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In a post above, it said that there were problems putting non-Sony songs on it? That sounds weird.



Hello Stan. No what I meant to say was that somehow the Sony technology knows when a file you're using is on another machine and it interprets this as a copyright violation. Next thing you know, you're digging through the manual and on the Sony website to find out that they have a special technology built into their equipment that tries to prevent copyright infringements on music files.

I just pulled out the manual for my Sony stereo audio system and here's what it reads ...

Music discs encoded with copyright protection technologies. This product is designed to playback discs that conform to the CD standard. Recently, various music discs encoded with copyright protection technologies are marketed by some record companies [Sony is one of those record companies]. Be aware that among those discs, there are some that do not conform to the CD standard and may not be playable by this product.

My Sony MP3 player that I paid almost $300 dollars for reads ...

About the Serial Copy Management System (SCMS). The SCMS allows you to make only a single copy of a digitally recorded source. This unit conforms to the Serial Copy Management System. You cannot perform a DIGITAL recording from a digitally recorded CD-R or CD-RW. In this case, make a ANALOG recording.

Stan, you'll note that by ANALOG recording that they mean a recording that is no better than the voice recorder function through the player's built-in microphone. Imagine that! A digital recorder that prevents you from making a digital recording.

My wife downloads these 99 cent tracks (legally) off from Amazon.com. She puts that MP3 download on her MP3 or burns a CD of it. From then on, if that MP3 contains Sony's SCMS encoding in it, you'll not be able to play it on another player (my own for instance). In fact, until you 'return' the MP3 you downloaded to it's original download, you can't even burn a second copy onto a CD. Sony's plan to build this into their equipment has been around for years. At one time, you couldn't even use a Sony Walkman without using their own proprietary software to manage your music library (until recently when people stopped buying their products). However, more and more companies are setting up their players and their MP3 downloads this way, using Sony's proprietary protection scheme. Have you ever been given a file from a friend that wouldn't load up in your player (maybe opens your browser and takes you immediately to a website page)? Won't even run in Windows Media Player? There ya' go! Microsoft's been in on it since version 10 of Windows Media Player.

I'd be willing to bet that if Matt looked for it, he'd see it buried in the fine print of his owner's manual too.

Like I said -- Sony's got great audio but there's a price for it. For home audio I won't buy anything else -- I'll just pay the extra 99 cents they want so bad.
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Ike