Hybrid Disc - Audio CD With Added Data Tracks

Audio CD With Added Data Tracks

Hybrid-CD also refers to audio CD which also includes a data track storing MP3 (or other digital audio compression format) copy of those CD-DA tracks. Before the introduction and subsequent popularization of iTunes and the iPod, such discs were popular for sharing music on compact disc without requiring the recipient to extract and encode the CD-DA themselves — a technical and perhaps time-consuming process on older computing hardware. However, with the advent of faster computing hardware and vastly simplified automated extraction and encoding tools (e.g. iTunes, Rhythmbox, etc.) and the lack of an automated hybrid feature in that very same software, popularity of such hybrid CD has subsequently declined. Furthermore, the legal status of such discs poses economic frictions in that they may be interpreted as two copies of a copyrighted work. However, such hybrid discs do remain in a commercial setting as a digital rights management enforcement technique, where encrypted compressed copies of the digital audio are provided with proprietary software for listening in a computer disc drive, while the CD-DA is included for playback in stand-alone CD players.