Tag Archives: Compact Disc

News: The Future of Music and DRM

 For those of you interested in the debate about copyright protection for music (digital rights management, or DRM, as it’s called) here’s an interesting article from the industry point of view — and a lively discussion on the lively Slashdot forum (some contributions are more, er, erudite than others).   Something I think hasn’t been… Read More »

Software: Retrieving CD Data

 Here’s an option to recover data from unreadable CDs. (I haven’t tested this.) CD/DVD Diagnostic “works to retrieve a consumer’s damaged files corrupted by a defective drive, bad software or from user error”. It works on unreadable, scratched, or corrupt CD-R, CD-RW, DVD+R, and DVD+RW discs. Unlike programs that use Windows’ file system to access… Read More »

News: The Dark Side of Backing Up

 From the We Should Have Known This Dept comes news that CD-ROMs degrade in months, even at room temperature without sunlight. Dutch magazine PC Active tested data disks from 30 manufacturers that were recorded 20 months ago. Several data CDs developed serious errors, or became virtually unreadable, The Register reports.   It’s perhaps too early… Read More »

News: InterTrust Bites Microsoft

Not sure why I missed this, but it’s an important development: a federal judge has issued a critical ruling supporting a patent lawsuit against Microsoft brought by InterTrust, a tiny digital rights management company. I wrote a little about this months ago; InterTrust, bought by an investor group led by Sony Corp. of America and… Read More »