How am I supposed to play this %!@$#^ music CD????

[leoblob]

I have a music CD, Sheryl Crow, "Globe Sessions." It plays perfectly fine on a CD player, but when I try to listen to it from the CD drive on my computer, it gives me problems.

It has an autorun executable (I hate that!), and it launches this Macromedia garbage. Then (eventually) you get a menu. When you pick "songs" you get an error message and it won't play. Evidently it was authored for WIN95, so how the hell do they expect you to play it on any computer made in the last 8 - 10 years??!!

So I figured I'd just manually pick the audio tracks in Windows Explorer and play them, but when I look at the contents of the CD, the music tracks are not there. They must be hidden somehow since the CD will play on a CD player. I'd love to just capture the audio tracks and burn them onto a blank CD, ignoring all the other crap.

Can anyone help me here? I'm very frustrated (obviously). All I want to do is listen to this thing on my computer.

[tfflivemb2]

When you put the CD in and the box opens up...just close it.

Open your music playing program (WinAmp, Windows Media Player, etc.) and choose the location you want to open files from.

What software do you prefer to listen to music with, on your computer?

[leoblob]

I don't know what the location is, since the files don't show up anywhere... neither in the root nor in any of the directories on the CD.

I like using WMP 6.4. I also have 9.0 and VLC.


EDIT: I just got it to work with VLC. I simply tell it to open the disc, and it handles it fine. I don't need to pick a file. Never occurred to me to try playing it with VLC. Thanks for getting me thinking about this some more.

With WMP, they don't see any media files, you can't tell them to just open the disc; they are worthless in this case.


EDIT #2: It also works with cdplayer.exe (the most basic of Windows CD players).

I'd still like to be able to make a dupe of this CD without the other stuff, but now I can at least play the thing.

[GomJabbar]

If I am not mistaken, I believe Sheryl Crow's music was involved with a copy protection scheme of some sort.

I see that album is listed on the following webpage.
http://www.boycott-riaa.com/corrupt_cds

[carbon_unit]

Yes, you can thank the record companies for this. Some new cd's are not playable on computers running Windows or Mac. Copy Protection.

[leoblob]

The Macromedia intro part gives you an interface sort of like a DVD. You can choose songs or lyrics or still photos. That interface would be fine (presumably) if I were running WIN95 on my computer. Some time later, I will try it on my WIN98-equipped TP365x and see if it works OK.

However, the part where the music files are hidden, that's bad. I was surprised that a Sheryl Crow CD was on that list since she is more liberal (sorry about the pun) with regard to things like bootlegs of unreleased performances, etc.

I guess the record label ultimately calls the shots...

[leoblob]

Now it's 2 hours later, and I have "worked around" their problem. ... ((details removed just in case...))

Do they really think their scheme is going to stop anyone from copying the music? I am virtually a totally clueless newb when it comes to multimedia stuff, and it took me less than 2 hours to figure this out.

All I wanted to do was play the CD on my computer. That's it. If the record label doesn't want you to do that, they should simply have a note on the CD jewel case telling you. Easy. Instead they put this garbage on there which is so infuriating that it motivates a guy like me to figure out how to defeat it.

I don't want or need two copies of this CD. I will be happy to send them back the original one, the one with all the programs on there.

[draco2527]

Now it's 2 hours later, and I have "worked around" their problem. I used a standard CD burning program, which saw all the tracks. I read each track into a temporary directory, then burned them all back onto an audio CD... WITHOUT autorun nor executables.

Do they really think their scheme is going to stop anyone from copying the music? I am virtually a totally clueless newb when it comes to multimedia stuff, and it took me less than 2 hours to figure this out.

All I wanted to do was play the CD on my computer. That's it. If the record label doesn't want you to do that, they should simply have a note on the CD jewel case telling you. Easy. Instead they put this garbage on there which is so infuriating that it motivates a guy like me to figure out how to defeat it.

I don't want or need two copies of this CD. I will be happy to send them back the original one, the one with all the programs on there.

ROFL..but...

Make sure you have a receipt for the original CD, don't want them to "sue" if you can't provide the original...

[egibbs]

Make sure you have a receipt for the original CD, don't want them to "sue" if you can't provide the original...

Actually, it doesn't matter if he has purchased a license for the CD or not (you can't really own a CD, of course).

Simply by bypassing the lame-[censored] piece of crap DRM he has violated the DMCA, which makes bypassing any DRM scheme a crime. Since he posted about it in a public forum there is no doubt that jackbooted, 'roid popping RIAA swat teams are at this moment encircling his house, preparing to haul him off to an undisclosed location where he can be waterboarded until he confesses his crimes and agrees to pay a crippling fine.

Gonna suck to be him.

Ed Gibbs

[leoblob]

Well, I feel they have breached a contract that I can actually listen to the CD for which I bought "usage rights." We can sue each other

If they made a version of this CD for WIN2K or WIN XP I would be fine with that. Or, if they said this CD can only be played on WIN95 computers, that would be fine. Or, if they said this CD cannot be played on ANY computer, that would be fine.

They clearly mis-represented what they sold.

I don't regard this as a DRM issue.

Anyway, when the music "cops" come to my house... I have a VERY big dog...