Sony Sells Defective, Damaging CDs in Eastern Europe

parvati writes: "Newscientist.com is reporting that a new form of anti-piracy technology for audio CDs could potentially damage audio equipment. The new system, called Cactus, developed by Midbar Tech (Tel Aviv), is similar to Macrovision's but prevents both CD-to-PC copying and CD-to-CD copying (Macrovision doesn't prevent the latter). Cactus adds fake control data that's not decoded by the original player but, when copied, is read as music and produces distortion. However, certain audio wave shapes have the capacity to damage the circuitry of the player and/or speaker equipment. Midbar has already sold unidentified Cactus-embedded CDs in Eastern Europe."