Country music record company Fahrenheit Entertainment said it will begin selling copy-protected CDs by early next year using encryption technology from SunnComm, a little-known company based in Phoenix.

Country music record company Fahrenheit Entertainment said it will begin selling copy-protected CDs by early next year using encryption technology from SunnComm, a little-known company based in Phoenix. If successfully employed, SunnComm's technology could become the first to hamper the copying of CDs onto the Internet--a practice described as one of the music industry's greatest obstacles in its war against piracy. Nearly all of the music shared on the Internet through programs such as Napster comes from CDs, which can easily be copied, or "ripped," as MP3 files. SunnComm said that the technology will also prevent people from copying, or "burning," albums onto other CDs but would not block them from recording songs onto cassette tapes. Record labels have long sought a method of preventing CDs from being directly copied into digital formats, but techniques to date have run into compatibility problems with some CD players that were not built with security in mind. Few industry analysts have heard of SunnComm or feel confident about the ability of any technology to produce copy-protected CDs. Other companies such as Liquid Audio have developed technology to prevent the duplication of music bought in digital, downloadable format, but none are known to have successfully applied the technology to CDs sold in stores. Earlier this year, BMG Germany failed in a similar attempt to create protected CDs using technology from Israeli security firm Midbar. After shipping 130,000 copy-protected CDs, BMG abandoned its project in January as complaints piled up from customers, who said the discs wouldn't work on their players. John Aquilino, chairman of SunnComm, said he was familiar with BMG Germany's attempt and feels confident that his company's technology will not suffer the same fate.