Cactus Data Shield Tries Again

autocracy writes: "Midbar, an Israeli company that developed the breakage of standard called Cactus says that they have released more than 10 million CDs to the U.S. and Europe. They now claim that there will be no issues playing it but you will lose quality if you try to copy. I'm just wondering how it is that you can play it on a system at perfect quality, but when you copy it things don't sound right. Do they not know about optical output? Lame quotes including comments by the makers of how this is a 'proven technology' can be found at C|NET."

Comments

For better or worse

[alsta]

Some people may wage this "battle" by breaching the DMCA. As you know, circumventing a restrictive mechanism which aims to prevent serialized copying, is a fellony these days. I am not going to break that law, no matter how dubious it is.

Instead I will not buy music CDs anymore. I can live without music. And if you can too, I would suggest that you'd consider doing the same.

But I think we're missing the big picture. Why are these companies doing this? Is it because it is a fashionable thing which one can make a buck on? Possibly. Could it be that they know that the days of the CD are counted? Perhaps. Are they afraid of the Napster-like services becoming more authoritative than the labels? Damn right they are and they should be.

These companies have been feeding off the public because they are the authoritative source of music albums. What if that authority was to change? They would have nothing. Why should somebody go buy an album for some rediculous amount of money when the same content can be downloaded for very little or nothing?

These companies may be doing this because of the Napsterization of the world. Think about it. Napster was shut down, no biggie. Napster was based in the U.S. Clear juristiction. However what if the infrastructure was put in place and such a service was to move to say... ...Russia? There is no way Corporate America could get to that unless a) sabotage was an option or b) the U.S. Government was to issue sanctions against such a country.

Either one could be feasible in dire straits, but certainly not considered lightly. Most likely these companies will perish when people have had enough.