I am returning these defective CDs and demanding working replacements, I encourage everyone to do the same.
I finally found a CD/DVD drive that accepted the copy-protected Kosheen CD and was able to rip the songs to wav files (no magic marker or anything), which brings me to the conclusion that, after all, the copy protection was another useless effort to fill company executives' money bags. Somehow, a vision came to my mind... imagine a car retailer sells you the newest model in store with a note that "you are only allowed to drive our cars on the roads we allow you to". I mailed to BMG using their www.bmg-copycontrol.info page, asking who would replace a scratched CD, since I was unable to do a copy for private use, preserving the original. All that came back was the standard reply that did not answer my question after all. Now THAT is customer service, isn't it ? --- Thomas Touzimsky same shit // different day