- What is Cactus Data Shield?

As Midbar says "...the Cactus Data Shield is a comprehensive solution for protecting content on optical media, such as music CDs, against unauthorized digital replication and conversion to compressed files for on-line distribution. The Cactus Data Shield serves as a platform for providing consumers a variety of services, according to client specifications. Transparent to the music provider, the technology is easily implemented in the CD manufacturing process with no production machinery modification or changes to the pre-mastering process necessary. Transparent to the consumer, CDs protected by Cactus Data Shield play on commercial CD players with perfect audio quality..."

- How many Cactus Data Shield versions exist?

There are 3 versions of Cactus Data Shield version. 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.

- How does the Cactus Data Shield work?

As Midbar explains "...The Cactus Data Shield proprietary technology was developed in-house by a multidisciplinary team of experts in the fields of information security, physics, mathematics, electronics, cryptography and algorithms. The technology includes proprietary electronic circuits and software algorithms. The Cactus Data Shield processor is the engine behind the protection and serves as a platform for encoding original content through robust, multi-layer protection schemes. An engineering solution, the protection schemes are adaptive, easily updated and significantly more robust than software solutions. The Cactus Data Shield copy protection slightly alters the information on the CD in several ways while maintaining perfect audio quality.

The new version resolves all known issues of playability encountered to date. It also includes improved tools for customizing the player to the content provider's needs such as Skin Builder and Info Builder, which enable the creation of a play list and a URL in a simplified manner. The CDS-200.0.4 passed a stringent set of tests conducted in coordination between Midbar and major recording companies. The results show that this upgrade of the CDS-200 enables nearly 100% playability on a large scale of different devices including CD players, portable car stereos, portable CD devices, DVDs, PCs and professional audio systems. The system also proved to maintain the sound quality of the original recording. To date, a collective 8 million CDS copy controlled music CDs have been commercially released into the U.S. and European markets..."