Midbar Ltd. (www.midbartech.com), ), the developer of Cactus Data Shield (CDS) digital music copy control technology, announced today, that it will provide the technology for the first one million copy protected CDs to be released in Japan. “We expect to see many more releases in Japan of CDs using the Cactus Data Shield (CDS) technology throughout the first six months of the year with some of the top labels and manufacturers in the country,” said Ran Alcalay CEO of Midbar.

“Midbar’s continued purpose is to help those in the music industry claim the full benefits of their hard work and creativity. We are pleased to now be working side by side with the music industry in Japan in this pursuit. Japan is the second largest market in the world, and Midbar is the first in the copy control industry to be adopted in the Japanese market. This is more proof that CDS offers the most effective and robust solution on the market today, providing maximum protection without compromising playability or the sound quality of the original recording,” Alcalay said.

Select releases will be protected by the new CDS-200.0.4, unveiled at the end of last January at Midem 2002, and will be identified as such on the outside of the CD casing with a special label. To date, in excess of 10-million CDS protected CDs have been released into the world market.