www.drmwatch.com/ocr/article.php/3108411
By DRM Watch Staff November 13, 2003 Sony Music released a new CD by the a cappella Gospel group Naturally Seven on Monday in Germany that incorporates the company's own new copy protection technology. Sony intends to counter the consumer backlash against copy-protected CDs by offering special features that are accessible through the second session of the original CD only, such as connectivity to websites that offer bonus tracks and other incentives. Sony's technology allows consumers to copy the digital music files onto Sony's own portable music players via a DRM client program on a user's PC. In the future, Sony expects to provide a plug-in to the DRM client that allows the music to be played in Windows Media Audio format. As with other major-label copy-protected CD initiatives, Sony Music is using a European country as a test lab before deciding whether to use the technology in the US market. Sony is looking to position the technology so as to avoid the black eyes suffered recently by other record companies such as EMI and BMG Music, as well as by Sony itself, whose previous attempt at disc copy protection could trivially be broken by using a felt-tip marker. In this case, Sony Music technology chief Phil Wiser is hedging his bets by publicly stating that "All copy-protections can be hacked" and that the company's copy-protected CDs can be played on "almost" any conventional CD player. It's too tempting to resist suggesting that Gospel music fans might not be highest on the list of potential pirates, thus making this choice of album questionable in terms of its experimental value. Apart from that, the question with incentive-based exercises like this is whether the cost of providing the incentives outweighs the revenue lost to piracy if no copy protection is used. In this case, the cost of the web connection technology, hosting a few bonus tracks, and providing a few free concert tickets is a small fraction of the kinds of revenues that Sony Music probably expects from the album, so from that standpoint, the experiment may be worthwhile. |
