Copy-Protected CD to Be Released

In a first for the United States, a major record company plans Tuesday to release a CD that’s been encrypted to stop digital copying.

Universal Music Group’s CD--”More Fast and Furious,” a movie soundtrack aimed at a young male audience--will be protected by anti-piracy software from an Israeli company, Midbar Tech Ltd.

All of the major record companies have been testing copy-protection software, but Universal is the first to commercially release an encrypted disc in the United States. A limited number of protected discs have been released in Europe.

Midbar technology prevents users from playing a disc on Apple computers and some DVD drives and game consoles. Although the disc can be played on a Windows-based personal computer, its songs cannot be transformed digitally into MP3 files or other formats popular on the Internet.

The goal is to keep songs from the CD off the online song-sharing sites that have flourished in the last two years. The record industry has won some important court victories against such sites, but millions of consumers still use them.

Universal plans to put a sticker on the back of the “More Fast and Furious” CD alerting buyers to the potential playback problems. It also has urged retailers to give refunds to consumers who return CDs for that reason.

Stan Goman, chief operating officer for MTS Inc., which owns Tower Records, said, “I personally think it’s a good thing because it keeps the artists eating.” He added, “If any of our customers have a problem with it, we would gladly refund their money.”

Goman said he could recall only one incident where a Tower customer complained about a copy-protected CD, and that was a release in England.

He added that he didn’t think demand for the “More Fast and Furious” CD would be diminished by the encryption.

Universal officials declined to discuss the issue in depth, saying only that they have been testing a variety of technologies extensively and plan to release a number of copy-protected CDs this year.