Avex to Copy Protect Audio CDs

Avex Inc., one of Japan’s leading record companies and the record label of popular artists including Ayumi Hamasaki, Dream and Every Little Thing, has announced a plan to experiment with using copy protection on their audio CDs to prevent digital piracy. Special encoding will prevent consumers from being able to successfully copy audio tracks from the CD to a computer. The CDs will play normally on the Windows operating system but are not compatible with Macintosh computers. The first two releases to use the encoding will be the CD single “Every Heart” by popular Korean female singer BoA, set for release on March 13, and “Do The Best,” Do As Infinity’s greatest hits compilation scheduled for release on March 20th.

“According to a survey by the Recording Industry Association of Japan, the value of music CD production fell 7 percent to 489.5 billion yen in 2001, marking the third consecutive year of decline… due to the theft of music CD content through the Internet or by copying to blank CDs.”

What remains to be seen is how the use of this particular copy protection itself will effect CD sales in Japan. These CDs, by some of the most popular performers in Japan, will not play on Macintosh computers, which have a massive user base in Japan.

Source: Asahi Newspaper