History (1995): 3M Anti-Piracy Procedures

Illegal copying of CD-ROMs and video disks cost software manufacturers estimated damages of about $7.4 billion in 1993, according to the Software Publishers Association.

In response, 3M has developed a process which allows individual marking of optical disks during manufacturing.

Examples of this are company logos, photos or hologram-like pictures. The marking is incorporated on the side used for storage and enables manufacturers to check whether disks sold under its brand name are really manufactured by the firm.

This article is an abstract of news published on the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter on issue 87, published on April 1995.