Sony Tests New Copy Protection on CDs

Sony BMG has begun to wrap a new digital rights management (DRM) scheme onto select CDs. The copy-protection technology, developed by UK-based anti-piracy specialist First4Internet, has shipped with 1 million discs since March.

The solution provided by First4Internet deploys Windows Media Audio (WMA) on discs to allow three primary copies in a process Sony refers to as "sterile burning." Because of the DRM, this "sterile" backup copy cannot be duplicated. Although the perceptive may be that this type of casual copying matters very little, Sony executives have taken issue.

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

In the past year, Sony's use of DRM has been fickle. At the beginning of the year, Sony cast aside its longstanding doggedness against music copying and turned an about-face away from DRM by admitting that a refusal to support MP3 its portable music players may have cost it the market.

Ken Kutaragi, President of Sony Computer Entertainment said that pressure from the company's movie and music units discouraged the company from producing iPod-like devices.

The company also claimed that it would be ditching copy-control CDs by November 2004, stating that increased consumer awareness that copying CDs was illegal was reason enough to scale back its DRM effects.

However, Sony has reaffirmed its support for DRM with special attention being paid to "fair use." Fair use is the balance between the copyright holder's rights and a customer's rights to copy, modify, display or reproduce that content. By using First4Internet technology, Sony's feels that it is closer to its objective of striking a balance that grants customers their rights while protecting its content.

But in doing so, Sony has robbed Peter to pay Paul. The WMA-based solution permits a number of "sterile" copies to be made, but those copies are not compatible with Apple's popular iPod music player.

Sony has also enlisted SunnComm, another DRM vendor, using its MediaMax with over 5.5 million shipped CDs. Before it began shipping CDs with "sterile burning" in March, Sony only used First4Internet DRM for prerelease materials.