Consumer advocates, meanwhile, have protested against abridgments of today's unlimited freedom to copy, remix or sample from music CDs.
....The new plan to lock down burns could reignite a controversy that's smoldered in the United States since the independent release of country artist Charley Pride's album in 2002 incorporated SunnComm's early copyproofing technology, prompting at least one consumer lawsuit.
In addition to adding a new layer of copy protection on CDs, SunnComm and Macrovision each say their CD burning limitations could be applied to digital download businesses such as Napster or Apple Computer's iTunes, which do not put any restriction on burned CDs. That potentially could set off a new round of skirmishes between such digital download businesses and the record labels over how consumers can use the music they buy online.
....BMG announced last week that it would release three more albums using the technology over the next two months, including recordings by Velvet Revolver, Angie Stone and Yung Wun.
Other labels say they are still very interested, but not quite as far along as BMG.
"EMI does use Macrovision's technology in just about every country in the world," EMI spokeswoman Jeanne Meyers said. "We're testing other forms of technology from a lot of different companies before launching in the U.S. and the U.K." [CNET] So what they are trying to do is, in effect, make defective CDs that will restrict consumer freedom to make copies at will, but not so defective that there will be a lot of complaint about it. We must be vigilant - burn on.
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!