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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."
"need to do more to remove the incentive for piracy".
:|
Like say, making shit music that no-one would want to pirate? Ugh, too late
Exactly. If I hear "rootkit" one more time... heheh.
What I want to know is how two small time startups like First4Internet and SunnComm steal all the publicity from Macrovision.
Where is the analysis of CDS-300? Macrovision is the 800lb gorilla in this business, but nobody cares about them.
Now we just need to use this to draw attention to other things that "people don't understand, so why should they care?", like the broadcast flag, and other overly restrictive DRM technologies.
We'd be paying $1500.00 for a coast to coast airline ticket.
There'd be no interstate trucking industry. All freight would go by rail and canal.All television would be black and white. There'd be no VCR's (let alone PVR's!).
All radio would be AM.Telephones would all be dial. Long distance calls would be $2.50/minute.
We'd all still be using slide rules.There would be no foreign cars in the U.S.
There would be no sources of alternative energy (wiond, solar, etc.) whatsoever.And on and on. The RIAA wants to maintain the status quo at any cost. They have had ten years to adapt and have resisted at every turn. They all likely believe in Landrew (save us, save us, Landrew!).
They are pathetic.In general they don't, even though Mr. Lessig is an example of the opposite. How many Lessigs are there out there? It's not FUD even though there is one counter example, you don't have to take everything litteraly.
Life is Reality
...as the first and probably only rootkit wich has done something good.
That's why I like to avoid absolute statements and generalizations: all it takes is one case to refute, even though the statement may be accurate for the majority and there may only be one or two cases that can refute it. It's like what they say about congressmen: the dishonest 534 make the rest look bad.
Still, wouldn't it be cool to discover that one supersmart cow? And kill it? And eat it and learn algebra? Mmmmmmm!
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
'...record companies need to do more to remove the incentive for piracy.'
Which brings up the method, again, of how the 'Dead dealt with bootlegging, by inviting bootleggers to give it thier best shot - This meant more publicity for the band, which led to more sales.
The record companies just won't let go. They want the model that puts them in control. Pricing control where they get to say which track sells for what amount, giving them leverage over the artist - bundleing, where trash tracks have to be purchased, whether the consumer wants them or not - consumer habit tracking, where they get first dibs on mining all that data...it goes on and on. The record companies just need to die, it's that simple.
In Sony's case, I guess this one can be laid at the feet of the lawyers, but hey, they've got their own business model to protect, and we all know where that one leads.
Why not just let the artists be in control for a while. Let the $$$ grabbers sell peanuts and t-shirts while the consumer enjoys decent music for a change.
A cow doing algebra
Dir sirs,
The suggested apparatus is a sentient, grass-eating organism ("Cow"), that has or will be taught complex mathematical operations ("Algebra"), with or without the aid of various computational devices.
I intend to patent this "invention" and then go on and "licence" it to all cattle grows in the planet, which will have to pay or face my formidable legal team. In fact, I have already hired an "Intellectual property" law firm, who has assured me that I am loosing $5.6B every day - literally being stolen out of my pocket, and the plates of my children, by greedy farmers who will not respect the foundations of our economy.
Moreover, said lawyers have promised me that the USPTO and the courts will share their (my) view that every cow grazing grass is in fact performing complex calculations, probably for some foreign power like Iraq, or worse, Europe.
All the best,
Edgar Bronfman.
"667 - Neighbour of the beast"
Translation: Sony BMG needs to research how to make their next crippling system-level crack more undetectable before they try this exact same crap again. They don't give a second thought b0rk1ng their customer's computers, but they absolutely hate getting caught.
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
Yeah, but the problem for the record industry is that adopting means they are practically out of business in the long run - at least their traditional business.
The music industry is - at it's base - "selling" to artists the service for distributing music.
That means (or meant) basically the technology to record and produce music to sound storage mediums, the marketing to promote it and the infrastructure to distribute it.
The recording technology became commodity with the advent of digital recording, marketing was never a unique selling point for them, and the infrastructure question is answered by the internet.
For years now they reaped the benefits of vastly cheaper production, but now they are facing a situation where the everything has come together even for the average music customer.
In my opinion, what they are trying to do with that DRM stuff is trying to put the genie back in the bottle, by recapturing control of the distribution channel. Not only because of pirating, but also to save the heart of their business model.
I've been on a active boycott of record-companies since 1997. Two reasons. Sony closed a local CD-factory, claiming that 'piracy' was the reason. The production-equipment was shipped to Romania (or such) so I guess selling the CD's wasn't the problem, but they found a nice way to justify moving to a country with lower wages. (please keep in mind that most of you barely had the equipment to burn CD's or the bandwidth to exchange MP3's)
The other reason was that most companies abandoned recruiting local talent. All we get in our shops is American R&B, all we see on TV is American Gangsta Crap. There is a shitload of bands out their, but none of the big labels will see or hear them. Ilse de Lange might be the last you've heard from the Netherlands.
Haven't bought a single CD since, except directly from the hands of the musician.
I'm surprised that we've not heard more from the artists themselves on this front. You'd think that those whose CDs were clandestinely infiltrated by this technology would have opinions. After all these people make thie money directly from the sales of those CD's too and you can pretty well bet that not a one of them was told about or consulted in advance of the decision to rootkit these cds.
I'm curious to know if on top of Sony's problems a rash of lawsuits will be filed by attorneys representing artists that either had their work defiled by the rootkits or those that want out of their contracts because Sony's miserable judgment will result in substantially reduced sales for any artist on a Sony label.
Anyone know about this or have an opinion?
Stitch
"There is no "I" in B-O-R-G"
There is no "I" in B-O-R-G.
It looks like it was called sarcasm, sarcasm are normally an attempt at humor by exaggerating the devils advocate, to state the point of the opposite.
Trolls are people who are excessive negative in there posts, often try to personally attack others, or come up with the standard insults, (examples all Apple Users are Gay, or All Linux users are geeky little boys with no lives.) Sometime a troll can be sarcastic, but they should be paid attention differently.
Flamebait are posts that are meant to get people angry and talks about things that a number of people feel strongly about. (examples VI vs Emacs, OS X vs. Linux, Apples 1 button mouse, Politics, Abortion, Religious views) these are arguments that neither side will gain any more insight then they did before. Thus a normal waist of bandwidth and file space.
Redundant these are posts that that say the same thing as other posts and bring no new light onto the table.
Offtopic this is how this post should be moderated it is where the topic of conservation has targeted to much off the original topic. Or the post has nothing to do with the topic.
Over Rated these are posts that seem to moderated to high for their content. Often used to give an other message(s) more priority over the others. So the quick one liner the got first post that had a +5 funny and wasn't really that funny can be modded to a +4 funny and have all the insightful comments underneath it be read first.
Under Rated these are post you want to mod up but really don't know what topic it really fits in, or you want to keep the original moderation but you want it to have a higer score. Ex. if you see a Troll but you really like it and want everyone to see it you give it underrated and if more moderators do the same that is how you can have a Troll +5.
Funny this is where sarcasm goes, normally it is an attempt at humor.
Informative when good and correct information is given. Usually helps fill the missing gap in a story or comment.
Interesting when the user says sorting that causes interest in the posts, normally if you see a posts with a lot of replies to it then it should be considered interesting.
Insightful when more then average thought was put into the post which gives a Point of View not given by others or the Article.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Issues that remain:
Attacking customer computers seems to be the kind of thing that is part of the Sony corporate culture. There has been no apology, and Sony management makes statements giving the impression they will do it again if they think they can without bad publicity.
A music retail store spokesman said that Sony's attack became public just before Christmas. Customers can easily choose some other gift now that they are scared about computer attacks. Sony's attack has hurt the entire music industry, not just Sony. Also, the damage will continue after Christmas.
Few people are technically knowledgeable. The Sony CDs will be causing problems for many years, as they are traded or sold to thrift stores.
The number of computers already corrupted is probably far larger than the 500,000 quoted in articles about the Sony attack. That number is just the number of Domain Name Servers that show evidence that a computer has tried to contact the Sony phone home address. The average server would almost certainly service more than one corrupted computer.
One kind of attack has received attention. However, Sony apparently sells other CDs with other software that may also have negative consequences for Sony customers.
Following Microsoft's lead years ago, some businesses treat all their customers as crooks so that they can stop a few.
What you meant to say is
Music downloads are for people who don't fully *appreciate* music the way I do
I can perfectly well appreciate my iTMS downloads on less "snobbish" equipment. I don't require the knowledge of having spent tons of cash for a "resonable hi-fi setup" in order to enjoy listening to music. In fact, even the el-cheapo earphones that come with iPods will do. That is because my interest is in music and not in expensive equipment.
Actually the "Sony Rootkit" incident has increased the public awareness of computer security. How many non technically inclined people knew about "rootkit" prior to this?
To a certain extent, this incident has increased the public awareness of computer security, which is a good thing.
w00t
Actually, you can thank Mark Russinovich (who exposed the Sony malware) for immediately branding it with the proper term "rootkit." The press picked up on this evil-sounding term before Sony flacks had a chance to spin it as something benign-sounding.
To be perfectly honest, at 43 years of age, I'm glad I'm too old for most of the modern-day music scene. I have more than enough good music with some albums (yes, *albums*, not single tracks) I've appreciated for the past 30 years that I will continue to appreciate to my grave - it's just nice sometimes to find a new album by a new artist to add to my collection.
Sorry, I'm a geek just like most others here and I like my PCs and gadgets. But it seems to me that far too many people, mainly the younger generation, spends far too much time rushing through life trying to do lots of things at the same time - this is why (most) modern music has become "disposable" because it's been manufactured as something that justs goes on in the background while you are doing something else.
My argument, therefore, is that those same people do not know how to devote *all* of their attention to a piece of music and therefore do not appreciate it fully.
Whereas you may be laughing at me, I feel sorry for you at not being able to understand what it really means to *LISTEN* to a piece of music.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I agree with the above entirely. What is interesting is that with the old analog LP, no matter what you might say about it's sound quality (vastly better than CD or crackly, noisy annoyance), you actually get a copy of the sound waves as captured in the studio/stage as they happened. Pretty amazing if you ask me. Not to mention the larger canvas for artwork and often some quite creative packaging concepts. Unfortunately you don't get DRM protection, which I know we'll all miss. (Note for the Anonymous Coward above: This is also sarcasm. Just in case you were wondering.) Cheers
Who is this delectable creature with an insatiable love of the dead?
Well, one of the reasons why this blew up so bad was that the rootkit was poorly coded. Furthermore, so was the uninstall tool. Macrovision has a lot more resources than small time startups like First4. They can hire better coders, and they have better resources to do QA. So maybe Macrovisions stuff is still doing all the naughty bits, but they've hidden it better and it doesn't open up your computer like swiss cheese.
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