New copy protection Compact disc technology may be effective in preventing music poaching, but it is causing problems for Macintosh users. And Apple isn’t doing much to help fix the problem. CDs made by Sony seem to be the biggest headache. Many discs not only fail to play on Mac, but also cause the machine to crash and refuse to eject the offending disc. Sony uses Key2Audio copy protection.
This has been confirmed in Europe, a popular testing ground for new software technologies. About 70 copy-protected discs have been released there so far, some of them from Sony, and there have been problems, especially for Mac users. Although some discs are labeled “Won’t play on a PC/Mac,” others No. The user quickly discovers that the disc does not play and often cannot be ejected.
To make matters worse, Apple’s warranty does not cover the problem.
In a knowledge base article, the company acknowledges that there are problems with discs, specifically Sony ones, and offers solutions to eject the disc.
But at the end of the article there is a disclaimer: “Audio CD discs that incorporate copyright protection technologies do not comply with published compact disc standards… Therefore, any attempt to use non-standard discs with Apple CD drives will be considered misuse of the product. Under the terms of Apple’s One-Year Limited Warranty, AppleCare Protection Plan, or other AppleCare agreement, any misuse of the product is excluded from Apple repair coverage.” .
Neither Apple nor Sony returned repeated phone calls seeking comment.
Ted Landau, who runs the Macintosh maintenance site MacFixIt, said he has heard about the problem but has not yet seen any cases in which the disk cannot be ejected. Apple’s tips for deleting locked music discs have been around for years, he added.
There have been other cases where non-standard disks caused problems. Rectangular disks with curved sides work well in a CD-ROM drive with a tray, but they can get stuck in a slot-loading drive. In that case, neither the CD-ROM drive manufacturer nor the PC manufacturer were held liable, Landau said.
This last problem seems to have especially affected England. He comp.sys.mac.misc The newsgroup is full of posts from people complaining about their systems being locked down. Julian Midgley, campaign coordinator for the Digital Rights Campaign, said he had heard at several Macintosh stores that people were arriving with their computers locked.
