Sony, which pioneered a new copy-protected CD in 2002, is abandoning the technology, saying that the anti-piracy message being touted by the recording industry has sunk in sufficiently with consumers to make additional measures unnecessary. The statement appears to be somewhat at odds with the industry’s continued insistence that global music piracy is a serious threat to recording, and the decision to drop copy protection may have more to do with Sony’s expansion into the online music marketplace.