Sony Tests New Copy Protection on CDs

**Mr. Tech** · 2nd June 2005, 08:16 PM

Sony Tests New Copy Protection on CDs

Very clever but some one will probably work out a way around it...

Quote:

Sony BMG has begun to wrap a new digital rights management (DRM) scheme onto select CDs. The copy-protection technology, developed by UK-based anti-piracy specialist First4Internet, has shipped with 1 million discs since March. The CDs can be copied three times, but the backup copies cannot be duplicated.

J.K. · 3rd June 2005, 06:28 AM

Interesting, Mr. Tech, but ironically I wonder if there's a downside to this.

I may not be understanding it correctly, but as I read it this doesn't mean 'no-copy.' It just means a copy can't be made from a backup, again if I'm understanding it correctly.

One of the odd things about bittorrent is that the more folks that are downloading and sharing a file the faster it downloads. Often on the bittorrent sites, however, you'll find multiple versions of the same software or song when all that is needed is one.

I'm just speculating but if copying is still possible but not from backups I wonder if the only significant effect will be fewer copies but ironicallly faster downloads because of that. In other words, the pirtated stuff will still be out there. There just won't be so many copies floating around.

If that's the case, as I understand it, downloads will actually speed up...

But again, I may very well be missing something here....

**Mr. Tech** · 3rd June 2005, 04:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by J.K

I'm just speculating but if copying is still possible but not from backups I wonder if the only significant effect will be fewer copies but ironicallly faster downloads because of that. In other words, the pirtated stuff will still be out there. There just won't be so many copies floating around.

That may be the case.

Quote:

The solution provided by First4Internet deploys Windows Media Audio (WMA) on discs to allow three primary copies in a process Sony refers to as "sterile burning."

From what I understand you can only make three copies of the original... Or is that only WMA files ona cd...