New copy-protected music discs that look like CDs (but aren’t, technically, CDs) won’t actually stop professional piracy, since they can be copied by off-the-shelf CD duplicators. However, they will break your Mac horribly if you insert them into your Mac’s CD drive. Now, rumors (and they are just rumors at this point) abound that the copy protection can be broken with a felt-tip pen. I guess this is what the past will look like someday: professional pirates selling perfect illegal copies, and consumers with legally purchased discs inked up with Magic Marker just so they can use them safely.

