Identifying copy protected optical compact discs
View Patent ↗A method and associated apparatus for identifying, to manufacturing test equipment, copy protection information contained on a compact disc (CD). The method includes adding data in standardized industry formats to unused sectors of a CD and providing the capability to test equipment to read the data. The added data is unreadable and ignored by conventional compact disc readers and compact disc drives. The added data is defined by manufacturers and users of copy protection techniques. Additional copy protection verification can be accomplished by using specialized verification tools.
1. A method of marking a compact disc, comprising the acts of:
providing copy protection data identifying a particular copy protection scheme from a plurality of copy protection schemes;
formatting at least part of the copy protection data to form at least one copy protection data block conforming to Q subcode channel data block format;
identifying a portion of the compact disc; and
applying the at least one copy protection data block to the identified portion of the disc as at least one Q subcode channel data block having a Q subcode mode field encoded with a Q subcode mode value, the at least one Q subcode channel data block further having a Q control field encoded with a Q control value, the Q subcode mode value and the Q control value jointly identifying the particular copy protection scheme; wherein the Q control value has a binary value wherein a value of zero is assigned to the bit of the Q control value representing the unity power of two and the Q subcode mode value is hexadecimal 1.
2. A method of marking a compact disc, comprising the acts of:
providing copy protection data identifying a particular copy protection scheme from a plurality of copy protection schemes;
applying a first part of the copy protection data to the compact disc as the copy protection scheme; and
applying a second part of the copy protection data to the table of contents (TOC) of the compact disc as a Q subcode channel data block having a Q subcode mode field encoded with a Q subcode mode value the at least one Q subcode channel data block further having a Q control field encoded with a Q control value, the Q subcode mode value and the Q control value jointly identifying the at least one subcode channel data block as containing copy protection data,
wherein the second part of the copy protection data identifies the particular copy protection scheme; wherein the Q control value has a binary value wherein a value of zero is assigned to the bit of the Q control value representing the unity power of two and the Q subcode mode value is hexadecimal 1.
3. A method of marking a compact disc, comprising the acts of:
providing copy protection data identifying a particular copy protection scheme from a plurality of copy protection schemes;
applying a first part of the copy protection data to the compact disc as the copy protection scheme; and
applying a second part of the copy protection data to the compact disc as a Q subcode channel data block having a Q subcode mode field encoded with a Q subcode mode value identifying the at least one subcode channel data block as containing copy protection data,
wherein the second part of the copy protection data identifies the particular copy protection scheme; the Q subcode channel data block further having a Q control field encoded with a Q control value, wherein the Q control value has a binary value wherein a value of zero is assigned to the bit of the Q control value representing the unity power of two and the Q subcode mode value is hexadecimal 1.
4. The method of claim 3 wherein the Q subcode mode has a value of hexadecimal F.
5. A method of marking a compact disc, comprising the acts of:
composing copy protection data related to a copy protection scheme;
formatting at least part of the copy protection data to form at least one copy protection data block conforming to Q subcode channel data block format;
identifying a portion of the compact disc; and
applying the at least one copy protection data block to the identified portion of the disc as at least one Q subcode channel data block having a Q subcode mode field encoded with a Q subcode mode value, the at least one Q subcode channel data block further having a Q control field encoded with a Q control value, the Q subcode mode value and the Q control value jointly identifying the copy protection scheme, wherein:
the Q control value has a binary value wherein a value of zero is assigned to the bit of the Q control value representing the unity power of two and the Q subcode mode value is hexadecimal 1.
6. The method of claim 5 wherein:
the identified portion is in the lead-out area or lead-in area of the compact disc.
7. The method of claim 5 wherein:
the identified portion is in a table of contents (TOC) of the compact disc the TOC consisting of a plurality of TOC sectors; and
wherein the Q subcode channel data block replaces a sufficiently small proportion of the plurality of TOC sectors that an ordinary compact disc player will successfully read the TOC.
8. The method of claim 7 wherein:
the sufficiently small proportion is ten percent.
9. The method of claim 7 wherein:
the sufficiently small proportion is less than ten percent.
10. A method of marking a compact disc, comprising the acts of:
composing copy protection data related to a copy protection scheme;
applying a first part of the copy protection data to the compact disc as the copy protection scheme; and
applying a second part of the copy protection data to the table of contents (TOC) of the compact disc as a Q subcode channel data block having a Q subcode mode field encoded with a Q subcode mode value the at least one Q subcode channel data block further having a Q control field encoded with a Q control value, the Q subcode mode value and the Q control value jointly identifying the at least one subcode channel data block as containing copy protection data,
wherein the second part of the copy protection data identifies the copy protection scheme, wherein:
the Q control value has a binary value wherein a value of zero is assigned to the bit of the Q control valve representing the unity power of two and the Q subcode mode value is hexadecimal 1.