Stung by the common practice of
consumers copying, or "burning," new
versions of a store-bought CD onto recordable CDs, music companies have
invested heavily in copy-protection technologies that have mainly backfired or annoyed customers.
For example, most copy-proof CDs are designed so that they cannot be played on a PC, but often this prevents playback on portable devices and car stereos too.
The PC layer, laid digitally on the same disc, can be modified by the content provider, so that they could prevent, for example, burning songs onto another CD, said David Fester, general manager, digital media entertainment for Microsoft.
Universal Music and EMI, two of the biggest record labels in the world, "are very excited about this because it enables the industry to build a CD with their own protections built in," he said, speaking at the Midem music conference in southern France.
Microsoft has invested $500 million in digital rights management, or DRM, for music, Fester said. The Toolkit was co-developed with technology partners Phoenix-based SunnComm Technologies and France's MPO International Group, he added.
Microsoft is making a concerted push into DRM, a hotly contested new field.
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Microsoft unveils new CD copy protection.