# do not buy Warner Classics CDs



## science

Warner Classics did some funny thing to their CDs, messing up the error correction system, in order to prevent people from uploading or ripping the CDs to our computers, in order to prevent us from sharing files with each other. 

Anyone who knows me knows I don't share files, but Warner Classics has decided to treat me - and all of their customers - like a thief. In the process, they made themselves thieves. In order to prevent other people from stealing from them, Warner Classics stole from me, by charging me for a functional CD and then not giving me one. Even if you only use the disk in a regular CD player, it is more likely to have problems than a real CD would. 

I will never buy another Warner Classics CD again. I hope they go bankrupt, I hope the executives who came up with this dishonest scheme are fired and their careers ruined, and I hope their investors lose all the money they put into this vile company.

However, I'm not done with Warner Classics yet. I bet I can figure out a way to upload this CD in spite of their dishonest crap.


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## science

Ok, I've cracked it for iTunes users at least. 

Go to preferences, the "general" tab, click on "import settings," and turn off error correction. 

Voila. Warner Classics can kiss my coffee can.


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## ShropshireMoose

Oh dear, and this comes just after I put out the wish that Warner Classics would issue a complete Nathan Milstein edition! Bugger, now I'm in a dilemma! (but they never will, I suspect, so that's okay then) Science, I'm interested in your assertion that these CDs will wear out faster than a normal CD. Do CDs wear out? This is a new concept for me, I know that with faulty pressings some CDs (especially a batch pressed in the early 90s by PDO) suffer bronzing and then won't play, but I didn't realise they could wear out. Please tell me more. I still have the first CD I bought in 1985, and it's been played and played (and then some!) to no apparent ill effect.


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## Headphone Hermit

some early Hyperion discs used an ink that 'rotted' into the silvering and the disc then jumped and wobbled (apologies if this highly technical vocabilaury confuses anyone - he he) but they knew about it some years ago and pressed a large number of replacement discs which their website says they will send to anyone affected - well done, Hyperion!


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## science

ShropshireMoose said:


> Oh dear, and this comes just after I put out the wish that Warner Classics would issue a complete Nathan Milstein edition! Bugger, now I'm in a dilemma! (but they never will, I suspect, so that's okay then) Science, I'm interested in your assertion that these CDs will wear out faster than a normal CD. Do CDs wear out? This is a new concept for me, I know that with faulty pressings some CDs (especially a batch pressed in the early 90s by PDO) suffer bronzing and then won't play, but I didn't realise they could wear out. Please tell me more. I still have the first CD I bought in 1985, and it's been played and played (and then some!) to no apparent ill effect.


I'm sorry, I researched this and I found out that I should've written that they're more prone to read errors.

I just researched the idea of CDs wearing out and it appears that as long as you avoid scratches, you should get a lifetime of use from them. (I've heard that paradoxically the side of the CD most prone to destructive scratching is the label side, but I don't know whether that's true.)


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## brotagonist

Does this affect Warner's Apex releases?

I have never had a problem with any disc, until I bought:









Both discs in the set have problems. I got another copy sent, and I still have problems. About every 5th time, disc 2 will play right through, but otherwise it skips. Disc one has never played right through, but starts jumping around after the second track. I am not able to jump directly to a specific track on either disc. Curiously, neither disc will play in my computer--they display 'no disc'; but they will play in my old bedroom/bookshelf Onkyo system. They will not play in my deluxe Yamaha system. This is the only album in my entire collection that has problems.

I contacted Warner a few months ago by writing to the email address on the website, but I have never received an answer.


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## Mahlerian

I haven't had any problem with the Apex discs I own. I don't yet have any of the rebranded EMI-Warner Classics discs that are flooding the market at the moment.


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## science

brotagonist said:


> Does this affect Warner's Apex releases?
> 
> I have never had a problem with any disc, until I bought:
> 
> View attachment 43367
> 
> 
> Both discs in the set have problems. I got another copy sent, and I still have problems. About every 5th time, disc 2 will play right through, but otherwise it skips. Disc one has never played right through, but starts jumping around after the second track. I am not able to jump directly to a specific track on either disc. Curiously, neither disc will play in my computer--they display 'no disc'; but they will play in my old bedroom/bookshelf Onkyo system. They will not play in my deluxe Yamaha system. This is the only album in my entire collection that has problems.
> 
> I contacted Warner a few months ago by writing to the email address on the website, but I have never received an answer.


That sounds similar to things I read online about what would go wrong.

There might be another thing going on there, though - look at the outside edge of the reflective side of the CD (where the laser goes) and see if there's a stripe going around it. A lot of Apex disks have that, so do some Nonesuch disks. (I think maybe some Sony disks do too, but I'm not sure.) AFAIK that stripe doesn't cause trouble, though it is also designed to prevent ripping. But perhaps in conjunction with the fouled-up error correction it's causing some trouble.

Long ago I figured out that I can upload those Apex and Nonesuch disks with an LG external player that is not an Apple product. But that is also a pain in the rear.

Basically, though, it sounds like you have a defective disk and should get a trade-in. I'd write to them again.


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## Svelte Silhouette

Looks like an afternoon of warner checking for me


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## Vaneyes

With playback (which is all i do), I haven't had any problems with Warner CDs--Teldec, Elatus, Apex, etc., other than the occasional less-than-great sound engineering--Vengerov Dvorak, Berezovsky Khachaturian/Tchaikovsky, for example. 

I have not bought any Warner/EMI reissues.
Curious. Do their watermarking activities encompass all Warner product, or just some? :tiphat:


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## DennyL

The OP's post is an assertion without any supporting information or evidence. It's interesting that this thread has got so long with so little evidence. We all know about the Sony's Rootkit virus, and I believe the music industry to be capable of anything, however stupid, venal or immoral. A buck is a buck, after all. I suppose, if it's true, it would be a violation of the Red Book standard, which defines the error correction in detail, and it would mean that Warner would not be selling pukka CDs. Still, where did this information come from?


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## TurnaboutVox

I generally rip my CDs to a file server after a couple of listens (I don't share files either) , but I've not tried to do this yet with my Warner Classics Endellion Quartet / Beethoven box set yet. I must see what happens at the weekend,


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## Svelte Silhouette

Mine seem fine following an initial sampling.


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## Vaneyes

science said:


> *Warner Classics did some funny thing to their CDs, messing up the error correction system, in order to prevent people from uploading or ripping the CDs to our computers, in order to prevent us from sharing files with each other. *
> 
> Anyone who knows me knows I don't share files, but Warner Classics has decided to treat me - and all of their customers - like a thief. In the process, they made themselves thieves. In order to prevent other people from stealing from them, Warner Classics stole from me, by charging me for a functional CD and then not giving me one. Even if you only use the disk in a regular CD player, it is more likely to have problems than a real CD would.
> 
> I will never buy another Warner Classics CD again. I hope they go bankrupt, I hope the executives who came up with this dishonest scheme are fired and their careers ruined, and I hope their investors lose all the money they put into this vile company.
> 
> However, I'm not done with Warner Classics yet. I bet I can figure out a way to upload this CD in spite of their dishonest crap.


I've hunted the internet for related info, the gist of which is CD watermarking is a thing of the past. Some companies are now engaged (or should we say allegedly engaged) in digital watermarking of downloads (see link). Which makes sense, right? Since "CDs are dead" and the future is downloads. CDs aren't worth their money or trouble.

Whew! I was nervous, being a CD addict. 

Universal digital watermarking?

http://www.amcorner.com/forum/threads/disturbing-trend-universals-digital-watermark.13444/


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## science

DennyL said:


> The OP's post is an assertion without any supporting information or evidence. It's interesting that this thread has got so long with so little evidence. We all know about the Sony's Rootkit virus, and I believe the music industry to be capable of anything, however stupid, venal or immoral. A buck is a buck, after all. I suppose, if it's true, it would be a violation of the Red Book standard, which defines the error correction in detail, and it would mean that Warner would not be selling pukka CDs. Still, where did this information come from?


Google it. Warner doesn't use the official "CD" label on these productions because they violate the standards, and in France they've been forced to issue warnings that their "CDs" won't work in all players.


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## science

It appears to be a thing that Warner Classics did in Europe - I guess that if your WC cds are made in the USA then they wouldn't have a problem. I'm not sure why... anyway, it's a mistake to get into the mind of people who make decisions like this... 

In Korea, a lot of the disks of classical music that I buy are made in Japan or made in Europe, so run into things that people native to the American market are less likely to encounter.


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## Vaneyes

"In fact, digital watermarking technology has already been adopted by many photographers, movie studios, record labels, television broadcasters, and corporate enterprises. These industries use digital watermarking to identify, protect and manage the rights to their content as they embrace innovative distribution or business models and provide consumers with new entertainment experiences, enhanced convenience, and greater portability of their media content."

http://www.digitalwatermarkingalliance.org/quickfacts.asp

Since DWA (Digital Watermarking Alliance) is currently affirming that record labels use digital watermarking, I've been trying to find out which labels. No luck yet. They seem to want to hide.


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## science

I really don't blame companies for trying to prevent people from stealing their music. I just want to be able to upload it from my own CD that I have paid for legally to my own computer....


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## Bruce

I've never had any of my CDs wear out either, though the oldest one I have was bought in the early 90s. There is an article that appeared in the Atlantic Monthly about CDs wearing out, and can be read at http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/05/the-library-of-congress-wants-to-destroy-your-old-cds-for-science/370804/ Once in a while I hear of things like this, and am unsure if they are accurate or merely scare tactics. Since CDs are a physical medium, they can no doubt deteriorate over time, but how long a time is, I imagine, still undetermined. Certainly the better care one takes of such media, the longer they will last. But this may become a moot point as more and more music becomes available through other sources.


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## Svelte Silhouette

Bruce said:


> I've never had any of my CDs wear out either, though the oldest one I have was bought in the early 90s. There is an article that appeared in the Atlantic Monthly about CDs wearing out, and can be read at http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/05/the-library-of-congress-wants-to-destroy-your-old-cds-for-science/370804/ Once in a while I hear of things like this, and am unsure if they are accurate or merely scare tactics. Since CDs are a physical medium, they can no doubt deteriorate over time, but how long a time is, I imagine, still undetermined. Certainly the better care one takes of such media, the longer they will last. But this may become a moot point as more and more music becomes available through other sources.


I have an original Polygram 'demo disc' supplied to me by Philips, as a retailer, just ahead of the first Philips machine (a CD 100) landing on my doorstep in March 1983 (around the time of my then wife's birthday who got a Sony CD 101 one as a present from me, um, so we had both the only available players at home 'for comparative purposes'). This disc is now a little over 31 years old and, having read this posting, I got it out to 'play through' whilst watching the French Open on TV just to see if it still worked OK (since it is my oldest CD) ... it played fine 'end to end' even on my 'inferior laptop disc drive' and allowed me to commit the ultimate sin of having 'wallpaper music' pervading my home ;-)

I then recalled that Sony had also provided me with a copy of their first commercial CD (Billy Joel's 52nd street) and have tried this too which similarly worked OK so I next tried one of my own first purchases ... a Karajan Holst Planets (gotten, along with a handful of others, from a 'flagship' record store on London's Oxford street [which had just a small selection of CDs back then] almost as soon as I'd unboxed that first player) and this plays fine as well. As the tennis finished earlier than expected (with Murray, sadly, 'hurried' off court) I decided to try my first CD-r recording (made on an 'HP branded' CD-r) which dates from a dozen years later (recorded on an 'HP branded' [BUT 'Philips sourced'] 4020 machine which cost a shade under $1k 'retail' back in late 1995) and that works OK as well.

Having read somewhere a decade or so ago that CD-r was 'good for 10 years or so' I moved all of my CD-r archives onto DVD-r (which will, supposedly, last longer) then, having gotten a Blu-Ray writer, moved them again onto BD-r (which will, supposedly, last longer still) to 'cover all the bases' with anything stored on CD/DVD/HDD 'backed up' onto BD-r also (and with a span likely to long outlast me). Notwithstanding the above, my first CD-r recording is now almost 19 years old with no special storage or handling being in place 'to increase longevity' other than 'common-sense' keeping the disc in it's jewel-case when not being played and always holding it by the edges when getting it out of the case to avoid any fingerprints getting onto the playing surface etc. http://www.cd-info.com/archiving/longevity-report/ may be of interest to some BUT I'd say that my 1983 CDs look likely to be playing longer than me based on their having shown no sign whatsoever of degradation in 3 decades (unlike me) ;-(









My token effort at a picture is above containing my 'trademark' '50 not out' badge sat atop an HFS 81 Test LP as well as the abovementioned CD showing I've still got 'a firm foot in both camps' BUT need some 'photography tips' to avoid 'camera shake' or maybe just should have used a flash as my last picture efforts in here some months ago looked a lot better and this was the best of my 4 attempts though will suffice ... I guess photography just isn't my thing ;-)

Note that 'Compact Disc' logo long since 'lost' from the medium like the Philips 'Compact Cassette' one from their 'almost exactly 2 decades earlier' tape one.

On that note, I'm making my escape from this place as I've spent/mis-spent a lot of time in here today albeit whilst tennis-watching.


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