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Record Companies Sued Over Charley Pride CD

Posted by michael on from the singing-the-blues dept.

DevNova writes: "This posting describes a woman in California suing Fahrenheit Entertainment, Inc. and its label Music City Records over CDs she has purchased which use a proprietary music encoding scheme that prevents them from being listened to without the user identifying themselves. These CDs won't play on standard CD players, are not encoded in the popular MP3 format, and will not play on a computer until the user enters personal information. A large part of the suit is that Fahrenheit discloses none of this information on the packaging."

3 of 429 comments (clear)

  1. A little off by Sawbones · · Score: 5, Informative

    These CDs won't play on standard CD players, are not encoded in the popular MP3 format, and will not play on a computer until the user enters personal information.

    Actually the suit says that they won't play in standard Audio CD drives in computers, not that the CD won't play in a stand alone CD player. I should hope that the music stores them selves would refuse to carry something that won't even play in a regular CD player.

    --

    Ad in classifieds: Pandora's Box (no box) $5
  2. Summary not correct by Hieronymous+Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The letter makes no mention of the CD not working in normal audio players. Apparently the CD will not work in CD-ROM drives, but allows the user the ability to register with the record label and download a proprietary encoding of the song to play on their computer.

  3. Package warnings by bigdavex · · Score: 5, Informative
    For the interested, the outside packaging of "A Tribute to Jim Reeves" says this:
    This audio CD is protected by SunnComm MediaCloQ (TM) version 1.0.
    It is designed to play in stardard Audio CD players only and is not intended for use in DVD players.
    Licensed copies of all music on this CD are available for downloading.
    Simply insert CD into your computer to begin.
    On the inside, there's an insert that says this:
    Thank you for purchasing Charley Pride's "A tribute to Jim Reeves." This product is protected with SunComm's MediaCloq (TM) Digital Content Cloaking Technology designed to prevent unauthorized duplication or distribution of Digital Original(TM) audio files. To listen to "A Tribute to Jim Reeves" on your computer,
    1. Log on to the internet.
    2. Once you have established your connection, insert cd
    3. MediaCloQ (TM) will do the rest.
    --
    -Dave