Music giant moves to fend off pirates

Bertelsmann, one of the big five music companies, has kick-started a programme to outwit pirates intent on copying CDs illegally. The company will use copy protection developer Midbar's Cactus Data Shield technology.

Cactus comes in three different CD formats: CDS-100, which can only be played on normal CD players; CDS-200, for CD players and PCs; and CDS-300, also for CD players and PCs but tracks can be copied onto a PC hard drive.

The move is just one of many ideas currently being experimented with by the music industry in a frantic attempt to protect artist copyright and, more importantly, revenue.

But there are alternative systems out there. Currently in the running are Midbar rivals SunnComm and Macrovision.

Both have their own offerings and an undisclosed number of CDs using their protection technologies already on the market, where unwitting consumers are the guinea pigs.

Midbar itself already has one million Cactus-protected CDs on the European market and plans to release another load onto the US market.

But these experimental technologies aren't without their problems. Over the past months a number of different systems have hit glitches, some proving to be incompatible with different types of CD or DVD players.