IP: Celine Dion's copyprotected CD causing a stir in Europe

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

If 1/2 million buy it , then they should not complain about it. Boycott is
the only cure.  Dave


------ Forwarded Message
From: Eric Hellweg <ehellweg () earthlink net>
Date: Wed, 03 Apr 2002 13:23:24 -0800
To: farber () cis upenn edu
Subject: Celine Dion's copyprotected CD causing a stir in Europe

Hi Dave--
Saw this in the Hollywood Reporter.
-Eric


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/bpihw/20020403/en_bpihw/dion_
s_new_cd_crashing_party_for_some_users&printer=1

Dion's new CD crashing party for some users
Wed Apr 3, 1:57 AM ET

By Chris Marlowe

LOS ANGELES (The Hollywood Reporter) --- Celine Dion's latest release is
generating heated discussions on Internet message boards. But the subject
under fire is not the star's music -- it's that the CD will not play on
computer CD drives.

Epic/Sony released "A New Day Has Come" embedded with Key2Audio copy
protection in Germany and several other European countries. According to a
spokeswoman for Sony Music Entertainment, it is clearly stated on the front
of the booklet and on the back of the jewel box that the CD "will not play
on a PC or a Mac" in the language of the country in which it is sold.
Besides those notices, which the spokeswoman said were readable before
purchase, the disc itself bears the same warning.

Should the consumer try to play Dion's CD on a PC or Macintosh, the computer
likely will crash.

Some fans believe that the CD is more damaging than that, however. On the
German discussion boards at MacFixit, Mac users claim that the CD will not
eject using normal methods and that the intentional corruption of the disc's
session data could unpredictably affect the drive's firmware. (Firmware is a
combination of hardware and software instructions that are permanently
embedded in the hardware's controlling chips, such as with a computer's
CD-ROM, and altering it could cause permanent damage.)

Sony denied these allegations. "The CD will probably cause a system to
crash, but it will not alter anything," the spokeswoman said. "And it won't
eject properly, but that's just because the computer has crashed."

"New Day" was released in the United States on Tuesday. Industry watchers
expect it to sell more than 500,000 copies by the end of its first week.

More than 10 million discs using Key2Audio CD-audio copy protection have
been produced and sold, primarily in Europe. Key2Audio is a product of Sony
DADC, a 100% affiliate of Sony Corp. of America headquartered in Austria.





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