# Copy Control

> Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Copy_Control
> Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Copy_Control.md
> Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copy_Control
> Source revision: 1334071463
> License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)

Generic name of a copy prevention system

"CCCD" redirects here. For the colleges making up the Coast Community College District, see [Coastline Community College](/source/Coastline_Community_College), [Golden West College](/source/Golden_West_College), and [Orange Coast College](/source/Orange_Coast_College).

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Copy Control" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (February 2010) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Japanese. (June 2024) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the Japanese article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must follow the LLM translation guideline, revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 1,446 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Japanese Wikipedia article at [[:ja:コピーコントロールCD]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|ja|コピーコントロールCD}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Copy Control logo

**Copy Control** was the generic name of a [copy prevention](/source/Copy_prevention) system, used from 2001 until 2006 on several digital audio disc releases by [EMI Group](/source/EMI_Group) and [Sony BMG Music Entertainment](/source/Sony_BMG_Music_Entertainment) in several regions (Europe, Canada, United States, and Australia). It should not be confused with the CopyControl computer software copy protection system introduced by [Microcosm Ltd](/source/Microcosm_Ltd) in 1989.

Several types of protection existed. While basically intended as a means of copy-protecting [compact discs](/source/Compact_Disc), Copy Control discs cannot properly be referred to as CDs because the system introduces incompatible data, making the discs non-compliant with the [Red Book](/source/Red_Book_(audio_CD_standard)) standard for audio CDs. The system is intended to prevent [digital audio extraction](/source/CD_ripper) ("ripping") from the protected discs, and thus limit the [file sharing](/source/File_sharing) of ripped music. The techniques used are:

- Multisession ([Blue Book](/source/Blue_Book_specification)) information is included which effectively hides the audio tracks from most [CD-ROM](/source/CD-ROM) drives;

- [Error-correction](/source/Cross-interleaved_Reed-Solomon_coding) codes for the audio data are corrupted, which may introduce audible errors to ripped copies.

- The data area of the disc usually includes [DRM](/source/Digital_rights_management)-restricted copies of the audio content, for which a player only exists on the dominant PC [operating system](/source/Operating_system), [Microsoft Windows](/source/Microsoft_Windows).

In the Netherlands, the record labels Sony and Universal experimented with copy control until 2004. [EMI](/source/EMI) kept using it until June 2006, when they dropped it.

In the United States, [Universal Music Group](/source/Universal_Music_Group) experimented with copy control on a few soundtracks in 2001 and 2002, but abandoned it afterwards; [Warner Music Group](/source/Warner_Music_Group) has only used it in Europe on such releases as [Red Hot Chili Peppers](/source/Red_Hot_Chili_Peppers)' *[Greatest Hits](/source/Greatest_Hits_(Red_Hot_Chili_Peppers_album))* and [Madonna](/source/Madonna)'s *[Music](/source/Music_(Madonna_album))*. As of September 2006, [Cactus Data Shield](/source/Cactus_Data_Shield), the [Macrovision](/source/Macrovision) technology behind Copy Control, is no longer listed as a product on Macrovision's website and has completely been abandoned in countries such as Australia.[1]

A December 2006 issue of [*Billboard* magazine](/source/Billboard_(magazine)) announced that EMI had decided to abandon Copy Control worldwide. Until then, it had been unclear whether EMI had completely abandoned it, as there was no press release.

## Background

The Copy Control protections were devised in response to the [file sharing](/source/File_sharing) and casual CD copying that has become commonplace in recent years, allegedly causing the music industry significant losses, or ["ungained" revenues](/source/Lost_sales). Neither issue was particularly relevant when the CD standard was introduced in the early 1980s, and thus, unlike the more recent [DVDs](/source/DVD), the CD standard specifies no inherent form of copy protection or other [digital rights management](/source/Digital_rights_management). Copy Control is one of a number of attempts to apply copy protection on top of the CD standard, but since it is merely a modification of the already unrestricted standard that must still yield usable results in most CD players, the efficacy of the system varies significantly. Nevertheless, EMI's labelling of some Copy Controlled discs attempted to override consumers' statutory rights with the disclaimer "except for defective product resulting from the manufacturing process, no exchange, return or refund is permitted".[2]

## Circumvention

A Copy Control disc will appear as a [mixed-mode disc](/source/Mixed_Mode_CD), with audio and data content. Under Windows, inserting the disc will usually [autorun](/source/Autorun) an audio player utility, which plays the DRM-protected audio files provided. This can be temporarily disabled by holding down the [shift key](/source/Shift_key) while inserting the disc on Windows XP and earlier, users of Windows Vista and 7 may simply choose not to run the DRM content.

The ability to extract the CD-Audio tracks is otherwise largely dependent on the disc drive used. The first obstacle is the "fake" Table of Contents (ToC), which is intended to mask the audio tracks from CD-ROM drives. However CD-R/RW drives, and similar, can usually access all session data on a disc, and thus can properly read the audio segment.

The other major obstacle is the incompatible (and technically corrupted) error-correction data. Again, the effect of this is dependent on the disc drive; some drives will be able to read the data without problems, but others will produce audio files with loud pops every few seconds. As a consequence of having faulty error-correction codes, the discs may be less resilient to anything that might cause a read error, such as dust and scratches resulting from normal use.

Copy Control also does not prevent copying a disc by recording it as analog audio through a computer's sound card, which only causes a slight degradation in audio quality. More substantial is the loss in recording speed. This weakness, inherent in all digital copy prevention systems, is known as the "[analog hole](/source/Analog_hole)". As an alternative that does not rely on the "analog hole", it may be possible to copy the content using a digital link while playing it through a sound card that has a digital audio output.

Usually a CD-R/RW drive will play the disc but with occasional stops (about every 10 seconds) and DVD-R/RW drives will be able to read the data without problems and can be ripped straight to the PC.[*[citation needed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed)*] CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drives in a computer will usually refuse to play the data except in the provided player.

Systems other than Windows can just as easily play Copy Control discs, as many players on Windows are proprietary and respect the copy-restrictions. Similarly, the auto-launchers are only written for Windows and will only ambush Windows users (this can be mitigated by disabling autorun). There is little that can be done to stop a user who is not running Windows or who is using non-Microsoft CD ripping software from ripping a Copy Control disc.

In [Linux](/source/Linux), Copy Control discs are easily accessed through [cdparanoia](/source/Cdparanoia) or any other software that uses it, such as the [KDE](/source/KDE) "audiocd:/" service.

In [Mac OS X](/source/Mac_OS_X), these discs are easily accessed through iTunes and QuickTime (When a CDDA track is dragged to a folder other than the CD, QuickTime automatically converts it to [AIFF](/source/Audio_Interchange_File_Format), which is a lossless PCM format).

## Content on the CD extra

Main article: [Cactus Data Shield](/source/Cactus_Data_Shield)

**CDS-100 or CDS-200**
- A player and a media file database (a copy of the audio contents in Windows Media). The player will only play the audio contents in the media file database.

**CDS-300**
- A player and the anti-copy program only. The player can ignore the anti-copy program to read the audio tracks. The player allow users to play the tracks, rip the audio tracks as [DRM](/source/Digital_rights_management)-enabled WMA files and burn CD for 3 times (The player will rip the CD as 320 kbit/s WMA files, then burn the audio on a CD-R, notice that the volume is lower and the quality is worse on the burned CD).

## See also

- [Copy protection for audio CDs](/source/Copy_protection#Audio_CDs)

- [MediaMax CD-3](/source/MediaMax_CD-3)

- [Key2Audio](/source/Key2Audio)

- [Extended Copy Protection](/source/Extended_Copy_Protection)

- [Sony BMG copy protection rootkit scandal](/source/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal)

## References

1. **[^](#cite_ref-1)** [Macrovision - Copy Protection, Software Licensing, and Digital Rights Management](http://www.macrovision.com/) [Archived](https://web.archive.org/web/20060909201430/http://www.macrovision.com/) 2006-09-09 at the [Wayback Machine](/source/Wayback_Machine)

1. **[^](#cite_ref-2)** ["Campaign for Digital Rights - Corrupt audio disc information"](http://cdr.xenoclast.org/issues/cd/docs/20030407.shtml). *xenoclast.org*.

## External links

- [EMI](/source/EMI): - ["Copy control facts"](https://web.archive.org/web/20081119135840/http://www.emimusic.info/us_EN/sect4.html) (archived content) - [Disc Playback Problems](https://web.archive.org/web/20081119143750/http://www.emimusic.info/us_EN/sect5.html) - Questions and Answers (archived content)

- [Consumer petition against Copy Control](http://cacc.drmowinckel.com/)

- [IFPI Press Release](https://web.archive.org/web/20050405202506/http://www.ifpi.org/site-content/press/20020614.html) - [IFPI](/source/IFPI) issues labeling guidelines for Copy Control discs

- [Evaluating New Copy-Prevention Techniques for Audio CDs](https://web.archive.org/web/20051015015043/http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~jhalderm/papers/drm2002.pdf) ([PDF](/source/Portable_Document_Format) format), by [J. Alex Halderman](/source/J._Alex_Halderman)

- [padawan.info: Protected CD judged abusive in France](http://padawan.info/ip/protected_cd_judged_abusive_in_france.html)

- [Guide to Copying Copy-Protected Music discs](https://web.archive.org/web/20051024013926/http://www.dsg.cs.tcd.ie/~haahrm/copying-protected-cds/)

- [EMI Music & Sony/BMG Anti-Copy Control Information](https://web.archive.org/web/20080509165558/http://www.fedge.net/emi/) at the [Wayback Machine](/source/Wayback_Machine) (archived 9 May 2008)

- [Publishers Copyright Infringement Protection](http://www.copyrightcontrol.org/)

- [Facts and FAQs about CCCDs](https://web.archive.org/web/20071107103938/http://www.avexnet.or.jp/cccd/right.htm) from [Avex Group](/source/Avex_Group), the first company to release CCCDs in Japan (in Japanese)

---
Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Copy Control](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copy_Control) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copy_Control?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.