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Microsoft announced on Saturday new digital rights software aimed at helping music labels control unauthorized copying of CDs, one of the biggest thorns in the ailing industry's side.

What might interest you the most of this new technology is that it doesn't prevent music CD's from being used on a computer, a very <cough>stupid</cough> solution Sony came up with a few months ago, which was cracked later BTW.

It enables music labels to lay songs onto a copy-controlled CD in multiple layers, one that would permit normal playback on a stereo and a PC.

The PC layer, laid digitally on the same disc, can be modified by the content provider, so that they could prevent, for example, burning songs onto another CD, said David Fester, general manager, digital media entertainment for Microsoft.