I'm pretty surprised that Sony and Philips aren't doing something about this. For a disk manufacturer to be allowed to put the "Compact Disc" logo on their products they must be Red book compliant. In theory, they could be forced to remove the logo under the terms of the Philips techonology license. However, I suspect that this would mean absolutely nothing to the average punter, and the manufacturer would (as like as not) simply keep on pressing disks, compliant or not. It would only allow savvy buyers to spot which disks have the protection scheme on board, and avoid buying them.

Ideally, a major lawsuit posted by Philips/Sony against a manufacturer would do this in, but given the current market conditions and Philips' financial state, it is highly unlikely this will happen - they do get royalties on every disk pressed don't forget, so they'd be killing the goose.

The only way to beat this is to return any CD that gives problems directly to the shop and ask for an exchange or money back. Only the economic activities of the punters buyng the stuff will have any effect - so vote with your feet!

As a small aside: the entire development costs of CD-A and Laserdisk (it's pre-cursor) over some 15 years were funded by the profit of one cent on each filament light bulb sold by Philips Gloelampen Fabriek NV between 1967 and 1982. Sit down with a calculator, preferably one with scientific notation and an exponential digit display format.....

One of the few remaining Mk1 owners... #00015