New Anti-Swap CDs Hit Shelves

floppy ears writes "Watch out for the new Anthony Hamilton CD, Coming From Where I'm From. The CD has two sets of tracks: one set of "encrypted" songs that can be handled by CD players but cannot be ripped, and a duplicate set of tracks in WMA format. In CD players, the disc plays normally (in theory). When put into a computer, the disc installs software to keep the music secure, but allows you to copy some or all of the Windows Media tracks to your hard drive. What a shame that I'm running Linux and my portable MP3 player doesn't support WMA."

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[rjstanford]

The soulful singer's Arista debut

Ah, so that may explain why I haven't heard of him before. I was wondering, are they going to use this as a test - look, we released this CD (from a relative unknown) and nobody's sharing his music! And no complaints! Use it for everyone!

...which arrives in stores today, may look like a traditional CD.

Could be a problem. Can they enforce some sort of labelling? Probably not if it does indeed comply with red book, haven't read that in years to see if it allows for extra data tracks or not.

When put into a Macintosh (news - web sites) or Windows PC, the disc installs software to keep the music secure

Wonder if it asks permission first?

Another link allows you to send e-mail to friends so they can download a copy of the song playable for 10 days. "You're sharing music, but you are not giving it away forever," Whitmore says.

You know, they'll take a lot of flak for this, but it honestly does seem like they're at least trying to provide fair-use copies, preview opportunities, et cetera. Not bad, actually. Of course, we'll see what the reality is, but they should get some points for effort here.