Like the Energizer Bunny, the record labels just keep plugging away pushing here, prodding there, doing all they think they can get away with to limit the freedom of consumers, especially the digital freedom of consumers. The latest tactic: restrict the number of times blank CDs can be copied:
- Tools under review by the major labels would limit the number of backups that could be made from ordinary compact discs and prevent copied, or "burned," versions from being used to create further copies, according to Macrovision and SunnComm International, rivals that are developing competing versions of the digital rights management (DRM) software.
SunnComm said a version of its new "secure burning" technology is already being tested by BMG Music Group, the world's fifth-largest record label and the most aggressive to date in pushing CD copy protection schemes in the United States. Macrovision's version is expected to be ready in the next few months.
If implemented widely, the new technology would mark a substantial change in the way ordinary people can use purchased music, possibly alienating some customers, analysts said. Given the costs of piracy, however, the labels are moving ahead cautiously in the hope of striking on a formula that works.
"There is a fine (DRM) balance that nobody has struck, especially with physical CDs," said Mike McGuire, an analyst with the GartnerG2 research group. "If there's somebody who's making 25 copies for the world and finds they can't do that, then few people will probably complain. But if someone finds they can't make a copy for their kid so he can play it in the car, you're going to have a lot of people returning broken CDs."
....Record labels are seeking a way to let consumers make a limited number of copies of their music--enough for a car, a vacation home and a friend, for example--without allowing for uncontrolled duplication. Under the current system, each copied CD can itself lead to an unlimited number of additional copies, cutting substantially into sales, they say.
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Article comments
1 - bhw
Wait, they want to limit how many copies I can make of a once blank CD that I bought and copied something onto?
What if I'm just making backups of my own files? I'm going to have to pay for CDs that can only be copied a limited number of times?
2 - Mark Saleski
this is just like that frontline show last week...there were people working for the industry who just did not get it.
3 - jadester
i wouldn't worry, this is just heading the same way the software market has gone: company develops great new "unbreakable" copy protection, about a week later (maximum), some hot crack group releases a crack/some kind of workaround for it. In fact, if anything, the speed with which cracks for new games/general cracks for general copy protection systems are released these days seems to be increasing.
It'll be the same if this music copy protection becomes general use.
4 - bhw
I don't want people to have to develop codes to break the copy limitation code. Isn't that game getting old? I want the copy limitation code to be legally defeated. Nobody should be able to limit the media to restrict me from managing my data -- whether it be music or not. I can understand how they don't want me giving away thousands of copies of their copyrighted work, but I should be able to duplicate it as many times as I want as long as I don't distribute it.
And that's to say nothing of the fact that it might be MY copyrighted work I want to make thousands of copies of and distribute or make cup holders of!