Tips and advice regarding the online copyright registration of audio files.
Files to use
Do not upload directly from an audio CD
When you look at the contents of a CD via your computer, you will see files such as ‘Track01.cda’ etc. These files do not contain the audio tracks. If you attempt to copy a .cda file from the CD to your hard disk the file will contain no audio data. Similarly, if you attempted to upload a .cda file, the file you sent will contain no audio data.
It is quite common for people to try to upload directly from a CD, but because these files contain no audio data, our online registration systems will warn you if you try to upload these types of files. In order to upload your audio files, you will need some software that converts the .cda files on the CD to audio files on your hard drive, and use these files when you register on-line.
Converting CDs and audio files to MP3s
If you use the online registration facility to upload your songs, we strongly recommend that you to convert the tracks to an MP3 format, as this will greatly reduce the time you spend uploading and reduce costs. For this you should use an audio conversion ‘ripping’ program.
- iTunes includes a CD ripping facility, and is available for both the Apple Mac and Windows.
- For Windows, a program such as AudioGrabber, which is available free of charge via www.audiograbber.com-us.net can also be used to convert any CD or audio .wav files to MP3 files on your PC, which can then be uploaded.
- For Linux users Grip is available for the Gnome desktop, and KAudioCreator is available for the KDE desktop.
Upload times for MP3 files
On most broadband connections you should expect an upload speed of 1MB/min, so each MP3 file should take a few minutes to upload.
