Guess what it takes to push me over the edge and update my blog? Politics? Life affecting issues? Women? No. CD copy protection.


I have a stack of CDs that are waiting to get imported into iTunes where they eventually end up in my iPod. Velvet Revolver’s ”Contraband” was the CD waiting on top of the stack for the last five weeks. A few days ago I worked out my issues with my iPod (it needed the latest updated software). I also learned that iTunes had import settings that would start an import as soon as a CD was placed in my drive and then pop open the disc tray when it was done, as if to say, ”THANK YOU SIR! MAY I HAVE ANOTHER?!” Last night I returned to my apartment after *finally* visiting this fancy restaurant called Savona. My consulting company gave us gift certificates last year as a show of appreciation for the important project we’ve been working on for the last few years. The certificate expires in September so it was either go and use it or allow $150 of possibilities to vanish. I’ll get into the dinner in a later paragraph. I was in a productive mood as a result and I spied the stack of CDs and saw them as another challenge. I imported 15 CDs. Haddaway, Weird Al, Marilyn Manson, Van Halen, Danny Elfman, Pushmonkey, and the aforementioned Velvet Revolver. After I made a serious dent in the stack, I decided to play some of the songs I’d imported. I picked ”Slither” off Velvet Revolver. It started up and it sounded like Scott Wieland was doing speed. Not that I’m saying he wasn’t actually doing it at the time, but the copy I had was super messed up. I’m like, WTF? I listened to Weird Al. Fine. Manson. Fine. Haddaway. Fine. Velvet Revolver was the only one screwed up. I did a search on the net and discovered that the dreaded CD Copy Protection Fairy had blessed this new CD with a visit. I thought I’d have noticed some CD putting the software that prevents duplication onto my machine, but apparently not. I went into START, Settings, Control Panel, Administrative Tools, and Computer Management. From there I clicked an icon under System Tools called Device Manager. Under View, I selected Devices By Connection and Show Hidden Devices. Isn’t it weird that Windows allows someone to freakin’ hide device drivers from you? After that’s all done, scroll down on the right side until you see something called SbcpHid. If you right-click your mouse on this icon, you can then select the ”Do not use this device (disable) from the dropdown. Click the ”Driver” tab and also select Disable under the dropdown for Startup. While you’re here you can try to look at the driver details information. Guess what? There isn’t any. The slimeballs that made this software don’t want to identify themselves, so they left everything blank. Click OK after you’ve thrown your arms up in the air and yelled ”THE HUMANITY!!?” Your computer will ask to reboot itself after all that (minus the yelling and throwing your hands into the air). Do it. The copy protection software is now disabled on your machine. Why was this on my machine in the first place? I was tricked into installing the software thinking it was one of those little flash movie things they have on some CDs (oftentimes containing extra songs or videos or both). Ooops. Another tip in preventing this issue is you can hold down the spacebar when you put in the CD. This will override the AutoRun feature which automatically starts the software when a CD is placed into the computer. A third option in preventing this is disabling AutoRun in your registry — something which I’ve since done but I don’t recommend to everyone since playing around with the Windows registry is akin to tossing live hand grenades to Stevie Wonder. Why am I bothering telling you all this? Because I don’t think I should be able to go to freakin’ Best Buy and plop down $15.99 on a CD that I can’t import to the iPod that I bought from the *same* freakin’ Best Buy. I almost don’t want to buy CDs ever again thanks to this experience. There was a kid that wrote a paper on how to circumvent this copy protection awhile back. He was sued for $10 million by the record companies because he noticed you could hold down the spacebar to circumvent the protection (that is, if you knew your CD was going to have the protection software on it in the first place… which I didn’t). Ugh. So, anyway, now I have the ”Contraband” properly imported on my iPod and the CD is on the DONE stack waiting to be filed away for safe keeping. It only took me an hour to figure out how to do this, so I figure someone else using Google to search for Velvet Revolver Copy Protection will find this blog entry and benefit from it. Dammit.


Here are some illustrations for you verbally challenged owners of Velvet Revolver. It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault.