Music Industry - Everyone is a potential Criminal
 

To all of you that agued that DMCA wouldn't result in anything harmful coming out of the entertainment industry, well, it is now well known that newer Sony BMG audio CDs drop a little present on your Windows box. The importance of this? <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/10/sony_drm_trojan/">It is already being exploited</a>, <a href="http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=919">is being used by other spyware to further compromise your system</a>, and is even <a href="http://online.securityfocus.com/brief/34">disrupting World of Warcraft</a>.

Besides, the moment you drop the money down on the counter for the CD, you're <a href="http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004145.php">agreeing to some really bizarre legal agreement</a>.

Shit, Sony, why you gotta be so nasty?

Ho-lee Cow! (scuse me, got to make another HoF induction)

A freakin' self-cloaking rootkit. That's just evil. Wait, I just read the third link...that EULA is evil.

One small bright spot...the default behavior on my XP system is to Prompt for Action when a cd/dvd is inserted into the drive. This is the default behavior for music, video, mixed, etc, all kinds of discs. I have regularly said Cancel to the little dialog box, and now I have changed to Take No Action.

Thanks for the tip Kitsune. Seriously. I publish internally a Tip of the Week for the company and this post is it. I'll have an extra 20 minutes Monday morning cause this is already done. :tips cap:

From what I've read, it appears that the CDs drop their code through MS Media Player, not through the autorun. I could be wrong, though, but I'm not certain that the "take no action" security policy setting is enough to block it.

Anyways, the DRM software even <a href="http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/11/more-on-sony-dangerous-decloaking.html">contacts Sony servers to check for updates</a> and removal looks like a total bitch according to the finder.

You have to love something that <a href="http://www.internetnews.com/security/article.php/3561161">kills your CD player</a>. How nice of Sony, but how equally kind of Windows to have a security hole that allows software to create unlocatable files, registry keys, and invisible services.

<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20051108/tc_pcworld/123454">Looks like Italy is pursuing legal actions, now</a>, against Sony and the DRM kit creator.


I'm sticking with iTunes and my Mac.

What if you use something such as Winamp or some other media player?

"Here's your vocabulary word for the morning: rootkit". This story on NPR is a useful audio description of the story for those who aren't into reading "rootkit" and seeing "apocalypse". Recommended.

Woop! Spoke too soon! <a href="http://www.macintouch.com/#tip.2005.11.10.sony">Macs get it, too</a>, it just isn't concealed so well.

Addition: you have to run it manually and, well, you'd be stupid to do so. Macs prompt for admin passwords before doing any installs, although this Sony DRM doesn't notify you what it is.

Sony/BMG has *deep* pockets. Some smart lawyer is gonna kick their ass with a class-action suit and retire on his share.

Stupid fucks. Greed. Purely greed. Not only do they own the product (you know, the one you shelled out $15 or more to "own"?), but now they've decided that they own your computer too.

BOO-YAH!!
 

Yeah! Score one for the good guys!

Once the word got out, Sony risked people voting with their feet. A draconian solution like the one they were using only works if people don't have another choice. When people learned about it, it became a consumer issue. Very few people are so attached to a single artist that they couldn't weigh the alternatives and choose an unprotected CD by a different artist.

Wait until the artists start suing Sony for having crippled their sales because of this.

They will find their contract allows Sony to do whatever they want.

Which in the long run could make UT a very wealthy man. :)

I would be happy enough if Sony were made poor by it.

The stories of big label horror are starting to really come through now, and not a week goes by where I don't hear about some really awesome music that is simply unavailable because a label maintains the publishing rights and has left it out of print.

For example the first two Bears albums cannot be purchased at any price. There may be only 1000 people who want that material. Nobody is going to make a dime off it. But no matter, it is music which cannot be had legally.

Typically, in these cases, the artist says go ahead and b**tleg it. They will not see a dime from it if it is ever sold anyway.

Maybe. In California contract law, there is a "good faith" implication, which states that both parties are acting in good faith, in accordance with the stipulations stated. It's the clause that allows you to sue your medical insurance company when they refuse to cover standard procedures based on their own non-standard classifications system (Chemotherapy as an experimental, non-covered procedure?).

I can see an artist bringing a case that holds the label liable for acting in bad faith. The intent of the recording contract is to secure distribution for the recorded content. The obligation of the artist is to provide and promote that content. The obligation of the label is to fund and distribute that content.

This kind of crippling DRM might be a "bad faith" act on the part of the labels - an act that essentially voids their obligation to distribute the content.

I dunno. Might be a shot in the wind, but if I were an artist whose fan base suddenly threw a riot and left because of the actions of my label, i might sue.

Beestie, the last link doesn't? :headshake

This is going to go down in history as one of the most colossal corporate blunders ever.

I think that was New Coke.

I was waiting for this to happen.. a new twist

This could be Bertelsmann's (BMG) biggest mistake since publishing "The Christmas Book of the Hitler Youth" back in the 40's.

Somewhere in the bowels of BMG is a real Dr. Strangelove

Via Boing Boing, the Sony rootkit contains copyrighted, licensed software and Sony is not in compliance with the license.

Bwahahaha! This just keeps getting better! This is the best free entertainment I've had in awhile!

I'll bet someone in Sony's corporate headquarters is committing hari-kiri right about now.

And the pathetic thing is it doesn't work. How much DRM would have to be put on a CD to prevent one person from making MP3's? I submit the answer is darn near infinite, and once there's one copy, well, there she goes.

They could send an invincible, uncorruptible RIAA executive to accompany each CD wherever it goes, to make sure the so-called 'customer' is not using it in an unapproved manner.

Nah. They'll survive this just fine, continue to sell lots of music, and turn a profit in the end. Even if they left the DRM install on their CDs, they'd do just fine.

In fact, I bet any sales losses they suffer from this will be blamed on piracy and further push their point to congress who will happily pass any Digital Copyright laws Sony requests.

It will be interesting to see if the indignation on the web will translate to financial backlash. :neutral:

Would shoving it up his ass be an 'unapproved manner'?http://www.cellar.org/images/smilies/cool.gif

He'd be fine with that. If it's up his ass, you can't copy it.

Unfortunately, since he's invincible, it might be hard to get it up there.

You gotta love this guy Mark.

From SysInternal dated 1 Nov 2005:

DOXPARA says it's far and wide.

And the Far East.

President of RIAA Says Sony-BMG Did Nothing Wrong
 

http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/05/11/21...tid=233&tid=17


Sony
Zellis writes "In a press conference held on Nov 18 Cary Sherman, the president of the RIAA, stated in reference to Sony BMG's "rootkit" software that "there is nothing unusual about technology being used to protect intellectual property." According to Sherman, the problem with Sony BMG's XCP DRM software was simply that "the technology they used contained a security vulnerability of which they were unaware". He goes on to praise Sony's "responsible" attitude in handling the problem, saying "how many times that software applications created the same problem? Lots. I wonder whether they've taken as aggressive steps as SonyBMG has when those vulnerabilities were discovered, or did they just post a patch on the Internet?" It seems that the latest spin is to portray the Sony rootkit as no more of an issue than a software coding error that unintentionally creates a security hole. Will they get away with it among the non-technical public?" Arguably, Sherman is right -- but I enjoy much more the fact that this whole r00tkit fiasco has set DRM back by years. Gogogo poor implementations!

Sony has sex with sheep. I had pictures, but a rootkit sussed them out and deleted them. :headshake

Sony's woes grows...
 

http://www.techtree.com/techtree/jsp...297&cat_id=582

...snip...

The research note on the Gartner site says that what makes the Sony BMG incident even more unfortunate, is that the DRM technology can be defeated easily. The user can simply apply a fingernail-sized piece of opaque tape to the outer edge of the disc, rendering session 2 - which contains the self-loading DRM software, unreadable. The PC then treats the CD as an ordinary single-session music CD, and the commonly used CD "rip" programs continue to work as usual. (Gartner emphasizes that it does not recommend or endorse this technique.)

...more...

There is a link at the teachtree site to this program. :D

They just got busted for payola as well, seriously.

The Nightly Business Report (from PBS) provided this list of Sony products that may contain the DRM software. Steve Gurvey put this list up with a warning - don't play them:
CDs Containing XCP Content Protection Technology

Looks like they're testing the water with the artists nobody cares about?

From the BBC on 22 Nov 2005:

Ummm...Neil Diamond has a rather large following. I'd be real surprised if his new release doesn't sell at least 500k copies worldwide, and probably twice that. That's a million pissed-off Sony customers right there.

I've been wondering when the first big classical album with DRM attached with come out... :lol:

You knew their potential for evil, did you know they're lazy as well?

I just got an e-mail from United that offered me 5 free songs from Connect Music. I do not know much about the competing services, so I followed the link and found that Connect was owned by Sony and that some features would not work since I wasn't using Intenet Explorer.

Thank you Firefox.

BTW, I love their privacy statement.

Translation: "As soon as you give us your money and we let you borrow our property because of it, we own your ass."

You called that one...