Will a black felt tip pen defeat Sony Music’s latest CD copy protection system? CNN.com says it does. CNN obtained a copy of the new Celine Dion disc "A New Day has Come" distributed in Europe with much fanfare over how it can’t play in a PC and will crash a Mac. CNN reportedly couldn’t get the CD to play on a PC but then covered the edges of the CD with a black felt tip pen (just like the old days of the green CD Stoplight pens) and voila – the CD played flawlessly in the PC.

Say good bye to the lame ass elevator music that serenades you at a select number of your local Cineplex for a screening of the latest blockbuster film. A group including Warner Music Group, 5.1 Entertainment, Century Theaters and Dolby are teaming up to bring a 5.1 channel DVD-Audio demonstration to waiting movie goers who have bought tickets for Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones. The music will include tunes from Eric Clapton, Buena Vista Social Club, Barenaked Ladies and Dishwalla. The first theater to start such demos will be in Corte Madera, California and the demos will start May 16, 2002.

Both new audio formats, DVD-Audio and SCAD, are randy for consumer momentum and significant record company support after basically missing the all important Christmas season in 2001. A clear-cut format war between the Sony-Philips team vs. Matsushita, AOL Time-Warner and others isn’t helping clear things up either.

According to recent reports from the RIAA and pro audio journals, recordable CDs outsold pre-recorded music. According to the RIAA’s recent report the music industry sold just under 1 billion records in 2001 while 1.1 billion CDRs sold in 2001 – outselling prerecorded music for the first time ever. The RIAA alludes to downloadable music as the cause for their recent ills but computer storage and media cost are also significant factors in the popularity of CDRs. At 30 cents per disc when purchased in bulk, CDRs are currently the most affordable mass market recordable media. It wasn’t long ago that $10 zip discs were the king of the hill but a CDR has more than 10 times the storage space for a tiny fraction of the price.

The first copy-protected albums are now out there in the United States and Europe, and as might be expected, they have unleashed a storm of controversy. Universal Music Group (UMG) has been obliged to set up a Web helpline for disgruntled purchasers of the company’s latest copy-protected CDs.