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Phuz01

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 25, 2006
381
482
New York, NY
Over the weekend, I got several CDs on sale. One of them was a Sony/Columbia/Legacy CD, and I didn't notice it carried a small message "Content enhanced and protected."

When I put the CD in my drive, it doesn't show up in iTunes. In fact, it asked to install a stand-alone player on my computer. But if you do that, all sorts of security warnings pop up. So I installed the patches as directed, but I was still unable to view the CD in iTunes.

After installing, I noticed my antivirus software was deactivated. So I removed all the software and rolled back my system.

Does anybody know a way around this copy protection software that won't put my system at risk? I just want to import the CD tracks into iTunes.
 
Yeah, I might not have been so quick to buy had it not been on sale for $5.99. Looks like I might just have to bite the bullet and see if it's available on the iTunes store. Good money after bad.
 
I had this dilemma when Switchfoot's Nothing Is Sound came out in 2005. I finally decided on ripping it the old school way using a CD player, a 3.5 mm male to male headphone cable, and an audio program called GoldWave.
 
Yeah, I might not have been so quick to buy had it not been on sale for $5.99. Looks like I might just have to bite the bullet and see if it's available on the iTunes store. Good money after bad.

If you have a friend with a Mac, chances are that he/she would be able to rip it ... as long as it mounts.
 
I have access to a Mac at the office. Will try that tomorrow. If it doesn't work, does anybody else have suggestions?

I figured somebody here might have encountered this problem and been crafty enough to come up with a work-around.
 
Over the weekend, I got several CDs on sale. One of them was a Sony/Columbia/Legacy CD, and I didn't notice it carried a small message "Content enhanced and protected."

When I put the CD in my drive, it doesn't show up in iTunes. In fact, it asked to install a stand-alone player on my computer. But if you do that, all sorts of security warnings pop up. So I installed the patches as directed, but I was still unable to view the CD in iTunes.

After installing, I noticed my antivirus software was deactivated. So I removed all the software and rolled back my system.

Does anybody know a way around this copy protection software that won't put my system at risk? I just want to import the CD tracks into iTunes.

What was the CD? It could have contained the infamous Sony "rootkit"
 
Yes, Phil. You hit the nail on the head. It's one of THOSE CDs. :(

I'm looking for a way to break through the idiotic copy protection. The downloads Sony offered as a work-around didn't work, and they disabled my antivirus software. So I uninstalled all the Sony software and rolled back my system.

So now I'm sitting with this crap CD and no way to get the music from it into iTunes.
 
Putting the CD in a Mac worked like a charm. Yet another reason Mac is superior to Windoze.

I posted this on the Apple support site, and they removed it and sent me a warning about requesting advice to perform illegal activities. Yeah, I wanted to put the music from a CD that I purchased into my iTunes library. Lock me up now!
 
a little late but...

Yes, Phil. You hit the nail on the head. It's one of THOSE CDs. :(

I'm looking for a way to break through the idiotic copy protection. The downloads Sony offered as a work-around didn't work, and they disabled my antivirus software. So I uninstalled all the Sony software and rolled back my system.
I'm a little late but you might be able to get a replacement CD w/o the rootkit software. See http://cp.sonybmg.com/xcp/.
 
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