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SunnComm in the News - Stay Tuned for More


No more mister nice guy: EMI, Sony-BMG revisit CD copy protection

By Faultline
Published Tuesday 21st June 2005 16:44 GMT
The London Register http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/21/emi_sony_bmg_revisit_cd_copy_protection/

Both Sony-BMG and EMI have made statements this week that most of their CDs for their major markets will have copy protection placed on them.

Sony BMG is a customer for SunnComm while EMI is using the Macrovision CDS 300 technology.

But Sony-BMG also used the opportunity to seed anti-Apple sentiment among the US press, knocking the company for continuing to keep Fairplay a closed environment and appearing to favor Microsoft software with its copy protection approach.

The Sony-BMG SunnComm system uses a copy manager on a PC which creates a handover to the Windows Media DRM software that works with Windows media player, which then prevents further copying. This used to be easily bypassed, but now Sony-BMG has gone a step further and instead of trying to install the copy manager surreptitiously it tells the consumer it is doing it and if the consumer says no, it ejects the CD.

The Macrovision CDS 300 which EMI has chosen has been available for about a year from Macrovision and it enables new CD’s to be burned, which themselves cannot be copied. What Macrovision has done is take its old, rigid copy protection called CDS 100, which was unpopular because the CDs didn’t work with all players and never allowed any copying, and make those the output of the new CDs when copied. The copies also will not play on a PC, only the original will play on a PC.

When running on a PC, Macrovision will also add a piece of software that will run as a copy manager in virtually the same way as the Sony-BMG SunnComm technology.

There is going to be howl of protest from the anti-DRM community and already there are write ups of how to get around the system and import tracks onto iPods via a CD copy, one track at a time. The two pieces of software that co-operate with Windows Media DRM don’t work at all with Apple’s Fairplay and so Apple owners may find they can’t play the CDs at all or if they can, they are not protected, in the same way raw MP3 files are not protected on iTunes.

Our guess is that iTunes customers will simply shift their entire music acquisition program from CDs to online and save a lot of fuss, slashing CD sales in the process.

Copyright © 2005, Faultline

Faultline is published by Rethink Research, a London-based publishing and consulting firm. This weekly newsletter is an assessment of the impact of the week's events in the world of digital media. Faultline is where media meets technology. Subscription details here.



ABOUT SUNNCOMM:

In just five years, SunnComm International Inc. (OTC: SCMI) has become the leader in digital content enhancement and security technology for audio compact disc media. MediaMax(TM) can be found on many Gold, Platinum and Double-Platinum selling Albums including Dave Matthews newly release and soon-to-be-platinum, Stand Up. Other releases which include MediaMax are Anthony Hamilton’s platinum CD, “Comin’ From Where I’m From”, J-Kwon’s Gold “Hood Hop,” and Velvet Revolver’s “Contraband” which reached the #1 spot on Billboard's Top 200 Album Chart and achieved Double-Platinum status by selling more than 2 million units. Additionally, SunnComm’s MediaMax technology has appeared on many other best-selling albums, totaling over 100 commercially released CD titles across 30 record labels.

MediaMax is mastered directly on the audio CD and is accessible using a personal computer. SunnComm was the first company to commercially release a content-protected audio CD co-developing and utililizing an early version of the Microsoft Windows Media Data Session Toolkit, and was the first company in America to commercially release a copy-managed audio CD (www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2003/jan03/01-20SessionToolkitPR.asp). Bonus features include on-board press kits, artist-related promotions, videos, song lyrics, artist bio page, photo gallery, web links and tune-sharing capability through SunnComm’s MusicMail™ functionality. For more detailed information about the company, its vision or philosophy, personnel, partners, and customers, please visit the company's Web site at www.sunncomm.com, or call the Company directly at [phone]. For additional information or investor relations please contact:

Company contact:
Peter Jacobs
602-267-7500
[e-mail] Investor contact:
Investor Relations
602-231-0681
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