Commentary

Copy Cops

Just when we started to groove on shuffling Jay-Z tracks on an iPod and moving "West Wing" episodes stored on a digital video recorder to the home pc network, big media began to break up our copying party with second-generation cd/dvd copy protection schemes. Never mind all that profligate online file swapping, Sony bmg says "schoolyard piracy," ripping and copying music to writable cds, is responsible for two-thirds of all illegal music.

Gee, and we thought people were buying all those 500-disc cd-readable (cd-r) towers at Best Buy just to back up gigabytes of Excel spreadsheets. Sony expects to lock down a substantial number of its new releases with one of several cd chastity belts that limit cd-r copying. emi Music is testing similar schemes. While the digital rights management (drm) solution may break up the casual copying party, it's bound to piss off consumers as much as earlier schemes. It may even make digital downloading look all the more attractive.

Sony bmg's various solutions employ an ominously tagged "sterile burning" approach. One scheme, "xcp2" from First4Internet, limits cd ripping and prevents the recopying of a cd-r backup. Our friends will just have to buy their own Gwen Stefani discs. The problem is that unless Apple licenses its "FairPlay" drm technology to the music labels, cds protected by "xcp2" and similar rip limiters from SunnComm and Macrovision will not move the music to the most popular digital player on the planet  the iPod.

Oops! On the other hand, iPod incompatibility didn't stop Sony's copy-protected "Contraband" album by Velvet Revolver from topping the music charts in June. And yet, in the strangest twist yet, customers who complain about compatibility at Sony's Web site get e-mailed a solution that essentially bypasses the company's own protection to copy music to iPods. In the strange world of drm, the lines between legitimate producer, user, and pirate often blur. The labels are negotiating with Apple, but until the situation gets resolved, Universal and Warner appear be begging off the new drm options.

On the movie front, Macrovision claims its new "RipGuard" drm for dvds is much better at preventing movie duping than the previous approach (hackable by any soccer mom with a home office). It better be. We found dvd rips of "Coach Carter" and "Hitch" available via BitTorrent within hours of their video store releases. But if you can't rip, then you can't even share with yourself across multiple devices and through home media networks. The Advanced Access Content System (aacs), a copy protection standard currently in development, promises super-charged encryption that's also flexible enough for next-generation high-definition dvd content. aacs would allow you to buy "Hitch" (if you must), and pass it to your portable media player, pc, or home theater.

drm lags behind real-world media usage patterns. Unless and until consumers can purchase movies and music once, and then consume them legitimately where and when they wish on portable devices and media networks, we are motivating kids and soccer moms alike to become law-breaking media pirates.

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