Z - Importing into iTunes / Playing on your PC

[Laurie the Artist]

well, it's not iTunes in particular. What it is, is that the programmers added in some software on the disc. PC's run software before music, so it runs the software, you have to agree to a liscensing thing, and then it forces you to upload a player. The CD will then only play through this player, and does not allow you to make copies into iTunes.

Sucks, eh?

I think the way around this is to simply turn off auto-run before you put the CD in for the first time, and it will not run that software, and if you want to open it in iTunes, you've got no opposition.

And whoever is pissed at the band for this, don't be. They're just as pissed at Sony as you are at them, because they did NOT want this to happen.

Yea - it's clear that the problem isn't with iTunes but with the other programming and how it will not work with iTunes/iPod directly (in a Windows specifically).  One reason I saw the Halderman reference about NOT accepting that software licensing agreement  and how he describes disabling that too.

I was just freaked and figured any iTunes platform wouldn't work. So glad you told me I could just play it.  I downloaded it from iTunes as well over the weekend and I'm ok with that.  It supports the band. Plus you get a digital booklet too.

[Chuy]

 :D
Hey Y'all,

First off, let's face it:  This is NOT the band's fault.... This is Sony and MSFT trying to piss on Apple because they don't like the fact that Apple has kicked their booties so incredibly hard.

Second, onto my workaround....Here's what I did:

1. Bought the disc at full retail price like the good copyright upholder that I am.

2. Went home to exercise my hard-earned, Congress-given HARA space-shifting rights with iTunes.

3.  Struggled for over an hour on my Win2000 machine....Tried the shift key thing with iTunes and that doesn't work, folks.  So then I thought, "Well, okay, I'll relent and rip this thing to WMP, then burn to a disk, then rip to iTunes.  Only problem was, after holding down the shift key (still preventing the malware install) and then ripping to WMP, it still didn't work!  Shocking!!!  Didn't work because, apparently, you have to have a newish plug-in from MSFT called DirectX to make WMP 9 work....I didn't bother looking for that additional piece of likely-malware.  

4.  Instead, in desperation, I went to my other computer, which has WinXP and WMP 10 (pre-installed, so I'm already surely being spied on by every major corporation there, regardless).  I held down the shift key again so that the malware---and just as importantly, the dreaded license contract----wouldn't launch.

5. Then I launched WMP 10, set the ripping preference to WMA lossless (the highest quality) and ripped the disc to my hard drive.  Amazingly, that worked perfectly.  Then I burned the lossless copy to a CDR, which also worked perfectly.

6. Finally, I took the CDR back to my other computer, fired up iTunes, and ripped it into my music collection without a hitch.

The moral of the story (besides how utterly lame Sony is being with this), is that it looks like you need to have WinXP and WMP 10 in order to properly rip the disc (lossless), then burn it, then you can rip it in iTunes at whatever quality you want.  The other moral of the story is that, No, my first flat-screen TV will NOT be a Sony now!

Very silly episode in the music wars, and a very lame waste of time....Only silver lining was that the CDR came in handy by distracting me from the fact that my life is slipping away, moment by moment, as I sat in heavy traffic on the freeway last week!

[Entatty]

I sucessfully imported Z into my itunes by playing it on a CD player, running the signal into an amplifier and sending the output to a CD burner.  This makes it analog and you have to tell itunes the name of each track later, but it works.

[LaurieBlue]

:D
Hey Y'all,

First off, let's face it:  This is NOT the band's fault.... This is Sony and MSFT trying to piss on Apple because they don't like the fact that Apple has kicked their booties so incredibly hard.

I wish some of the folks who came on here and aired their complaints towards the band would come back and let us know if they still feel that way after all the band has tried to do  to explain and help, as well as all the other great efforts we've had here.  The bands are rarely to blame these days when things like this happen, and it drives me crazy because people don't realize the bands' small parts in the big game, but because it's "their" product and their name, that's who gets jumped on.  People need to read up and educate themselves on what goes on behind the scenes, who's pulling the strings, then decide who's really doing harm to whom.  Maybe some things would change for the artists' as well as the consumers' benefits.

Just my two pennies :-)

Laurie

[LaurieBlue]

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004144.php

Are You Infected by Sony-BMG's Rootkit?
November 09, 2005
As we've mentioned before, Sony-BMG has been using copy-protection technology called XCP in its recent CDs. You insert your CD into your Windows PC, click "agree" in the pop up window, and the CD automatically installs software that uses rootkit techniques to cloak itself from you. Sony-BMG has released a "patch" that supposedly "uncloaks" the XCP software, but it creates new problems.

But how do you know whether you've been infected? It turns out Sony-BMG has deployed XCP on a number of titles, in variety of musical genres, on several of its wholly-owned labels.

EFF has confirmed the presence of XCP on the following titles (each has a data session, easily read on a Macintosh, that includes a file called "VERSION.DAT" that announces what version of XCP it is using). If you have one of these CDs, and you have a Windows PC (Macs are totally immune, as usual), you may have caught the XCP bug.

Trey Anastasio, Shine (Columbia)
Celine Dion, On ne Change Pas (Epic)
Neil Diamond, 12 Songs (Columbia)
Our Lady Peace, Healthy in Paranoid Times (Columbia)
Chris Botti, To Love Again (Columbia)
Van Zant, Get Right with the Man (Columbia)
Switchfoot, Nothing is Sound (Columbia)
The Coral, The Invisible Invasion (Columbia)
Acceptance, Phantoms (Columbia)
Susie Suh, Susie Suh (Epic)
Amerie, Touch (Columbia)
Life of Agony, Broken Valley (Epic)
Horace Silver Quintet, Silver's Blue (Epic Legacy)
Gerry Mulligan, Jeru (Columbia Legacy)
Dexter Gordon, Manhattan Symphonie (Columbia Legacy)
The Bad Plus, Suspicious Activity (Columbia)
The Dead 60s, The Dead 60s (Epic)
Dion, The Essential Dion (Columbia Legacy)
Natasha Bedingfield, Unwritten (Epic)
Ricky Martin, Life (Columbia) (labeled as XCP, but, oddly, our disc had no protection)

Several other Sony-BMG CDs are protected with a different copy-protection technology, sourced from SunnComm, including:

My Morning Jacket, Z
Santana, All That I Am
Sarah McLachlan, Bloom Remix Album

This is not a complete list. So how do you recognize other XCP-laden CDs in the wild?

Tip-off #1: on the front of the CD, at the left-most edge, in the transparent "spine", you'll see "CONTENT PROTECTED" along with the IFPI copy-protection logo. A few photos make this clearer.



Tip-off #2: on the back of the CD, on the bottom or right side, there will be a "Compatible with" disclosure box. Along with compatibility information, the box also includes a URL where you can get help. The URL has a telltale admission buried in it: cp.sonybmg.com/xcp. That lets you know that XCP is on this disc (discs protected with SunnComm have a different URL that includes "sunncomm").



If you haven't been infected yet, to protect yourself from XCP in the future, disable "autorun" on your Windows PC. Once you have done so, however, these CDs may not be accessible under Windows unless you have specialized ripping software installed; these CDs are encoded in a way that intentionally confuses standard Windows CD drivers. For a smarter audio grabber for Windows, you may want to consider using Exact Audio Copy, which reportedly can read these CDs if you have turned off autorun and avoided infection by XCP.



Posted by Fred von Lohmann at 12:43 AM | Permalink | Technorati

[dragonboy]

Ricky Martin, Life (Columbia) (labeled as XCP, but, oddly, our disc had no protection)

Phew, just safe!

[Cortez_the_Killer]

Anyone want to point me in the direction of the best way to Import Z to iTunes minus the distrotion?


thanks.

[ratsprayer]

My My Morning Jacket CD called Z will not play on my I-Tunes, therefore, I cannot put it on my I-Pod.

Any suggestions?

no, nothing at all.  wait, if jim reads this, he'll personally come and piss in your cornflakes in the morning to stick it to you even more.  he's all about fucking people over and pissing people off as much as possible.

[Chuy]

Hi Y'all,

Let's all take a deep breath and realize that there are 3 really important points here to understand before getting too upset about this:

1.  There's been a lot of serious dis-info about the DRM that Sony used on Z....It's important to understand that the really nasty DRM that the media is talking about is _not_ on the Z disc, but instead on several other Sony-published CDs.  The DRM on the Z disc is much less invasive (even if you do install it) and MUCH easier to avoid installing in the first place.

2.  The Suncomm DRM on the Z disc is actually a _breeze_ to get around once you know what to do.  Per my previous post (page 3 of this thread) all you need to do is hold down your shift key when loading the disc (to prevent the license and Suncomm install from popping up), then rip the disc lossless (perfect quality) to an updated version of Windows Media 9 or 10, then burn a CDR and rip back to iTunes.  Although this does take several minutes longer than just ripping straight to iTunes, it's really not such a monster imposition that people should be freaking out so hugely about it----especially once you know what to do, thanks to posts like this one.

3.  Keep in mind that what's really going on here is that Sony is just trying to put pressure on Steve Jobs because he has kicked Sony's (and MSFT's) poopers so incredibly hard in the jukebox and portable player markets...and they just can't stand the fact that they don't own the Windows-based markets for these offerings.....so they're trying to prevent Sony-published music from being easily ripped to iTunes.  Of course, this is totally stupid and only serves to alienate music fans.  

So, given that this "problem" is really drop-dead easy to get around, and given that we fans are just pawns in Sony's fight against Apple, I think we should all just sit back, relax a little bit, have a couple of beers, and spend the extra ~8 minutes to burn the disc from Windows Media and then rip to iTunes.  And then put it behind us and focus on enjoying the music.

Cheers, and see you all at the SF Fillmore show to-nite!!!

[ratsprayer]

no sorry, youre wrong.  jim & the gang want to dominate the charts, sell more albums and all that good stuff.  part of the plan is to destroy as many computer across the country as possible.  remember, this copy protetion is all their fault.

[October]

chuy - thanks

its a bit more reassuring to realize Z is a less invasive DRM

i ripped using EAC then converted to MP3, but i still think i didnt do the part in the beginning correctly with the shift key so im wondering whether or not i need to do anything

anyway, i hope sony takes continuous flack for this

[bilbo]

Good post Chuy.

 But... how do you remove the Sunncom player and any other files it may have placed on your computer?

[dthomas]

This worked for me:  I have an old pc with Windows 98 and Adaptec Easy CD creator 4.

1. Started easy cd creator 4

2. Insert Z cd while holding shift key, waited for cd to stop spinning

3. Selected audio tracks in Easy CD and under track tab selected extract to file (I had it create mp3's).

4. I was then able to put on jump drive and put on new pc and import into itunes and burn cd.

5. Listening to it right now.

[Brian T]

I finally bought Z today (11/15...money has been tight).  After seeing over at Pitchfork the article regarding this mess, I came here and read all about it.

But not before uploading the tracks into iTunes the old fashioned way, just importing in iTunes, without agreeing to any stipulation that popped up on my computer when I loaded the disc.  So this raises some questions:

Because I was able to do this in iTunes without making an agreement, was the Sunncomm software not installed on my computer?  Have the "infected" discs been replaced on store shelves with "uninfected" versions?  I hope so, though the "compatible with" and Sunncomm web address are still printed on the back cover of my cd.

What happens for those of us (if I'm included) that unknowingly installed the Sunncomm "spyware?"  How can we get rid of it?

[peanut butter puddin surprise]

no rootkit here

www.jetaudio.com does the trick.  download the player.  piece of cake.

[Fluffhead]

well i know this is crazy, and i'm loved by many people for this...  (So many guys at my school wanted it on their iPods so i burned it for them) mine said it was copy protected on the case  and it worked fine i ripped it onto iTunes immediately and made backups--strange huh?

[DRMistheDevil]

For those of you poor people that bought the Sony DRM'ed CD here is a roundup of most of the news on it.

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/11/15/sony_begins_to_recal.html

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/11/15/sonys_spyware_remove.html

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/11/15/sony_infects_more_th.html

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/11/15/latest_sony_news_100.html

Don't forget that Sony's handy uninstaller actually creates more security holes then their rootkit created in the first place. Can you say 'Boycott Sony' for shady business practices?

[peanut butter puddin surprise]

you can also find useful information over at
www.dslreports.com

go to the forums section or click on any story about this...

[realdeal]

For those of you poor people that bought the Sony DRM'ed CD here is a roundup of most of the news on it.

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/11/15/sony_begins_to_recal.html

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/11/15/sonys_spyware_remove.html

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/11/15/sony_infects_more_th.html

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/11/15/latest_sony_news_100.html

Don't forget that Sony's handy uninstaller actually creates more security holes then their rootkit created in the first place. Can you say 'Boycott Sony' for shady business practices?

wow, there is someone on this board that is cool enough to know about boingboing.net. amazing.

[LaurieBlue]

http://tinyurl.com/77m3z

November 16, 2005
CD's Recalled for Posing Risk to PC's
By TOM ZELLER Jr.

The global music giant Sony BMG yesterday announced plans to recall millions of CD's by at least 20 artists - from the crooners CelineDion and Neil Diamond to the country-rock act Van Zant - because they
contain copy restriction software that poses risks to the computers of consumers.

The move, more commonly associated with collapsing baby strollers,
exploding batteries, or cars with faulty brakes, is expected to cost
the company tens of millions of dollars. Sony BMG said that all CD's
containing the software would be removed from retail outlets and that
exchanges would be offered to consumers who had bought any of them.

A toll-free number and e-mail message inquiry system will also be set
up on the Sony BMG Web site, sonybmg.com.

"We deeply regret any inconvenience this may cause our customers," the
company said in a letter that it said it would post on its Web site,
"and are committed to making this situation right." Neither
representatives of Sony BMG nor the British company First 4 Internet,
which developed the copy protection software, would comment further.

Sony BMG estimated last week that about five million discs - some 49
different titles - had been shipped with the problematic software, and
about two million had been sold.

..... more at http://tinyurl.com/77m3z