[karent]

I'm posting this question for a friend. Mods, if this belongs in Applications, please move it. Thanks.

My friend bought a CD the other day that is copy protected. When she puts it in her laptop some software pops up and asks if she wants to copy the tracks to her hard disk. The are in wma format. The CD won't let iTunes import the songs so you can't burn a copy. OK, but now she can't listen to them on her iPod, either. She's furious. I told her I'd ask you all if there was a way to backdoor the songs into iTunes.

Personally, i think the band is doing a great disservice by not allowing anyone to listen to their music on one's personal iPod. I guess this is new, but how do you get around it?

Thanks

k-

[lavar78]

I assume this is Windows. I'm sure I won't be the first to say this, but she should seriously think about taking the CD back and complaining that it's defective. They'll keep making these copy-protected "CDs" as long as people keep buying them. That being said, she could probably rip it just by turning Autoplay off before inserting it.

[Person Man]

Originally Posted by karent

Personally, i think the band is doing a great disservice by not allowing anyone to listen to their music on one's personal iPod. I guess this is new, but how do you get around it?

It's not the band that's doing the disservice. It's the record label. Big difference.

If she has access to a Mac, she might try ripping the songs on it. A lot of copy protection these days is PC-specific.

[romeosc]

On PCs disable “Auto-Run” on your Windows based system. By default Windows will automatically look for a file called Autorun.inf on any CD you pop in to your system, we’ve always known this is a big security issue as there are a lot of spyware and viruses distributed on CDs, you read about this every week.

[ghporter]

If your friend does indeed have a Windows laptop, it's not too difficult to work this out. In Windows Media Player, import the songs from the CD-WMP likes WMA files, so that's no problem. Now take out the CD and (just for luck) restart the computer Now open WMP and tell it you want to burn a CD-and select the songs from the copy protected CD to burn. WMP will burn an audio CD unless you tell it otherwise, so once it's done, you have an audio CD that is unprotected. Now quit WMP, open iTunes, and rip the songs from the newly burned CD.

A major hassle, yes indeed. But it can be done and it lets you thumb your nose at the labels who think you're a thief just because you want to listen to the songs you bought on something other than a "copy protection-compliant" CD player.

[B Gallagher]

Another way to get around any autorun stuff on PCs is to hold down either the right Ctrl or right Shift key. I forget which, but holding them both down works! Tried it a couple of days ago!

Another program, called CDEx, also lets you rip CD's pretty much regardless of any autoruns or anything. Have a look for it.

[karent]

Thanks Guys!
I'll pass these tips on to her. (she should join so she can ask herself! )

By the way, the CD she bought is available on itms for the retail store price, not the usual $10!

k-

[Lava Lamp Freak]

Won't iTunes import/convert WMA files?

[siMac]

Yes, but these are WMP (Windows Media Protected) files.

[rbally44]

The best solution on Windows is to rip with CDex . . . this will let you rip directly to MP3 (so there's no lossy to lossy conversion).

I've used CDex to get around the copy protection on several CDs.

Here's instructions from some band called Switchback who were concerned that their fans were stuck with copy-protected CDs.

[Big Mac]

Any Windows or even Mac users with autostart on are just begging for these kinds of headaches.