Microsoft’s copy protection plot overpowers media technology again

Microsoft and its domineering copy protection ways strike once
again.

A few months ago I wrote about the new Media Center version of
Windows XP, a bit of technology that makes video recording,
audio/video playback, and picture viewing much more plausible in a
home theater setting. It introduced a specialized remote control
that worked with the OS and dedicated menus that look more like
something from a TiVo menu than a computer program.

Great, so immediately they hit us with the news that programs
recorded on a Media Center PC would only play on the specific
computer on which it was recorded. Bad idea “¦ and
Microsoft even realized that they wouldn’t make money doing
this because no one would want a Media Center PC, so they relaxed
the rules back in October, instead creating special tags that would
identify video recorded with MC PCs.

This would have been a good place to stop, but that would go
against Microsoft’s desire to have its hand in everything. So
this Monday, they announced that major recording companies
Universal Music Group, a unit of Vivendi Universal; and EMI Group,
as well as MPO International Group, a large independent CD maker,
have adopted new copy protection schemes. These schemes would
incorporate the windows media file compression technology into
“second session content” on CDs and DVDs.

Don’t gasp in confusion, let me explain. When you compress
a CD to mp3 format, you create a non-copy protected file that can
be shared and transferred anywhere. However, when you make the
mistake of uploading your CD in “wma” or Windows Media
Audio format, you’ll find that a multitude of copyright and
identification schemes are woven into the file. You can’t
transfer the files to your iPod, and you may not be able to play
them on another computer or transfer them to your portable music
player depending on what options are chosen.

Now with the adoption of the Microsoft copy protection, our CDs
will already have the wma files burned onto the second session of
the disc. In other words, we will not even have the option to
compress the CD in mp3 format; the only format available will be
wma and it will be intimately tied into Microsoft’s new
Windows Media Player 9.

In some ways this is better than what could have been, but it
still sucks. What could have been is what we started seeing
last year where CDs wouldn’t play at all in a computer. In
fact, if the music was played straight from the CD, the computer
could crash.

Under the new scheme, the content provider ““ EMI for
instance ““ could specify in the copy protection of a CD that
the files cannot be transferred to a portable device but can be
burned to a CD five times. Or that for a fee of 25 cents per
track, the files can be “bought” (even though they are
already on the CD) for free reign to transfer them to portables or
burn them to CD mixes “¦ but these privileges would only be
allowed on your specific computer.

The only unarguably positive aspect about this announcement is
that the data contained on the second session of the discs might
also contain special content such as music videos or interviews
with the artists. I am looking to online subscription services to
be the alternative to second session wma content.

Remember the movie “Demolition Man” with Sylvester
Stallone and Sandra Bullock in which all the restaurants were Taco
Bell because all the others had been whipped out in competition. I
recall that in the movie they freaking outlawed salt as a
condiment. The same thing could happen to the digital media
industry if we aren’t conscious of which technologies we
support. And that would just be a future too bland for my
tastes.

E-mail Esposito at [email protected]