Play Protection

Another post from my archives. Originally published on my old website, 24th March 2004.

It’s getting rediculous [sic] these days – practically every other CD you pick up now has so-called copy protection on it. It’s fairly well documented now, but here are some reasons why I always try to avoid them wherever possible…

1. They don’t play properly. Apparently they play on 90% of CD players. I have several different players. Of these, only my DVD player can play them properly, and even then not all of the time. My Kenwood CD player can’t cope with them at all (it simply registers ‘no disc’); my CD recorder for some reason always skips the first track; and, most bizarrely of all, my portable CD player requires to be hit a couple of times before it starts playing.
2. I can copy them without problems. Although my normal CD player can’t play them, all I have to do is put them in my DVD player, and I can copy them digitally. The only thing it doesn’t do is put in track markers, but it’s easy enough to put them in yourself. I should stress that the fact that I know this does not mean I have copied any of these discs. Honest.
3. They aren’t proper CDs. I’m not really keen on enhanced CDs anyway, but these don’t even include any extra material…

Anyway, suffice to say, I’m not keen on the things, and the sooner they stop releasing them, the better.