Making pirates pay

Scrambling the time code on a CD will force would-be pirates to buy a licence
if they want to make copies, according to a patent filed by a researcher for the
International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, the record industry’s
trade body (GB 2357165). The time code records the start and end time of tracks
but most CD players ignore it, so they will still play the CDs with the
scrambled time code. But the disc cannot be copied in CD-ROM drives, because
they require the time code. However, the CD also contains the key to restore the
time…