Sony has started shipping compact discs armed with copy-protection technology provided by the UK-based firm First4Internet. The security feature is not designed to thwart sophisticated duplication strategies used by those who will stop at nothing to thwart copy-protection schemes.
Instead, it is meant to be more of a speed bump on the CD-copying highway to slow down production of the vast numbers of duplicate CDs that are created by average buyers. Sony already has shipped about 2 million CDs protected by First4Internet"s XCP technology, which allows users to make copies of CDs for personal use, including transfers to personal mobile devices.