Music Industry - Everyone is a potential Criminal

[xoxoxoBruce]

DOXPARA says it's far and wide.

Red signifies evidence of First4Internet accesses; Green signifies accesses to Sony's enhanced CD site (included with the rootkit, but also elsewhere). Most links are yellow, though: Over 3/4ths of networks found resolving Sony during the sampling period also resolved First4Internet. The geographic evidence lines up pretty nicely as well

[xoxoxoBruce]

And the Far East.

[Troubleshooter]

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!

[Elspode]

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

[Troubleshooter]

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...

[xoxoxoBruce]

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

In the latest twist to Sony BMG's music CD debacle, the company has announced a "mail-in program", wherein consumers can exchange CDs containing XCP copy protection software in return for replacement CDs without XCP software, plus MP3 files of the CDs, free-of-cost.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by Elspode

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

They just got busted for payola as well, seriously.

[tw]

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

[Griff]

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

[tw]

From the BBC on 22 Nov 2005:

Sony sued over controversial CDs
Sony BMG's woes in the US over its much-criticised anti-piracy CD software have deepened.

It is facing two separate lawsuits in Texas and California.

The Texan lawsuit accuses Sony of installing spyware and is seeking damages of up to $100,000 in damages for each violation.

In California, digital rights group, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), is suing Sony for allegedly collecting personal data.

[Elspode]

Originally Posted by Griff

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

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.

[SteveDallas]

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

[BigV]

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

Sony BMG's Costly Silence
The label was alerted to the secret, virus-vulnerable software on its CDs long before the scandal broke. Trouble is, it didn't act immediately to alert consumers

"If [Sony] had woken up and smelled the coffee when we told them there was a problem, they could have avoided this trouble," says Mikko H. Hypponen, F-Secure's director of antivirus research.

[richlevy]

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.

5. Sharing Your Personal Information.

Notice of Sharing. Sony CONNECT may share your personal information or other information as follows: (a) with affiliated Sony companies (i.e., (i) Sony Corporation, (ii) any company of which more than 50% of its outstanding shares are owned by Sony Corporation, directly or indirectly, and (iii) any company with the name "SONY" as a part of its trade name) who may want to contact you about products, services or other offerings that may be of interest to you; (b) with third parties with your consent (see "Sharing Subject To Your Consent," below); (c) with co-branded partners (see "Personal Information Provided Or Collected On A Co-Branded Web Site", below); (d) as may be required by law, legal process or court order; (e) as may be required to respond to an inquiry, request or complaint you have made; (f) to persons or companies whom Sony CONNECT engages to carry out or provide support for the operations of the Service or of Sony CONNECT’s business, which may include customer support services (such persons and companies are not permitted by Sony CONNECT to use the information for such persons’ or companies’ marketing purposes unless you indicate you provide your permission for such use by such entities); or (g) to protect the personal safety or property of you, our users, the public, our licensors or ourselves. You may need to communicate with the entities described in this section directly if you wish to amend or change any data you supply.

[Elspode]

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