Playing with fire
Macrovision is a veteran of fights involving copyrights and copying, having introduced technology that prevented the duplication of VCR tapes almost 15 years ago. The technique worked on 80 percent to 85 percent of VCRs at first, until manufacturers began designing recording circuits that circumvented the company's signals, Macrovision's Krepick said.
The company and Hollywood studios remonstrated with the VCR manufacturers to stop counteracting the copy protection. But it took Congress, which in 1998 forbade VCR companies from deliberately circumventing technology such as Macrovision's, to make the system function universally.
CD anti-copying protections are in only the earliest stages of that process, though a bill to force hardware manufacturers to include anti-piracy technology is circulating on Capitol Hill. Many consumers are already up in arms over those plans alone.
In the past few months, online mailing lists and chat boards have been filled with calls for class-action suits, boycotts of record companies and even coordinated cracking campaigns to prove that copy protection will always be broken.
"I have a right to make personal copies and refuse to buy protected CDs," reader Steve Groen wrote in an e-mail to CNET News.com. "If Hollywood had invented the toilet, it would be five times as expensive and you'd pay $1 every time you flush."
Offline, the reaction has been less bilious. A small sampling of shoppers at a Virgin Megastore in San Francisco found nobody who was even aware that CDs were likely to be guarded against computer piracy. And when people were informed of the technologies, their reactions were mixed.
"That would bug me," shopper Rob Sorino said, noting that DJs need to be able to take individual songs off of CDs. "There should at least be a warning label."
Emily Dubray, a French tourist, was less concerned. "It's not something that bothers me," she said.
Regardless of how they feel, consumers have little recourse other than to vote with their shopping dollars, lawyers say. Federal law allows people to make personal copies of songs but does not require record companies to stand aside so consumers can do so. Label executives note that music CDs are the only mainstream entertainment medium that does not have some kind of copy protection built in.
A guessing game
To date, few record labels have disclosed which of their CDs are copy protected, saying they don't want to bias consumer response. Macrovision says its technology has been released on more than 100,000 discs in the U.S. market but will not say which ones.
The most prominent title to be identified with the technology so far has been country singer Charley Pride's recent "Tribute to Jim Reeves"--a release by a tiny Nashville independent label that has sold only about 8,000 copies. As the sole release in the public eye, Pride's album has already drawn a lawsuit on the issue.
The uncertainties over which titles actually hold the technology have prompted a rash of Elvis-like sightings, almost none of which have been verified.
"Finding discs with copy protection has been a bit of a challenge," software engineer McFadden said. People online have long reported difficulties ripping their CDs, he noted, but "now the first conclusion they come to is that it's a copy-protected CD."
Some in the industry say the backlash is the product of mistakes by the technology companies. Early versions of copy-proof discs did not work in computer CD drives at all. The new versions will prevent conventional ripping but provide a separate set of Windows Media files that can be easily transferred to a computer.
"Some of these are technology companies, and (they) didn't really think about the consumer," SunnComm's Aquilino said. "Now we're all taking a more aggressive stance to make sure the consumer isn't left out in the cold."
