mp3's, laws, and culture

[Mary Gardiner]

On Tue, Nov 02, 2004, volvoguy wrote:
> This must be an international issue too. I've never seen a
> play-protected CD, and you're having a hard time finding Redbook audio
> CDs with good old PCM audio files on them. The only album I've ever
> even heard about that was play-protected was a recent Beastie Boys
> album, and I don't think it was released in that format everywhere.

It's fairly widespread in Australia: some label divisions are protecting
every CD released. FWIW Australia has fairly strict reproduction laws,
not even allowing copies for personal use or backups, so if you're
implying there's a correlation between loose legal reproduction control
and play protection (I'm not sure that you were), Australia is a
counter-example.

-Mary