The Null Device

You know those copy-protected CDs the Recording Racket want to foist on us? Well, there are rumours that Macintoshes can read them just fine, and the "protection" is specific to stupidity in Windows drivers. Of course, the RIAA could probably persuade Apple to modify its drivers to honour copy control, much as VCR makers are obliged to be susceptible to Macrovision (that's the thing that prevents you from videotaping DVDs or copying commercial tapes, if you didn't know), but if it's a software-only issue, chances are that Linux can either handle it or will be able to. (The worst they can do is make a non-compliant Linux CD-ROM driver illegal, much like DeCSS, and we all know that you need contacts in the Russian Mafia to get that, don't we.)

There are 2 comments on "":

Posted by: JImbob
http://www.the-fix.org
Fri Nov 9 11:53:12 2001

Are there any reports of people successfully ripping copy protected CDs with cdparanoia for Linux? That seems to be able to rip just about anything, including severely scratched CDs, even if it is a bit slow.

Posted by: acb
http://dev.null.org
Fri Nov 9 12:37:15 2001

haven't heard any.

I think it's a low-level driver issue; CDex is a Wintendo application based on cdparanoia, and I've had problems ripping non-protected CDs from some pressing plants with it on my NT box at work (either because of two marginal CD-ROM drives in a row or because of the general poxyness of NT's CD handling).

My PowerBook does it just fine; except that (a) it doesn't make .m3u files, and (b) it's hardwired to cddb.org, and I'm not submitting any track listings to those scumbags.

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