http://fatchucks.com/z3.cd.html

"These are the music CDs that:
1. Prevent you from copying it for personal use or from playing it on computerized devices (computers, DVD players, game consoles like PlayStation, MP3 players, consumer CD duplicators, high-end stereo equipment and car CD players).
2. In the United States, Canada and the UK, these "copy-protected" CDs are unmarked. Once you buy it, you can only exchange it and hope that the replacement isn't garbage too. "

Going through the list it seems if one person says they couldnt play it in a non-standard CD player or couldn't copy it, then it gets listed. Even if 4 people reply that they had no problems with it. Seems to be more rumors and bad individual discs than anything else.

I think I just received my first copy-protected CD.

I got The Shadows Madame from Cadaveria -- a black metal CD from a small European label. My CD-ROM refuses to recognize it at all. The light just blinks on and off while the disc is in the drive. Copy protection or just a quirk of the disc?

I've lately been running into CDs that won't load up on WINAMP but will play on the CD software that comes bundled with my system. As an expiriment, I've been able to make MP3s of those tracks using the RIOPORT AUDIO MANAGER software that came bundled on my PC, so if they are protected, it's not particularly good protection. Usually, the CDs that won't run on WINAMP have their own player software on the disc that autoloads when I put it in the CD-ROM. But there are a couple that don't.

I'm not sure about that list. I didn't look through all of it but I saw a different one somewhere that had serveral CD I had successfully copied.

I find this copy protection crap a very bad idea. I personally will never willingly buy a CD with this type protection on it. Stopping people from making copies of CDs is not fair and there are circumstances where it is legal. You can legally make a copy for yourself, as long as you don't distribute it. I know this isn't usually the case but it is some of the time.

Recently, the number of portable MP3 players, DVD MP3 players, and car MP3 players has grown dramatically. The advantage to these players is MP3's compramise between size and quality. You can fit over 100 MP3 files on a single data CD.

I have a car MP3 player and have ripped all my CDs to VBR MP3s with LAME and I can't tell the difference in quality from the original. I usually get 8-10 full albums on a single CD which lets me carry fewer CDs in the car and if they get stolen, I just lost 15 CDRs instead of 135 CDs. I am not breaking any laws doing this. I still buy CDs and rip them myself because downloading them from the net pisses me off due to the bad rips and garbage I usually download. If a CD I want doesn't allow me to copy it for myself I will not buy it and I hope other people are the same way.

This copy protection is not the answer to problem of illegal mp3s. It will never work.....it will either get cracked or nobody will buy them.

Sorry for the long post. I could go on. I wrote a paper on this subject in a Computer Science Ethics class in college. It really pisses me off because a copy protection like this should not be used if there is a reason to legally copy a CD. If copying a CD for any reason is illegal then these protections would be ok but that is not the case.

I heard its worse for people with Macs