Companies employ digital bodyguards

More and more technology is emerging to prevent you from copying e-books, CDs, DVDs and other high-tech media.

This fall, for instance, students at Princeton University and nine other colleges can buy electronic textbooks through wholesaler MBS Textbook Exchange. The digital books cost about a third less than paper books. Once students download a book, software permits them just one backup copy — and causes the books to expire after a year or more.

Similarly, hardware maker SanDisk in September will launch a copy-protected Universal Serial Bus (USB) drive. The drive — which works much like a floppy disk — allows students to choose from more than 2,000 books for download from a Web site. But they can’t make digital copies of the books.

Companies have been trying to add copy protection to digital music files, DVDs and other products for at least five years. The Recording Industry Association of America says piracy is one reason record sales tumbled 10 percent from 2000 to 2004.

Early anti-piracy efforts flopped. Some early CDs with copy protection — known in the industry as digital rights management (DRM) — wouldn’t always play properly. Now the kinks are getting worked out, and digital rights protections are being added to:

• DVDs and CDs. Two next-generation DVD technologies, Blu-ray and HD-DVD, will have safeguards designed to keep them from playing pirated DVDs. Record company Sony BMG, which represents artists such as Shakira and Jennifer Lopez, is expanding a program started in 2004. Protected CDs can be copied a limited number of times and transferred to some digital music players. EMI and other labels are launching similar programs.

• Digital video and software. Microsoft has licensed technology from copy-protection firm Macrovision that makes it tough to pirate video feeds as they move from PCs to TVs and other devices. The software giant also now requires users to prove that they have an official version of its Windows operating system before downloading updates. If a user has a pirated copy, Microsoft offers a legitimate one at a reduced price.

Critics say copy protection technology prevents legitimate uses, such as backing up a DVD. “There’s basically no benefit from the consumer’s point of view,” says lawyer Fred von Lohmann of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an advocacy group.

But tech analysts say copy protection is here to stay. Content makers want it, and consumer complaints are waning as it becomes less cumbersome, says DRM analyst Mike McGuire with researcher Gartner.