CD-ROMs really damaged by copy protection?

Factual Questions
1

Is there any real evidence that CD-ROM drives or DVD drives can be permanently damaged by copy-protected optical disks? The closest thing to “evidence” I can find is here:

http://ukcdr.org/issues/cd/docs/damage.shtml

They have some stories, but no names, dates or other supporting facts. I haven’t seen anything that has been investigated by an actual journalist. The closest thing is this from the Apple Knowledge Base:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106882

It says that some users who try insert a disk marked “Not for CD ROM” into their CD-ROM may have to reboot, and sort of implies that the drive might get stuck. It actually just says to call for help if this happens. But has anyone’s equipment REALLY ever been broken by what was written on an optical disc that looks too much like a real CD?

And wasn’t there a similar urban legend involving cassette tapes, 8 tracks or vinyl?

2

It’s utter nonsense. -

The information to noise ratio in the first post you linked is very low and consists almost entirely of hand waving opinions and anecdotes the author is mostly pulling out of his ass.

No modern CD drive hardware with even halfway well engineered firmware can be damaged by data on a CD. On the off chance a CP CD gets stuck in a drive you can use the eject pinhole found on almost any CD (except some Apples apparently ) to eject it.