Shoutbox

As part of its mounting United States rollout of content-enhanced and copy-protected CDs, Sony BMG is testing technology that bars consumers from making additional copies of burned CD-R discs.

Since March the company has released at least 10 commercial titles - more than 1 million discs in total, featuring technology from UK anti-piracy specialist First4Internet that allows consumers to make limited copies of protected discs, but blocks users from making copies of the copies.

The concept is known as "sterile burning" and, in the eyes of Sony BMG executives, the initiative is central to the industry's efforts to curb casual CD burning.

"The casual piracy, the school-yard piracy, is a huge issue for us," Thomas Hesse said, president of global digital business for Sony BMG.

"Two-thirds of all piracy comes from ripping and burning CDs, which is why making the CD a secure format is of the utmost importance."

Names of specific titles carrying the technology were not disclosed.

The effort is not specific to First4Internet.

Other Sony BMG partners are expected to begin commercial trials of sterile burning within the next month.

To date, most copy protection and other digital rights management-based solutions that allow for burning have not included secure burning.

Early copy-protected discs as well as all Digital Rights Management (DRM)-protected files sold through online retailers like iTunes, Napster and others offer burning of tracks into unprotected WAV files.

Those burned CDs can then be ripped back onto a personal computer minus a DRM wrapper and converted into MP3 files.

Under the new solution, tracks ripped and burned from a copy-protected disc are copied to a blank CD in Microsoft's Windows Media Audio format.

The DRM embedded on the discs bars the burned CD from being copied.

"The secure burning solution is the sensible way forward," First4Internet chief executive officer Mathew Gilliat-Smith said.

"Most consumers accept that making a copy for personal use is really what they want it for.

"The industry is keen to make sure that is not abused by making copies for other people that would otherwise go buy a CD."



SOURCE:http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200505/s1379891.htm

Hopefully this is better than their previous version of CD writing blocking technology which one could get around byt drawing a line on the disk with a permanent marker

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Originally posted by Ddunk
Hopefully this is better than their previous version of CD writing blocking technology which one could get around byt drawing a line on the disk with a permanent marker

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really i'll try lol good news

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Originally posted by Absorbation

quote:

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Originally posted by Ddunk
Hopefully this is better than their previous version of CD writing blocking technology which one could get around byt drawing a line on the disk with a permanent marker

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really i'll try lol good news

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Theres a specific line you had to srawn, I don't remember where it was

Sometimes I wonder if companies only hire people to do this work to keep employment up, there's no point really. There isn't a type of "disk protection" which has ever been foolproof. As soon as a new type of protection came out a load of people try and get around it for fun, all trying to be the first to do it. As soon as one of them works it out, he tells a load of more people on forums, and the method is perfected for easier use. Before you know it every Tom, Dick and Harry is able to get around it. There will never be a form of protection which will remain foolproof.
It'll be the latest craze among piracy folks everywhere, who will be first to find a way around it.
I find it amusing how they haven't gave up on their pointless quests to make piracy like this stop, because they will never perfect anything. Their main flaw is that they underestimate the people who crack it, and they always will, the people who crack it are really quite smart people who can handle things like this easily.
What they need to do is pay these people to work for them, in the perfection of a form of protection, and test it being broken, that way they wouldn't be wasting their time and actually stand a chance at avoiding piracy.

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Originally posted by Ddunk

Theres a specific line you had to srawn, I don't remember where it was

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It was around the edges.
I can't be pestered looking up how it works, but from what I remember it worked like this;
The disks were made with a fake version of the song being placed around the edges of the disk, and loads of blank spaces on the disk, when you played the disks they worked fine because they read only the "real" track, the fake version was untouched, but CD ripping technology read the fake one as well. The marker pen could be used to "black out" the fake version.
It was a bit more advanced than that, but the principle was similar.

Yea you pretty much had it spot on Anubis

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Originally posted by Wired News
On Monday, Reuters obtained an ordinary copy of Celine Dion's newest release "A New Day Has Come," which comes embedded with Sony's "Key2Audio" technology.

After an initial attempt to play the disc on a PC resulted in failure, the edge of the shiny side of the disc was blackened out with a felt tip marker. The second attempt with the marked-up CD played and copied to the hard drive without a hitch.

Internet postings claim that tape or even a sticky note can also be used to cover the security track, typically located on the outer rim of the disc. And there are suggestions that copy protection schemes used by other music labels can also be circumvented in a similar way.

Sony's proprietary technology, deployed on many recent releases, works by adding a track to the copy-protected disc that contains bogus data.

Because computer hard drives are programmed to read data files first, the computer will continuously try to play the bogus track first. It never gets to play the music tracks located elsewhere on the compact disc.

The effect is that the copy-protected disc will play on standard CD players but not on computer CD-Rom drives, some portable devices and even some car stereo systems.

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Source:  http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,52665,00.html

I agree with Anubis; they'll always be a way around everything.

The copy protection on current audio CD's is crap... just gotta hold a certain key down on the keyboard when you put the CD in the comp, and bye bye copy protection...

Ermmm Wot key is it?????

If you shift your perception to something else, you may find it

Yes, there's a hint in that

What does the protection protect against? Copying cd's or not being able to read copied cd's