RIAA admits CD-R more a threat than P2P

Found on The Register on Sunday, 14 August 2005
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The Recording Industry Ass. of America has acknowledged that P2P file-sharing is less of a threat to music sales than bootleg CDs.

The RIAA's chief executive, Mitch Bainwol, last week said music fans acquire almost twice as many songs from illegally duplicated CDs as from unauthorised downloads, Associated Press reports.

The RIAA's favoured solution appears to be copy-protected CDs, which are gradually spreading throughout the music CD market. This approach "is an answer to the problem that clearly the marketplace is going to see more of," Bainwol told the news agency.

When we reviewed Macrovision's then state-of-the-art CDS-300 version 7 copy-protection scheme last year, while it happily imposed restrictions on Windows users, the sample tracks we were challenged to rip where easily converted from CD audio to MP3 on a PowerBook G4 running iTunes. Right now, the solution to copy-protection appears simple: buy a Mac.

So far, no copy protection scheme has successfully stopped an album from being shared. Au contraire, it has made quite a few people angry because it limits the usage of the CDs. That's why they then obtain a fully working copy from friends or P2P networks. And I guess the industry would like to bring in a tax of $9.99 per CD-R to compensate them for fictional losses.