Copy-proof CD is 'self-destructive': ACA

[Wenchie]

Karen Dearne
November 19, 2002

SELLING music CDs that cannot be copied digitally is a bad move by an industry that seems to be intent on self-destruction, according to the Australian Consumers' Association.

Robbie Williams' new release, Escapology, yesterday became the first copy-protected CD to make its appearance in Australia.

ACA IT policy adviser Charles Britton said the music industry's approach was shortsighted.

"Trashing the consumer's ability to do what they want with the music they buy is a really good way to alienate customers," Mr Britton said.

"The industry is confronting falling sales - or at least a perception of falling sales - and like a lot of misguided people they see a technological problem and solution when in fact they've got a management and market problem."

Escapology is being sold without a visible warning that the disc cannot be copied.

The distributor, EMI Music, is bracing for returns by customers who think they've bought a faulty copy.

The industry said there would be no problems playing the protected CDs, and "we've just to hope that's the case, hey", Mr Britton said.

Customers will no longer be able to burn a back-up or second copy for use in the car or kitchen CD player.

"It's crazy. On one hand the industry is vigorously promoting things like hard disk players, so you can put all your CDs on a card to play in the car," he said. "But at the same time you've got another part of the industry saying: 'Don't. You can't listen to it on these mechanisms at all. Stop it or you'll go blind.'

"Once again they're confining their marketplace.

"They're saying: 'Buy it on our terms or leave it, and we're not going to tell what our terms are when you buy it.'

"Walling yourself off to the few people who still buy CDs won't do a lot for the popularity of the artist either - it's a career-limiting move, as they say."

Mr Britton said the industry was wrong to claim that rising sales of blank CDs represented huge losses to the industry. "It has been well argued that it's inappropriate to claim every copied piece of work as a lost sale," he said.

"There's never any countervailing valuation of the free advertising or sampling that then leads people to buy a CD."

Mr Britton said there were questions over cost structures that led to such high prices for music CDs.

"It's time the industry adjusted to the marketplace," he said.

"If you sell your product at a price that renders the alternatives less appealing, you'll get more sales and survive in the marketplace."




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