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The problem
In their latest desperate attempt to keep a slipping grip on high profit margins, the record industry has introduced a new and fiendishly ineffective weapon to hamper those who want to copy and share music. They don't seem to care, but it also seems to impinge on the CD owner's legal right to make and hold a backup copy of the CD's contents; or at least, it would do, if it worked.
Thanks to our friend Kenneth MacGuilligagan (Brigadier, retired) for identifying this workaround.
How the 'Copy Protected' CD protection technology works
The most common form of protection in the UK (and the only form dealt with here) involves placing data files on the CD along with the audio tracks. This in itself can confuse some CD-Rom players with the 'illegal' TOC mix of data and music files.
Additionally, most CD-ROM drives are set to execute a file called autorun.inf when the CD is inserted into the drive.
This trigger is a system process called Auto-Insert-Notification (AIN); it's the same process used by developers, like our good selves, to run installation routines automatically.
When enabled, the commands in autorun.inf will be executed and will launch an executable on the CD. This program is the real copy protection; it will run in the background and try to hamper any attempts to copy the CD.
If you create your own music CDs then this is reason enough to disable AIN, as it hampers the CD burning process.
How to bypass 'Copy Protected' Music CD Protection
You can turn off Auto-Insert-Notification (AIN) and bypass this type of CD protection by either:
- temporarily (All) - by holding down the shift key before you insert the CD, releasing it when the disk contents have been read (i.e. when the disk stops whirring)
- permanently (Win 9.x users)* - by disabling AIN on your CD-Rom drive (Go to: Start Menu, Settings, Control Panel, System, Device Manager, CD-Roms, General, AIN checkbox)
- permanently (Win XP users) - by editing the autorun registry key:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\CdRom]
setting the value "Autorun"=0
(To change your registry key automatically, *right* click and save the file at this link (you can check its contents if you left-click it like normal). Once saved, double-click/open the file and confirm the change when prompted.)
*If you are using Adaptec's DirectCD for Windows, you must have AIN turned on or you may get nasty side effects
To create your backup copy, why not download Jackie Mann's excellent Audiograbber which is completely unphased by an illegal TOC, and is now completely free. Although it is illegal to
distribute files you do not own the copyright to, if you *do* own the copyright, why not share the files on a peer to peer network like WinMX (which is free and does not contain spyware like Kazaa)?
Fat stupid cats?
Some might say that if the music industry hadn't been so greedy and shortsighted in the first place, if they'd embraced new technology instead of trying to stomp it out, they might not have got themselves in to the little pickle they're now in.
Some might say. Fancy a rant yourself?
More info on AIN Audiograbber WinMX P2P file-sharing The best radio show on earth
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