Here’s some news that’s sure to get steam coming out of the ears of Apple’s resident QuickTime maven and Ozzy fan, Frank Casanova: Macworld UK reports that two new CDs from heavy metal rocker Ozzy Osbourne coming soon from Sony will feature CD copy protection that will make the new discs unusable on the Mac.
Sony seems to be striking while the iron is hot. Ozzy and his family have been media darlings and public favorites ever since cable station MTV began to show its latest reality TV series, “The Osbournes,” which documented the life of the Ozzy, his wife Sharon, and two of their teenaged kids.
A spokesperson for Sony Europe confirmed for Macworld UK’s Jonny Evans that two forthcoming releases for the ex-Black Sabbath frontman will contain Sony’s Key2Audio copy protection technology. It is unknown at this time if the Key2Audio technology is in place only for the European release of these discs or if it will extend to the North American releases as well.
Both “The Osbourne’s Family Album” and a re-issue of “Live at the Budokan,” slated for release in June, will sport the same type of copy protection that has rendered some previous releases Sony releases useless on the Mac. The situation necessitated Apple’s release of a technical note which warned Mac users that under certain circumstances, use of such CDs could even cause the Mac to fail to work at all.
“The way Key2Audio works is to place a fake track of data as the first track on the CD. Computer CD mechanisms are pre-programmed to read the first part of data first. The effect is to leave the Mac trapped in a fake data-loop,” wrote Evans.