How copy-resistant "Not-CDs" work

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The methods used to make “Not-CDs” (which purposefully violate the Red Book audio CD standard in an effort to prevent copying) are incredibly trivial and easily defeated, according to an article in New Scientist. So trival and easily defeated, in fact, that it almost makes you feel sorry for the record labels that are paying to license the “technologies” (if you can call data corruption a technology).

A CD containing a copy-prevention system indexes the music correctly in the first table but then adds dummy tables containing deliberate errors. So CD players that read only the first table will play the music normally. But PC CD drives – which people use for copying – look at the last table, see garbage, get confused and play or record nothing.
But all these measures can be sidestepped… […] Makers of CD players and CD-ROM drives only need to make “relatively simple modifications” to their software and supposedly protected CDs can be played with ease. So playback and recording equipment is becoming resistant to copy-prevention techniques.

Wow. The record labels sure are suckers, aren’t they? It’s amazing, the desperation we’re seeing as they try to protect prices that are way out of line compared to, say, DVDs.

As an example, for twice the price of a very plain CD you can get a four-DVD version of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, with 208 minutes of movie and hours upon hours of commentaries and extras in positively luxurious packaging. And the record industry wonders what the problem is? If CDs cost what they should cost — $7.99 is a good place to start — there wouldn’t be a problem.