Does anyone else find that the copy-protected promo CDs that come from EMI knacker your computer, go all crazy when you try to open Microsoft Office and frequently crash Windows when you eject them? Ah well, at least they give the CMU IT team something to do - they love nothing more than hacking copy protected CDs, not because they want to rip the tracks, but just because they like hacking things. Anyway - all this talk of copy protected disks because SonyBMG has confirmed it will be adding such technology to some major forthcoming releases, despite Sony saying last year that they were going to stop using copy-protection because most such systems were flawed.
Copy-protection technology prevents consumers from ripping copies of tracks off CDs onto their PCs of course. The use of such technology has been controversial for two reasons. Firstly, many of the early types of copy-protection technology interfered with the way CDs played, meaning they did not play at all on certain
CD player systems. Secondly, others argue that music fans should be able to make duplicate copies of CDs for their own personal use once they have bought the full album. Those objections came under the spotlight last year when Belgium-based consumer group
Test-Achats, albeit unsuccessfully, sued the record labels over their use of copy-protection technology, arguing they were violating consumer rights.
Nevertheless,
SonyBMG will extend the use of new copy-protection technologies following its seemingly successful implementation on the recent
Velvet Revolver release. New albums from The Chieftains, Kasabian, and Susie Suh will now all feature such technology - either
SunnComm's MediaMax or First4Internet's XCP - and if there are no major reported problems after those releases the technology is likely to be used a wider range of SonyBMG releases.