On Sat, 26 Jan 2002 17:42:37 Abhir Joshi wrote:

Hi

I had a same problem when reading three VCDs. 'plaympeg' [Snip] Well, my guess... Since Windows could read *almost* the whole file (actually i think the whole file), it seems that there is some bit in the CD file system (or similar kind of information) that indicates whether it is legal (??) to copy the file or not. Now whether to make use of that or not might be upto the copying program. Now if the cdrom driver in Linux checks the info before copying and windows driver checks it after the data has been copied (before writing the directory entry), the situation seems to be consistentent.

Now whether that kind of information really exists on a VCD FS is to be discovered....anybody knows ?

[Snip]

There's actually been an influx of ACDs and VCDs that are supposed to be non-piratable. The trick applied is to induce deliberate bit-errors and hope that the stronger error tolerance of CD players will allow them to carry on while the more finicky CD-ROM drives of the computers will complain. Philips, the co-inventor of the CD has been able to force companies making such CDs to print a warning stating that such products are not CDs. They can't even print the famous 'CD' logos.

IMHO, this is the height of idioticity on part of the new CD makers because there are some CD players too that fail to play those CDs. Also, once your CD wears, there's a greater chance that your CD player may fail to recover from so many errors. Lastly, computer software that has strong error correction built-in will still be able to read the CDs

A detailed article regarding this appeared a few weeks back on the _Business Times_ page of _The Times of India_ as the main headline and I've written what I understood from that article. Unfortunately, I forgot the date on which it appeared.

--- Tahir Hashmi (VSE, NCST) http://tahirhashmi.scriptmania.com mailme@tahirhashmi.scriptmania.com __________________________________ We, the rest of humanity, wish GNU luck and Godspeed