Copy protection...

[Jazz Groove]

If you go to the Blue Note web site and read some of the reviews consumers write, there are some who seem to have problems playing some of the CD's issued with copy protection. This scares me! I agree that they have to prevent people downloading stuff illegally and making copies for others, but if the music is going to sound like crap, then I will never buy music that is copy protected.

I read posts from others here and on other boards that some of the RVG's outside of the states have been released with copy protection, and the sounds has suffered. It seems to have made it way to the states like mad cow disease. There must be a better way for record companies to protect artists.

Here were to reviews for the Van Morrison CD.

Reviewer: Pete from Australia

What a fantastic effort, arguably one of his best releases in many years. However I was furious to find that I had paid full retail price for a "CD" that works in only half my CD players. I refuse to be ripped off and won't be buying copy protected CDs from now on; so sad that I will miss music like this. Wake up Blue Note, you're losing the

Reviewer: Ray from Florida

I can only play this cd in my wife's car. Everywhere else it sounds like crap. What is this copy portection? It is killing the music.

Reviewer: Ingemar Göransson from Sweden

Van the man have made one of his best albums in years. A lovely wonderful album that really lives and swings like mad. I surely love this album. BUT the copy-protection makes it impossible to play it my car, on my freestyle but it plays great on my traditional cd-player. I travel a lot in my job and listen to hundreds of cd and I want to listen to the cds I want to listen to not the ones that happens to works on a certain player. I can understand that you want to get payed as an artist and that the record companys must make money to be able to record more great music in the future. But for heaven sake don´t come up with copyprotection that makes it impossible to play the records on cd-players that exist on the market. Own up record companys. But Van you have made your best disc in years and i love it. If you at Blue Note want to say something in your defense your welcome

[David Ayers]

I got one of these by accident. Not a Blue Note (I have stopped buying those full stop) but a Virgin classical release. I thought that EMI Classical weren't using this technology, but this one (Handel sonatas by William Christie) seems just to have slipped through. I have played it in the main stereo and it plays fine though with low volume but very noticeable 'coughs' which may be on the tape (its not live though, I don't mean that...). But I just put it in the PC and got.. nothing. The CD wouldn't play and the alleged player that is supposed to download and play the mp3 track didn't arrive. Just nothing, apart from whirring and clattering from the CD drive. I looked at the disk in the drive and saw the player, and got it to download. Here's the thing, it sounds like a crock. It crackles and will not play smoothly, sticks every minute or two, for example if I make a demand on the processor like by typing quickly, a bit like listening to a sound sample over a dial-up connection. Then a long pause and more crackles between tracks.

It is an absolute disgrace.

Edited January 7, 2004 by David Ayers