The DRM Hall of Shame

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The objective of audio CD anti-copy is to prevent comsumers from putting an audio CD into their Personal Computer and either "ripping" it into reusable music files like MP3s, or burning it to a physical recordable CD... while at the same time ensuring that it plays in all Consumer Electronic CD players.

Even if a given technology could accomplish this objective, most people find it unacceptable because it prevents them from making fair use copies to which they are legally entitled. (Notably, ripping in iTunes for our iPods.)

But technology cannot accomplish this objective.

To put the challenge in general terms, when you try to copy-protect audio CDs, you are trying to force a PC - a $1,000+, state-of-the-art, programmable general-purpose machine - to do LESS than a $50 boom-box with a fixed, 20-year-old design can do. Over and over over again in the last several years, companies such as sunncomm and macrovision have shown how not to do it.

In fall 2003, Sunncomm set what was then the bar for lameness: the "mediamax CD3" system which only works if the user runs extra "copy stopping" software (thoughtfully supplied on the CD) on her PC. As is documented in this paper from Princeton University, if the user uses nefarious piratical means (such as turning "autorun" off on her CD drive) then she can rip and burn to her heart's content.

Then in 2005, Sony did it again with their MediaMax anti-copy system, which involved very sneaky PC-side software, leading them to be accused of installing a rootkit. This accusation was not entirely accurate but it was PR nightmare for Sony which it will take them quite a while to recover from.

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