Sony Corp has released about 70 titles with copy protection in Europe, spokeswoman Laurie Jakobsen said. AOL Time Warner Inc has sold two albums in Europe clearly labeled as copy-protected, spokesman Will Tanous said. Bertelsmann AG released a number of protected CDs in Europe, spokesman Nathaniel Brown said.
None of the three has sold the CDs in the US.
"We will not release CDs with copy-protection technology unless we are confident that consumers will be able to play the discs in their existing CD players," Tanous said.
One problem for consumers is that not all copy-protected CDs are clearly labeled, so people don't understand what they're buying, Evans said. That concerns Philips Electronics NV and other makers of CD and DVD players, who don't want consumers wrongly to blame their equipment.
"The consumer becomes confused and frustrated about this CD's failure to work in a wide variety of products that they've become accustomed to CDs working in," said Tom Patton, vice president for government relations at Philips. "We hope very much that this practice will not continue by record labels." Philips helped develop the CD technology and licenses it to other companies that makes CDs. The company says copy-protected discs shouldn't use the CD logo or be marketed as a compact disc.
Representative Rick Boucher, a Virginia Democrat, supports legislation to clarify that the same rights consumers enjoy with physical books, music tapes and videocassettes carry over into the digital world.
In response to a request from Boucher, RIAA President Hilary Rosen last week said the industry is suffering from piracy, with record sales last year falling 10 percent from the previous year.
"Mass copying, free distribution and piracy are causing significant damage to those who create and market music," she wrote. "If technology can be used to pirate copyrighted content, shouldn't technology likewise be used to protect copyrighted content?"
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