ripping "mystery" CDs...?

[jsunandmax]

i have an audio CD that appears to also be a CD-ROM.

I'm building a .flac library from my CD's but cannot figure out how to 'rip' this one. It has no files visible on the disk, besides an autorun.inf an .exe and a video. None of my software even recognizes there are audio tracks on there!

btw: the CD is Richest Man in Babylon by Theivery Corporation. If you know the group, you know how desperate I am to get this sweet disk into my collection and out to my SB3~!

any help is greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

[Mark Lanctot]

A new and insidious form of copy protection?

Does it even play in a CD player?

Whenever I see a CD with an .exe in it, I always think "DRM!" and then I think "Sony", which makes me think "ROOTKIT!!!!!"

[jsunandmax]

thus my post...its gotta be some new kind of copy protection. its put out by www.eslmusic.com which of course could be owned by Sony, who knows.

The back says its something called an 'enhanced CD'

[Skunk]

btw: the CD is Richest Man in Babylon by Theivery Corporation. If you know the group, you know how desperate I am to get this sweet disk into my collection and out to my SB3~!


I have the vinyl version (drm free!). Would be nice to play it on the Sb though..

There is a tool in EAC to keep discs from auto running, but you may have to start EAC before inserting the disc, and be using EAC of course.

There is also a way to turn it off permanently in windows, but I usually let EAC do it to avoid looking up the registry key.

You probably already contracted the virus/rootkit, btw. I'm picturing that space worm that goes in your ear, from an old star trek? movie.

[Mark Lanctot]

I have one or two enhanced CDs. Usually they have conventional audio tracks followed by a video along with a player (the .exe).

Surprising that your system isn't seeing the audio tracks. Do you have autorun on? The "player" program may have installed itself (hence the autorun.inf) and part of the function of the "player", at least in Sony's case, is to block the playing of the audio tracks by any other means but the "player".

One would think the music industry learned from Sony, but they don't have a very good track record in this regard. No doubt they saw Sony's despicable actions as a good thing.

What ripping program do you use?

[jsunandmax]

i realize its not that popular, but it's pretty fast and works for me so far. it doesn't 'autorun' although most of my other CDs do start to auto-play when i put them in. I have to run this .exe and it plays a little slideshow then the music plays. that seems to be the 'player'.

excuse my ignorance, what is EAC?

also, i dont know why it would need a rootkit, other than to hide files/folders on the actual CD, and therefore i'm not sure its analagous to a virus...

i wrote an email to the label..we'll see what they say....

[pfarrell]

jsunandmax wrote:
> excuse my ignorance, what is EAC?

Exact Audio Copy.
A freeware CD reader for Windows.
http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/


> also, i dont know why it would need a rootkit, other than to hide
> files/folders on the actual CD, and therefore i'm not sure its
> analagous to a virus...

Sony got into a lot of trouble a while ago, maybe a year or so, because
they releases about 50 CDs what contained vicious and badly implemented
DRM software. It used many of the standard techniques of rootkits, which
are backdoor malware that get installed into your system and then
hide their existence.

There is no reason for Sony to have done it, it was a lame attempt to
prevent music from getting bootlegged on P2P nets. It backfired.
The term "virus" has lost most of its meaning. What Sony did was a gross
violation of trust, they made your computer do what they wanted.

Now even Steve Jobs says that DRMs for music just get in the way
of legal users.

Record labels are stupid. They are trying to reverse time. Back in 1994,
you had to buy music CDs. Then CD burners became available. Then Napster
and other sharing technologies. Its done. The lawyers will lose.
Time for them to adopt a new business model.


--
Pat
http://www.pfarrell.com/music/slimserver/slimsoftware.html

[davidC]

i ripped that CD ages ago (so might have been a different pressing) using nothing more advanced than Windows Media Player. no problem.

... so if you don't get any other more specific solutions, and assuming a PC, just rip it into WMA Lossless and then convert to FLAC or whatever.

[jsunandmax]

Thanks, i hate Media Player so much i never use it, but sure enough it found the tracks! thanks!

next question: i'm running 9.0 and it gives two choices for format:

Windows Media Audio - maximum 192Kbps
Windows Media Audio VBR - 240-355 Kbps

BUT, i dont see an actual option for Lossless WMA. How do i get that option?

thanks!

[davidC]

probably easier to upgrade to latest version of Media Player (11), assuming XP or Vista.


but if you want, you should be able to just update your WMA codecs here:

http://www.dbpoweramp.com/codec-central-wma.htm

"9 Pro" has been out for a while, and will give you lossless, and some other options too.
haven't tried v10 yet.

(version numbers of WMA codec do not neccesarily match the Windows Media Player version number ... they are seperate products and run to their own version scheme)

[Skunk]

also, i dont know why it would need a rootkit, other than to hide files/folders on the actual CD, and therefore i'm not sure its analagous to a virus...

i wrote an email to the label..we'll see what they say....

I forgot, you can hold shift while inserting the cd to stop autorun from occuring, and probably use whatever you're used to ripping with. EAC is convenient because it can rip and compress to FLAC in one step (as can dbPower amp). On the flip side, Burrrn can make a CD-r out of your FLAC in one step.

Anyway, here's some more info on the rootkit from: http://www.cdrfaq.org/faq02.html#S2-4-10
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"The software in question is "XCP Content Management" from First 4 Internet Ltd (http://www.first4internet.com/). It uses a combined audio CD and CD-ROM format. When placed in a CD-ROM drive on a Windows system, it uses the autorun feature to install itself. XCP includes anti-piracy technology that acts to prevent you from copying it, and cloaking technology to prevent you from seeing it. If you manage to find it, and try to remove it, it disables your CD-ROM drive.

(As with other technologies of this type, disabling autorun or holding down the shift key while loading a CD will prevent the copy protection from loading. Because this protection is difficult to remove you must be very careful when handling Sony music CDs on your computer.) "
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