Serial Copy Management System: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 20:33, 10 December 2006

Revision as of 08:29, 8 February 2007

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==History of SCMS==

''SCMS'' was created as a compromise between electronics manufacturers, which wanted to make DAT machines available in the United States, and the [[RIAA]], which previously hampered the availability of DAT machines in the US via lawsuit threats. The [[RIAA]] did not want low-cost digital recorders readily available, since it felt that such technology would result in widespread piracy. These lawsuit threats resultingresulted in a [[chilling effect]], preventingwhich prevented DAT decks from becoming readily affordable.

In 1987, a member of the RIAA <!-- It was a particular record company, but I forget its name right now --> proposed a system where DAT recorders would have copy protection in them. The copy protection would look for the presence of frequencies in a particular high-frequency <!-- Somewhere around 4800 kHz as I recall --> band; if there was no audio present in this band, the recorder would assume that the music in question was copy protected, and would not allow recording of the music. The record companies would then release all music with this particular frequency band filtered out. It would be illegal to manufacture a DAT machine with the presence of audio in this frequency band; the RIAA was lobbying Congress to make this the law of the land.