Jon Iverson

One would think the last thing the music industry needs right now is to further alienate its customers who are still buying discs. But that is just what the record labels are doing by secretly experimenting with technology that restricts how discs are used, says a new report.

To date, record label attempts at adding copy-control systems to CDs to restrict their use have been less than totally succesful. We've had Sony discs that get stuck in computers, discs that don't reliably play in all CD players, trademark violations, and CDs that generate lawsuits and consumer frustration from not being able to create a "fair-use" personal copy of a disc to throw in the car.

Media critics may be right: If record companies had spent as much effort building a digital distribution network as they have fighting digital piracy, they might actually be making money online instead of complaining about it. This is the conclusion of a new report from KPMG and the Economist Intelligence Unit.

If you peer back into audio history, you'll discover that long-term formats are generally established at the mass-market level and then perfected or re-invented by those with audiophile inclinations. One could argue that SACD and DVD-A are attempts at turning that rule on its head. But the slow start exhibited by both formats (with the copy-restriction issue a new and rather large stumbling block) indicates that, once again, the mass market needs to get involved before we can really move forward.