Wacko Jacko stops copying of new single

The glove is off between monkey-loving popster Michael Jackson and the MP3 community after his new single, 'Rock your World', was released in an uncopyable CD.

Released by Sony, the discs incorporate controversial copy protection measures which prevent copying and ripping to the MP3 format.

But the technology also prevents the discs being played in PC CD-Rom drives, although there is no mention of this anywhere on the packaging.

It is believed that Sony has used Macrovision's SafeAudio protection technology on the CDs. SafeAudio adds inaudible sounds to the music, effectively corrupting the audio signal on the CD.

While these deliberate errors cause a CD-Rom to reject the disc, there are reports that the technology also corrupts the reliability and quality of the sound.

Outraged activists, the UK Campaign for Digital Rights, said the move was the record manufacturer's latest ploy to put an end to MP3s and digital copying of CDs. "They have been releasing these into the shops to see if anyone notices the difference, hoping that by claiming there was no increase in the rate of return of these CDs, they can justify putting all CDs into this format," said the organisation.

According to the UK Campaign for Digital Rights, which is fighting against the proposed European Copyright Directive, our equivalent of the controversial DMCA, one million of these CDs have already been released in the UK alone.

As a result of the discovery, the group is dedicating this Saturday, 6 October, to "turning the tide against these extremely unpleasant plans from the media giants" by leafleting major record stores nationwide to raise public awareness of the copy-protected CD.