1. Assuming the product is “activated” at point of sale, if it’s still copyable IN ANY FORM after such an activation, this isn’t, strictly speaking, DRM, and it certainly won’t do a damn thing against so-called “piracy”. Why? One word: SPORE. Once stripped of their assinine “secure-rom” bullshit, the improved (non-crippled) version proliferated like wildfire.
Remember, kids, it only takes ONE un-hobbled copy, anywhere in existence, to defeat any kind of “DRM’ bullshit they can imagine.

2. As far as “shrink” or whatever other nonsense their using as justification for this, why do they even keep “physical product” on hand, at all?
If they REALLY don’t want to have to deal with “shrink”, then why not burn the things on a per-sale basis, on-site? (Oh, wait — that would actually make people question the point of having to go to a “bricks and mortar” store to “buy” (or, according to the RIAA/MPAA/copyPigz, “license”) the stuff, instead of just downloading it directly.
(And it’s a really short step from “wow, I could have just downloaded this”, to “I could just download this directly from the publisher, and bypass the “vendor” entirely). So much for the RIAA/MPAA/every “software store” in existence.

3. Let’s also ignore the question about it can be considered “shoplifting” to “steal” a disc, if according to the RIAA/MPAA/pigz, you don’t “own” the media anyway, no matter how much you paid in “licensing fees”. (Odd how they always treat it as if you DO “own” the media, whenever you try to return a box after it’s been opened, and claim that “all sales are final” — when it’s to THEIR advantage, they call it a “sale”, when it’s not, we’re just “licensing” the “content.”) Fascinating how they’ve been able to get away with that doublespeak/doublethink bullshit for years.

Sorry for the ramblings here, but it just fascinates me how they’ve been able to carve out grey areas where it’s a sale — except when it’s not, basically at whim.

Maybe they should reintroduce those foot-and-a-half-long plastic enclosures that 8-track and cassette tapes used to come packaged in.

But why would anyone want to risk having a police record for pocketing a CD? They could download the album from Bittorrent in less time than it takes to drive to the store.

I’m not sure how feasible it would be for the manufacturer to expect the retailers to be burning missing file tables. Even on specialized equipment, the process would take too long at the checkout, and disk errors would be a likely concern.

I’m pretty sure it would have to be, as Sean says, some type of physical lock applied to the product.

For me, it won’t matter in the end anyway, as I haven’t been supporting the mainstream recording industry (by buying any of their products), and won’t be doing so in the future by the looks of it.

Well said DA,
These are exactly the same things i was thinking reading this, If you’ve ever bought minutes for a pre=paid cell phone you know they have to activate a card at the check-out. How the hell could they do that sort of trick with a CD??
Like SteelWolf said, “I wish I had gotten into DRM instead of going to school – you can sell these people practically anything and they will sink millions into it!” Bunch of idiots!!

build your own & stw

2) I am pretty curious how a CD could be “unreadable” until “activated”.
From a computer point of view, the CD is either burned or it isn’t. If it has been burned, it’s readable. Inversely, if it’s not readable, not much can be done with it or added to it. And, you can’t deliberately burn a disk to be unreadable.

Obviously, the “activation” mechanism would have to be some new “external” process. Something that is physically taken away from the disc, perhaps, and then replaced at the store? I dunno, I’m having trouble conceiving how that would even work.

Would it affect playability?… Probably!
CDs are flaky enough when you’re not tampering with them.

Ill tell you why, cause you fucks are greedy rapists.

Shoplifting and piracy are not synonyms.
Are they really going to try and use newspeak consistently in their statements?

Newspeak. And on George Orwell’s birthday no less.

Doubleplusungood.

Most stores keep the disks behind the counter which prevents the casual thief from picking them up and walking out with them! This would also have zero impact on piracy / digital distribution! The figures used are once again dreamed up out of thin air!