WARNING: New Bacharach CD is COPY PROTECTED (early copies)

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Maybe in addition to reissuing it without the spyware copy=protection crap they can also reissue it in instrumental-only form so we don't have to listen to Burt pontificating MoveOn.Org talking points... :laugh:

--Mr Bill
 
Maybe we need to dig back through those old issues of Stereo Review and order that Thompson Vocal Eliminator™. :D

I heard that the political comments are not really over the top on this one; IOW, not as bad as having to sit through some certain folk singers' repertoire.
 
I'm w Mr. Bill on this one! I love Burt, but leave the politricks to the experts like Rush Limbaugh, or Randy Rhodes....
 
Mr. Bill is not far off the mark. I was thinking when I listened to it: With just a couple of exceptions, the vocals could've been dropped out and not been missed.

And, Neil is right -- the "message" is pretty subdued, with the strongest lyrics being on "Who Are These People."
 
The following was posted on slashdot.org, on removing the Sony/BMG files:

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The following is how you kill this hidden install. I did this in Windows XP Pro, so attempt on another OS at your discretion. This will require Administrator rights. Please read through the entire instruction set, and if you don't feel comfortable attempting this, then don't. The rest of you, follow me
1. hit windowsKey+R to open the RUN command. Type services.msc to run the services dialog. Find 'Plug and Play Device Manager' in the list, right click and choose Properties. Under the General tab of the box that comes up, in the middle there should be the "startup type" of the service. Set this value to "disabled" and click OK. Next find the service named 'XCP CD Proxy' and set its startup type to disabled as well. You won't be able to stop these services, only disable them from starting next time Windows starts.
2. Download and run the latest Blacklight beta from http://www.f-secure.com/blacklight/ [f-secure.com] This program will find the 'super hidden' CD proxy files we're trying to get rid of. When it finishes searching click next until you reach the screen that shows you all the hidden files it found. Select all these files and click the "rename" button to the right. Windows will restart once you click OK, and the files will be renamed.
3. Once Windows restarts you will have lost any and all CD/DVD drives. DON'T PANIC! Hit windowsKey+Pause/Break to open up your System dialog. Click on the Hardware tab, then on the "Device Manager" button. Your system will not list any CD/DVD drives, but you should see IDE slot(s) that have little yellow circles with exclamation points over them indicating a device with a problem. In order to restore the drivers to their un-sony-altered state you must right click on the affected device and choose "uninstall driver". Do this for each device with a problem.
4. Now that you have uninstalled the affected drivers, simply navigate to your Control Panel via the Start Menu and choose "Add Hardware". The add hardware wizard will run and find your previously disabled devices. Your drives are now restored and functional, and this potentially dangerous menace vanquished.
5. Advanced users may now go and clean up the mess, but this step is not necessary. Delete renamed files, and dare I say it, registry keys that pertain to Sony's program. Use this list for reference: http://www.europe.f-secure.com/v-descs/xcp_drm.sht ml [f-secure.com] but nothing really beats searching.
 
PartyRico said:
I'm w Mr. Bill on this one! I love Burt, but leave the politricks to the experts like Rush Limbaugh, or Randy Rhodes....


DId anyone catch SNL last night? They were doing an entire show of commercial parodies, and John McCain was a riot aping Barbra Streisand tunes...maybe W needs to play some Bacharach on the piano...


Dan
 
Update: there is a new utility, posted yesterday at Sony's site, that supposedly removes the "rootkit" that the XCP copy protection installs on a computer. Article here (with a link to the Sony site):

http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/12651

Funny that Sony would use a technology that is barely any better than what virus and spyware/malware authors use to infect a computer. :mad:
 
People what is wrong with your thinking. As an owner of a small music distribution company I am completely thrilled with the copy protection going on. When are you people going to realize that you must pay for music. The artists and all involved are getting ripped off. I actually talked to a Dr. on a flight a while back that said he would never pay for music again. I'm sorry but the music industry has already devalued their product way beyond the point of where it should be. Musicians will no longer have music careers as a day job if this keeps up. It will only be a hobby. Musicians who spend their life learning this craft need to be respected and paid. Good grief, we pay our sports figures billions to entertain us and don't get near the lasting value we get from a great music contribution that goes on forever. People need to get the complete picture. They see albums for sell in the great Wal-Mart for 9.99 and think music stores are ripping people off. What they don't know is that we pay 12.02 for most albums and Wal-Mart & Best Buy use them as lost leaders. It's time for people to start paying for music again so we can keep the industry healthy and hopefully breed some great new talent again. Three cheers for copy protection. Shame on everyone that supports getting something wonderful and enhancing for our lives without paying the price.
 
I don't care much about copy protection per se, but I resent any scheme that intentional causes harm to an innocent consumer, as is the case with this Somy/BMG fiasco.

I buy all of my music, and urge everyone else to do the same. But I don't like being considered among the criminal element of our society by the record companies. I'm the one that gives them my hard-earned money, and deserve to be treated with respect.

Harry
 
It's time for people to start paying for music again so we can keep the industry healthy and hopefully breed some great new talent again.

I hear you talking, because I'm in the music business too (at my day job). And, like Harry, I think copy protection is fine IF it doesn't cause my computer to be crippled or compromised in the process. So I am completely against this whole Sony scheme. If they would simply make their "software" removable, the problem wouldn't exist.

The music industry "devaluing" its product is not the problem, by the way. It's human nature. Many people -- young people, mostly -- are now USED TO getting music for free, so they don't think it's worth 15 bucks or whatever. When I first got into the business, a record album sold for around $5 and people griped about the price then, too. If they'd been able to get the music free, we'd have had the same problem then as we're having here in the demoralized, criminal-infested 21st century.
 
From BBC News this morning:

Sony has said it will suspend the production of music CDs with anti-piracy technology which can leave computers vulnerable to viruses.

The move came after security firms said hackers were exploiting the software to hide their creations.

The software has been used by viruses to evade detection by anti-virus programs and infect computers.

Sony said it had a right to stop people illegally copying music, but added that the halt was precautionary.

"We also intend to re-examine all aspects of our content protection initiative to be sure that it continues to meet our goals of security and ease of consumer use," the company said in a statement.
 
Mike Blakesley said:
The music industry "devaluing" its product is not the problem, by the way. It's human nature. Many people -- young people, mostly -- are now USED TO getting music for free, so they don't think it's worth 15 bucks or whatever. When I first got into the business, a record album sold for around $5 and people griped about the price then, too. If they'd been able to get the music free, we'd have had the same problem then as we're having here in the demoralized, criminal-infested 21st century.

Well said Mike. In fact, that's what I really love about i-Tunes. When I realized that I could pay a single dollar to grab a track without feeling convicted about it, it sort of became a slight addiction (as I'm sure many of you here can attest to). Now, if we can just get the entire BEATLES catalog over there... -Chris (who's not exactly holding his breath on that one, online...)
 
fozzie said:
People what is wrong with your thinking. As an owner of a small music distribution company I am completely thrilled with the copy protection going on. When are you people going to realize that you must pay for music. The artists and all involved are getting ripped off.

I think you will find that everyone here agrees with you. All of us here pay for our music. (For the record, we do not allow any discussion here of downloading, trading or copying music illegally.) I also work directly with some of these artists and know how "the system" works, and that nobody will thrive if music is just given away.

It's the part of treating all of us as a criminal element that many of us are opposed to, and the reason I'm on a personal Sony/BMG boycott (as I hope others are). Among other things, Sony has started putting the copy protection on...jazz reissues?? What pimply "download everything for nothing" teenage kid is going to want a free copy of those? Why not just stick this on the high-profile releases that DO get "shared" so much?

Sony also risks lawsuits from effectively intruding on and damaging users' computers with the installation of this kind of software without the end user's knowledge (they think they're installing a player application). There is even a law in Europe against this, written more for spyware/malware but certainly applicable for this type of copy protection. Sony/BMG just shot itself in the foot--all this bad publicity could kill off more sales than any downloading or sharing ever would have.
 
I hear that the next update of Windows XP will include a programme that automatically finds and deletes everything associated with Sony/BMG's program.

Which would seem to be curtains for the software company that designed it, wouldn't it?
 
Like Tony says, the next version of Microsoft Anti-Spyware will have detection for the Sony/BMG "XCP" rootkit.

Amazon is offering a full refund of the XCP discs, whether opened or unopened. And on the Sony/BMG site, there are details how to arrange for a swap of your XCP disc for a new one without the protection.

Some bad publicity either way.
 
Here is a link to the Sony site where you can exchange your CDs.

http://www.upsrow.com/sonybmg/

You can print a pre-paid UPS label to send them in, and they will return un-screwed-up CDs in 3 to 6 weeks. If you don't want to be without the music, you can request the songs via mp3 downloads at no charge.

So at least they're taking care of it....too bad they had to get their feet held to the fire to do it.

By the way -- that's really a UPS site you're visiting with the above link, not a Sony site.
 
Montana Mike B said:
So at least they're taking care of it....too bad they had to get their feet held to the fire to do it.

You gotta wonder if all this legal and consumer scrambling is going to cost them more than their losses to illegal file sharing would've cost them in the first place!

--Mr Bill
 
Mr Bill said:
Montana Mike B said:
So at least they're taking care of it....too bad they had to get their feet held to the fire to do it.

You gotta wonder if all this legal and consumer scrambling is going to cost them more than their losses to illegal file sharing would've cost them in the first place!

--Mr Bill

The state of Texas is suing Sony/BMG, and there were at least two class actions against Sony/BMG last time I checked. Probably hundreds of thousands of CDs, if not more than a million, are out there that need to be exchanged. The per-unit cost is less than a dollar, so that's just a small expense; shipping them back is going to cost them 3-4 times that amount if not more.

And you can't put a price on all the negative publicity this has caused, which spread like wildfire thanks to the internet.

Yeah, they're gonna be hurtin' for awhile. There's no telling how many copies of the albums would have been illegally downloaded, however. This ome is hurting them directly in their pocketbook.

It's funny, too--the labels already had the perfect copy protection: SACD. :wink:
 
fozzie said:
People what is wrong with your thinking. As an owner of a small music distribution company I am completely thrilled with the copy protection going on. When are you people going to realize that you must pay for music. The artists and all involved are getting ripped off. I actually talked to a Dr. on a flight a while back that said he would never pay for music again. I'm sorry but the music industry has already devalued their product way beyond the point of where it should be. Musicians will no longer have music careers as a day job if this keeps up. It will only be a hobby. Musicians who spend their life learning this craft need to be respected and paid. Good grief, we pay our sports figures billions to entertain us and don't get near the lasting value we get from a great music contribution that goes on forever. People need to get the complete picture. They see albums for sell in the great Wal-Mart for 9.99 and think music stores are ripping people off. What they don't know is that we pay 12.02 for most albums and Wal-Mart & Best Buy use them as lost leaders. It's time for people to start paying for music again so we can keep the industry healthy and hopefully breed some great new talent again. Three cheers for copy protection. Shame on everyone that supports getting something wonderful and enhancing for our lives without paying the price.

Whoa!!! Hold on there, hoss!!!

I'm in the music biz myself and I hear your point about compensating musicians because I'm also a musician and a writer.

But to defend the perniscious way Sony/BMG went about this is ridiculous. Two wrongs don't make a right!!! :thumbsdn:
 
50 points to Dore Adler for using the word "pernicious" in a post. 20 points deducted for spelling it wrong! :)

Harry
 
Since Sony/BMG is actively taking returns for replacement on affected titles, I would say that if you are interested in this CD, by all means, purchase it. But be sure that the version you buy does not have the copy protection on it. Stores *should* be returning their stock, but I'm guessing that some won't bother to, so there is still a chance the copy protected versions will be infecting the marketplace for some time.

Sony/BMG has made their mistake, and they're paying dearly for it.
 
This may sound dumb but I'll ask it anyway. All of the re-releases of Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass c-d's are marked Sony BMG. Given the spyware infection problems with the Burt Bacharach Sony BMG problems, does this problem exist with the new TjB c-d's?

I'm lovin' all my TjB re-releases. I bought 2 copies of each.

tom
 
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