Stamping Your CD With Copy Protection

Monday, March 3, 2008

No matter what type of original content you are producing, you want to make sure that you place your customized stamp on it.  From music to audio books, copy protection is one of the best things that you can do while getting into the CD duplication process.  This will prevent a variety of problems from occurring in the future when you have your CD selling as a product. 


Copy protection began as an option for copyrighting.  With the growth of technology, it became easier for individuals to burn CDs from others and to download music for free online.  Beyond this, individuals were able to take music, media and other parts of CDs and copy them as their own.  This combination of problems led to the industry building a way to restrict the copies being made and to stop consumers from burning and downloading CDs or music. 


The beginning of the copy that led to the changes in copy protection began with an online area, Napster.  This area offered free copies of music by artists, which could be downloaded by any person who had the correct media player.  By the year 2000, this became a popular way to download music, causing the industry to start setting restrictions on downloads. 


The restrictions that began to take place has now developed into industry standards that are being forefronted by different groups and individuals.  This specifically links to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which states that individuals are breaking the law for unauthorized downloads in any type of media, from CDs to DVDs.  If an individual is caught breaking this, they are charged as breaking the law. 


The copy protection began by placing certain changes in the drives of computers, specifically through CD – Rom drives, which changes the mixed mode of the CD and does not allow for multiple recordings to be placed on one CD.  By doing this, it stopped mixes of CDs and burning of individual songs that were downloaded from the Internet.  This began to mainstream copy protection and allowed for artists that were being played on the Internet to not have the capability to be downloaded as an individual track. 


From this point, copy protection began to grow into an encryption.  This means that all of the CDs that were produced not only contained the songs, but also stopped copies from being made.  This concept is popular not only with CDs, but also with DVDs.  By placing this encryption, a code is then given to the specific media file that there is a missing button, which does not allow the CD or DVD to be writable. 


As this concept grew, so have technology options to stop copy from occurring.  The most recent trend is with HD DVD as well as Blu-ray discs.  With both of these formats, encryption is in place which allows not only for protection, but also blocks specific features while allowing others to be used in the correct way.  This digital equipment is continuing to grow in popularity and is providing more possibilities for copy protection. 


If you are duplicating a CD, it is important to know about the different possibilities for copy protection.  This means looking into the encryption that is now being used for CDs or to invest in software that will provide certain levels of protection with your software.  By doing this, you will then be able to block free downloading and burning onto new CDs and will allow your work to remain only from your CDs. 


With technology, are also possibilities for new formatting and replication of CDs.  If you want to ensure that your CDs stay only in what you have duplicated, checking the options to keep copy protected are also important.  By mainstreaming and protecting all of your CDs and downloads, you will be able to keep the control of your media products and where they are going.

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