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Piracy threat prompts creation of padlocks for digital music
Saturday, August 25, 2001
By MAY WONG
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SAN JOSE, Calif. -- That state-of-the-art MP3 audio player you bought two years ago may soon become outmoded.
Threatened by the ease of digital duplication, the music industry has paired with electronics companies to develop technologies that put digital locks on songs and limit how often they can be played or copied, and on which devices.
Some makers of electronics components are already building in the necessary microchips and software. These components will still allow the playing of unauthorized copies of digital content that hasn't been copy-protected, but eventually, machines not wired to unlock and play secured songs could go the way of the 8-track tape player.
Options being considered by record labels include preventing consumers from burning a newly released CD more than once on a home computer, or restricting play of a song downloaded from the Internet to a single user's home and portable systems.
It's all part of a concerted effort to block the unfettered copying of digital music -- consumer behavior spurred by music-sharing services like Napster and advances in recordable CD and compressed MP3 audio formats.
All the major makers of portable MP3 audio players have been DRM-ready since last year, said Susan Kevorkian, an International Data Corp. analyst. Home audio systems are starting to do the same. Computer hard drives and other kinds of storage devices, such as memory cards and minidiscs, may also soon come equipped with digital locking mechanisms.
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