This is a Canadian newspaper article resulting from the Canadian
anti-corrupt-CD campaign at:

  http://fedge.net/emi/

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Piracy program silences CDs
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  By Robert Thompson
  rthompson (at) nationalpost.com
  http://www.nationalpost.com/
  12-Jun-2003

When Jeff Keibel bought Massive Attack's new release 100th Window, he
expected to hear the sounds of a band breaking artistic ground.
Unfortunately what he heard when he put the CD in his player was silence.

It turns out that Mr. Keibel had purchased a compact disc from EMI Music
Canada with a software program that is aimed at curtailing rampant music
piracy. Despite repeated attempts, Mr. Keibel, a 34-year-old music
collector who has purchased thousands of CDs, never managed to get the
Massive Attack album to play on his home or car stereos.

"I couldn't figure out why they didn't work, and then I saw the copy
protection notice on the back," said Mr. Keibel. He purchased other
albums on EMI, but never managed to have them play on his stereo. After
returning discs to retailers only to have the problem repeat, Mr. Keibel
simply stopped buying EMI products.

"There are a number of albums on EMI that I've wanted," the Toronto
resident said. "But why would I go through this again?"

Mr. Keibel launched a Web site detailing his problems and has received
considerable response from music buyers who have had similar issues with
EMI CDs.

James Graham, a London, Ont., music collector, has also been unable to
play discs he purchased from EMI this year. He said retailers had no
solutions to the problem with EMI albums by the likes of Placebo, the
Caesars and Ed Harcourt. Mr. Graham said EMI's anti-piracy policy could
lead to more Internet music swapping.

"The bottom line is EMI has foisted an inferior and inadequately tested
product on the Canadian public," he said. "The irony is that all the
music on these copy controlled discs are available on the Internet. The
only way for some music buyers to obtain a working product is to steal
it from the Internet, and given that fact, I'm convinced this is going
to end up backfiring on EMI."

Also available on the Internet are a number of Web sites which detail
how to circumvent the anti-piracy protection.

EMI launched its copy protection program, which is developed by Santa
Clara, Calif.-based software maker Macrovision Corp., throughout the
world earlier this year. Currently the company has copy protection on
all of its discs, expect for those sold in the United States and the
United Kingdom.

The software is aimed at limiting a user's ability to copy music from
the CD to a personal computer. Once a CD is copied into MP3 format, the
music can be easily transferred all over the world through a variety of
online services, like Kazaa and Limewire.

Rob Brooks, vice-president of marketing at EMI Music Canada, said the
software is evolving and admits some who have purchased the company's
discs have had issues playing them. The problem is very small, Mr.
Brooks said, adding that in his estimate only "0.002% can't play them."

Section 80 of the Canadian Copyright Act says that individuals can make
copies of music they own, as long as it is for personal use. In
exchange, a tariff system was implemented on blank media, like audio
cassettes, that allowed songwriters and music companies to recoup money
for these copies. Currently the recording industry is lobbying for the
tariff to be expanded to include computer hard drives and blank compact
discs.

Mr. Brooks said EMI's lawyers told the company that it did not have to
allow users to make a copy of compact discs.

"It is not a person's right to make a copy -- this is sort of a grey area."

Currently EMI is the only CD company in Canada using Macrovision's
software, but that is expected to change in coming months, according to
industry sources.

Randy Lennox, president of Universal Music Canada, the country's largest
music label, said there are no immediate plans to implement anti-piracy
protection.

Garry Newman, chief executive of Warner Music Canada, the number two
label in the country, said he does not plan on utilizing any copy
protection on CDs until the end of the year.

Mr. Brooks said EMI's anti-piracy protection continues to improve,
adding that users with older CD players have been the source of the few
complaints to the company. "They should get a different CD player --
this is not going away," said Mr. Brooks.

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