtrack for Underworld and thankfully it was just a regular audio CD.

After all this I wondered about ripping and copying the CD. In Sound Forge,
Siren, CD-Architect, and Vegas the first track cannot be ripped but
successive tracks can. I then tried to simply make a copy of the entire CD
using CD-Mate. The Radiohead CD copied and plays with the same limitations
as the original, but the Jane's Addiction CD could not be copied. There was
a problem with the audio data file. That's another thing. The audio seems
to be all in one file with regions that cd-programs and players can read.

I've not tried these in a regular cd-player as I don't own one.

Any thoughts or experience with this?

Dave

Comments

planders wrote on 11/2/2003, 12:00 PM

You've discovered the fun of "Copy-Controlled" CDs! Most EMI CDs outside the U.S. have been using this system for a while now, but they've only just started doing it for the States.

Interestingly enough, all of my CD-ROM/DVD-ROM/CD-RW drives can read them without any problems, except for my Pioneer DVD-305S drive. You just have to hold down the Shift key to avoid the installation of the "player" software--which actually installs a driver that detects the protected discs and actively prevents them from working on your computer except in the reduced quality mode you described.

My Plextor CD burner can do a perfect copy of all of these discs, using nothing more elaborate than Roxio's disc copier, version 6. So the protection doesn't really amount to very much apart from the annoyance factor. I can still make copies for use on my car stereo--and the copies are actually more reliable than the originals, because the Plextor burner eliminates the artificially-induced errors used to trick CD-ROM drives.

Do some reading on "Cactus Data Shield", which is the system being used on these discs.

LarryP wrote on 11/2/2003, 4:39 PM

I usually turn off auto play using tweakui from Microsoft. This seems to help. While I don't have any experience with the CD you mention it did help. I think it effectively does the same as holding down the shift key.

As a person who does some computer security I think that auto play/run is generally evil and a HUGE security hole.

Larry

doctorfish wrote on 11/2/2003, 6:41 PM

I was able to burn a copy of the Radiohead CD, but for some reason the
Jane's Addiction CD wouldn't copy. I kept on getting an error message
related to the audio data file.

I already have auto-play turned off so I'll try to hold down the shift key next
time I insert the CD. I'll also have to try these and the copy on another
system.

Never heard of the Cactus Data Shield, but I'll check it out.

I agree that it's an imperfect copy protection. It's more of an annoyance
booster.

Dave

planders wrote on 11/2/2003, 11:52 PM

If you already ran the autorun player on the Jane's CD, you'll need to uninstall it before any of the "alternate" methods will work. Of course, because of the way the disc is designed, your burner may still not be able to copy it.