Current Situation
The Red Book audio specification does not include any copy protection mechanism. Starting in early 2002, attempts were made by record companies to market "copy-protected" non-standard compact discs. Philips has stated that such discs are not permitted to bear the trademarked Compact Disc Digital Audio logo because they violate the Red Book specification. It also seems likely that Philips's new models of CD recorders will be designed to be able to record from these "protected" discs. Nonetheless, there has been great public outcry over copy-protected discs because many see it as a threat to fair use. For example, audio tracks on such media cannot be easily added to a personal music collection on a computer's hard disk or a portable (non-CD) music player. Also, many ordinary CD audio players, e.g. in car radios, have problems playing copy-protected media, mostly because they use hardware and firmware components also used in CD-ROM drives. The reason for this reuse is cost efficiency; the components meet the Red Book standard, so no valid reason exists not to use them. Other car stereos which support CD-ROM discs containing compressed audio files (such as MP3, FLAC, or Windows Media) must use some CD-ROM drive hardware (meeting the Yellow Book standard) in order to be capable of reading those discs.
In late 2005, Sony BMG Music sparked the Sony CD copy protection scandal when it included a form of copy protection called Extended Copy Protection ("XCP") on discs from 52 artists. Upon inserting such a disc in the CD drive of a computer running Microsoft Windows, the XCP software would be installed. If CD ripper software (or other software, such as a real-time effects program, that reads digital audio from the disc in the same way as a CD ripper) were to subsequently access the music tracks on the CD, XCP would substitute white noise for the audio on the disc.
Technically inclined users and computer security professionals found that XCP contains a rootkit component. After installation, XCP went to great lengths to disguise its existence, and it even attempted to disable the computer's CD drive if XCP was forcibly removed. XCP's efforts to cloak itself unfortunately allowed writers of malware to amplify the damage done by their software, hiding the malware under XCP's cloak if XCP had been installed on the victim's machine. Several publishers of antivirus and anti-spyware software updated their products to detect and remove XCP if found, on the grounds that it is a trojan horse or other malware; and an assistant secretary for the United States' Department of Homeland Security chastised companies that would cause security holes on customers' computers, reminding the companies that they do not own the computers.
Facing resentment and class action lawsuits Sony BMG issued a product recall for all discs including XCP, and announced it was suspending use of XCP on future discs. On November 21, 2005 the Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott sued Sony BMG for XCP and on December 21, 2005 sued Sony BMG for MediaMax copy protection.
Read more about this topic: Compact Disc And DVD Copy Protection
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