‘Shift’ key breaks CD copy locks

CNET News.com ^ | 9/7/03 | By John Borland

[Age of Reason]

a law against auto-installing software. [Or, for that matter, that I could at least convince XP that I want it to do absolutely nothing, zippo, squat, nada when I insert a CD

Why doesn't some genius invent something like a firewall to prevent software from installing itself without the user's knowledge?

[SengirV]

Under normal circumstances, the antipiracy software is automatically loaded onto a Windows machine whenever the Hamilton album is run in a computer's CD drive, making traditional copying or MP3 ripping impossible.

Reason #45323 to get a Mac.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Total Recorder will copy any audio that plays through a sound card.

I love Total Recorder. I use it for ALL kinds of things.

I use it to feed old albums into my PC's line-in on the sound card to create digital files and burn them onto CD. It's great for albums that you can't find on CD and don't feel obligated to spend $30 for a special order.

Besides, I paid for the album and a tax on the blank CD medium...I'm damn well going to enjoy it.

[afz400]

"The future is here. Deal with it. Cash in on it."
And don't forget to record music that people want to hear rather than shoving crap down people's throats.

[Michael121]

Never, ever try to out tech a GEEK. They will always find a way to beat ya, Nokia's new phone can download and play DOOM and ZELDA.... they were never meant for that. The DOOM is the full PC version of the Real game. There is enough memory to install it, and Blue tooth to do it wireless....

"Would you care for a nice game of chess........."

[Grig]

Some people are making a lot of money selling the RIAA stupid and useless anti-copy schemes. It only has to be good enough to convince the 'suits'.

[supercat]

You can do that. Disable autorun on your CD.

I'm using XP. I can't get the settings to "stick".

[Windcatcher]

" I'm using XP."

That's your first mistake. When my laptop came with XP, the first thing I did was wipe it and put Win2K on. It'll be a cold day in Hell before XP ever sees one of my PCs.

[TrappedInLiberalHell]

Shift happens.

[kylaka]

In Explorer (windows explorer, not internet explorer) right click on your cd icon. Pick "properties" on the flyout, select "autoplay" on the tabbed selections, check "select action to perform", highlight "take no action" and click "apply", then "OK". You may have to repeat the same thing for various content types in the drop down in your properties dialog box. There may be 6-8 different content types.

I hope this helps some.

[TheBattman]

Funny, but ripping your music to your computer; if only played on that one computer, when the original CD is not in use, and not shared; is perfectly legal.

When are these music companies going to "get it"?

[BlazingArizona]

A Princeton University student has published instructions for disabling the new anti-copying measures being tested on CDs by BMG -- and they're as simple as holding down a computer's Shift key.

under the dmca, it will henceforward be illegal to use your shift key. that means that all our sentences are going to look like this from now on.

[Reaganwuzthebest]

No matter what they do a program like Total Recorder will copy any audio that plays through a sound card.

They're now in the process of developing next generation sound cards that will make it impossible to record through the inline jack. Creative I believe has already made one. I'll be keeping an old box and card around for as long as possible, mp3s played using Winamp is the preferred format.

[Spiff]

As a good security practice, one should disable Autorun anyway. All of the systems that I administer apparently would not be affected by this lame copy protection scheme.

[Fee]

Wait till the animation programs get more advanced and available under $ 1000. I could see people making good quality animated movies under $ 25,000 and sell it on the internet. There will be no major studios PC and economical hangups and high price actor salaries and egos to deal with. Innovation, creativity and distribution will be more democratic and diverse. The day will come when live actors will be obsolete. There are programs that will translate live speech with animated human mouth. The day will come when human facial expression and movement can be coordinated with an animated figure. That means a homely person who has talent but prevented from entering into movies due to looks can manipulate a handsome animated human character to mimic his facial and body movements in a movie. Technology will open new avenues for opportunity and creativity that does not exist in Hollywood today.

[ChicagoHebrew]

In other news, high school students reported being able to thwart a chastity-protection device imposed by their parents by simply taking off their pants...

[John Lenin]

It might not be a bad idea to stock up on some cheap soundcards to keep around just in case one or two old ones goes out.

[Skooz]

Total Recorder is one of the coolest apps anywhere. I have used it for years. Three years ago, I copied my entire New Testament on cassette, which was about to wear out, using Total Recorder.

[Age of Reason]

Wait till the animation programs get more advanced and available under $ 1000. I could see people making good quality animated movies under $ 25,000 and sell it on the internet. There will be no major studios PC and economical hangups and high price actor salaries and egos to deal with. Innovation, creativity and distribution will be more democratic and diverse. The day will come when live actors will be obsolete. There are programs that will translate live speech with animated human mouth. The day will come when human facial expression and movement can be coordinated with an animated figure. That means a homely person who has talent but prevented from entering into movies due to looks can manipulate a handsome animated human character to mimic his facial and body movements in a movie. Technology will open new avenues for opportunity and creativity that does not exist in Hollywood today.

I know (providing our technological world does not destroy iself first--but that's another story).

Still, it's too bad that the world is so overpopulated that people need movies to satisfy their inborn need for stimulation in their confined and boring lives.

But the restive plebeians need the modern circus--an opiate of movies and music--to numb them into quiescence.

Sigh.

[steve-b]

It gets better -- these guys are threatening to bring a DMCA action for the crime of declaring that the Emperor is butt-nekkid.