Music Industry - Everyone is a potential Criminal

[xoxoxoBruce]

Beestie, the last link doesn't?

[Elspode]

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

[wolf]

I think that was New Coke.

[Bullitt]

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

[richlevy]

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

[Strangelove admits that he investigated making such a machine]
Dr. Strangelove: Based on the findings of the report, my conclusion was that this idea was not a practical deterrent for reasons which at this moment must be all too obvious.

[Undertoad]

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

[Kitsune]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

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!

[Elspode]

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

[SteveDallas]

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.

[Happy Monkey]

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.

[Kitsune]

Originally Posted by Elspode

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

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.

[xoxoxoBruce]

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

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

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.

Would shoving it up his ass be an 'unapproved manner'?

[Happy Monkey]

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.

[tw]

You gotta love this guy Mark.

From SysInternal dated 1 Nov 2005:

Sony, Rootkits and Digital Rights Management Gone Too Far
I entered the company name into my Internet browser's address bar and went to http://www.first4internet.com/. I searched for both the product name and Aries.sys, but came up empty. However, the fact that the company sells a technology called XCP made me think that maybe the files I’d found were part of some content protection scheme. I Googled the company name and came across this article, confirming the fact that they have deals with several record companies, including Sony, to implement Digital Rights Management (DRM) software for CDs. ...

At that point I knew conclusively that the rootkit and its associated files were related to the First 4 Internet DRM software Sony ships on its CDs. Not happy having underhanded and sloppily written software on my system I looked for a way to uninstall it. However, I didn’t find any reference to it in the Control Panel's Add or Remove Programs list, nor did I find any uninstall utility or directions on the CD or on First 4 Internet's site. I checked the EULA and saw no mention of the fact that I was agreeing to have software put on my system that I couldn't uninstall. Now I was mad.

... they were either configured as boot-start drivers or members of groups listed by name in the HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\SafeBoot subkeys, which means that they load even in Safe Mode, making system recovery extremely difficult if any of them have a bug that prevents the system from booting.

... Deleting the drivers had disabled the CD. Now I was really mad.

Not only had Sony put software on my system that uses techniques commonly used by malware to mask its presence, the software is poorly written and provides no means for uninstall. Worse, most users that stumble across the cloaked files with a RKR scan will cripple their computer if they attempt the obvious step of deleting the cloaked files.