Music Industry Backlash Against Sony Rootkit

Foobar of Borg writes "The Associated Press describes how backlash from Sony's Rootkit CDs is causing problems for the music industry. The problem is two-fold: (1) the inherent technological problem of trying to prevent anyone from copying anything and (2) letting lawyers make technical decisions when (from the article) 'Lawyers don't have any better understanding of technology than a cow does algebra.'" More from the article: "'I think they've set back audio CD protection by years,' said Richard M. Smith, an Internet privacy and security consultant. 'Nobody will want to pull a Sony now.' Phil Leigh, analyst for Inside Digital Media, said the debacle shows just how reluctant the labels are to change their business model to reflect the distribution powers -- good and bad -- of the Internet. He believes that rather than adopting technological methods to try to stop unauthorized copying of music, record companies need to do more to remove the incentive for piracy."

Re:use the attention

[ozmanjusri]

On the other, Sony is being made a scapegoat for the relative complexity of maintaining a secure and clean system.

You're right that computers are poorly designed when it comes to maintainability, but Sony deserve all the bad karma they are getting. They have a long history of abusing the trust of their customers, including installing spyware as standard on their Vaio computers. http://www.winpatrol.com/db/freesample/tgcmd.html [winpatrol.com]

Re:Oh, that guy is a lawyer?

[AlphaJoe]

I felt exactly the same way.

Here you go, I know it isn't perfect, but it is the closest I can come right now: COW Calculus [temple.edu]

Re:Remove incentive?

[Anonymous Coward]

They're unprotected MP3's [realtechnews.com].

My stuff about the Sony's rootkit

[muzzy]

I've written some pages about Sony's XCP DRM system.

Summary about the DRM, what it does, and what its problems are: http://hack.fi/~muzzy/sony-drm/info.html [hack.fi]

You can also find my research and opinions about the issue linked from there. Please send mail if you have anything to add or any corrections to my content.

Even Grandma knows what a rootkit is...

[eltoyoboyo]

It has already started at work. As the resident geek in the department, I already have explained many times about the Sony DRM and the XCP rootkit. With Thanksgiving holidays coming up and get-togethers with the relatives, I figure I should just hand out a little pamphlet. I would like to be a fly on the wall inside the Sony corporate offices as they look for some mid-level managers to can over this. I would also like to read some of their heated and panicked internal correspondence as they try to do damage control. Someone is going to get torched publicly for this by Sony's legal team. I have looked to see if any class-action lawsuits have been filed, but I am now aware of any, yet.

Re:Remove incentive?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about people contact their respective attorney's general (http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/index.html [usdoj.gov]) about removing Sony's (and other Corps) incentive to violate computer protection and privacy laws (that RIAA among other trade groups lobbied to pass) and file charges to the fullest extent, if you're going to support a law it has to be both ways right?

Re:The industry's real failure - DVD-Audio

[the eric conspiracy]

High definition audio was crippled by the format wars between DVD-Audio and SACD. In the meantime MP3 became popular - people like the convenience of portable music in their iPods etc. If you are an audiophile it is a severe disappointment because the quality in these portable formats is severely compromised by the compression.

The whole audio format situation is screwed beyond belief with no format really doing the job of providing both top quality and reasonable flexibility of use.

Re:I do not think it means what you think it means

[HiThere]

Sarcasm \Sar"casm\, n. [F. sarcasme, L. sarcasmus, Gr.
      sarkasmo`s, from sarka`zein to tear flesh like dogs, to bite
      the lips in rage, to speak bitterly, to sneer, fr. sa`rx,
      sa`rkos, flesh.]
      A keen, reproachful expression; a satirical remark uttered
      with some degree of scorn or contempt; a taunt; a gibe; a
      cutting jest.
      [1913 Webster]
                  The sarcasms of those critics who imagine our art to be
                  a matter of inspiration. --Sir J. Reynolds.
      [1913 Webster]
      Syn: Satire; irony; ridicule; taunt; gibe.
                [1913 Webster]