I know that I am not alone in having paid a lot of money for the ABRSM CDs and yet am not be able to listen to them since my home and personal stereo systems are mp3 based.

What is the easiest, successful way to transfer the music from the ABRSM CD into my digital music system?

Can you not rip the CD onto the computer, transfering into MP3 format as you go, and then write an MP3 disc from your computer? That's how I'd get round it. Or else, you could put the CDs onto an MP3 player, and then plug that into your stereo if you have an input socket.

I didn't know there was a problem with them.. If I have any trouble once I've got mine I'll let you know how I get around it.

Actually, can't you just listen to them through your computer?

No, unfortunately ABRSM has chosen to apply a rather draconic and student-unfriendly copy protection scheme which makes the CDs even unplayable on your computer.

Other than the CD drive on our PC (which can't read the ABRSM discs) we don't even have a working CD player anymore. We have all our music ripped and transferred to SONOS (www.sonos.com) at home, except for a couple of sabotaged CDs from EMI ... and the unusable ABRSM CDs.

Since we paid for the music, we would like to listen to it (and study it).

The normal CD ripping programs like iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc. cannot play or even read the ABRSM CDs.

Whoever has a proper solution they could post here to help us less-than-technical-wizards enjoy the music would be well thanked.

Soory my idea didn't work. I've never had any problem with ABRSM CDs before now, I could just rip them to my MP3 player and it was fine.

Perhaps someone at ABRSM would like to tell us? I'm intending to buy the clarinet G7 CD, but my computer is the way I usually listen to music, and if I can't play it on a CD player at school then I won't bother because I'm buying it primarily for the backing tracks on it. Even if it works on my computer thats unlikely to help the majority because I use linux. hmm.

I think you might just have a "dodgy" CD or perhaps problems with your computer. I am able to listen to the clarinet grade 7 CD I bought just before Christmas on my computer perfectly well. Have you tried on someone elses PC? Might be worth a go.

I don't think so. Other people have observed this problem before now. It's an ongoing issue.

This is strange, our last purchased ABRSM Alto Sax G6 CD plays on the laptop and the desktop. In fact I am listening to it right now as I type this on the desktop! Try yours on someone else's pc. Still an 'old-fashion' portable CD player is really cheap these days, in Woolworths and/or Argos.

Maybe I should take up the clarinet or sax!

The piano pieces are now (starting 2007-2008) on crippled 'cd's that don't play on computers and can't be played on iPods, etc.

Very frustrating.

imlovinit, you've brought up this matter before, and one of your previous posts included a link to this thread, which included some useful links.

I would have thought the easiest thing to do would be to pay £11.99 for a cheapo CD player from Argos.

............or listen to it in the car.

It won't play in some car CD players either.

My ABRSM CD's work fine

It's only the new Piano CDs that are copyrighted. The clarinet/sax/violin ones work fine on PC's. Maybe in the future the ABRSM will let us download the pieces in MP3 format.

A download option would be a smart move in my opinion.

iTunes would be a start, at least that way they wouuldn't have to set up the infrastructure themselves .

Hi everyone,

First, thank you for posting your views and opinions on our Selected Piano Exam Pieces CDs. We are reading and taking on board all of your comments on this topic.

It's correct that we have added copy protection to the 2007-8 Piano CDs. This prevents them from being read by computer CD-ROM drives. This means that, as well as not being able to be played on a computer they also can't be copied to portable music players, such as iPods, or copied onto the hard drive of your PC. The discs can be played on conventional CD players. No other discs that we produce have this feature and currently we have no plans to roll this out to other recordings.

If you bought the CDs from a music shop then the packaging is clearly marked. If you bought it from the ABRSM Publishing website then it's also clearly marked: the last bullet point on the pages describing each discs reads 'Please note - Copy Protected CDI, cannot be played on ROM drives.' The only place where it might not be marked is on other retailer websites or publicity material over which we have no control. I must point out that we have made it clear that they don't play in ROM drives on all of our publicity, so I hope no-one feels mislead.

You may be interested to know why we have taken this step. The vast majority of the CDs we produce are loss-makers for ABRSM's Publishing Company. We were aware of increasing piracy of our CDs through home-copying. The introduction of copy-protected CDs is an attempt to reduce that piracy and protect our cost margins on these products so that we can afford to continue making these and other recordings for the benefit of teachers and students.

If you have bought a copy of one of the discs but are unhappy with our policy then please note that we're happy to take them back and happy to refund your costs. (You can do this by returning them via the shop you bought them from. If you tell us which shop you bought them from by emailing publishing@abrsm.ac.uk we'd be happy to get in touch, explain the decision and point out that we informed our trade customers at the time of publication.)

It may be of interest to know that we are investigating options for enabling the sale of individual tracks as downloads; a delivery method that may well be of interest to you. We hope to have such a solution in place at the point we release the next 2009-10 syllabus in July 2008.

Best wishes

Ben Selby
Marketing and Sales Director
ABRSM Publishing

My Grade 6 piano CD - It has a label that it can't be played on ROM drivers - And what I REALLY want to do is to put it on my i-pod instead of listening to it on my CD walkman because that is bulky - and plus, I have ipod speakers to broadcast it.

My flute CD doesn't have a ''CAN'T BE PLAYED ON ROM drivers'' label though...strange.

Perhaps like I-tunes, this is a suggestion by the way, that the tracks can be placed on i-tunes and we can purchase our chosen tracks there. =]

No problem here. I can play it on a normal CD player and easily ripped the music into mp3 format for my mp3 player.

The free software I use is here:

http://www.eusing.com/CDRipper/CDRipper.htm

If you can't play it in a normal player, then you should ask for a refund.

Steve

Just read to the end of the post and realised why you are having problems, so my faulty CD theory is out the window.

It would be a good idea to produce the tracks in MP3 and allow people to buy them all or just the ones they need, presumably the cost to the consumer would be reduced.

Piracy? Well, I use Ebay a lot and also two P2P networks: Aries & Filetopia. I checked and can find no copies of ABRSM CDs being offered. Rest assured that if I did find any, I would notify ABRSM immediately. Trying to rip-off a music examining board is pretty pathetic.


I disagree that simply copying a CD to mp3 format for personal use is 'piracy'. If we start down that road, we may as well go one step further and make the humming of copyright tunes illegal.


Re. itunes - can these be purchased and played on all mp3 players or just ipods? My son was interested but he said they needed a credit card number. Don't they take Paypal?

Steve

I'm not an expert but I think itunes is different to MP3, although they can be exported to MP£ format. I haven't downloaded music but I think it is debit/creditcard or itunes voucher that they are purchased with.

The Piracy is probably Pupil to Pupil, and passing on instead of copying, rather than internet based. In this case the ABRSM could well be gaining exam fees and they have to consider that the CD's are for a particular purpose to help students through exams so they are going to be given away or loaned after that has been taken.

Mr. Selby's argument that the need for funding requires ABRSM to prohibit normal access to the CD's doesn't hold up. ABRSM survived for many years in the past without revenues from CD sales. If the problem is that the current production techniques for the CDs are too expensive, perhaps less "grand" artists could be chosen (although I wouldn't want to lose wonderful Joanna MacGregor) or, as someone else suggested, all the music could simply be put on the ABRSM website licensed for free download for all registered students. That would be much cheaper than manufacturing and distributing CDs. And certainly much better for millions of students around the world.

The problem seems to stem from the fact that although we all think that the ABRSM examining board is putting out these CDs, it is actually a for-profit publishing company (ABRSM Publishing) that has been given the franchise to do so by ABRSM. Mr. Selby represents that publishing company. This situation creates a conflict of interest in which the student is the victim in the end.

In it's role as a charity organisation encouraging the study of music, one would think that ABRSM would want as many children as possible to get their hands on the music. Instead, we have ABRSM Publishing restricting access while charging high prices in its hope to maximize profits like a commercial record company.

Wouldn't it be better for ABRSM to re-claim the publishing franchise from ABRSM Publishing so it can remain true to its traditional charity mission?

Not necessarily - the cost of materials and distribution is only a tiny part of the cost of a CD. By far the greater part of the cost is paying the musicians, composers (if relevant), sound engineers, production etc. The ABRSM CDs will have a fairly small circulation and are unlikely to make any significant levels of profit - I would imagine that the aim is to cover the costs while keeping the CDs at a low enough price that people will actually buy them.

I should think that they would be perfect candidates for the "I'll burn you a copy" circles in school so I can understand why the ABRSM would try to prevent it. Having said that given how quickly our music listening habits change a medium that is out of favour with the target market won't do particularly well either.

And whilst your waiting for ABRSM to catch up with modern tech, the above suggestion is still a good temporary resolution.

As a regular purchaser of the ABRSM CDs, we have never sold, burned, or copied any of them. We give them away.

Yes, you're probably right, though passing on or selling the original CD without making a copy is perfectly legal ...er, I assume.

If anyone has ever followed the many threads on transferring old cassettes to CD, they'll know that you simply use the free software Audacity and link your cassette/CD player to the PC.

I've transferred many old ( and I really mean OLD!!) cassettes to my PC and put them on CDs.

I assume it would work with these CDs as well.

If someone did it in order to make mp3 versions for their own use, that's fine. But anything else is just plain wrong!

Steve

I think everyone would agree that listening to our purchased music from a different location (e.g. mp3 file on hard drive vs. CD player) for personal use is not piracy.

iTunes requires you to enter a credit card number to be given access to their online store.
I am not aware of them yet accepting paypal.

We do not purchase from iTunes as they employ a proprietary digital rights management technology which we find overly restrictive in that it only allows the music you have paid for to be played on Apple technology, i.e. the iPod.

Given the fact that we have more money than I care to think about invested in a staggering CD collection and now a fabulous Sonos wireless home stereo system on which (almost) all our music collection resides, the iTunes files have limited value for us.

I suppose if people could just download the tracks they were interested in on a download for fee scheme, they might only pay the fraction of the cost of a CD. That would seem to be a good thing for students and their families

Here's an example from Rolling Stone Magazine and the Institute of Music Retail of the cost of a $15.99 CD and where the money goes.

$0.17 Musicians' unions
$0.80 Packaging/manufacturing
$0.82 Publishing royalties
$0.80 Retail profit
$0.90 Distribution
$1.60 Artists' royalties
$1.70 Label profit
$2.40 Marketing/promotion
$2.91 Label overhead
$3.89 Retail overhead

Now, with mp3 downloads, labels can reduce/eliminate the Distribution fee; reduce the retail overhead and eliminate the Packaging and Manufacturing fees.

In the case of an ABRSM Piano pieces CD with
- 2/3 of a CD devoted to long dead composers,
- musicians who are presumably pleased to support a charity and happy for the free publicity of having short examples of their playing circulated around the world to a captive audience and
- elimination of the "for profit" aspects from the above list,

there is very little reason for the CDs to cost what they do. Certainly no reason for them to be crippled at manufacture.

If in future the music were to be licensed appropriately, it could be staged for free download by students at a very low cost to the ABRSM.

The problem with that analysis is that some of those costs are fixed or semi-variable. To come up with a cost per CD Rolling Stones Magazine must have assumed a certain number of CDs to divide the fixed costs by. If the number of CDs is a good deal less, and I should think that a CD of ABRSM exam material will sell a lot fewer than the average CD Rolling Stones interests in then the fixed cost per CD will increase.

I think the exam CD's are reasonably priced - they are an additional expense but I wonder how much people spend on other CD's DVD's etc. They are helpful but not essential and only cost about the price of 1 or 2 lessons. When I did exams (a long time ago) there was no such opportunity to have tapes of exam music.

Good point.
Looking at this list we can separate out fixed and variable and also adjust for ABRSM assumptions. If ABRSM were to distribute music to students from their website rather than sell CDs for profit through ABRSM Publishing, we would get something like this:

$0 Musician's union (fixed per recording, but artists give recording as charitable gift)
$0,10 Packaging/Manufacturing (production, fixed, just rent a studio; manufacturing, variable, none needed if no CDs made)
$0,40 Publishing royalties (fixed, but probably actually lower since 2/3 of music is w/o royalty)
$0 Retail Profit (variable, but not needed if no middleman required to download from ABRSM site)
$0,50 Distribution (variable, assume they distribute online through someone else)
$0 Artists Royalties (variable, charity contribution)
$0 Label Profit (variable, not for profit charity)
$0 Marketing & Promotion (variable, not needed, included in normal ABRSM activities)
$0 Label Overhead (fixed, assume we don't need multi-million $ executives to run a music charity)
$0 Retail Overhead (fixed, no retail stores for online downloads)

So we come out at $1,00 per CD equivalent.
Even if beautiful Joanna MacGregor and the rest were paid a very handsome gig fee, the cost would still be under $2 per CD equivalent.

By making the music available per piece online, students could download only those songs they are interested in, instead of purchasing an entire CD.

I would challenge a lot of those assumptions - if I got a piece of financial analysis like that in my inbox, whoever sent it would either be ignored or get sent away with a flea in their ear.

You cannot assume that the musicians don't get paid and there are no royalties. These fora are overwhelmed with contradictory threads, on the one hand about how difficult it is for musicians to make a living, and on the other about how people begrudge paying for CDs, music, concert tickets, lessons etc. I tend to come down on the side of the musician, there is no reason at all why they should donate their time and expertise to the ABRSM.

Manufacturing costs would be significantly higher. In 2005 about 12,000 candidates in the UK took grade 6. I can't find any breakdown by instrument, but piano is I think the most popular so let's assume 4,000 took piano grade 6 and 80% bought the CD i.e. 3200. That would on your $0.10 per CD work out at $320 for manufacturing - that won't even pay for a sound engineer for the day.

Marketing and Promotion - of course they will need some otherwise how will people know the CD is available? Similarly overheads are not all about big bucks for executives but include admin, supply chain, logistics, HR, webmaster etc

To be honest I support your original assertion that if the ABRSM are going to publish CDs of the exam music they should make sure they are able to be played using what is rapidly becoming a standard media. However supporting the assertion with poorly thought out arguments doesn't help your position.

Actually, this is also illegal. No copying, lending or re-selling is permitted. It's also illegal to take them into school, oil rigs, prisons etc if there will be more people listening to it than the person who bought it! (although admittedly this has probably never been sucessfully prosecuted)

Also, I wouldn't expect any future mp3 tracks to be cheap. After all, the MIDI data for piano (which is surely the easiest way to record and distribute the pieces) cost £9.95.

It wouldn't surprise me if videos of the pieces end up on YouTube or something - I don't think people will continue to shell out the price of a "normal" CD for a disc that will soon lose it's usefulness and which isn't user-friendly.

Thanks for your support.
I too was personally happy to pay the amounts ABRSM charged for the CDs.
I never would have started this thread if the CDs I bought this year would have been playable like the CDs I bought two years ago. However, now that I have looked further into the matter, I find I disagree with the crassly commercial direction the ABRSM marketing seems to be taking.

Whether you insert 10 cents or $1 or even $2 for the artist and production costs, they remain a very small number when compared to the UK retail prices for the CDs. As you mention, trying to service a global supply network for shiny pieces of plastic is what brings lots of costs at a time when those shiny disks are less and less demanded by consumers. Especially the media savvy consumers ABRSM wants to reach.

Artists: It is in my book clearly unneccesary to attract star performers for these CDs, but it is a choice I can understand ABRSM wanting to make. Even if the artists would be paid a normal fee or an comparatively exorbitant fee for recording their 3-10 minutes of music, this would not cause the music to cost what is now charged. If someone is to be paid a nice fee for the recordings, however, I would prefer for that to be a recent hungry ABRSM diploma earner rather than an established musician...

Marketing: Why would ABRSM need to allocate incremental marketing monies for the music recordings? The availability of the exams, music, recorded music, etc. occurs in an integrated fashion with schools and teachers playing the most important role in the acquisition process. Certainly a $1 per CD equivalent is enough to place text on the already existing ABRSM website and ABRSM publications that the music is available and then to contract with a third party for operation of the download process itself? A lot of the overhead numbers mentioned are unneeded in this scenario of downloads only.

Remember ABRSM has a global reach now with more than 650000 exams in a year and many more students studying in a given year than neccessarily taking an exam. So, just using your equivalent numbers, that comes to 650000*1/3*80%*10cents=$ 17.316. With a bit of lean and mean organisation I think one could record a couple hours of music for that price. Certainly for $173.160 if you think $1 is the better number.

If the tracks were made available for worldwide download, then presumably more students would have access to them and all students would pay less. There would also be no reason for illegal copying.

I think that the ABRSM syllabus CDs should be availiable on iTunes so that only the tracks we actually want would have to be downladed, rather than having to spend £15 on a CD and we dont listen to all the tracks.

Surely you can record it via phone (mp3 whatever) from a CD and then via bluetooth or USB and transfer it to the computer that way?

I agree about the copying, but I don't think you can be right about the re-selling or lending. What about all the hundreds of second hand shops? The charity shops, car boot sales etc? People are buying second hand CDs and DVDs every day.

Steve

I agree it's crazy, and it'll never be adhered to, but if you look at the copyright notices on CDs/DVDs you'll see what I mean.

This is from one of my DVDs:

"The copyright proprietor has licensed this DVD (including its'
soundtrack) for private home use only. All other rights reserved.

The definition of home use excludes the use of this DVD at locations
such as clubs, coaches, hospitals, hotels, oil rigs, prisons and
schools. Any unauthorised copying, editing, exhibition, renting,
exchanging, hiring, lending, re-selling, public performance diffusion and/or
broadcast of this DVD, or any part thereof, is strictly prohibited and
any such action establishes liability for a civil action and may give
rise to a criminal prosecution.

This DVD is not to be exported, distributed and/or sold by way of trade
outside the EU without a proper license from ............"

There a copy protection on all of the abrsm cds- they only work on some computers- depending on the type of cd drive you have. If you have a cd-rom drive it wont let you play them but on the other hand most other different types of cd drive will. luckily i didn't have the same problem but it didn't seem to want to play on the cd players at school which is a bit of an annoyance.

jess hope it helped a little?