Shots Across The Bow

Millions of dollars in development

Millions of dollars in development foiled by a 3 cent piece of electrical tape.

Music disc copyright protection schemes such as Cactus Data Shield 100/200 and KeyAudio can be circumvented using tools as basic as marker pens and electrical tape, crackers have discovered.

The Blue Peter-style hack, which was first unearthed by a reader of chip.de works by covering up the outer ring of a copyright protected audio disc.

On copy protected discs this outer track is corrupted, which prevents copying, or even playback, by PCs but is ignored (at least in theory) by regular CD players.

Simply covering up the outer track disables the protection, allowing a disc to be played as normal in a PC or Mac.

As I noted yesterday, at some point, the recording industry is going to have to realize that there is a new paradigm (a much overused term, but appropriate here) in the transmission of music, and other intellectual properties. Set up distribution over broadband, charge more for the raw materials, eliminate manufacturing costs, casue the consumer will be his owm manufacturer, and get on with business. Trying to force the public to continue using old fashioned distribution networks is the equivalent of forcing them to use a horse and buggy when automobiles are available. Some folks may opt for the standard distribution system, but they will be fewer and fewer as time goes on.