Key2audio, created by Sony DADC, prevents a CD being played on a PC or Macintosh computer.
Although overseas CDs that use the technology are labelled "will not play on a PC of Mac", numerous consumers complained that copy-protected CDs caused their computers to crash and could have an unpredictable affect on the drive's firmware -- the combination of software and hardware that creates the computers controlling chips, such as CD_ROM.
The consumer backlash has prompted the ACCC to raise its concerns that local punters be made sufficiently aware of the introduction of the technology into the local market by adequate labelling.
-The ACCC have been in contact with most major ARIA members regarding concerns with labelling," a spokesperson told ZDNet Australia. -We are not aware of any companies using it [key2audio] at this stage, but if they do the ACCC's concern is that there must be obvious labelling as a copy-protected CD otherwise it could be classed as misleading or deceptive."
Louis Lambert of Sony Music Australia Manufacturing said the technology was not designed to crash computers.
-The computer will not recognise the disk as such. It will look as though it will, but then fail to complete. It's not designed to bring the computer down," he said.
Whilst readily available to the Australian market, -there is still some work going on between various companies and the ACCC, but at the end of the day it's a marketing decision. There's some controversy around it, of course," Lambert said. -We've had many enquiries."
Sony DADC has also released a program called key2audio4PC. -This enables people to download server compressed protected files instead of ripping from the CD," Lambert explained. -It could be anything customer wants, such as bonus tracks."
The music files are -unlocked" with a serial key that is located on the original disk, and can only be played on the computer to which they were downloaded. This assumes consumers have the ability and willingness to pay to download an entire CD worth of data over the Internet.
According to the key2audio Web site, there are 500 titles from major labels and artists totalling more than 17 million CDs on the market worldwide that include key2audio copy protection.
I will never buy a copy protected cd from which I cannot rip audio and make mp3's for my playlist.
I am online at least 8 hours per day and I listen to tracks stored on my hard drive daily...the amount you can play back is dependent on hard drive space of course , but I have at least 1000 that I listen to and I have many more cd's that haven't been copied yet.
Of my 1000 mp3's , about 200 are downloaded tracks which I couldn't get in stores , or were available as the only track I wanted on a cd full of garbage. Some tracks aren't available anywhere anymore and I can't see the problem in downloading them at all.
I am pretty fussy but I ain't loaded either , so often I download a track and listen to it .....and later I buy the cd....even if later is a lot later ; this is as usually the stuff I download is stuff I will listen to over and over again ...therefore something I want to play in my car or home stereo.
I could make an audio cd and play it back with my car and home stereo...but quite frankly , the quality is crap and I don't want to even bother anymore....I tried , it doesn't sound as good.
There are those who do download a lot of music who will not ever pay , and the music industry should be asking themselves why are people so willing to go around them , under them.....or completely ignore them.