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Anti-piracy System Could Damage Loudspeakers
Anti-piracy System Could Damage Loudspeakers
06-08-2001 : 18:09:30
Okay, this is somewhat weird
.. CD pirates beware - the music industry has a new weapon up its sleeve.
It is called the Cactus Data Shield, and it is designed to add noisy garbage
to all copied CDs. The trouble is, it could also damage the hi-fi and loudspeakers
of people who play pirated CDs.
Sony is already evaluating the
Cactus system through its music division, which has been secretly testing
it in Eastern Europe. The system was developed by Midbar Tech, a company
based in Tel Aviv. Midbar Tech refuses to comment on how its system works,
but New Scientist has dug out its American patent (US 6208598) - which reveals
all.
Midbar's anti-piracy technology
follows on the heels of a similar system from Macrovision of California,
which recently launched its SafeAudio system (New Scientist, 14 July, p
22). This adds uncorrectable errors to the digital music on a CD, so CD
writers on PCs can't copy it. But Macrovision admits SafeAudio doesn't work
with consumer disc-to-disc CD copiers.
However, Eyal Shavit of Midbar
Tech claims, "We can stop all kinds of copying, even on domestic CD recorders."
