cnet: Copy-protected CDs quietly slip into stores
Copy-protected CDs have been on sale for six months, with one unnamed title selling “close to 100,000” copies. The technology being used supposedly allows original CDs to play normally, while distorting copies.
The Macrovision tests are based on a technology acquired from Israeli company TTR Technologies. Rather than blocking copying altogether, the technology introduces some digital distortion into a file. Macrovision says this is all but inaudible when a CD is played through an ordinary CD player, but when a song is copied into digital format on a PC’s hard drive, the distortion shows up as annoying “clicks and pops” in the music.The company said it and the labels are in large part testing to see if the changes in the audio are audible to consumers. Reports so far have turned up no significantly higher number of CD returns or consumer complaints, a spokeswoman said.
TTR’s web site offers little insight into how it is possible for an identical copy to be inferior.
During the glass mastering process, a specially modified CD encoder introduces selective alterations to the EFM data stream, without affecting the audio quality of the recording. This process adds no additional hardware to the production process. The protection takes advantage of certain attributes of the CD and utilizes no software components. This protection is transparent to the end user. The protected CD plays normally on any PC and CD/DVD player, but a copy of this CD will abort or be unacceptably inferior to the original.
The Macrovision web site includes a press release about safeaudio (see www.macrovision.com)