EMI abandons CD copy protection?
Written by roxeteer on January 8, 2007 to Music Business. Source: NVPI / Boing Boing.
According to Dutch NVPI, EMI Music stops using copy protection technology on the CDs the company releases. Copy protection, or Digital Rights Management (DRM) as these technologies are also called, have caused a lot of anger among the people who have bought their records legally but are unable to listen to them in the player of their choice. To prevent illegal copying of music, the protected CDs have limitations on the types of players they can be played in. As a side effect, many protected CDs don't work in car stereos.
Now it seems that EMI has realized that the price of adding DRM to the products is too high comparing to its benefits to the company. Recently one of the biggest developers of DRM solutions, MacroVision, stopped the sales of its TotalPlay system. TotalPlay, previously called CDS or Cactus, was used on Roxette's "Ballad Hits."
Boing Boing has an English translation of the article. DRM technologies were not included in the latest European Roxette releases "The Hits," "The RoxBox" and the "One Wish" single, as well as Marie's "Min bäste vän" album.
Other articles with the same topic
- Billboard mentions Roxette (February 26, 2011)
- Citigroup takes control of EMI (February 1, 2011)
- Kobalt signs Roxette in North America (January 13, 2011)
- Record "The Look" and win $5,000 shopping spree (August 11, 2010)
- EMI Music triples full-year earnings (May 8, 2009)
17 comments
rox-kuryliw said on January 8, 2007 20:03:
i never had a problem either lol , its funny because i havent come across any other cd’s with that copy right stuff on apart from roxette. im sure they is though .
Roxrider_USA said on January 8, 2007 21:25:
Moreover, addind to the article, these protections to really work to prevent sharing.
The always get by passed!
Take care!
Carlos E., New York
veneziano said on January 9, 2007 02:10:
!!!Finally!!!
Copy-protection on audio CDs is redicular.
Neither the Ballad nor the Pop hits played on my old CD-player. But copying using PC was no problem at all, not even for me, a complete computer-idiot. And the copied CDs work.
gessle-addict said on January 9, 2007 02:26:
Apart from what you all said, all Roxette and related cd’s with the copy-protection system can be perfectly copied.
Emil__BG said on January 9, 2007 05:44:
ALL cd’s with the copy-protection system can be perfectly copied.
I have a problems with new copyprotected CD-s even with my home Cd player :-((
roxeteer (moderator) said on January 9, 2007 09:06:
Yes, it seems TotalPlay is the same technology as Cactus. I haven’t confirmed this, but the Dutch article said TotalPlay was called CDS and the logo of the Cactus said “CDS-200”.
ditroia said on January 9, 2007 09:48:
About Friggin Time. DRM is totally useless. CP Roxette Cd’s use to skipp in my old sony cd walkman. But They are so easy to rip and play fine in my Ipod.
Cheers
Dave
P.S. TotalPlay is Cactus LOL :) Nice One.
Never Left The Joyride..
Visit http://www.roxette20.eu/
RobS said on January 9, 2007 10:28:
About time they figured out that copy protection was a waste of time and money.
roxlad said on January 9, 2007 14:32:
Yep it was a waste of money because it simply didn’t work. All you had to do was to press the shift key (on Windows) to avoid autoplay. Also I always thought it was silly to add CP when everyone wants to rip its music on PC or digital players.
rox-kuryliw said on January 9, 2007 15:29:
maybe explains why the roxette cd’s are more money than other releases , cos they need the money back for the non working copy thing they have on the disc lol.
tevensso (moderator) said on January 9, 2007 16:37:
Great! This goes along with what EMI Sweden said last year, that any new releases of SOAP will be unprotected. Not a moment too soon.
I have never had any problems with the copy protection on Roxette’s CDs, I’ve copied all I want, BUT the Beatles’ US boxes, the European version, wouldn’t play on any of my machines without clicking every few seconds...
RobS said on January 10, 2007 06:58:
Makes you wonder, if all the money and effort that went into the DRM/copy protection rubbish was instead used to promote their artists, i’m sure that the gains would have far outweighed any losses they would make by illegal copying/downloading.
TheRain1981 said on January 10, 2007 22:16:
I am able to rip nearly all of my copy protected CDs. The only problem I have is that several of them have skips, pops, and clicks once ripped. This is the case with the Marie ’The Change’ album and some EMI ’Complete Eighties’ sets I got from Australia. I could not get around the pops and clicks when ripping the tracks, using all kinds of different ripping software. In the end, I simply hooked my CD player up to my computer with a wire and captured the audio in an audio editing program. All EMI did was make it more difficult for me to copy, but I was still able to do it. I’m glad to see that the label is finally done using this technology. It’s a good thing because, for a while, I refused to buy any copy protected material from EMI. I had to download it illegally instead so that I could have a backup copy. Smart move on their part.
Kathrin said on January 17, 2007 20:16:
It’s a good thing what they are doing right know because then I can to whatever CD I want to in the Car!
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Life is like a Box of Chocolates, you never know what you gonna get!
CRIZ said on January 8, 2007 18:32:
Yippieh!!
I remember I bought a new “old” CD-player from ebay cause mine didn’t want to play Pers single” Tycker om när du tar på mig” for example