The consumer
"Recent moves by record labels to add restricted-use technology to their compact disc releases has raised the ire of many a consumer, leading some to call for boycotts or worse"
Also NARM has indicated
"major labels have gone too far in restricting consumers' "fair use" of copyrighted material".
The Record Companie(s)
"In spite of the gathering storm, Universal Music Group has announced its intention to add restricted-use technology to all of its releases by mid-2002, while other labels have been testing the waters with varying success. Sony has confirmed that over 11 million discs using its key2audio system have been released by several labels into Europe so far".
Manufacturer's who make CD equipment
"consumers purchasing multi-use players such as DVD players and/or CD-ROM drives as their primary CD playback devices, "Universal's actions, if left unchallenged, could leave these consumers without access to a substantial percentage of the world's music discs. According to Universal, these new discs will not play on many devices that were designed to play industry-standard Red Book Compact Discs. These devices include most DVD players".
Nothing new here
"Universal's protection scheme and Sony's key2audio system are easily circumvented and may actually be achieving the opposite of the desired effect".
able to crack both systems within a short period of time. "With no prior knowledge of the protection scheme employed and with no expertise in circumventing copy protection, was able to produce a CD-R copy within an hour of purchasing a protected Universal disc at a local record store"
Is this an endless loop or is there a solution in the music industry?
Source: Stereophile Magazine
