Copy protections lead to illegal copying

May 4, 2004

The German publisher Heise tells us about a survey from
the Fraunhofer
Institute for Integrated Publication and Information Systems which led
to the conclusion that protected audio is one cause for an increase of
illegally copied music.

"There
is no sense in making the legal use of digital media more and more
complicated and to punish the buyer, while people who just get their
illegal copies can do anything they want with it" are not the claims from
angry customers, but from Dr. Martin Steinebach from the Fraunhofer
Institute for Integrated Publication and Information Systems. And
Steinebach should know about it as he is the leader of the "Media Security
in IT" department. (MERIT)

MERIT currently tries to establish a digital watermark
on the markets which already works as a prototype, while ditribution for
everyday's use is still in the
beginning.

I doubt that the music industry will agree with him. They will probably
continue their efforts in making digital access to music more and more
complicated and expensive. Lowering prices and creating easier ways of accessing
music would probably lead to a sales increase, but I guess it's easier for them
to file some lawsuits against fileswappers.

Feel free to discuss this topic in our Music Downloads, P2P and Legal Issues Forum on Club CD
Freaks.

Source: Heise.de