Topic: About these "Buy The Music CD & get a free DOWNLOAD Track Exclusive" Ordeals

[MysterD]

I noticed, Best Buy & Circuit City in particular, starting doing such a deal -- instead of the actual CD containing an exclusive extra track (Best Buy did that w/ Matisyahu's last album "Youth", which was cool, adding an extra track on the actual disc as an exclusive), they now are giving you an extra exclusive track digitally.

For example, the new Nas album "Hip Hop Is Dead" CD comes w/ an exclusive extra song if bought at Best Buy -- but, you have to download the song from the website (the song is available for only a CERTAIN amount of time from that web site) and follow the directions and enter a code that came on a paper in w/ CD booklet -- BTW, the extra song for download: "Where Y'all At?" by Nas.

I couldn't play the song in Windows Media Player, when I DL'ed it off of Firefox b/c it "couldn't authenticate the cookies". Though, when I re-downloaded it through Windows Internet Explorer, low and behold, NO PROBLEM -- plays in WMP fine. Weird

Now, I did look at the song. The downloaded song comes wrapped w/ "Protection" around it.

So, how does this "Protection" work? I will eventually want to put this on CD, sometime soon probably. So, will I be able to burn it to CD once even? Will I be able to burn it only a certain amount of times??? Or when I burn it once, then the file disappears? Any idea???

[idolminds]

Probably a "You cant burn this to CD ever, pirate scum" type of thing. You could search and find out what Best Buy uses for DRM and find a workaround...theres always a work around.

[Cobra951]

If I remember correctly, the DRM on WMAs has been cracked.  Software to flush that shit down the toilet should be out there.  There are posts on the details around here, somewhere.  (Too lazy/tired to go look right now.)

[MysterD]

I put the Nas song "Where Y'all At?" (copyright-protected WMA file) on a CDA style CD w/ Nero recently. So, that was sweet.

Now, when I ripped the song from that CDA style CD back to the hard drive into a MP3 format, no copyright protection was around that new MP3 file.

I found that quite interesting...



 

[Quemaqua]

That's the standard approach.  I have the DirectSong Oblivion & Morrowind soundtracks... works the same way.

[JacksRag(e)]

I put the Nas song "Where Y'all At?" (copyright-protected WMA file) on a CDA style CD w/ Nero recently. So, that was sweet.

Now, when I ripped the song from that CDA style CD back to the hard drive into a MP3 format, no copyright protection was around that new MP3 file.

I found that quite interesting...

It's always been like that, I thought.  Where you burned the DRM-ed music to a cd to rid the copyright protection and can then rip it to an appropriate format.

[Cobra951]

CDA, or Redbook audio, is unencrypted and uncompressed.  Pure PCM, 16-bit samples at 44.1 kHz, 2 channels of it.  Since it's not encrypted, you can rip it to a compressed format (such as MP3) without even running afoul of the DMCA.  In other words, it's legal for your own personal use, under the fair-use doctrine.  Unencrypting the WMA wthout authorization is illegal under the DMCA.  But WMP allows you to burn your protected music to CDs.  So there's your authorization.  All good and legal, what you did.

[MysterD]

Freakin' awesome!
That's all  I can say.