Search - Foo Fighters :: In Your Honor

How many copies should I buy ???

Mr. Brightside | MA, US | 08/07/2005

(1 out of 5 stars)

"So I just bought the new FF CD. There is a sticker on the package that says:



This CD is protected against unauthorized duplication.



Whatever. So I pop the CD in the computer so that I can rip it and put it on my iPod. The CD starts playing some auto play stuff and then an embedded Windows Media Player comes up in a web page and allows you to play the songs. Exit. I went into iTunes and hit Import to rip the tracks. When it finished I went to play the tracks and they were all garbled. What's going on?



The CD is protected. It will only allow you to play it on a computer with its technology. You cannot rip tracks from the CD. It specifically states that you cannot move the songs to an iPod because they (in so many words) don't like Apple and Apple isn't working with them so screw Apple. Huh? No, screw you. I like Apple and I just bought your music. But by the way, this album is available at the iTunes Music Store.



After doing some research, it turns out that this company is putting their copy protection on more and more CDs. This one happens to be the first one that I have bought. So now what? How does this work? Turns out that when Windows starts to auto-run the CD, it quickly installs a hidden driver on your machine that is used to garble the sound of CDs protected by this technology. So now my computer is "infected" with this driver. Some grad school student figured this out a while back and let the world know if you just hold down the shift key, Window's auto-run does not run and you have ready access to the CD. They threatened to sue him.



That solution is too late for me, I already have this installed. More research and system scans pointed me to a hidden driver on my machine called SbcpHid. You will find it in your Windows\System32\Drivers directory. So all you have to do is go into the Windows device manager, find it, stop it. Now you can rip. If you want it off your machine, you can uninstall it from there too.



While there was a sticker on the front of the CD, I found this to be very sneaky. I mean installing hidden drivers on your computer. The driver is not marked with any company name or details so you don't know what it is. The timestamp of the driver was manually adjusted so you couldn't tell that this was installed today. This sounds like most of the spyware that we are all trying to rid our computers of.



So where does that leave us? If you buy the music in a store, you can only play on these certain devices? If I would have bought this music at the iTunes music store, I am limited to what Apple wants me to do. So in this case, if I wanted a good old CD case and disc plus the music on my iPod, I would have to buy the same music 2 times according to the record company. That isn't right. Fair use law dictates it. If the industry doesn't get this figured out, we are going to be in trouble. For now, I guess you and I need to be selective about how we buy our music."

Malicious software warning!

Gerald A. Huntley | Grass Lake, MI USA | 06/11/2006

(1 out of 5 stars)

"Potential buyers who wish to play this "copy protected" CD on their computers are advised that their machine will be infected by malicious software if they attempt to do so. THIS SOFTWARE WILL BE INSTALLED, WITHOUT YOUR CONSENT, EVEN IF YOU CHOOSE NOT TO ACCEPT THE LISCENSE AGREEMENT!!. Additional deceptive practices are used to make detection and removal of this software difficult (e.g., by altering the datestamp of the installed file)



This practice should be unlawful and, indeed, in most countries it is. Unfortunately, the US government is more interested in protecting the rights of corporations than it is the rights of its citizens. The only recourse Americans have is to expose manufactures who use such deceptive practices and to refuse to purchase their products



In response to the commentator (June 29, 2006) who wrote that the software was "annoying, but very easy to surpass...If you don't mind doing a little research": Even if you have the time and expertise necessary to research the issue, PLEASE consider the broader implications of buying products like this. If corporations are allowed to succeed in such relatively benign experiments, there is nothing to prevent them from installing more sophisticated and ambitious software in the future ...software which would be more difficult to remove and which would pose a greater threat to your privacy. For example, the software installed by CD could easily be modified to serve as spyware or to sabotage programs the manufacturer doesn't want you to use. HELP STOP THIS THREAT IN THE BUD: PLEASE DO NOT BUY THESE "COPY PROTECTED" CDS AND BOYCOTT THE COMPANIES THAT MANUFACTURE THEM.



For help in repairing systems compromised by this CD, I suggest you begin by searching the Web using the keyword "SbcpHid.sys" (the name of a file installed by the CD in the Windows\System32\Drivers directory).



"

Copy Protected, Don't Buy

Stephen Cramer | New York, NY United States | 11/09/2005

(1 out of 5 stars)

"I love the music, I just wish I could play it on my computer and MP3 player. Unfortunately, the copy protection software installed on this disk prevents that.



I am one of the few people left who actually believes that artists should be paid for their music and makes a point of buying and not pirating CDs. In return for being a good citizen, I get a CD that is unplayable. Goodbye Foo Fighters. Hello KazAA."