NationStates Jolt Archive

If you want to beat a corporation, nothing works better than bad publicity. Sony took a lot of well-deserved shit over its "anti-piracy" hacks that had been built into their music cd's. Read the news (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10005667/)
WASHINGTON - Stung by continuing criticism, the world’s second-largest music label, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, promised Friday to temporarily suspend making music CDs with antipiracy technology that can leave computers vulnerable to hackers.

Sony defended its right to prevent customers from illegally copying music but said it will halt manufacturing CDs with the “XCP” technology as a precautionary measure. “We also intend to re-examine all aspects of our content protection initiative to be sure that it continues to meet our goals of security and ease of consumer use,” the company said in a statement.
A victory made possible by people bitching loudly. Well done!

Man, and I was looking forward to Microsoft suing Sony for messing with their Windows source code.

Man, and I was looking forward to Microsoft suing Sony for messing with their Windows source code.

They still can and hopefully will.

Woot! Days like this don't come round too often.
*celebrates*

I didn't cite this part of the story, but in a later paragraph, it notes that a lot of this has to do with the pissing contest between Sony and Apple over the ability to put Sony songs on iPods. You couldn't play these particular cd's on a pc machine without installing the software, and that meant you had to do a pain-in-the-ass workaround to rip the cd to an mp3 format, or you just couldn't play the songs on an iPod--unless you put the cd in a Mac, that is. Then it worked just fine.

I didn't cite this part of the story, but in a later paragraph, it notes that a lot of this has to do with the pissing contest between Sony and Apple over the ability to put Sony songs on iPods. You couldn't play these particular cd's on a pc machine without installing the software, and that meant you had to do a pain-in-the-ass workaround to rip the cd to an mp3 format, or you just couldn't play the songs on an iPod--unless you put the cd in a Mac, that is. Then it worked just fine.

...which seriously cuts into Microsoft's sales, considering the uberpopularity of the iPod. All the more reason Microsoft would break out the lawyers.

C'mon, everyone should be rooting for a Microsoft v. Sony lawsuit. It's like a battle between the Galactic Empire and Nazi Germany!

Heh, it gets even better.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4427606.stm

...which seriously cuts into Microsoft's sales, considering the uberpopularity of the iPod. All the more reason Microsoft would break out the lawyers.

C'mon, everyone should be rooting for a Microsoft v. Sony lawsuit. It's like a battle between the Galactic Empire and Nazi Germany!

Or Iran vs Iraq. You want both sides to lose.

Heh, it gets even better.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4427606.stm
I can smell the class-action lawyers excitement over this one--this could get really ugly before it's all over.

Or Iran vs Iraq. You want both sides to lose.

Yeah. You want both sides to mess the shit out of each other.

I can smell the class-action lawyers excitement over this one--this could get really ugly before it's all over.

Six have already been filed. Even if you haven't actually been hurt by the rootkit software, you can probably get in on the action. I have half a mind to go buy one of the CDs just to cash in.

Six have already been filed. Even if you haven't actually been hurt by the rootkit software, you can probably get in on the action. I have half a mind to go buy one of the CDs just to cash in.
I can just imagine the commercials--a list of the artists whose cd's have this shit on them, people selling the cd's on eBay so others can get in on the action. :D

Six have already been filed. Even if you haven't actually been hurt by the rootkit software, you can probably get in on the action. I have half a mind to go buy one of the CDs just to cash in.

Go for it, man! We're rooting for you!!

If anybody needs me, I'll be downloading Sony music illegally, at a feverish pace, while the lawyers are busy! :D

Go for it, man! We're rooting for you!!

Is there a list of the CDs that have the rootkit software on them? I may already own one.

What's really ugly about this is that it makes online cheating very, very easy. Since cheatblocking programs can't see the hack running then they don't notice it. Specifically it really really sucks for any MMOG. The rest not so much, since the server is small enough that it could run it's own sniffer and identify impossible actions by the player on the server end without too much trouble.

What's really ugly about this is that it makes online cheating very, very easy. Since cheatblocking programs can't see the hack running then they don't notice it. Specifically it really really sucks for any MMOG. The rest not so much, since the server is small enough that it could run it's own sniffer and identify impossible actions by the player on the server end without too much trouble.

Heh. Then the creators of all those MMORPGs can sue Sony for messing with THEIR shit. This is great.

Is there a list of the CDs that have the rootkit software on them? I may already own one.

I have no idea. I'm not exactly a CD person.

:D

I have no idea. I'm not exactly a CD person.

:D

See, I am. I currently have 105. I wonder if any are from the list.

See, I am. I currently have 105. I wonder if any are from the list.

Yeesh. I wouldn't doubt it, dude.

Yeesh. I wouldn't doubt it, dude.

Well I don't play them on my computer, because my computer is busted currently. But it would be nice if they'd publish a list of which CDs have the software. I'd like to know if I'm installing a potential security risk on my computer, Sony.

See, I am. I currently have 105. I wonder if any are from the list.

Here's the "partial" list released:

Trey Anastasio, Shine (Columbia)
Celine Dion, On ne Change Pas (Epic)
Neil Diamond, 12 Songs (Columbia)
Our Lady Peace, Healthy in Paranoid Times (Columbia)
Chris Botti, To Love Again (Columbia)
Van Zant, Get Right with the Man (Columbia)
Switchfoot, Nothing is Sound (Columbia)
The Coral, The Invisible Invasion (Columbia)
Acceptance, Phantoms (Columbia)
Susie Suh, Susie Suh (Epic)
Amerie, Touch (Columbia)
Life of Agony, Broken Valley (Epic)
Horace Silver Quintet, Silver's Blue (Epic Legacy)
Gerry Mulligan, Jeru (Columbia Legacy)
Dexter Gordon, Manhattan Symphonie (Columbia Legacy)
The Bad Plus, Suspicious Activity (Columbia)
The Dead 60s, The Dead 60s (Epic)
Dion, The Essential Dion (Columbia Legacy)
Natasha Bedingfield, Unwritten (Epic)
Ricky Martin, Life (Columbia)

Thankfully i have taste :D

Heh. Then the creators of all those MMORPGs can sue Sony for messing with THEIR shit. This is great.
Unfortunately no, at least not in america. M$ can sue them because it directly fucks with their software illegally, but in order for it to be used to conceal cheats a third party has to conciously manipulate and exploit the rootkit, thus only the cheaters are liable.

I have that Our Lady Peace CD. I'll keep that in mind.

Unfortunately no, at least not in america. M$ can sue them because it directly fucks with their software illegally, but in order for it to be used to conceal cheats a third party has to conciously manipulate and exploit the rootkit, thus only the cheaters are liable.
Ive heard that the RIAA can help you out if you want to punish software designers! :D

Ive heard that the RIAA can help you out if you want to punish software designers! :D
*sniffs snootily* Some of us have standards.:p

*sniffs snootily* Some of us have standards.:p
Good thing I don't! :D

*calls the RIAA, says "listen, bitches"*

Thankfully i have taste :D
I would consider that Dexter Gordon cd--I've developed a thing for jazz lately.

...which seriously cuts into Microsoft's sales, considering the uberpopularity of the iPod. All the more reason Microsoft would break out the lawyers.

C'mon, everyone should be rooting for a Microsoft v. Sony lawsuit. It's like a battle between the Galactic Empire and Nazi Germany!

Poor Stormtroopers. "Vich side are ve vorking for again?"

Heh. Then the creators of all those MMORPGs can sue Sony for messing with THEIR shit. This is great.

Evercrack and SW Galaxies is developed by Verant, which is a subsidiary of Sony. So theoretically Sony just shot itself in the foot with a sawed-off.

Man, and I was looking forward to Microsoft suing Sony for messing with their Windows source code.

Microsoft vs Sony? Who do you vote for on that one?

Of course, this can easily be avoided by running regedit and changing the binary value for autorun from '1' to '0'. Windows isn't TOTAL crap, if you customize it right.

I wouldn't expect this to be any more than a temporary setback for copy protection, unfortunately. Hopefully, though, the major record companies may back off of some of their more draconian copy-protect schemes, at least for a while.


Man, and I was looking forward to Microsoft suing Sony for messing with their Windows source code.
MS v. Sony would be amazing! Like the Thirty Years War, but with lawyers and black sedans. There would still be German mercenaries devastating the landscape, though.

Seems like there are already some viruses out there that use Sony's rootkit:

First Trojan using Sony DRM spotted

Virus writers have begun taking advantage of Sony-BMG's use of rootkit technology in DRM software bundled with its music CDs.

Sony-BMG's rootkit DRM technology masks files whose filenames start with "$sys$". A newly-discovered variant of of the Breplibot Trojan takes advantage of this to drop the file "$sys$drv.exe" in the Windows system directory.

"This means, that for systems infected by the Sony DRM rootkit technology, the dropped file is entirely invisible to the user. It will not be found in any process and file listing. Only rootkit scanners, such as the free utility RootkitRevealer, can unmask the culprit," warns Ivan Macalintal, a senior threat analyst at security firm Trend Micro

The malware arrives attached in an email, which pretends to come from a reputable business magazine, asking the businessman to verify his/her "picture" to be used for the December issue. If the malicious payload contained in this email is executed then the Trojan installs an IRC backdoor on affected Windows systems.

Romanian anti-virus firm BitDefender confirms that the malware is in the wild but a full technical analysis of the Trojan is yet to be completed. The response of anti-virus firms, some of which have only promised to flag up rather than block system changes made by Sony-BMG's rootkit, remains unclear.

Source. (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/10/sony_drm_trojan/)

Microsoft vs Sony? Who do you vote for on that one?

Of course, this can easily be avoided by running regedit and changing the binary value for autorun from '1' to '0'. Windows isn't TOTAL crap, if you customize it right.

You don't root for one or the other. You root for both to spend obscene amounts of money taking swipes at each other, publicly humilating both.

Good PR for Sony! "You can't copy our CDs but you get a free virus free"

Why do companies even bother with copy-protection anymore? It's not like they don't know that there's a whole platoon of people waiting to crack it the minute it's released.

Why do companies even bother with copy-protection anymore? It's not like they don't know that there's a whole platoon of people waiting to crack it the minute it's released.
They figure they can either catch the hardcore crackers or make it so difficult that the average person can't do it or more likely, won't bother. But they're idiots, because all they're really doing is pissing people off so they won't buy the product anymore. Even though Sony's stopped with this type, I'm not going to buy a Sony cd again as a result. I'll download the shit out of their artists (if I like them) instead.

The music industry is easily the dumbest of them all. They got into this mess originally by being ignorant to the idea that people were more willing to pay a small fee for one song they like than to buy a CD for just that one song, thus leaving the door wide open for things like Napster to come along. Afterall, most of the bands out there only have one or two songs that everyone loves and it feels like a waste of money to buy the whole CD and there was no reason the recording industry couldn't have seen that ahead of time. Then when they lost that, because they didn't think they did a good enough job of showing the world they don't know too much, they decided to start suing the people that made the software that was being used to download the music. Of course, punish the maker for what other people do... using that logic after 9/11 we should've immediately gone to war against Boeing.
Well, they still didn't learn... and decided to start suing people. Of course it wasn't for the cost of the CD, but rather some random number they pulled out of their ass. You know, because forcing people to just pay up for the CD would've made a speck of sense and we can't go expecting the RIAA to make sense now can we? And because they just needed the extra boost to convince the world that they didn't care at all about the principle, they were just vampiric bastards who wanted to take money from people, they went the extra step of suing a 12 year old. I don't know whther or not that went through or not, but just the idea that they were going to in the first place is pretty sick.
And of course now that we know they're a force far dumber than anything the world has ever seen, they're trying to outdo themselves by comming up with some rediculous ways to keep their CDs from being copied, such as making them completely uncopyable. So that's right, for those of you who are like me and only take the CD out once to copy it to your computer and MP3 player, when you buy a CD you just waste your money on an ugly plastic circle.
Of course there are alternatives, there are some online music stores that allow you to buy individual songs from a CD. Only problem there is most of them aren't that well known so if you're like me and have been burned before by some shady online place you're not too excited to give money to another one that you don't know very well. The only one that you know is a legit company is iTunes from Apple. Only problem with that is they purposely went out of their way to say screw-you to people who don't have an iPod. I got Creative's MP3 player, and I'm just as convinced at the time as when I got it that I got a better MP3 player than an iPod. I could rant on forever as to why I think that, but what I'm getting at is if you listen to all your music on the comp or the MP3 player, the recording industry has essentially decided it doesn't want you to give it money but is more than happy to steal money from you.

Really, the best way the RIAA could fix any of this is to say screw it to the copy protection, go back to making CDs the way they used to, give back the money they won in the lawsuits and repay the court fees as well, make a public apology for being dumbasses, and make it easier for people to just buy a single track online if they want.

But of course they won't do that. Undoing stupid things is too smart of a thing to do and they only know how to do stupid things.

Shite.
I love it when people justify theft as a strike against corporate evil. If i only want one bottle of beer and the store only has a sixpack am i entitled to take one and leave without paying?
Anyway if you're listening to bands who make albums with one or two good songs you need to get find better bands.
CD's suck.
Vinyl rules.

If i only want one bottle of beer and the store only has a sixpack am i entitled to take one and leave without paying?

Might as well if you'd be paying for the bottle without the beer. That's all I'd get with a CD that can't be copied onto a comp - just the CD without the music. My car doesn't have a working CD player anymore, so I just listen to music through the FM adapter for my MP3 player, so a CD is utterly useless to me. And like I said, the only online music store I know of that's legit is iTunes, and I can't put those songs on my MP3 player because they only work on iPods and mine is a Creative. If there are any legitimate online music stores that don't require you to get an inferior MP3 player just to listen to music you buy off of them I'd be more than willing to start getting my music from them.

If i only want one bottle of beer and the store only has a sixpack am i entitled to take one and leave without paying?

That's the best idea I've read in ages. :)

Might as well if you'd be paying for the bottle without the beer. That's all I'd get with a CD that can't be copied onto a comp - just the CD without the music. My car doesn't have a working CD player anymore, so I just listen to music through the FM adapter for my MP3 player, so a CD is utterly useless to me. And like I said, the only online music store I know of that's legit is iTunes, and I can't put those songs on my MP3 player because they only work on iPods and mine is a Creative. If there are any legitimate online music stores that don't require you to get an inferior MP3 player just to listen to music you buy off of them I'd be more than willing to start getting my music from them.
Part of the problem has to do with our perception of what we're buying. If I buy a cd or an lp or a cassette, it feels like I'm buying the contents of that medium. I'm not. I'm buying a license to use those contents in specific ways, which include the right to copy the contents within certain prescribed limits. Until the advent of the mp3, this wasn't an issue, since the difference between buying the music and buying the license was negligible.

But the rise of the mp3 format in conjunction with the high-speed internet and larger hard drives meant that the old way of looking at contents versus licenses was no longer operative. But consumers don't look at it that way--they still feel like if they buy a cd, they own what's on that cd, and for most of them, explaining the difference between the content and the license to use that content is going to sound like the music company is trying to fuck them out of something they spent money on.

And in a way, when it comes to what Sony is doing here--invading your computer to limit the way in which you use what you have purchased--they are.

If Sony and other music companies want to make sure the public knows what's going on, then they need to explain to consumers that they're not buying music, they're buying licenses. Problem is, many consumers would probably tell the music companies "well if I'm only getting a license, if I can't do what I want with it, if I don't own the content, then I'm not going to pay as much." And that is not what record companies want to hear.

If you think you might have the Sony DRM rootkit, there's a free program at Sysinternals that can show whether or not you do. It's called Rootkit Revealer (http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/RootkitRevealer.html).

You can find a lot of information about the technical side of the Sony DRM rootkit (and about the free programs Mark at Sysinternals used to discover the rootkit) at the Sysinternals blog. http://www.sysinternals.com/Blog/

If you think you might have the Sony DRM rootkit, there's a free program at Sysinternals that can show whether or not you do. It's called Rootkit Revealer (http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/RootkitRevealer.html).

You can find a lot of information about the technical side of the Sony DRM rootkit (and about the free programs Mark at Sysinternals used to discover the rootkit) at the Sysinternals blog. http://www.sysinternals.com/Blog/

Sysinternals is great site! :D
For geeks and Sys Admins like me.

See, I am. I currently have 105. I wonder if any are from the list.

*has over 170*

Heh :p

None from the list though. No lawsuit for me.

Lol, sony really in the brown stuff arent they?
Well, im english, and FIERCELY patriotic, and i have a strong liking 4 microsoft and nintendo, so with sony being number 1 in gaming stakes (Why i dont know, it should Compulserary to play Halo 2) i dislike them, so to hear this news is an answer to my prayers, not only have they got a problem with music downloads, but the PSP has got a virus that means that the psp wont switch on, but due to the fact that it can only get the virus if you update the firmware version ,they have decided to ignore, it kills your psp, which forces you to buy a new 1!!! and they dont care.
Luckly for me i dont have 1, THEY'LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE!!!

I just hope somthing happens along those lines for that breadbin and boomerang they call the Ps3.

XBOX360 RULES!!!

:confused: :sniper:

Steski
(Patriotic Brit and Angry Gamer)

Update, or What's in Your EULA?

From the the EFF: (http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004145.php)

First, a baseline. When you buy a regular CD, you own it. You do not "license" it. You own it outright. You're allowed to do anything with it you like, so long as you don't violate one of the exclusive rights reserved to the copyright owner. So you can play the CD at your next dinner party (copyright owners get no rights over private performances), you can loan it to a friend (thanks to the "first sale" doctrine), or make a copy for use on your iPod (thanks to "fair use"). Every use that falls outside the limited exclusive rights of the copyright owner belongs to you, the owner of the CD.

Now compare that baseline with the world according to the Sony-BMG EULA, which applies to any digital copies you make of the music on the CD:

1. If your house gets burgled, you have to delete all your music from your laptop when you get home. That's because the EULA says that your rights to any copies terminate as soon as you no longer possess the original CD.

2. You can't keep your music on any computers at work. The EULA only gives you the right to put copies on a "personal home computer system owned by you."

3. If you move out of the country, you have to delete all your music. The EULA specifically forbids "export" outside the country where you reside.

4. You must install any and all updates, or else lose the music on your computer. The EULA immediately terminates if you fail to install any update. No more holding out on those hobble-ware downgrades masquerading as updates.

5. Sony-BMG can install and use backdoors in the copy protection software or media player to "enforce their rights" against you, at any time, without notice. And Sony-BMG disclaims any liability if this "self help" crashes your computer, exposes you to security risks, or any other harm.

6. The EULA says Sony-BMG will never be liable to you for more than $5.00. That's right, no matter what happens, you can't even get back what you paid for the CD.

7. If you file for bankruptcy, you have to delete all the music on your computer. Seriously.

8. You have no right to transfer the music on your computer, even along with the original CD.

9. Forget about using the music as a soundtrack for your latest family photo slideshow, or mash-ups, or sampling. The EULA forbids changing, altering, or make derivative works from the music on your computer.