METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR THE PROTECTION OF FIXED MEDIA

A method and apparatus for protecting information on fixed media where the fixed media including a number of vulnerabilities, the method comprising the steps of: establishing security elements based on the vulnerabilities of the fixed media; determini ng security element variations for each of the security elements; pseudo-randomly choosi ng one of the security element variations; encoding the information with said pseudo- randomly chosen security element variation; repeating the choosing and encoding steps at least three times, whereby the information is encoded with at least four of said security element variations, creating a copy prevention layer; establishing copy detection elements; determining copy detection element variations for each of the copy detection elements; pseudo-randomly choosing at least one of the copy detection elemen t variations; and encoding the copy prevention layer with said at least one chosen copy detection element variations, wherein the method allows playback of the information on commercially available media players and wherein the method provides copy protection and a means to discriminate between an original fixed medium and a copied fixed medium.