Response to my 'DRM for vinyl' article on Idolator
My post about analogue rights management for vinyl was mentioned on the Idolator blog (via No Rock And Roll Fun's bookmark) where DENNISOBELL left an interesting comment.
They suggest that my recollections of it being in the late 70s are a few years out.
"I can narrow this down for the poor guy: he failed copy-protection for analog sources dates to the late 1980s -- I know, because I remember reading about it in either High Fidelity or Stereo Review at my high school library (had to be there; I've never subscribed to either mag), and that would place this whole adventure between 1985 and 1989.
The reason I remember those two mags covering this short-lived controversy is that the audiophile community (one I pay attention to only glancingly) was furious about this idea, not because they liked taping music so much as they despised the idea of any audio degradation, even theoretical.
IIRC -- and this might be apocryphal -- the dénouement of the whole thing happened when a hardcore audio scientist/nerd at one of the publications produced a gotcha! moment: a record where the addition of the high-pitched signal eliminated the entirety of, like, a woodwind in an orchestra or some-such. The lab working at the RIAA's behest conceded the point, and the effort was dropped".
I'm intrigued, but I have to say I remain unconvinced. By the late 80s vinyl was already a spent force, and the era of the CD was well and truly upon us. My own habits (1987's Music For The Masses purchased on vinyl, 1989's 101 was a CD purchase) testify to that.
I don't really buy DENNISOBELL's idea that whilst the music industry was working to upgrade us all to digital, it was also working to copy protect the out-moded vinyl format. That seems to chime much more to me with the 'Home Taping Is Killing Music' era of the early 80s. Still, as I said in my original piece, the entire episode seems to have been brushed under the carpet of forgotten doomed initiatives, so I'm open to more information if anyone has it.
