Wednesday 7 January, 2004
I'll get the last word and it's no
Except I said yes, by mistake.
It's about copy protected CDs, and yes, I've just bought my first one. Didn't mean to - just grabbed the CD we were looking for from the shelf at the airport and paid for it. Today I read what it said on the album cover. Copy control, indeed. It claims that the CD can be played in most CD players and can also be played on most CD-ROM drives.
You see, what I like to do is copy CDs I listen to most on my work hard drive, this way I don't need to take the CDs back and forth. I have never downloaded music from the internet, I don't have any problems with paying for my music. However, I do expect to have the right to use the tracks for my own personal pleasure, and this has now been denied from me.
In fact, I can't really play this CD on my work computer - it comes with this nifty looking player that allows me to play the CD, but there is a minor problem with it. Mainly the fact that while the player is playing music it takes about 99% of my CPU power, leaving very little for any work I should be doing. I should probably write to Warner Music Finland and complain, but I don't have the energy right now.
Should I have stood behind my principles and not bought the CD (should I have noticed that it was copy protected before buying it)? Probably. Will I do that next time I really want a CD? Probably.
And in case you want to avoid my mistake, don't buy Maija Vilkkumaa's "Ei".
Later: And, if you just take the CD out, the player will crash. Nice.
Posted by kolibri at 7 January 18:35, 2004Just use a black marker pen on the outer edge. You can see a faint line that separates the data track from the music. Just cover a sector from the outer edge and voila, you have repaired the thing.
# 2 - Kolibri (on January 8, 2004 12:02 PM):
I've heard about this, but have you (or anyone else) actually done it? And how easy would it be for me to ruin my CD?
# 3 - Mikki (on January 8, 2004 12:05 PM):
Yeah, this works. You want to use a water-soluble marker, though -- that way, if you fuck it up (ie. also accidentally mark over the first audio track, or something), you can just gently wipe it off and try again. It's a proven solution; might take a few tries to get it right, but from what I hear, it works very well. I've never had a need to try it myself, but reports from the field are encouraging.
# 4 - Mikki (on January 8, 2004 12:10 PM):
Right, a little clarification: As long as you don't scratch the surface or leave any permanent marks, you simply cannot damage the CD. You could draw a big smiley face on the disk and wipe it off, and as long as the surface was clean when you were done, it'd play just fine. See, there's a smooth, translucent, protective surface on the bottom of the CD that protects the layers where the actual data is stored.
This is why you can have a couple of scratches on a cd and chances are it'll work just fine -- if it starts to jump when you listen to it, that's usually because the laser beam of the cd player has trouble nagivating the scratches, not because the actual data stored on the disk is in any way damaged. If, on the other hand, you manage to get a scratch on the label side of the cd, chances are you're screwed, because the data is a lot closer to the surface on that side.
Just be careful when you do it -- don't scratch the surface, and you'll be cool.
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