CD copy protection company SunnComm Technologies said Wednesday said it has agreed to buy another firm to help move music antipiracy efforts to a new level. The company has struck an agreement to purchase the United Kingdom-based Darknoise Technologies, which claims to have technology that can guard against people copying CDs in even the most old-fashioned ways.
Unlike existing CD copy protection, which tries to make CD music files invisible or unreadable to computers and other copiers, Darknoise actually modifies the audio of the songs slightly. If those songs are then copied–even by holding a tape recorder in front of a stereo speaker–the formerly inaudible Darknoise addition becomes audible and makes the copy unlistenable, the company claims.
The Darknoise technology is in some ways analogous to the ubiquitous videotape copy protection Macrovision created, which is effectively mandated by copyright law in the United States. In that tool, the video is slightly modified so that anyone trying to make direct VCR-to-VCR copies winds up with unusable copies.
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