Israeli security company Midbar said Tuesday that it has inked a deal with a Bertelsmann-owned CD manufacturer to provide copy protection for albums. The deal signals Midbar's aggressive push into the market for protecting recordings. In August, the company released 1 million copy-protected CDs in Europe, and it plans to enter the U.S. market.

Under the agreement, Bertelsmann's Sonopress will use Midbar's technology, dubbed Cactus Data Shield, to thwart potential pirates attempting to illegally reproduce music. The technology comes in three versions. Albums containing CDS-100 can only be listened to via traditional CD players, while those with CDS-200 can be played on CD players and PCs. The third version, CDS-300, can be played on both types of devices; it also lets people download music stored on the CD to a computer hard drive.