Music Industry Unveils New Piracy-Proof Format (Jan 9, 2004)

The major music labels have finally figured out a way to finally put an end to consumers making their music available for free downloadings on the illegal peer-to-peer networks, which costs them many losses of millions of potential dollars for their share holders and bonusses.

Why haven't they thought of this before? This idea goes way back to the days when pre-recorded medium was just taking off.

The Record!

What is it, you ask? It's the New Old Format that takes the form of a black, vinyl disc measuring seven, ten, and even a big twelve inches in diameter, which must be played on a specially designed turntable.

"We can state with absolute certainty that no computer in the world can access the data on this disc," said spokesman Brett Campbell on E Jazz News. "We are also confident that no-one is going to be able to produce pirate copies in this format without going to a heck of a lot of trouble. This is without doubt the best anti-piracy invention the music industry has ever seen."

As part of the invention's rigorous testing process, the designers gave some discs to a group of teenage computer experts who regularly use file swapping software such as Limewire and gnutella and who admit to pirating music CDs.

Despite several days of trying, none of them were able to hack into the disc's code or access any of the music files contained within it. "It's like, really big and stuff," said Doug Flamboise, one of the testers. "I couldn't get it into any of my drives. I mean, what format is it? Is it, like, from France or something?"

In the new format, raw audio data in the form of music is encoded by physically etching a single ethched groove encircling the center of the vinyl disc from the outside edge into close to the center of the disc. The sound is thus translated into variations on the disc's surface in a process that industry insiders are describing as completely revolutionary and stunningly clever.

To decode the data stored on the disc, the listener must use a special player which contains a stylus that runs along the grooves on the record surface, reading the indentations and transforming the movements back into audio that can be fed through loudspeakers.

Even Shawn Fanning, the man who invented Napster, admits the new format will make file swapping much more difficult. "I've never seen anything like this," he told reporters. "How does it work?"

As rumours that a Taiwanese company has been secretly developing a 12 inch wide, turntable-driven, stylus-based, firewire drive remain unconfirmed, it would appear that the music industry may, at last, have found the pirate-proof format it has long been searching for....