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At one time the music industry was known as a cultural force. It could excite the public and change the course of history, even prodding some governments to attempt censorship. These days, the record labels themselves are acting more and more like a police force, looking for ways to restrict and control how music consumers behave.

The new SACD and DVD-Audio formats, with built-in watermarking and other copying and use impediments were supposed to do the trick. But with sluggish consumer acceptance of the new formats, labels are hedging their bets and looking for more ways to restrict how CDs are used.

The latest CD restriction contender to step in the ring is Macrovision, which announced last week that it has entered a licensing agreement with Microsoft. Under the terms of the new deal, Macrovision says it will provide record labels worldwide with the capability to design and produce "dual session" music CDs containing both Red Book audio files, which play on traditional home and car stereos, and also what it terms "second session" files, which can be played and stored on some consumers' PCs and portable devices.

According to Macrovision, the advantage of the agreement is that it provides record labels access to comprehensive copy restriction, authentication, and digital rights management (DRM) technologies for their music CDs from one source for worldwide deployment. Macrovision says it already has agreements with replicators in North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

Macrovision says its approach still allows consumers to make personal copies of music CDs while restricting content with "multi-level security features" to address file sharing. Similar to an approach used by competitor SunnComm, playback of CDs on PCs and transfer to various portable devices is said to be enabled using the Microsoft Windows Media Data Session Toolkit. Macrovision also claims that its "CDS" technology secures the "first session" data and also authenticates that the CD is in fact an "original copy." Once authenticated, the company says that second session files can be played, stored, or exported to select portable devices.

Macrovision's copy restrictions and rights management technologies are already well known to video enthusiasts. The company claims that in the video market, its technologies have been utilized on roughly five billion DVDs and VHS cassettes. Macrovision also reports that its CDS technology has been used to restrict over 100 million music albums to date.