I see that more and more CD's are having "copy protection" placed on them so you can't play them on your PC/MAC, or in other words to prevent you from ripping them to MP3 or burning your own compilations. Bummer.

I find it annoying that if you've already bought the original you can't then create your own CD's or download tracks to a portable MP3 player (which is why I bought one in the first place!!).

Is it true that Linux is not affected by this copy protection and I'd be able to create my own compilation CD's? If this is the case then I feel a Linux partition coming on....

I am not so sure about whether Linux is effected or not, but a simple work around is to get a portable CD player and run a line out from your player and into your sound card and record from that.

Screw the industry in another way, stupid, cheap, greedy a$$holes!

funny funny, yes, this whole copy protection is complete bs, as no matter how hard they try, someone will come up with a way to defeat the system, oh well, i don't buy that many cds anyways, but the sound card sollution sounds simple, yet possibly effective (until they come up with a system like the [macrovision?] system to prevent vcr tapes from being copied

Yeah, I knew about the soundcard method but I was concerned (unnecessarily?) about the resultant sound quality.

Another method somebody told me about was to use a hi-fi CD writer, such as something by Pioneer, to copy the disc and then use the copy in the computer. Apparently this method removes whatever copy protection method is employed on the disc (although I cannot confirm this)

I dunno about CD Audio CDs, but I heard that Nero even manages to read SafeDisc-protected CDs if it's set up to keep ignoring read errors.

yeah, Nero does that. But I would rather have 2000 blank CDR's waiting for the day that a burning program comes out on Linux that can go around that, than to use my wife's copy of XP.

The thing with nero is that it does that, copies the bad sectors. Not always is this the method they use to "encrypt" a CD. The LineIn/LineOut thing sucks too. So if anyone figures (or should I say, WHEN) this out, post it in the Linux - General Section for everyone to see.

I read somewhere that the copyprotection thing that's being employed is to have a data session at the end of the CD (like normal ECDs) that runs and plays really low quality versions of the songs, so the dumb-ass that puts the CD into a Windows box that autoruns will not be able to play the CD. I can't really see how they could copy-protect the audio data without compromising the ability to play it in oridinary CD players. If this is the case, then you should still be able to rip the audio tracks with EasyCD/Nero fine because they allow you to choose which tracks to rip...but you might not have so much fun with MS Media Player.

And since you're using Linux...if this is the case, then you won't be affected by it anyway.

If I'm wrong about this, then please correct me - I haven't really looked too deeply into this yet.

So cdparanoia won't work to rip these cds?

That was talked about but I don't believe that this is the case at present. Also, this method of "protecting" the disc is breaking the CD rules so, in theory at least, it is illegal and the disc should not bare the CD logo. However, since the only titles I've seen using this method are from Sony (joint patent holder with Philips) it seems unlikely it will change.

Why they can't adopt the SCMS system as used on MiniDisc and DAT is beyond me, but I suppose it is yet another case of closing the stable gate after the horse has bolted.

BTW, I can confirm that copying the CD via a hi-fi recorder does remove the protection - however, I'm still waiting for my mate to do a copy for me.

Let's just hope some Linux guru can come up with a solution.

Sony's latest and greatest cd protection has been compromised by.......... running around the edge of the cd with a felt tip marker!!!!!

It seems that Sony's method was to just put a garbage data file on the first track. Since a computer will try to read data files first...it gets caught in a loop and voila, the pc doesn't ever see the music.

http://webcenter.newssearch.netscape...0271_aolns.src

I think that the link above will take you to the full story.

What interests me is that my local Sainburys supermarket is selling cheap CD's with the copy protection warning clearly indicated on the cover.

However, to save money I decided to buy the CD's from Hong Kong based company www.cd-wow.com. When the discs turned up not only did they not indicate a copy protection warning but, hey-presto, they played in my PC (and yes, they are the originals).

You would have thought that Asia would be more of a target for these copy protected discs by the record companies.

I'm gonna have a stab in the dark here, what about the dd command, try man dd, it isnt SUPPOSED to copy cd's so it might just do the trick.
I dont know if this works but it would be the first thing I'd try to take the copy protection off, I have no idea of the syntax that would accomplish this but if it work's let me know, my cd-rw is out of action so I cant test it.

Cheer's