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I was asked "why is it called 'ripping' a cd"

I found the wikipedia entry lacking in terms of accurate description
of history. So I answered with the following. Please correct
me if you can improve what I said...

well, it was commonly used for the process of getting songs
from CD's that were in audio cd format (CDA) and
converting them to MP3 which was smaller and
could be moved around the internet easily
(slightly less audio quality but worth
it for the smaller size).

They're both digital, it's just that CDA is about
10 Mbytes/minute, so about 35 Mbytes per song.
But MP3 is probably 1/10th that (compression).

So that was for going from audio cd to mp3, but
is now used for describing going from one format to another.

But it was used very early on when people
just copied things like game cd's to cd...so you
could play the game even though you didn't
pay for it (leading to invention of various
"CD copy protection" schemes, some of
which worked well, some didn't.)

So I think it was slang early on for "ripping off"
like you're ripping off the seller of the CD.

But let's see, some googling tells/reminds me of this:

The first reference I can find is around March 1995
It looks like there was a program called CD-RIP
and people used to call the resulting copies
"cd-rip's"

There was a hacker/pirate group in 1995 that called
themselves CD-RIP. This was right around
when it became obvious games were going to be
released on CDs, not floppies anymore.

So the idea of "ripping" may have started with
pirated game copies on cds...not really a audio format
change. (audio to mp3)...That would make it seem
like it comes from the idea of "ripping off" the original
seller.

1980 was the definition of the CDA format by Sony and Phillips.
CD-ROM drives started appearing for computers in 1984, with
Grolier's Electronic Encylopedia in 1985 for instance.

I think general availablity for PC machines and games,
maybe started around 1991.

The dates give you a general idea for the things
that drove it...general availability of the drives, interesting
programs that needed a lot of storage (660 mbytes) that
people liked but didn't want to pay for. Initially copying
was pretty simpling.

It's interesting that most people started using the term
with audio cd's, but I think it predates that use.

-lev