response 74 of 151:

Jul 30 13:41 UTC 2001

resp:36 -- An article in Stereophile magazine concerning Macrovision's
method of making audio CD's un-rippable.

http://www.stereophile.com/shownews.cgi?1094

"TTR's patents reveal that in the SafeAudio system, "grossly erroneous
values," or bursts of digital noise, are added to the signal, forcing a
regular CD player, whose error correction can't usually handle such extreme
digital hash, to cover the gaps of bad data with data from before and after
where the distortion occurs. But when copying the audio file to another
device, like a PC's hard disc, the extreme digital values are said to
overwhelm the computer's ability to transfer the data properly, leaving
annoying noises in place of music."

(this "technology" was developed jointly by Macrovision & TTR Technologies,
and has been used *secretly* by several record labels on new releases, since
March of this year)