Nora Jones new CD -- Copy Protection -- YIKES

I bought the Norah Jones and had initial troubles burning to MP3 format. In MusicMatch or Media Player it would stop with errors. There is a FREE program called CDEX from http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/downloads.php to convert the purposely placed errors on the disc (making it unreadable in certain CD players/computer) into a readable format, such as .wav or .mp3. After using this software, I could transfer them to an iPod without trouble. Hope that helps.

If this software on the CD is activated by the autorun feature, defeat this by holding down the shift key when you insert the CD. Some copy protection software was defeated by this simple action. I don't know if this CD falls into that category, but it can't hurt to try.

It is such a shame all these recording companies are punishing the honest, loyal customers by totally disregarding the copy protection's effect on sound quality. I followed an interesting thread around seven years ago, about Macrovision copy protection on DVDs when they were becoming popular. (Macrovision prevents making VHS copies of DVD contents by sending a signal to the VCR's gain attenuator driving it nuts causing excessive shifts in brightness and picture contrast!)

Ironically, none of the new DVD's appear to feature Macrovision, perhaps because in the era of DVD writers, who bothers to make sonically and visually inferior VHS copies? Today I am yet to hear of any DVD that cannot be ripped and copied.

Can you think of an operating system that is not prone to Virus attacks? (Remember Larry Ellison's infamous open challenge to infiltrate Oracle Unbreakable Database/ Sever Clusters' and the aftermath?) Similarly, I cannot think of na encryption, copy protection or a DRM mechanism that cannot be hacked. It is not just a matter of when, not if!

Executives of the RIAA, MPAA and major record labels should invest their time and money going behind mass violators of copyright laws. Not honest consumers, who deserve the right to play the software in whatever hardware they prefer, let it be a dedicated Cd player, PC, Car, Discman, mp3 player etc.

One final word: I travel to China very often and any DVD released anywhere in the world is available there for 6 RMB (USD 0.75) and given the 1 billion plus population in China, the loss of income due to piracy there is incalculable! (Please do not start the "DVD usage is not widespread in China as in the Western world" argument, a Chinese built DVD player costs only USD 25.00 there and with the new found wealth, almost every Chinese can buy one)

I ripped this CD with EAC and a Plextor Plexwriter Premium. I didn't have any problems at all.

Copy protected CDs skip on my Naim at about the 10 second mark of every track and it totally Yikes me let me tell ya. All EMI CDs released in Canada now are copy protected. I don't download...does Norah's new CD release in America have "Copy Protected" clearly marked in a white box on the label ? thanks

Budrew, I imagine they will use DRM or similar playback restriction technology.

I received the same email from EMI/Bluenote.

I dont know what you guys are talking about. I ripped my New nora Jones cd, the old one and also a new dvd audio disc to windows media player 9 with no problems.

I received the same response. I still would like to know how these companies plan to deal with hard drive-based systems which I'm sure will gain market share over time.

Prpixel....In some places it IS copy protected. See my post above.

Here's the response sent to me from BlueNote:

Thank you very much for your email to info@bluenote.com regarding the Norah
Jones- Feels Like Home CD. In many territories across the world, Feels Like
Home contains
copy protection. We sincerely apologize if the copy protection has caused
any complications or inconveniences to you.

If you are having trouble with the Feels Like Home CD on various players
and/ or on your personal computer, we ask that you please file your inquiry
statement at our dedicated copy protection web site. You can do this at
http://www.emimusic.info/o5_EN. Filing your inquiry here will be of great
benefit and we thank you in advance.

Thank you for your continued support and please continue to visit and
communicate with us at http://www.bluenote.com.

Sincerely,
The Blue Note Records team

Brianmgrarcom: I agree... it sounds very compressed to me. So did her first CD. Not typical for Blue Note. Where's Rudy Van Gelder when we need him?!

What is the consensus on the sound quality? I find the music a bit dull/flat at times, especially the drums.

My HK dual burner copied it fine. I made a copy for my car but I have not played it yet. I will check and make sure it plays.

Chris

You have to install the Bandlink software.

Help me out on this one, guys. I pop the CD into my eMAC and iTunes only recognizes the same 13 songs that I would get, if I were to play the CD on my CD player. How would I access the additional bonus song(s)?

Many thanks, Rich

billhart: try to copy your cd to a mac or pc. Then try to make a copy without the bandlink software. I think this will then work in your ML 37. Good luck, Harry

The new Norah Jones "Feels Like Home" will not play on my Mark Levinson No. 37..it tries reading it and declares it a "bad disc". The 37 still plays all my other CD's, so it's clearly working fine. Don't know what Blue Note put on this CD, but my 37 won't read it...any recourse? Do they have a non copy protected release?

FWIW and IMHO, it's not really a bonus track if the artist wrote and/or arranged the tune, recorded it and intended to release it along with the rest of the tunes on the album. Just a ploy by the marketing-heads at the labels to make the consumer think they are getting a "bonus". If a tune that's on a CD can't be played on my computer, I'm pissed off.

Off topic - When cassettes became popular, they would include bonus tracks, compared to the vinyl version. Later, you would get a bonus track(s) on a CD, as opposed to a cassette, when Sony and Philips were trying to get consumer acceptance for that new format. In turn, bonus enhanced material was included on CD's. When the maximum time that could be stored to a CD was discovered, some artists simply recorded as much as they could write. Some ECM recordings extend to 80+ minutes.

The bonus track is only available on the computer.

Question. Is this 'bonus track' available to those of us who listen to this CD in a real CD player? Or just the computer listeners. I do very little computer CD listening.

Spudco,

What impresses me the most about this is how quick Blue Note(EMI) stepped up to the plate and resolved the issue. Today, most companies take the "hurry up and wait" approach to customer service.

BTW - now that i've had a chance to listen to a few tracks I'm enjoying it. A definite step in the right direction after "come away with me".

Let me also appologize publicly to Blue Note.

Budrew,

Something I learned in the computer business is that a software company makes no guarantee on the performace of their software. So, if it doesn't work on your PC, your SOL. The only thing that you can do is send it back to the manufacturer and hope for a refund. A publisher makes no guarantee on the quality of the writing in a book.

On the back of the CD it does say "insert the Cd into a CD-ROM drive and gain access to exclusive content". So, I'm assuming it should work in just about any CDROM drive. I tried it in all three of my computers with the same result; it would read the Table of Contents, but I could not get it to play. BTW - all three are running WinXP.

Recently, I've become tired of shuffling CD's. I do the majority of my listening while sitting at the computer. I only fire up the big rig when I'm in the mood for some serious listening. I decided to rip some of my favorite CD's to an external 200GB HD using lossless compression. It's so convenient to have about 500-600 CD's at your fingertips. I do beleive that the industry is heading this way. In a couple of years we'll have HD's measured in terabytes and all our music and video will be stored on them.

I have to agree with you about copyright law stifling creativity. Recently, it seams like whenever something is about to enter into the public domain, someone comes forward and gets an extension to the copyright. The way things are going, those old Disney cartoon copyrights should expire somtime in the 22nd century.

Later,

I have sent an appology to Blue Note for questioning their product. I will purchase this disk this weekend. I encourage all of you who have complained to this label to let them know that we all went off the deep end based upon inaccurate information.

Copy protection is a real issue and will need our attention. I'm just glad I don't have to miss out on all the great Blue Note artists.

That si good news Prpixel. I like to hear things like this. I have bben a strong advocate for lables giving the consumer something extra for their money to encourage them to buy theri product as opposed to copy protecting it. The Eminiem cd "The Eminiem Show" came with a free dvd with purchase. That is awesome. I cannot think of any other examples but I know others are doing this as well....an extra track is a cool thing to give. It is good to know they care about their customer service.

Time to get the MD or the old, warm sounding analogue decks out. If all of this is due to encoding/anti ripping schemes of several newly released commercial discs, then what will the purpose of buying $300 worth of portable MP3 players, where we will not be able to upload the songs we rightfully bought? Not everything modern is necessarily free of headaches.

Best Buy - $9.99 this week.

Good news - the Norah Jones CD is not copy protected. The problem is that the Bandlink software can get a little weird and break windows media player. After a few calls to Blue note somebody finally gave my number to Cedric at CDIntelligence, the distributer for the Bandlink software. He was very polite and knowledgable and after about 20 minutes I was able to figure out how to get it to play. On some windows xp PC's you might have to disable autorun to prevent then Bandlink software from launching. After I did this (in the registry - don't go there) the CD booted up fine and I was able to play it. I was even able to rip it to my music hard drive.

Blue Note (EMI) is taking a different approach to preventing illegal copying. They are giving you extra content to encourage you to buy the CD. In fact, if you intall the Bandlink software, you can get access to a bonus track and other material.

I was surprised to have someone call me at 7pm to help me with my problem. I didn't expect to have anyone return my call. Especially from a big record company like EMI.

Anyway, I hope this helps other people that were having the same issue.

I believe Circuit City advertised it for $11.99 for this week.

One thing I forgot to add was that the retail on the new Norah Jones
album and the new Keb Mo album I purchased at the same time at B&N
was $19! "On sale" for $16. Weren't they supposed to be
lowering the price of CDs? Most new DVDs cost $10.

Prpixel, There was an article in the New York Times Magazine a few weeks ago about copyright issues. The concern is that in fact you don't have full rights to the music; you actually lease the music to be used as they tell you can use it. The article went deeper than this but the point was that copyright law is going too far and is actually stifling creativity and new thinking. Copyrights and patents now last so long that an idea, a song, whatever may not enter the public domain for 100s of years.

Witness the discussion in this thread that exemplifies the problem. Technology has moved forward and we can now store all of our music on hard drives with instant access to hundreds of albums and playlists. However, the record labels are preventing this from occurring on new releases through the use of copy protection. They own the copyright to the music and they can tell you what you can and can't do with that music when you buy the CD.

I'm not sure what you can claim in small claims court. There is no legal guarantee that says you have the right to rip a CD to your computer or to play it in the CD drive of your computer. As I understand it the definition of fair use has changed over time so you may not be able to rely on that. the best we can do is speak up and make ourselves heard. As more and more people use their computer as their media system what can the labels do???

I called Blue Note 4 times today. I'm getting the run around and getting transfered all over the place. So, if I don't receive an answer by tomorrow morning I'm going to file in small claims court. Most people might think I'm going overboard, but it's just the whole idea thats bothering me. I paid for the rights to the music, so I should be able to listen to it on what ever machine I choose to. Hey, if I can get 3 other people to file in court we can seek class action status.

Here's a way we could circumvent this problem, and send a message to bluenote and their owners. Someone buys a copy and cracks it then burns the AIFF/WAV files on to a CD-R. We pass that around via postal mail, each person burning themselves a copy then passing that along to the next in line. (a Vine, it's called, in music-trading circles... only talking about sharing legit content in this context, not piracy).

Obviously this would only be open to people who have bought the CD and can prove it (need to find a way to do that part of it) and just want a copy for their own backup. Would require a little work to do the first crack/copy/archive but after that a simple enough process.

-Ed

I am disinterested in this album, and I agree with your sentiments in general about fair use of what you buy, but I understood that copy protection is on nearly every new cd. Is that not the case?

Depending on what type of "protection" the cd has..it is crackable. On copy protected discs this outer track is corrupted, which prevents copying, or even playback, by PCs but is ignored (at least in theory) by regular CD players. Covering up the outer track via a magic marker disables the protection, allowing a disc to be played as normal in a PC or Mac.

The technique may sound risky, but I did it to the latest "A Perfect Circle" release with success.

In the end, record companies are killing themselves and it is great. I will NOT buy the Norah cd but will pick it up on vinyl in March. I usually buy both as I did with the latest Radio Head but I refuse this time. My system set-up only consists of my Rega 25 and my iPod for digital use so ripping failure is not an option. More and more people are getting outraged by the actions of greedy record companies and are NOT buying the material which they previously would buy. I love it. Its just sad that some music might get lost in this "war"

Before posting above, I expressed my sentiments to Blue Note, and as others have suggested, the more that do, the better.

I spent too many years making compilations the hard way -- via reel-to-reel and cassettes. I don't intend going backwards.

We should make our voice known to the music purveyors by communicating same -- phone, e-mail, and by not opening our wallets for any of their products, if one is copy protected....

It is incorrect to assume that any business can ingore lost income. Every penny of sales matters. Lost profits expose poor decisions. A small but vocal groups can often generate enough noise to change policies.

I had already sent an email and now I will follow it up with a phone call.

I have paid for all the music in my collection (over 1000 records and 2300 disks). I do make some CD copies. I have copied for use in the car and on my second system. I do make compliations for personal use. I have never made a copy a friend.

The point is that I will only purchase a high quality product from a company that is up front with their customers.

Businesses do care about angry customers. Angry customers are more likely to influence others to avoid purchases.

I have 23 years experience coaching businessmen. None of them want negative feelings about their products.

Whether they give a rat's &%$$ or not we should at least speak up. I don't mean we should rant and be rude about, but email them and inform them of how we listen to our music these days. Without customer feedback how are they to know what's really going on.

I agree with Budrew's sentiments, "punishing" the good consumers like those of us posting on A-Gon, is not a wise marketing decision.

I have payed for 100% of the music that I own, and I've spent hours ripping my favorite tracks onto my 120 Gig hard drive. In fact, I bought a 200 Gig drive to back-up the 120, so my effort wouldn’t be lost.

If I can't continue to rip, and make copies for my own use, I will NOT purchase the software, no matter the performer!

If music sales are down, screwing with the folks that are religious buyers, is a monumental marketing mistake.

All future Blue Note purchases, copy protected or not, will not be considered if any of their releases are copy protected.

Wow. If all of us audiophiles boycott this CD, we can probably cause the label to lose about a half of one percent of sales. That'll teach 'em. But seriously, do you think they give a hirsute rodent's hind quarters about us?

What does that mean -- "meant to be played on..."? It's a CD and
anything that can play a CD should be able to play it. Just my opinion. I
guess they'll have to start labeling packaging stating that "this CD will
only play on components of our choosing."

I just read somewhere that HMV will order you a Japanese copy-
protection free version for $50. My question is, what is the point of
using copy protection in some countries and not others? Any savvy
pirateer will simply obtain the copy protection free version. I just don't
get it. Why do they punish the consumer?

Here is the telephone number to Blue Note records.

(212) 786-8600

Call them and express your disatisfaction. I hope Agon lets this post go through even though they have a policy against posting phone numbers. We shouldn't have to put up with this. At least they could have put a warning sticker on the disc. Like I said, if I can't play it on my computer, then I don't want it.

I just got off the phone with them. They informed me that this CD is ment to by played in audio only (stand alone) CD/DVD players.

Good luck,

I couldn't make a copy on my work machine (MS XP), but it went o.k. at home using win98 ????

You can express your feelings here:
http://www.bluenote.com/feedback.asp

Send a message. Don't purchase this release.

As much a I love her music and as much as I need well recorded stuff, I will not support this crap.

I will spend my money on other artists and other labels.

I just burned a copy for my personal use. I have a Mac. Guess there is no problem with iTunes. I was doing some surfing on Ebay and found someone selling this disc. Couldn't see the label very well. But looked like it denoted that it was copy protected. I think they have been doing more of that in the UK.

I'll be buying it soon and will try it on my (older and newer) Macs. I havent' run into any CD's yet that I haven't been able to copy if so desired. (even ones that were supposedly copy protected.) With a little research it can be seen that the redbook format does not support any type of encryption/protection, so all these hacks to try to add it after the fact are just that - lame hacks. Easily circumvented I think, with a bit of effort and the right hardware/software combo. Who are the record companies kidding, anyway? copy protection only pisses off legitimate users/owners of the music, those who will rip it off will do so anyway, so-called 'copy protection' or not.

We'll see.....

-Ed

I loved her first album. This is awfully boring.

For all you vinyl lovers like myself, the 200 gm LP will be out March 2004 (per the Acoustic Sounds site).

so somehow she didn't sell enough albums the first time and now the need it copy protected to sell more????
and no sacd/cd hybrid release from the get go!!!
blue note is not the same label it used to be.
record compaines just don't make enough money off of us.