Sony to iPod Users: Drop Dead

Today's Mercury News reports that the Music industry in an attempt to stamp out what they call, "casual piracy" they will now copy-protect EVERY CD sold in the United States.

"Sony BMG Music Entertainment plans to copy-protect all music CDs sold in the United States by the end of the year. Another major label, EMI will introduce copy-protected CDs in its two largest markets - the US and the United Kingdom - in the coming weeks.

The copy protection raises an even bigger problem for the millions of people who own Apple's iPod digital music player and use its iTunes software to organize their music and create custom CDs. Apple has refused to license its FairPlay rights-management software -- even to the labels. That means certain copy-protected CDs won't work with iTunes or the iPod without employing time-consuming work-arounds.

"They do not play on iPods simply because Apple has this proprietary approach,'' said Hesse of Sony BMG's copy-protected CDs. "We would be willing and able to put'' FairPlay "on CDs in an instant if Steve Jobs would flick the switch and allow us to do that.''

Apple refused to comment. However, well-placed sources within the music industry said the computer maker is still in active discussions with the labels to find a solution.

According to an accompanying article, to get the songs onto your iPod, Windows users will have to employ familiar work-arounds to move music off a copy-protected CD and onto the device. For EMI's releases, that involves burning individual tracks onto a CD and importing them one by one into the iTunes music software. For Sony's tracks, that means burning the songs to a CD and then importing them into the iTunes music management application.

The article does not say what Mac users can do to get the music they have paid for onto a portable device.