Say goodbye to your MP3 collection, kids:
The recording industry has
patented a means of copy-protecting CDs. This method relies on CD players not using time codes, which CD-ROM drives do use, and encrypts the time codes. A computer can access the audio, only with special software that decrypts the time codes, and only on terms approved by the Recording Racket. Which means no MP3s, no listening to CDs on your Linux box, and no using unofficial CD
playing software (there goes freedb.org's air supply).
Then again, if CD players don't need the time codes at all, and special
software can decrypt them (i.e., access the disc), surely it would be
possible to write a program which extracts audio without relying on the time
codes in the first place. (Would that be a circumvention device, or any more
illegal than video signal stabilisers?)