Parks Associates reckons U.S. consumers are "not overwhelmingly antagonistic" toward copy-protected CDs, apparently.

However, given several years of consumer education by the recording industry, the results (derived from a survey the size of which has not been admitted) are still disappointing.

Consumers want such protected CDs to ship with "proper incentives", the analyst firm claims in its Digital Rights: Content Ownership and Distribution report.

The sample group were given a choice between a normal music CD and a copy-once CD that costs $5 less: 33 per cent of those who do not rip CDs and 27 per cent who do rip CDs preferred the copy-once CDs.

Observing that the music business released just ten million copy-protected CDs last year, as the industry faced consumer suspicion, analyst Harry Wang said: "Our research shows that it might be time for the industry to promote copy-protected CDs more aggressively, provided they can find the right price points, or other incentives that will attract consumers."

"Our findings might indicate the start of a transition for consumers to embrace the concept of copy-restriction in music consumption," he added.

From the article "Researchers see slow progress for CD DRM," by Macworld staff.

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