Country CD to be Napster resistant
By Mike Snider, USA TODAY
No 'casual copying' for country pioneer Charley Pride's latest album.
Country Hall of Famer Charley Pride will soon have a new distinction: His next CD is expected to be the first commercial release encoded to prevent the tracks from being copied to PCs or uploaded to the Net.
A Tribute to Jim Reeves, due April 17, is playable in all standard CD players but its "cloaking technology" will block "ripping" software, which allows PC users to copy CD music files to their hard discs. From there, many music lovers swap these files online via Napster.
The disc will direct PC users to the Web site of Phoenix-based SunnComm, which created the technology. There users will be offered free downloadable Windows Media versions of Pride's songs, which can also be copied to portable players that support the music industry's copy protection standards.
"It's like putting a speed bump up that inhibits the casual copying by using all these ripper programs," says SunnComm CEO Peter Jacobs. "I think it is Version 1.0 of the Holy Grail that the music industry needs to protect intellectual property."
The independent Music City Records may be the first label to bring a copy-protected CD to market, but it won't be the last. One of the major labels is testing SunnComm's technology, Jacobs says. Others are examining technologies created by firms such as Macrovision, which also makes copy protection for videocassettes and DVDs.
EMI is testing "all of the major solutions being proposed," says senior vice president Jay Samit. "We're trying to make the equivalent of digital car keys. They wouldn't stop a car thief, but they would keep honest people honest."
Recording Industry Association of America general counsel Cary Sherman says, "This kind of technology is born of the frustration that artists and record companies feel when they have no control over the dissemination of their creative work."
When Music City signed Pride, whose decades of hits have included Kiss An Angel Good Mornin' and Is Anybody Goin' to San Antone?, earlier this year, "One of the things he said was, 'We've got to put on (the CD) about not being able to download the music over the Internet to Napster,' " says Music City CEO Bob Heatherly. "I said that those words themselves probably wouldn't stop (them)."
With Napster and other Net music-sharing systems, Heatherly says Pride "feels like the artists and the writers are both getting ripped off and he wanted to try to find a way to keep that from happening."
While the typical Napster user may crave a steady diet of dance, electronic or pop music, Pride's traditional country songs are as plentiful there as those of most of today's top artists. "People don't understand that for everyone who makes it (big), there are probably a thousand who are at the poverty level," Heatherly says. Pride "knows what he's had to go through."
In addition to protecting against computer transfers, SunnComm's technology also prevents pristine copying on most of the new breed of stand-alone CD recorders by degrading the signal's sound.
The strategy of copy-protecting music CDs demands close observation, says Pamela Horovitz of the National Association of Recording Merchandisers, a trade group of music and software retailers and distributors. "We just have to be careful to look at the consumer feedback. We obviously want to keep guys like Charley Pride making music, but we also want the consumers buying music."
As for Napster's influence, she says "I think the jury is still out to whether the collective behavior, forget the individual cases, is actually helping or hurting us."
SunnComm wants to find a balance between copyright holders and consumers, Jacobs says. Planned upgrades to its MediaClöQ system will eventually allow for controlled copying so that compilation discs can be made. The Web connection also gives fans access to artist information, such as concert dates. "If we just lock down the music, this product will not work," Jacobs says. "We've got to factor in the consumer."
usatoday.com |
