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Have you recently replaced that old CD player in the living room with a bright, shiny, new "play everything" DVD player?

Well I've got bad news for you -- chances are it won't play any CDs you buy as of sometime next year.

By engaging in what can only be described as a fit of pique, the recording industry looks set to cut off its nose to spite its face.

In fact it almost appears as if the industry is trying to put itself out of business by making its disks incompatible with a huge percentage of players -- and it's all in the name of "copy protection." (CP)

The problem is that most of the electronics you find in car stereos, DVD players and the most modern audio gear is very similar to that used in the CD/DVD drive in your PC.

Unlike the older audio CD players, these newer drives don't just blindly read data from the disk, ignore any errors, and keep on playing -- they are quite a bit smarter.

As a result of this additional intelligence, they are far more likely to be tripped up by the CP schemes that the recording industry is about to unleash on an unsuspecting market.

And, if this story is to be believed, at least one Australasian recording company will be copy-protecting all its new releases as of next year.

Readers Say (updated irregularly) guess what's inside... - Robert The truth is coming... - Dominic proposed changes... - Bryan Sony... - TH Dominic said... - Paul Copyright Act needs... - Mike copy protection... - Peter From Yesterday... Signs... - Russell Lymree.co.nz... - Peter Increased police powers... - Chris Divulge Encryption Keys... - Stuart Ike... - Simon Hello???... - Dominic Have Your Say

Now I would have tried to squeeze a comment out of Michael Gladding, who is the industry's local spokesperson for such things, but for some reason, he doesn't seem to have much time for me or this column. (go figure :-)

I wonder how the industry is going to deflect what could be a huge level of public dissatisfaction with a product that won't work in the car, on their PC (without the need to install extra software/spyware?) or on the family DVD player.

Should the Commerce Commission be taking an interest in these plans? After all, regardless of any tiny disclaimers that might be affixed to CP'd disks, won't your average purchaser expect that it will play on their existing equipment? After all, they don't want to copy the disks, just play the damned things.

Or could it simply be that the industry has a suicide wish?

After all, faced with the choice of paying $25-$39 for a disk that won't work in the car, the family DVD player, or on their PC; or instead, downloading a pirated MP3 from the net that can be burnt to CDR and played on everything, which option do you think a large number of people are going to take?

Now, I'm not suggesting for one moment that anyone should download pirated music -- but the sheer stupidity of the situation is that if people want to listen to the latest releases in their car, they'll have no option.

What's worse is that according to the law, even if you already have a genuine "store-bought" copy of the tracks you're downloading from the Net, you're still in breach of the Copyright Act and liable for prosecution.

I expect that we'll soon see a new line of CD and DVD players coming from the likes of Sony which will be specially designed to cope with these CP'd disks. Their argument will probably be that if CP'd disks won't play on your existing equipment, just buy new stuff.

What a great way to prop up your consumer electronics division eh?

And speaking of consumer electronics, what did you think of Sony's response to this column I published last week?

"What response?" I hear you ask.

Exactly!

The only conclusion I can draw from their failure to follow up on a promise to put their side of the case is that they are simply unable to refute the claims made here and the 889 comments on the SlashDot site that resulted from my column.

You might want to bear this in mind when you're doing your Christmas shopping.

Are we, as a result of the recording industry's arrogance and greed, about to enter an era where "the gift of music" consists not of a disk or a voucher, but of an audio lead with two RCA connectors on one end and a sound-card line-in connector on the other?

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