Analysis of the MediaMax CD3 Copy-Prevention System

Analysis of the MediaMax CD3 Copy-Prevention System
This report explains how to disable a copy-prevention method applied to an album released by BMG by simply pressing the shift key. DRM Watch gets the analysis right: "this is a superb example of what DRM Watch believes is inherently wrong with the anticircumvention provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The Act allows technology that patently (pun intended) doesn't work - and SunnComm's MediaMax is hardly the only example - to be protected by the threat of criminal prosecution. Halderman's work is probably not criminally liable, because DMCA 1201 carves out circumvention for research purposes, but an ordinary consumer pressing Shift while inserting a CD into a drive may be breaking U.S. federal law. This is simply absurd. The law allows any technology marketed and sold as 'copy protection' to be shielded in this way." Now my own position, of course, is that unbreakable copy protection is overkill. More...