“The approximate 300,000 people who’ve picked up a copy of the Backstreet Boys’ ‘Never Gone’ might not know it, but they’re part of a growing skirmish between the record labels and digital music master Apple Computer,” Ben Fritz reports for Variety. “Both Sony BMG and EMI are rapidly increasing the number of copy-protected CDs they release in the U.S. CDs with the protective technology prevent users from posting them on the Internet and allow users to burn only three copies onto other discs, which themselves can’t be copied again. Sony BMG is already selling about half its discs with the technology, while EMI releases its first this summer.”

Fritz explains that because the discs use Microsoft’s Windows Media DRM technology, they prevent consumers from transferring songs onto Apple iPods which currently holds about 80% of the U.S. market. This is a ploy to force Apple to “open its proprietary iPod and let others sell antipiracy-protected songs that work on the device,” Fritz writes. “iPod owners who buy one of the growing numbers of copy-protected discs are likely to chafe at the incompatibility. The question is, who will they blame? If it’s the labels, Sony BMG and EMI may have to back down. But labels are clearly hoping it’s the other way around.”

Full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Purchase your CDs carefully. SonyMusic feedback: http://www.sonymusic.com/about/feedback.cgi

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New Song BMG copy-protected CDs lock out Apple iPod owners – June 01, 2005