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I had sent a friend information about this Sony thing last week and it got not a lot of attention. However same friend was trying to de-lous another persons PC yesterday and called me for support (Note: I'm not particularly qualified for Windows support at this point, but I can do Google searches and say things like "hang in there" from time to time). I think by that time I was called many of the virus and spyware elements had been cleaned by conventional means, but there seemed to be some persistent problems. Just in case, I asked whether they had played any of those Sony BMG music discs in the machine. Apparently I was on a speakerphone setup, and I heard several denials of the form "We never use our machine for such things" while my friend asked me what I was talking about.

After refreshing his memory, and in turn having the family involved talk among themselves for a while, it turned out that some Sony BMG discs HAD been played in that machine, and some of the remaining questionable files had Sony all over them even though the family didn't own a Sony camera, Sony music player or any other Sony device that they could think of. Finally someone remembered that the little girl in the family HAD played, or ripped, or SOMETHING some music CDs in the machine and off they rushed to find them. In the mean time I was looking for the list of Sony BMG discs affected, originally numbered 20 and widely circulated at that count, but subsequently updated to 50, and listed on a Sony website. I found the list of 50 at about the same time that they found their played/ripped/inserted/whatever CDs and sure enough, several of them had the Sony BMG label on them. Now the catch was that (a) none of the CDs they had found were on the list and (b) none of the CDs they had found had the warning that they contained copyright protection software, and my understanding was that the affected discs did contain such a warning.

Well, by getting rid of the Sony BMG stuff they seemed to be back to a clean machine, and they swore to never insert a music CD into their machine again or to buy a CD from Sony. So, congratulations should go out to Sony BMG and First4Internet for accomplishing their objectives. Now to round out the picture:

(1) I suspect that Sony BMG, Sony alone, and BMG alone have in the past used other protection schemes and while they haven't been vocal about it, other companies are doing the same experimentation. All of these programs have their own ways and means of hiding themselves and controlling what YOU do with YOUR PC. But NONE of them have exhaustively looked into the legal, much less technical ramifications of what they do. They think that by merely relying on third party companies like First4Internet they can claim ignorance of the consequences.

(2) Rumor has it that by the time you are asked for your permission to install software when you insert these disks SOME software has already been installed.

(3) Sony/BMG isn't the only company doing this, they are just the only company that has been caught.

(4) These discs have been out for a year, and some people say two years, or maybe more.

(5) There is no quick and easy way to uninstall these programs, either from Sony BMG or the s

I had sent a friend information about this Sony thing last week and it got not a lot of attention. However same friend was trying to de-lous another persons PC yesterday and called me for support (Note: I'm not particularly qualified for Windows support at this point, but I can do Google searches and say things like "hang in there" from time to time). I think by that time I was called many of the virus and spyware elements had been cleaned by conventional means, but there seemed to be some persistent problems. Just in case, I asked whether they had played any of those Sony BMG music discs in the machine. Apparently I was on a speakerphone setup, and I heard several denials of the form "We never use our machine for such things" while my friend asked me what I was talking about.

After refreshing his memory, and in turn having the family involved talk among themselves for a while, it turned out that some Sony BMG discs HAD been played in that machine, and some of the remaining questionable files had Sony all over them even though the family didn't own a Sony camera, Sony music player or any other Sony device that they could think of. Finally someone remembered that the little girl in the family HAD played, or ripped, or SOMETHING some music CDs in the machine and off they rushed to find them. In the mean time I was looking for the list of Sony BMG discs affected, originally numbered 20 and widely circulated at that count, but subsequently updated to 50, and listed on a Sony website. I found the list of 50 at about the same time that they found their played/ripped/inserted/whatever CDs and sure enough, several of them had the Sony BMG label on them. Now the catch was that (a) none of the CDs they had found were on the list and (b) none of the CDs they had found had the warning that they contained copyright protection software, and my understanding was that the affected discs did contain such a warning.

Well, by getting rid of the Sony BMG stuff they seemed to be back to a clean machine, and they swore to never insert a music CD into their machine again or to buy a CD from Sony. So, congratulations should go out to Sony BMG and First4Internet for accomplishing their objectives. Now to round out the picture:

(1) I suspect that Sony BMG, Sony alone, and BMG alone have in the past used other protection schemes and while they haven't been vocal about it, other companies are doing the same experimentation. All of these programs have their own ways and means of hiding themselves and controlling what YOU do with YOUR PC. But NONE of them have exhaustively looked into the legal, much less technical ramifications of what they do. They think that by merely relying on third party companies like First4Internet they can claim ignorance of the consequences.

(2) Rumor has it that by the time you are asked for your permission to install software when you insert these disks SOME software has already been installed.

(3) Sony/BMG isn't the only company doing this, they are just the only company that has been caught.

(4) These discs have been out for a year, and some people say two years, or maybe more.

(5) There is no quick and easy way to uninstall these programs, either from Sony BMG or the s

Sony paid for it. Sony included it. But first4internet wrote the code.

Disclaimer: I'm a Sony employee, and I strongly disapprove of the rootkit DRM stuff in a completely unofficial not-representative-of-the-company way ;)

But it's worth mentioning at this point that Sony didn't develop the software in question here - the XCP software was developed by First4Internet.

Not being a lawyer, or particularly knowledgable about (L)GPL terms, who could be held liable when a piece of software is developed by one party, but distributed by another? Is ignorance a defence, for instance if Sony said "We didn't know it had unlicensed code!", how would that affect things?

I reccomend voting with our wallets, and not purchasing Sony/BMG products. Also see here

Also here is the company that created the DRM technology.

The malware installed is created by a company called First4Internet.

They're based in Banbury, Oxford and their CEO is Mathew Gilliant-Smith DBC.

6 South Bar Street
Banbury
Oxfordshire
OX16 9AA
United Kingdom

All info (and more) available on their website here http://www.first4internet.com/contact.aspx/

That's about 20 minutes in the car for me, should I go pay them a visit - taking the best wishes of the /. community with me? ;)

corporations exploit YOU!

Insightful indeed.

The thing is that there is more than a corporation here. The artist that chose to sign with Sony is now going to feel the repercussions of this dirty little trick Sony tried to play. Do you think that Sony really cares if they loose a few sales of this one CD because they got caught red-handed? Of course not.

These record labels are not only exploiting the consumer, but they are screwing over the artists that depend on them for advertising and distribution. Here is contact information for Van Zant. Let them know that you're pissed. Let them know you won't be buying their CD. Let them know that they were screwed by Sony. While you're at it, why not let First4Internet know that you hate them and hope they burn in Hell for writing malware like this. A few thousand emails will do wonders for these jerks.

If enough artists move away from these corporate labels it can only mean good things for the consumers. It's not impossible for this to happen, just extremely difficult.