Stardate 20010804.0514 (On Screen): To some extent, the new anti-piracy approaches being used by the music publishers WRT CDs are relying on deterrence. Sony is experimenting with the so-called
Cactus protection system which they claim will make it so that a copied CD will be filled with noise. It's emerged that in some cases this might result in actual damage to the system which plays such a CD. I think it likely that Sony is not displeased with this publicity; it may even have planted the story. "See, pirate our CD and blow up your speakers. It'll serve you right." They can't say that officially because then they'd be responsible, but if word gets around, all the better.
But there are a couple of issues here. First, it may not be true. There are copies and then there are copies. One way of copying a CD involves a "raw copy", which not all systems permit. But if it can be done this way, then it means that the copy is bit-for-bit identical to the original and should perform exactly the same way. If the original sounded fine then the copy will, too. The second issue is a question of whether copying software even in non-raw mode (i.e. MP3) could not detect this kind of copy protection and remove it. There are distinct limits on what they can insert before it becomes something that a traditional dumb CD player can't correct, so within limits it should be possible to make an MP3 generation program smart enough to do a filtering pass on the data to remove crap spikes like this system adds. I don't anticipate that it will be long before they become available. (discuss)
