Sony testing new anti piracy techniques for CD's

[Admiral Valdemar]

That will produce shitty quality. The bigger problem is the S/PDIF digital output, which would allow digital copies. They'll probably outlaw those S/PDIF digital outputs next.

The quality is easily sub-par next to burning it on to an actual CD-R or directly to the MD Walkman via the optic cable, but if it comes to that, people will at least have copies. I have a male/male gold plated cable I keep around if I ever need to copy directly from the audio-out socket on my PC. Though I believe someone will work around even the best copy protection in no time at all (that black marker on the rim of a disc idea was dreamt up the same day those discs came out).

I wouldn't put it past them to start restricting technology just to maintain copyrights. The vinyl comeback parody seems too close to reality somedays.

[muse]

I think Sony knows that audio CD copy protections are of limited to no use against savvy PC users.
What they're trying to prevent is widespread copying of copies by every John or Jane Luser who would have no clue what to do if Roxio didn't copy the disc and then just go out and buy the original.

And that's not going to work either since once someone figures out a way to copy the CD it won't be long until a user friendly version is made for those not as well versed in computers. For the first little while the copying programs will be command line based and the user will have to do some obscure fancy stuff to make it work, but within a few months there'll be a simple GUI version that walks you through the entire process.

In anycase, the computing community will find a way to defeat any reasonable copy protection scheme in short order, and the tools to do so will be quickly spread around for everyone to use.

[Admiral Valdemar]

If the data can be read, then it can be extracted and if any software inhibits that, such software can be cracked or avoided altogether.