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It's tragic, actually. I buy music for home listening and burn copies for use in my car. I guess I'll be buying less and less music in the future if these companies are going to make it hard for this legitimate consumer to enjoy their products.

First it was Macrovision on vieo tapes, Now This!

Super easy, everyone quite buying CDs, and by an SACD player now! You will be glad you did.

non disclosure of this alteration is unacceptable!

Sucks! We need less distortion not more.

Anybody with two or more brain cells has figured out that this will not stop bootleggers. Recording companies are directly attacking the right of fair use.

This too shall pass.

see my current soapbox rant

it's great. just when you think recorded music has killed off live performance, some jackass at a record company does something unacceptable and brings em back.

There is no evidence that encryption increases CD sales for the record companies. It is strange that they have now resorted to deliberately corrupting the "perfect" sound. Consumers must resist this move.

This just gives me another reason not to buy that label's products.

They can do what they like with them as long as it's not secretly done. I expect the right to know what I'm paying for, so I can choose.

Another good reason to buy Vinyl!

Luckily, I have a large collection of vinyl plus CDs

One a scale of 1 to 5, this gets the full 5 finger from me.

Whats the point? I have a cd olayer at home. A cd player in my car. I don't need to copy cd's. If you are going to distort my sound, than charge less for the discs!

Boycott and jam. Buy the offending CDs and return them as unplayable. Encourage others to do the same. Make it painful for the labels.

The record labels must be required BY LAW to disclose on the CD labeling if a CD is copy protected. The reason they don't want to do this now is because they know many fewer people will want to buy the tainted product if it was labeled as such. Stereophile should start a list on this Web site of the CD's that have been dicovered to have secret copy protection. Let consumers contribute to the list.

That manufacturers care so little about the quality of the sund of their product explains why I continue to purchase LP. The price I pay for LP's NEVER stops amazing me. Now I am on the verge of spending $10,000 for a CD Player and still will not have product equal in sound to LP's because the manufacturer does not care about quality????

It is absolutely insane,to have a better mousetrap and flawing it fron the start. Some need the money to fuck more innocent folks and yet to make more money . They can't take it with them in their death, how ridiculous!

Unfortunately, we audiophiles are few in number that this will be just another ship passing in the night. The average music consumer will miss the boat and won't care. I'm sure most of them if they heard the term "water-marking" would believe it must have something to do with "water." If I can, I will boycott labels who water-mark. Then, the artists and labels may have a financial decision to make. This is the kind of step-backwards that the high-end equipment manufacturers should find most distressing. Owners of their equipment sure will.

I suppose if the record companies could make all recordings sound unlistenable, sales would go down and so would piracy. Their new slogan could be "Stop Piracy! Stop Selling CDs!"

If it doesn't effect quality then I don't care, but since I'm 99.9% sure it will I am very angry about it. It won't stop the pirates since they can just sample the analogue output, so I don't really see the point. Luckily I get most of my music on vinyl, so it shouldn't effect me that much.

I copy cd's that I currently own and let my daughter have her copy. This prevents my original copy from being abused. Also it is nice to make a variety CD for traveling. The decision to copy protect is really irritating and may degrade the quality, but I can understand the dilemma of the corporate executives. This must be putting a dent in the amount of the profits and they probably have to put on hold their yacht purchases.

This is about the most ridiculous thing that I have ever heard. Adding distortion to music to keep people from copying it? Why not save all the money invested in this idiotic technology and reduce prices on CDs? Once the price is below a certain point, no one would make an illegal copy. Why is this so obvious to everyone but the recording companies?

Copy protecting CDs is a crime against humanity. Removing my ability to make a mix CD or a copy of a disc to use in the car makes me feel violated. The discs aren't even labled that they are protected so I would have no idea that I have been screwed until I got the disc home and opened it. Most stores won't take back open CDs so now I will be without any further options. Worst of all, this copy protection is probably audible on high end systems, making our entire hobby/obsession useless.

Will they reduce the selling price to compensate for the reduction in value to the customer?

I put don't care because there was no "like it" button. I think that this will definitly help people who have invested on the recording industry further asure thier profit margins.

When we buy CDs, we've paid to do with them whatever we choose. I often make digital copies of discs that I particularly love and don't want to lose. And if this watermarking is audible in any way, no matter how subtle, we are not getting the quality we pay for. This is completely bogus and I will not purchase a CD from a company that does this. If I buy one and discover that it is so encoded, I will return it as unplayable. I respect that the companies want to protect their ownership rights. I do not respect that they do so to the peril of their consumers.

I can certainly afford to go for several months without buying any CDs. How many record labels can afford to have *no* CD sales for three months? If consumers would organize a large scale, months long boycott, it would work wonders. Also, I think Congress should require labeling in the packaging of any watermarked CD, DVD, SACD, etc. I have no plans to buy CDs that are copy protected. Until I know which ones are or aren't, I guess I'll just save some money and buy none.