I've been put off buying CDs with this protection as I don't have a regular stereo system only my PC and my MD player. I have a CD player in the car but here in Japan you really don't drive many places due to traffic, ie it can take 7 hours to go 100kms.

I have to ask: If it plays in a stereo, what's to prevent copying? All you have to record it from the analog outputs. I don't see any point in this "protection".

Yeah there are ways around it but here in Japan where space is a premium a lot of people just have a computer and a MD/IPod set-up

I'm refusing to buy those CD's as well these days. I bought one,
found out and will never buy a CD with protection again. That
is true Edward. But you loose quality, ofcourse. Especially if you
don't have a good audio setup. Far better to record a digital
output of a CD player if you can. But then again, there is software
available now-a-days as well.

Granted, you might lose a little quality but probably not enough to hear while driving down the road. With a decent system recording analog to another digital source, I would think the loss would be minimal.