Sony Intentionally Crashes Customers' Computers

Uttles writes "According to Yahoo!, Celine Dion's latest CD will not play in computer drives. In fact: 'Should the consumer try to play Dion's CD on a PC or Macintosh, the computer likely will crash.' How is this legal?" Since Sony admits that their product is designed to cause damage to your computer system, almost anyone would likely have a good lawsuit against them. Attention Celine Dion and all musicians: crashing your fans' computers is not a good business practice. No matter what your agent says.

Celine Dion, eh?

[Roosey]

Are you sure it's the protection? I would say that the computers they tested it on had good taste, that's all. :)

Damn.

[sllort]

Your heart may go on, but your computer won't.

Hmm

[BSDGeek]

Well maybe I should buy this CD. I could use a couple million bucks.

i wonder...

[BigBir3d]

...wtf is sony thinking? undermining another sector of their business??

Crashing Computers

[nick_davison]

<all too obvious crashing joke>
Crashing computers are nothing. Put Celine's CD in to your car while you're driving and it'll make you crash that too, just to end the god awful experience.
</all too obvious crashing joke>

Re:Celine Dion, eh?

[Salamander]

That can't be it. A computer with good taste would eject the disk immediately, without even thinking about playing it.

Re:Proventing Suicide

[shoptroll]

Actually, I just showed this to one of my roomates and he said he hasn't had a problem with it...

-shoptroll

What about Autorun.ini?

[NanoGator]

If Sony wanted to be obnoxious, they could write a program that starts when Autorun is activated. It could cover the screen and say "YOU CANT PLAY THIS HERE!!!", and then send a signal to the CD ROM to eject the CD. When somebody puts it back in... and so on.

Yes, this would be easy to get around. But I'd far prefer that then causing a BSOD.

Poor kernel hackers

[red5]

Now some poor kernel hackers will have to listen to this music so they can code a workaround for the linux kernel.
I feel there pain. Just rember this is for the greater good. :)

Swan Song....

[dghcasp]

<celene>

And I.....
will always....
love yoooooouuuuugggghhfdbfdshjk^Y$&#^^&(*@!(*)#&@!*(
Blue screen of death

I like it. I think Microsoft should license Celene's music to play as your computer crashes... Nice and mournful...

Not True

[automag_6]

I'll just put this thing in here and show you all that that story is total bullshi

ATZ0

NO CARRIER

Sony Music vs. Sony Electronics

[PinchDuck]

Let me get this straight: If I go shell ~$1800 USDfor a Sony Vaio (like I did 3 weeks ago), then I shell out another ~$20 USD for the disc, it not only will not play in their own damned PC, but it will crash their own system?

That shit is fucked up. I wonder if they make any claims as to the stability of their systems.

Re:You aren't making sense

[xTina]

What are they telling people? That it won't play on PCs. Or that it will crash their computers, potentially causing loss of important data? I remember, when those audio cds with a video/data track as track one came up, they had a huge warning label telling you not to try to play track one because it might damage your stereo ... And .. what would they say if your roommate takes the CD (that happens to lie on your desk without case and booklet) and tries to play it on the computer you both own ... crashing it ... causing you to loose all data of your term paper one day before it's due ... oh, wait ... they'll sue YOU ... letting your roommate listen to music he hasn't paid for ;-)

Re:Dearest Michael

[Matthaeus]

Not that I mean to nitpick, but are you offering the legal advice that I should sue Sony, lose, and then sue Slashdot for damages? If I lose against Slashdot, can I sue you?

Or was your comment meant as incredibly dry humor?

Re:Celine Dion, eh?

[mtrupe]

Actually, I hope and pray my computer would crash fast enough, so I wouldn't have to hear the first note of her crappy "music."

And thank God Windows crashes faster than it boots up.

Re:the obligatory "and in other news..." post

[Arandir]

There's a big difference here. A CD is meant to play in a CD player. A shotgun is meant to hunt birds.

Using the shotgun to blast your computer into small pieces is not the normal use of a shotgun. Putting a music CD into a CD player *is* the normal use of a shotgun.

Of course, in the future, the normal use of Celine Dion CDs will be to launch them as clay pidgeons and shoot them with your shotgun...

Good business strategy, actually

[sean23007]

Now every geek in the country is going to run out and buy a copy of this CD just to see if they can get past the crashing mechanism. Sony can't trust people to buy the CD on the merits of the music, so in essence they create a challenge for computer users.

Of course that's not what they were thinking when they did it, but if they treated this in this way, people would not be so uproarious about it.

Re:Proventing Suicide

[lmfr]

"he said he hasn't had a problem with it"

The problem with it is that he *has* it! ;)

(Sorry, couldn't resist...)

Finally.....

[unixwin]

...I can convince a couple of my friends that even the computer agrees about her voice....

New Lyrics for the Warbling One

[The Cat]

Near... far... wherever you are...

I believe that the mouse won't move on...

Once more... you close the drive door...

rip, mix, and blue screen...

our prices go up and on...

Is this really new?

[ath0mic]

Now it's just Sony making CDs which cause your computer to crash instead of Microsoft.

Shhh!

[zenintrude]

I work for Sony, and this our only idea as to the killing off of Celine's career. How dare you warn her, have you heard the awful cd?!

Re:Celine Dion, eh?

[commodoresloat]

Attention Celine Dion and all musicians: crashing your fans' computers is not a good business practice

Not to worry, as soon as Celine Dion reads this on slashdot, I'm sure she'll raise hell with Sony.

Re:Celine Dion, eh?

[negativethirsty]

...and a beowulf cluster would smash it to bits first then eject it immediately for you.

Re:/me runs out to the store, buy open and return

[ender81b]

Argh. f**ck sony:

"And it won't eject properly, but that's just because the computer has crashed."

And you won't be able to eat properly, but that's just because my foot is so far up your ass that I'm playing footsie with your tonsils.

Arghhhhhhhhhhhh.

The REAL reason behind this

[Rui del-Negro]

This was the only way a Celine Dion record could get free publicity on Slashdot.

Now that's what I call Protection

[ziriyab]

Can't Sony cross-market this as a system that protects the user from Celine Dion?

Re:Shouldn't the CD's be cheaper, then?

[Sc00ter]

But it cost them so much to R&D this new copyprotection.. they need to make their money back on that! You want them to go hungry! :)

Re:Celine Dion, eh?

[JLouder]

I'm mostly into prog metal/heavy metal, but i love listening to Celine Dion. If that makes you think less of me, fine, but don't generalize too much

Yes, it actually does make me think less of you.

Re:What a bunch of crap

[Shiny Metal S.]

Is anyone using any critical thinking? How can a particular combination of bits on a CD crash your computer, much less "cause damage to your computer"?

I used to think exactly the same, until one CD [amazon.com] proved me wrong.

Re:Celine Dion, eh?

[leviramsey]

$100 (Canadian dollar) bills

Don't you Canadians do that normally? I mean, the sheet of toilet paper is worth more... ;o)

This report is false.

[cos(0)]

A friend and I both bought Céline Dion's latest CD ("A New Day Has Come") in one of the first few days that it came out, brought it home, played it on the computer, ripped it to PCM using Exact Audio Copy and encoded it to Ogg Vorbis... this CD did absolutely nothing to the computer. The ripped files are perfect without any artifacts.

I don't know what this report is talking about.

Re:Celine Dion, eh?

[leviramsey]

It's not widely known, but Celine Dion posts to Slashdot under the username K1erck.

Her next CD is expected feature such great songs as "My PWP Will Go On" and "Because of Goatse.cx".

Re:Celine Dion, eh?

[Wakko Warner]

A computer with good taste would eject the disk immediately, without even thinking about playing it.


...hopefully, it would do so at a high enough rate of speed (and the proper trajectory) to knock some sense into the user.

- A.P.

It Had to be said...

[halo8]

BLAME CANADA

Re:Swan Song....

[ink]

Whitney Houston:Celine Dion | Linux:BSD

Nice move Sony

[Mordaximus]

The same company that would sell you their Network Walkman (NW-MS9 uses Memory Sticks, gets content via USB) for $499CDN will sell you CDs that you can't copy to it. The funny thing is the memory sticks this thing use are Magic Gate Memory Sticks, which is a Copyright Protection Technology.

Why not just stamp AOL on the top of these disks? they're just as useful.

Re:Sony Music vs. Sony Electronics

[abe ferlman]

Aibo, go fetch the vaio!

Let go! Bad dog! BAD DOG!

Re:What a bunch of crap

[NanoGator]

Could somebody translate this into english for me?

My idea was to have the autorun program just eject the CD. You pop the CD in, and then it pops back out again. It'd be kind of like the PC gagging on it, hehe. I'm sure it'd take a while for the average user to know that disabling autorun'd turn off that behviour.

Re:Celine Dion, eh?

[cscx]

Does that mean when Canadians are low on cash they can scribble a drawing of HM Queen Elizabeth on a piece of toilet tissue in crayon?

Re:Celine Dion, eh?

[Stackis]

You love listening to Celine Dion?

Dude what the f*&% is wrong w/you?

I think I'm going to puke

Re:Poor kernel hackers

[ChadN]

Though horrible, this reverse-engineering experience will be much needed for the day when Sony finally deploys "Snow Crash" virus technology in Everquest.

A brain that can stand up to massive amounts of Celine Dion music (thanks a LOT, James Cameron...), might have a chance at avoiding meltdown.

Re:Celine Dion, eh?

[HiredMan]

Not to worry, as soon as Celine Dion reads this on slashdot, I'm sure she'll raise hell with Sony.

News for Divas, No other stuff matters....

;)

=tkk

Re:Celine Dion, eh?

[Silver222]

Dude, the way the Canadian dollar has been falling the last 15 years, pretty soon the guy who works at the McDonalds on the corner by my place is going to be wiping his ass with Canuck 100s. It'll be cheaper than toilet paper.

I don't know how to copy this CD

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone who has replied and kept the subject line "Re:Clone CD can copy it" are just as guilty because the subject line says it all.

Re:Anatomy of a Slashdot Music Story

[(void*)]

Why is that insightful? It's like saying the sky is blue and without oxygen, one would cease to live.

A really insightful thing would be e^{i \theta} = \cos \theta + i \sin \theta. But I guess this aint News for Nerds anymore.

Whats the big deal?

[CrasHUV]

Windows has been crashing my computers for years... so whats wrong with one Celine CD doing the same? At least they are telling you upfront. I have yet to find the label on Win98 that says the same.

Re:Celine Dion, eh?

[macshit]

Well, you never know.

Perhaps, as a child, he spent many happy hours in front of a TV with a broken flyback transformer.

So now he gets a warm nostalgic feeling whenever he hears a high-pitched whine...

Re:Celine Dion, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

George, Owens, Andrews, Thomas, Stevens, Eglin, Christoff, & Xavier
ATTORNEYS AT LAW

Dear Mr. Silver222:

I represent the poster known as leviramsey. Please be aware of the striking similarity between his post [slashdot.org] and your post which this is in reply to.

It is my contention that, by using a substantially similar joke, you were infringing on my client's intellectual property. As he encoded it using a cipher for the purposes of non-circumvention (viz. "writing it in English," as you lowly serfs refer to it), you have violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Your brain, has been used to decrypt my client's intellectual property and we therefore will petition the court to lobotomize you, so you will not pose a threat to my client's natural monopoly on the class of jokes involving Canadian currency and scatology.

Sincerely,

Richard I. Alan Andrews

RIAA/mpaa

Re:Celine Dion, eh?

[commodoresloat]

Actually, Celine Dion's slashdot ID is 465823. The other Celine Dion is an imposter.

Celeen Deeon != Musician

[TheTomcat]

Attention Celine Dion and all musicians

Kudos for not mistaking Céline Dion for a musician. (-:

S

Re:Anatomy of a Slashdot Music Story

[MisterBlister]

You forgot:

11. Some dingus points out the obvious.

Re:How fast will it be ripped?

[psamuels]

"See, even our most advanced content protection, and people are still stealing it! We need laws to make this impossible, not just illegal [...]

Well it should be "We need laws to make this illegal, not just illegal ... oh wait ..."

Headline: Sony releases new Celine Dion Virus

[JWSmythe]

New York, NY (AP) -- Sony releases Celine Dion Virus.

Sony Music Entertainment Corporation was today found guilty of releasing an audio compact disc (commonly known as CD), which has been found to intentionally cause personal computers to operate erratically or completely fail to operate ("crash" in computer lingo).

Federal Authorities find the New York based company guilty of cyberterrorism. Repeated contacts to Sony's various divisions returned the official statement of "No Comment."

In related news, Microsoft has announced today that it's newest product, Windows XYZ, touted as the best version of Windows every, will be released to the public tommorrow. Beta testers around the world report that it protects users against the Celine Dion Virus. Federal authorities are investigating Microsoft for Anti-DMCA charges relating to the reverse engineering of Sony's software.

Re:Celine Dion, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought it was actually smelly RMS.

Re:The users were warned!

[dattaway]

It may have a warning on the jewel box and the booklet, but often CD's are innocently left on the desk.

Wouldn't it be an opportunity for sabotage to leave the bare CD in the server room for some techie to slide it in while troubleshooting something? I can see the phone lines start to flash...

This just in: Céline's thoughts on this!

[Scrameustache]

I just saw Céline and her manger/husband on TV [radio-canada.ca] speak of this (lucky me, I was zapping around on tv and just stumbled on a rerun of her press conference).

It was mostly René Angelil doing the talking (the manager/husband), and he was...not clear.

What he said is that the CDs sold in europe can break your computer (to wich Céline said "Ouch, that's gonna cost 'em"), its only sold that way in europe, for now, but might come to america soon. Then he said there are two sides to this story, the first part is that music makes you feel a lot of emotions are is very important in people's lives and not everyone can afford CDs because they are a bit expensive, especially for teenagers. The second part is that authors and singers and producers need to get paid, and the big companies meet every year and they are working on technology for music that can be downloaded that will get paid for, but the technology isn't ready. So in europe they are much more agressive, but this technology might come to america soon.

So, he's not being clear at all...and this is loosely translated from french, but that's pretty much what they said about it.

So, to summerise: These copy-protected CDs might break their fan's computer, and they feel this is harsh. They wished that people could listen to their emotionally-charged songs for free, but they want to get paid.

So...if people actually PAY for the CDs, its ok to break their expensive computers?

Re:Celine Dion, eh?

[Quaryon]

Einstürzende Neubauten?

I know people can often tell if a CD is copy-protected by whether or not the ripped MP3's contain random white noise or distortion, but how on earth would you tell with an EN CD? :)

Q.

Re:The users were warned!

[perky]

but if you have mede it as far as the server room you may as well wire up the cabinet door to the mains, and replace the terminals with model three waffle irons.

Re:Celine Dion, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Please tell me where you live so I can come over and liberate your Sony VCR Widescreen TV Laptop and anything else connected to big corporations that are controlling you. I dont feel like paying for these today!

Aibo, Vaio, Hello Kitty and Those Wacky Japanese

[BigBlockMopar]

Aibo, go fetch the vaio!
Let go! Bad dog! BAD DOG!

Stupid product and a computer with a stupid name.

You know, I just don't get it. Why would you want a synthetic dog?

There's something about the Japanese culture that I just don't get. Hello Kitty [sanrio.com] is a perfect example. Why do they like Hello Kitty?

How did they get the bow to stick to Hello Kitty's ear? I tried that on my own cat, but the taper of the ear as it reached the extremity wasn't conducive to holding a bow, much like pants will be self-adjusting on the rotund. Besides, she flicked away the bow then attempted to sever my femural artery. After I got back from the emergency room, I thought about using the staple gun, but Hello Kitty doesn't appear to have pierced ears. Unfortunately, I was out of hot-melt glue sticks, so I was unable to investigate that possibility.

Why do anime characters always have two teeth? (One on top going all the way around from molar to molar, and one on the bottom going all the way around from molar to molar.) Does Japanese toothpaste include spackle, or am I missing something? Why these one-piece monolithic teeth? The monolith is a fissure-free, gap-free symbol of strength. Which is ironic from a people who have been living in one of the world's most active seismic zone and yet persist in building paper houses with stone roofs.

[sigh] I long for the good old days, when the Japanese were quiet, reserved, and Sony built battle-wagon open-reel VTRs [labguysworld.com] instead of CanCon pop music CDs.