Norah Jones CD NOT copy protected - Media Player


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.
prpixel
OK, I am confused. You say

"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."

Followed by

"if you intall the Bandlink software, you can get access to a bonus track and other material."

If you have to disable the Bandlink software, to load it to your PC why would you get access to a bonus track after installing it?
The problem is whenever you put the CD in the drive it wants to launch the Bandlink program. If you disable autorun, the bandlink software will not run. I never installed the Bandlink software, so I have not accessed any of the bonus material. I guess, now that I've ripped it to my external Hard drive, I could install the Bandlink software and access the bonus material. I just don't want to install another media player on my machine to listen to one song. I've been in the computer business for over 25 years; one thing I learned is the less software you install on your PC, the better it runs.
Is the bonus track at full resolution or some sort of streamed/MP3/proprietary format? Anyone?

-Ed
Prpixel,
Can you reveal the registry thread and what to change? Please post or email me.

Thanks,
Mike
I did buy it. In fact, I pre-ordered it.

Mike,

I won't tell you how to do it in the registry becuase an inexperienced user can do a lot of damage there.

However, can can accomplish the same thing by doing the following:

Open my computer
Right click on your cdrom drive
Go to properties and left click
On the autoplay tab highlight music CD and select no action
Highligh mix content and select no action.
Left click apply

Turning this off will prevent any music cd's from launching media player when you insert them in the CDrom drive.

Good luck,
Prpixel
This is AudiogoN, we are pros!

Thanks for the info, I just wanted the temp fix.

Mike
where are you guys from? Just bought the "Feels like Home" cd in the UK and it's copy protected. My real only problem with copy protected cd's is that I cannot copy them to my office computer. I usually do that and keep the cd's at home. But what can I do, I'm not going to pass the oportunity to listen to music I like because of that. But usually my first reaction is to avoid buying it.