I have a few Blue Note Europe/EMI cd's, and I'm wondering if any sort of copy protection is embedded in the data. One disc, Blue Note Trip Saturday Night/Sunday Morning, is marked as having "Copy Control" technology. When playing this CD on a computer, it automatically loads its own player and plays highly compressed versions of the tracks. I also have Blue Note Trip Sunset/Sunrise (the next in the series), and it does not have this- the CD's play normally on a computer (as do my other EMI CD's). Apparantly, EMI has a history of being stubborn about including copy protection on discs, but I don't know if discs not marked as copy protected still have something embedded. My primary concern is anything that will detract from audio quality, even in the slightest.

Is there any software I could use to scan discs for the type/quantity of errors that would be indicative of embedded copy protection? There are many more Blue Note Europe CD's I'm interested in (that haven't been released in the US), and I'd like to get a handle on what EMI is up to these days, if anything.

http://www.fedge.net/emi/ According to this page (sorry about language), it's "copy control" from Macrovision

http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1454979
So according to this site, it would seem to be Cactus Data Shield - CDS 100, 200 or 300, as macrovision acquired this from Midbar

Check reviews for good CDS200 results, as a point of principle, make an unprotected recording you can play in the manner and on the equipment you choose.

(in reply to Rimbaud)

Thanks for the explanation of this copy control scheme.

(in reply to Matthew)

if you keep the CTRL key (or its the SHIFT) this will prevent from loading the player and you can access the files

(in reply to Rimbaud)