OpenMG Pre-Ripped for PC
Yesterday I foolishly purchased the newly-reformed Duran Duran CD. I know, I know, but I am a shamelessly unreformed child of the 80's. Anyway the package proudly boasts that the disc is "Copy Protected & Pre-Ripped For PC". Of course, what pre-ripped for PC actually means is "Music Will Not Play on Your PC Unless You Download It In Our Shonky Proprietary OpenMG Format And Install Bespoke Software To Play It".
Alternately, you can play it straight off the disc using the disc's built-in player. This ill-designed little application brings me several benefits, like, not having a minimise button, and not having the ability to program tracks into an order I'd like. Plus the fringe benefit of informing me as a consumer that as a corporation Sony Music do not believe that on a computer I own I have the right to choose which software I will use to listen to some music that I have purchased.
To add insult to injury every time I removed the "CD" from my machine it caused Windows to blue-screen on me, which on the first occasion lost me a load of unsaved work.
Naturally I have responded in the way that only a brand-enhancing experience like that can make you - by going to the bother of ripping the album into one long .wav file, chopping it up into the constituent tracks, and then burning a copy of it for everybody I know who was likely to have bought it.
Posted by Martin Belam, October 13, 2004
Read the latest posts on currybetdotnet about: DRM, Music, Sony
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I'm a London-based internet consultant and writer, with 8 years experience in product management, information architecture, and user experience design for global brands like Sony, Vodafone, The Guardian and the BBC. I specialise in advising on search, widgets, RSS, online news publishing and bulk email delivery.
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7 comments so far
*queues for free CD*
* makes it clear that having heard some of their new stuff, would not take it if you paid me, let alone for free *
* tends to agree with Ian *
I bought the same CD (which is excellent by the way isn't it?) and tried to use Window Media Player to rip the tracks off so I can legitimately listen to it on my MP3 player on the move. Anyway, the result was choppy and unlistenable... that didn't stop me though.
I have a Hi-Fi made up of good old fashioned separates. A couple of years ago I invested in a CD Recorder to sit in place of my old Tape desk. That has a digital input to which I hooked up the audio out from my DVD player. Thus I made a CD Copy of the album by playing it in the DVD player and making a perfect copy on my CD Recorder.
When I put that copy in the PC, all the fancy schmancy Copy-Protection is gone enabling me to rip the track off as MP3s (well, WMAs actually) and thense onto my MP3 player... on which I am listening to Duran Duran's new album right now!
So thanks to my Pioneer DVD player, Phillips CD Recorder, Evesham PC, Microsoft Software and MPMan MP3 player I can safely say "Up yours Sony! Pre-rip this!"
Booting into SafeMode on my XP PC. AudioGrabber and the LAME .dll had no trouble converting this CD into .mp3 format for my IPod.
While trying the same after a full bootup, skips and jumps like a good'n.
G
Sony Music SUCKS. Yeah, I know - after what happened to George Michael, we should've known better.
Avoid all that nasty cheap software they ship with the CD. Avoid pre-ripped CDs.
Limewire. Sharp 'n green. Green because you don't fill the world up with hard copies of stuff you'll rip anyway. Sharp because you know better than to support the likes of Sony.
cheers
Si
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