Press Release
 
Sony DADC launches Postscribed ID - A New Technology for Unique IDs on Individual CD-ROMs
 
Salzburg, April 23, 2003 - Sony DADC announces the market launch of Postscribed ID™, a unique technology for recording ID data onto CD-ROMs after their production. This innovative solution presents a wide range of customer benefits such as convenience, security and marketing tools to industries offering their products and services via CD-ROM.
CD-ROMs are designed as read-only. Until now, post-production augmentation was not possible. Postscribed ID™ is a new technology now enabling disc publishers the additional inscription of a unique ID onto a CD-ROM's signal surface after the stamping process. The use of a high-power laser diode, a new reflective layer material, and extremely accurate location control technology, enable ID data to be recorded to a prescribed area. This information is individually determined by the disc publisher and can consist of serial numbers, registration numbers, or even authentication codes that are automatically read by any PC drive and invisible to disc users.
Postscribed ID™ is applicable in various areas and offers advantages to publishers and disc users. The individual postscribed information enables the identification of registered users, prevents simultaneous user-access to original data, encryption key distribution, and other flexible services for individual users. Via unique inscribed information Postscribed ID™ also gives disc publishers more insight into consumer behaviour by identifying discs and their area of use. "In the past it was not possible to replicate CD-ROMs containing individualized serial numbers. All discs carried the exact same content and were not uniquely recognisable. Now it is possible to put an additional unique code on every single CD-ROM!" says Johannes Stegfellner, Marketing & Sales Director of Sony DADC. "We are convinced that the tremendous variety of applications for Postscribed ID™, together with the high customer acceptance we have been experiencing so far, will generate new impulses for the CD-ROM market."
The Postscribed ID™ data are recorded onto a defined area of the disc which remains in full compliance with the CD-ROM format. The inscribed data size is currently offered at a maximum length of 32 Bytes and can consist of simple serial numbers as well as customized codes. Longer codes are available upon request.