Warning - BMG copy protected CDs

Just a warning to anybody buying CDs with the intention of making personal copies for their own use for use on digital music (e.g. MP3 players) to avoid BMG releases as they use some silly copy protection mechanism which can undoubtedly be circumvented in some way but which is a real pain in the This post will be deleted if not edited to remove bad language. I just bought the Kasabian album from CD-WOW and discovered this the hard way when I went to rip it to my MP3 player. I've read some stuff about consumers being within their rights to return such non-standard CDs for a refund but I haven't been able to confirm this for sure.

I am going to contact CD-WOW about this asking for a refund on the basis that there was no warning about the copy protection mechanism employed on this CD, that the CD is non-standard - does not adhere to the "Red Book" CD format standard as would reasonably be expected - and, as such, is unfit for the purposes for which it was sold. I'll report back with developments anon.

For what it's worth it seems fairly simple using EAC to copy the album as a single file but not to rip the tracks one by one. But I'm sure that somebody has managed it.

Aha! Using a black marker or sticking a small piece of masking tape or a Post-It on the data side of the CD to cover up even part of the data track visible at the outer edge and separate from the main audio region of the CD (in good light the gap between the main audio region and the data track taking up the outer 1cm or so of the CD can be seen) does the trick and exposes the individual tracks for ripping. Please note that I am not promoting illegal copying of music here but I do believe that somebody who has paid for an album is entitled to make personal copies (e.g. in order to transfer the content from the original CD to an MP3 player for example) as long as only one copy of the material is ever used at any one time. There were no licensing terms & conditions on the CD package and I have been unable to ascertain the precise legal status of such copying so I am open to correction on this.

[broken link removed]

Have a look at this [broken link removed] from Nov 2003.

....SunnComm's CD copy protection technology was used by BMG Music for the first time on a U.S. production release last month.....

Click to expand...

The article mentions one or two simple ways to circumvent the technology but I don't know if it would still be valid now.

Thanks - interesting article. I'd already seen the "turn off autorun" and "press <CTRL> key" advice elsewhere and tried these but the key hack in the case above was masking out the outside data track on the edge of the CD with a piece of tape/Post-It or a black marker. I don't know much about this topic (yet!) but I suspect that the copy protection mechanism mentioned in that article is not exactly the same as the one used on the Kasabian CD which employs something called AlphaAudio (if I recall correctly) to play the tracks rather than letting you play (and rip if necessary) with your normal media player.

It's funny how these things affect you - when I realised that the CD was copy protected my immediate gut reaction was to blame it on the artist which may or may not be a reasonable reaction!

I certainly empathised with the sentiments in this blog article:

When I tried it in my PC, Windows Explorer is unable to read the tracks and you have to install a proprietary player to play highly compressed versions. However, when I opened it with Media Jukebox, cdex or Extract Audio Copy (EAC) I was able to play and rip the tracks without a problem. So BMG's copy protection prevented the one thing that they can't complain about, namely playing the CD, and completely failed to prevent me ripping the CD.

Click to expand...

Actually, I think that this scheme, or some similar variant on it, was used on the CD that I bought particularly since the workaround is so similar.

In relation to trying to get to the bottom of "fair use" (e.g. making personal copies for use on another device such as an MP3 player) as it pertains (or not, as the case may be!) to Irish copyright law, I came across [broken link removed] on that very topic which is quite pertinent but doesn't seem to get the bottom of things.

I emailed CD WOW drawing their attention to this issue and suggesting that it might be an idea to highlight BMG and other CDs that are copy protected and not compatible with the CD Audio/Red Book standard in order to facilitate their customers in making informed buying decisions. They replied promptly and offered me a refund/exchange which I declined since I have managed to work around the copy protection mechanism and avail of what I assumed to be my "fair use" rights in relation to the CD that I purchased. They have not mentioned whether or not they intend to consider or act upon my suggestion.