If you wondered if digital audio was that big of deal, consider one
important fact contained in the article below that demonstrates the
significance of digital audio:  By the end of this year, the number of
burned compact disks will equal the number of CD's sold with commercial
material on them.

Kelly



The Wall Street Journal

November 29, 2001

Antipiracy Technology in CDs
Can Interfere With Song Playback

By ANNA WILDE MATHEWS
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL


The music labels have kept fairly quiet about the newest tool in
their battle to prevent piracy: compact discs that block
consumers from making digital copies of songs.

But already, some music buyers have griped that the technology
sometimes prevents them from simply playing the discs, and
industry officials admit that hackers have already cracked some
of the antipiracy code.

Web sites tracking "bad CDs" have sprung up, and techies have
begun protesting in online forums such as Slashdot.org

slashdot.org). In the most high-profile example yet, European
fans of pop singer Natalie Imbruglia recently peppered her
official Web site with criticism after some found they couldn't
play her newest release, "White Lilies Island," on certain
devices. "Copy protection stinks," one person complained.

Music labels argue that "burning" copies of songs onto new
compact discs or distributing them via Internet swapping services
drains legitimate sales. The International Federation of the
Phonographic Industry, a trade group, projects that by the end of
this year, the number of burned CDs world-wide annually will
approximately match the number sold in stores. The organization
says sales of blank CDs have more than tripled in the last two
years. "It has certainly devalued how people think of albums
themselves," says Peter Trimarco, chief executive of independent
label Fahrenheit Entertainment Inc., which put copy safeguards on
a recent CD by country singer Charley Pride. [CD Copy]

All of the five major music labels are testing various forms of
the new technology, mostly in Europe. Bertelsmann AG's BMG
Entertainment, which released the Imbruglia CD, says it has
received only about one complaint for every 1,000 copies of all
its copy-protected CDs. For the British release of the Imbruglia
album, the label is offering refunds or replacement CDs without
the protective technology, but only when the problem can't be
fixed by adjusting the player device, a spokeswoman said. "This
is by no means any kind of crisis," she said.

Vivendi Universal SA's Universal Music Group, the world's biggest
music company, will likely be the first major label to use the
technology to protect a U.S. release, a sound-track album from
the movie "The Fast and the Furious" that is due Dec. 18. The CDs
will come with a sticker warning customers of "the presence of
copy protection and possible playback difficulties," as well as a
Web site offering help. A letter to retailers warns that the
technology "may make these copy-protected CDs unplayable on a
small number" of devices, including certain digital video disc
players, video-game consoles and Macintosh computers, though the
music will play on computers running Microsoft Corp.'s Windows
operating system. Universal asks retailers to offer a refund to
any buyer who has playback problems.

"We're supporting it 100%," says Bob Higgins, chairman of Trans
World Entertainment Corp., owner of the Strawberries and Coconuts
music chains. He says that CD "ripping," or copying, is "our
single biggest problem in the industry."

Some consumer complain that they have not had warning of the
potential problems. Geoff Hackworth, a fan in Nottingham,
England, found that each song on the Imbruglia disc played for
only 10 seconds in his DVD player, then went silent. The CD
played fine in his car stereo, he says. He finally figured out
what might be wrong when a co-worker told him about the reports
on the Web. "I was quite annoyed," he says. "I don't want to copy
it, I just want to play it."

Digital activists are already revving up a fight over the issue.
One consumer has filed suit in California against the music label
that released the Charley Pride CD, arguing that she should have
been more fully informed about the protection technology. A site
called fatchucks.com ( fatchucks.com) offers a printable poster
that says, "Say no to corrupt CDs." But the site's creator, Chuck
Heffner, said that hackers have already figured out how to crack
some of the CD protections.

Industry officials conceded as much. But the protected discs are
likely to throw a major barrier in the way of the average music
fan who wants to start copying music, they said. Midbar Tech Ltd.
of Israel, one of the companies that makes the technology,
"doesn't claim 100% protection, nor is this a realistic goal,"
the company said in a statement. Instead, said John Aquilino,
chairman of SunnComm Inc. of Phoenix, another protection-software
maker, "the goal is to raise the bar."

Write to Anna Wilde Mathews at [log in to unmask]


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