Sony Repents Over CD Debacle

schnikies79 writes "Sony BMG is rethinking its anti-piracy policy following weeks of criticism over the copy protection used on CDs. The head of Sony BMG's global digital business, Thomas Hesse, told the BBC that the company was 're-evaluating' its current methods. This follows widespread condemnation of the way anti-piracy software on some Sony CDs installs itself on computers. The admission came as Sony faced more censure over the security failings of one of its copy protection programs."

Comments

Not too hard

[bnet41]

This isn't difficult to figure out, and I am not sure why the music companies are having trouble with this.
DRM can't work on CD's that need to play in a normal CD player. Basically any attempts to install the DRM software can be thrawted, so basically they hope they can fool you into installing something. Well, thats ok I guess, but then the software needs to do all sorts of wacky things to make sure nothing can override it in Windows. All can be defeated by a Linux machine, or a Mac as the software doesn't work on those, and also we all know about the shift-key for auto-run.
I am waiting for the industry to force us all to buy new cd players so they can create some super secure format.

Re:Not too hard

[jonfelder]

I guess all those round CD things are getting returned because they don't work in cassette players.

All they have to do is provide some sort of incentive for switching to the new format, and before long there will be more people using the new over the old.

Re:Not too hard

[happyemoticon]

I am waiting for the industry to force us all to buy new cd players so they can create some super secure format.

And as long as it has a component audio out, I can rip it.

They have all sorts of plans, the least of which would make even the most level-headed person strap tinfoil onto their head and genitals. However, they've sold us so many damn gadgets that they just can't do it. What they really want is for every single device to have DRM hardcoded in it, so it can pick up watermarks in copyrighted content and blink them out. For example, your camcorder would not work when pointed at the television, or would put a censor box over it.

Of course, it's not going to work any time soon. Even some middle-aged people I know, who are barely computer literate, own digital cameras, digital camcorders, dvd burners, and HDTVs. You tell these people they're going to have to replace all of their I/O devices, and possibly their amplifier, speakers, and cables, and they'll ask, "Oh, is it better," and of course the bottom line will be "No, it's far more sluggish because of all of the decrypting that it needs to do," despite what the sales/marketing slimeballs say, they'll say, "Fuck you, I don't want to spend 20 grand replacing all of my equipment," more than likely. Also, it'll require total industry collusion and a complete exclusion of any pre-East Fork devices.

What strikes me as the most profound absurdity, though, is that the world has fundamentally changed, and they need to create an artificial environment in which their outmoded business model can still function, rather than changing with the times. It's like adding more and more life-support systems to a person who's braindead and rapidly dying - no matter what you do, you can't cheat the inevitable.

Re:Not too hard

[pyrrhonist]

All they have to do is provide some sort of incentive for switching to the new format, and before long there will be more people using the new over the old.

The odd part is that we've already had two high quality audio formats for years now: DVD-Audio and SACD. Neither of those formats are selling very well.

Re:Not too hard

[Anonymous Coward]

The odd part is that we've already had two high quality audio formats for years now: DVD-Audio and SACD. Neither of those formats are selling very well.

You know why this is? People are now demanding different things.

• Cassettes -> CDs = Better quality sound and slightly easier to use.
• CDs -> SACD/DVD-A = Better quality sound (again).

The thing is, most people are happy with the sound of CDs, and even 128kbps mp3s. What people now want is flexibility / portability. They want to listen to them on the hifi in the lounge, the computer in the basement, in the car and on their mp3 player. The people are pushing in one direction and the labels/RIAA are pushing in the other.

Re:Not too hard

[HTH NE1]

CDs were able to do things that cassettes weren't.

You see? The seeds of obsolescence are already taking root. You're already referring to CDs in the past tense.

Re:Not too hard

[Tackhead]

> > All they have to do is provide some sort of incentive for switching to the new format, and before long there will be more people using the new over the old.
>
> The odd part is that we've already had two high quality audio formats for years now: DVD-Audio and SACD. Neither of those formats are selling very well.

Because everything is "good enough" these days.

I'm no audiophile, but on decent headphones, I can't tell LAME-encoded MP3 at 320kbps from CDs. Most of the time, I have difficulty telling LAME-encoded MP3 at 192kbps from the CD sources.

I've had this conversation with about dozen friends and cow orkers over the years, and found that about half of this admittedly-limited group can't hear the difference between Xing-encoded 128kbps (which to my ears, is unlistenably compression-artifacted) from CD, and that there are some who can't even hear the difference on headphones, never mind the crap desktop PC speakers most of these people are using.

Expecting people like me to pay a premium for the improvements in the audio fidelity offered by DVD-A/SACD versus CDDA is too much. Audio's reached the stage of "good enough" that only a small amount of the market is willing to pay a premium for anything better.

The initially-small market means that it's unlikely that economies of scale will develop, ensuring that the price gap between "better than CDDA" and "CDDA" will forever remain too wide to entice folks like me (never mind my 128kbps Xing friends) into it.

Re:Not too hard

[lgw]

Broken, perhaps, but not easily. It's posible to watermark music in a way that crosses to analog and back. A DRM-compliant hard drive could recognize such a watermark and refuse to write the file. This is the world the RIAA wants.

Setting aside the fact that while such watermarking schemes aren't *easy* to break, they're *possible* to break by a skilled cryptographer, the real flaw in this vision is that the drive manufacturers won't play along. There's no money in it for them.

If we adopt a trusted computing scheme that really works to defeat rootkits (which the drive manufacturers *do* have a reason to go along with), no doubt the DRM crowd will try to take advantage of it. The thing is: such a scheme will only sell if it gives the owner of the computer the master keys. If you can't run a program to detect and defeat DRM, you can't run a program to detect and defeat rootkits. Sony demonstrated this pretty clearly.

So it's not just watermarking, it's any DRM scheme on a general-purpose computer. No one is going to pay extra for such a thing, and that means no drive manufacturer is going to try to force the technology needed for *real* DRM on the public: it's a money losing prospect.

Re:Not too hard

[Scoth]

There's a problem though. I agree with your reasoning inasmuch as replacing equipment without any benefit except the DRM. If you're leaving the functionality the same but adding a layer of "protection", which requires large expenditure, then it's not going to fly. However, when a new generation of foo comes out, and everything in that new generation has DRM, then there's a problem. Let's say Blu-Ray or HD-DVD or whatever comes next has legislatively-enforced DRM in every component. Now to avoid it not only do you miss out on DRM, but the entire new generation of equipment. Eventually more and more content will be phased over to the new technology and you're faced with the situation of upgrading, or being left behind. Now I know some people still trucking along with Windows 98 on a P2 because it's all they need and they refuse to use XP, but how many people have you met that still use 8-track and/or cassette exclusively because they hate CDs? Even with VHS tapes it's getting harder to find new releases available on them.

That's pretty much what it comes down to. Not only do we have to prevent current-gen from getting replaced with DRM'd crap (possible to prevent, even easy), but we have to watch out for next gen too. And that's where we have to look to.

Re:Not too hard

[Excelsior]

Cassettes -> CDs = Better quality sound and slightly easier to use.

Slightly easier to use? Crusing with a friend in the '80s went something like this:

"Hey, Frank, get the Def Leppard tape out of my glovebox. I know, the tape comes out and gets tangled. Stick a pencil in the hole and turn it for a bit. Okay, now the fifth song on the first side is 'Pour Some Sugar on Me', and it totally rocks. You need to fast forward. No, that's not it...forward some more. More. Now you've gone too far...rewind. Damnit Frank, who taught you how to use a tape player? Ah, that's it, now find the beginning."

"See, I told you that song rocks. Now, go in my glovebox and find Van Halen's 1984. The second song on the first side is Jump, and it totally rocks."

If I'd waited this wilong...

[bobocopy]

If I'd waited this long to apologize to my wife for doing something obviously wrong, I'd be sleeping on the sidewalk.

Re:If I'd waited this wilong...

[Anonymous Coward]

If I'd waited this long to apologize to my wife for doing something obviously wrong, I'd be sleeping on the sidewalk.

Not if you had as much money as Sony.

Re:If I'd waited this wilong...

[imess]

I don't think many /.ers would understand your situation

Re-evaluation != repentance.

[mellon]

What I'd like to see is Sony doing a cost/benefit analysis for this fiasco and realizing that they actually lost more money dealing with the aftermath of this mistake than they could possibly have lost from "piracy."

Unfortunately, I haven't seen any honest CBA's out of the music industry, so I'm not holding my breath.

Re:Re-evaluation != repentance.

[mellon]

What I want to know is what protects artists from dumb-ass corporate moves?

Nothing at all. In fact, unless the corporation has assumed liability on behalf of the artists, the artist is theoretically liable for damage caused by the CD that installed the malware. In the publishing industry, if you are worried about being sued, you have to get your own liability insurance - the publisher isn't going to indemnify you.

This situation is a bit different because the publisher added the malware, not the artist, but it's still not out of the question for the artist to be named in the lawsuit and wind up having to spend money disputing the assertion that they might be liable.

Of course, the artist can also sue the publisher for putting the malware on their CD, and in fact it wouldn't surprise me if we start seeing lawsuits from these artists, because regardless of whether or not they are sued, the fact that the music they've published isn't getting to the fans because of this fiasco is costing them money, and possibly also fans.

Re-evaluation

[Gryle]

the company was "re-evaluating" its current methods.

Translation: We're trying to figure out how not to get caught next time.

Re:Re-evaluation

[Kjella]

Translation: We're trying to figure out how not to get caught next time.

Translation: Next time we'll want it built into the machine, not as a trojan but as a feature. A "trusted computing" machine is pretty much like being rooted. Your system appears to work, but there's some files (protected by the rootkit) that you can't seem to read/copy/move/delete/execute as you would like to. It'll come complete with "call home" features you can't read or control, since you're basicly running executables on blind faith and if you don't it could disable several features. Yay for pre-rooted computing.

Allow me to translate Sony's response.

[gasmonso]

Dear consumer, we regret that we were caught releasing this abomination to you. We really don't believe in fair-use and will do everything in our power to prevent law abiding consumers the right copy their songs freely. We will invest more time and money developing a more secretive method of copy protection. Thank you for your understanding and we take comfort knowing that you'll forget about this in a few months. Have a nice day.

gasmonso http://religiousfreaks.com/

Sony doesn't care. Probably never has.

[kcbrown]

They may be "reevaluating" their methods, but you can bet what that really means is that they're investigating less visible means of achieving the same thing: as much control as possible over how you use the music you purchase.

Sony certainly isn't "repenting" over this. Not at all. They don't care, and haven't for a long time.

I expect to see more of the same shit from Sony. They'll claim they're "changing" but in reality nothing will change.

Consumer Trust

[N8F8]

I'm sure even Sony's dimwit management has to realize that they are losing sales due to slipping consumer trust. As media devices become more intelligent, the opportunities for manufacturers to secretely audit and control your use of media will increase. Trust wil become more and more important. Two years ago Sony was on my golden halo list of clever manufacturers. First I bought a Vaio computer and ran into severe issues upgrading the OS. Then I noticed that they keep pushing for proprietary formats for encoding and storage. Now this. Today a guy brought in a nifty looking PSP and all I could think of was what DRM easter eggs are waiting for the unwitting consumer.

Yes of course...

[Chaffar]

"Even if the issue is only a slight one, at Sony BMG we are very clear that any software security issues are taken with the utmost seriousness," said Mr Hesse.

Slight issue? Then that must be why we got to bash Sony twice/day everyday for the past month or so. That is why if you type "Sony Rootkit" you get 1,630,000 hits. We're just all overreacting to your illegal attempt to hijack our computers against our will with an auto-installing rootkit.

BTW does anyone know what the patch does to the rootkit ? Does it remove it? Or does it "patch" the gaping hole it represents but keep all the other effects it had i.e the 3-copy limiter?

Christ!

[Mr. Underbridge]

I am waiting for the industry to force us all to buy new cd players so they can create some super secure format.

Shaddup dumbass! The RIAA reads /.!

Ed Felton got it correct.

[Nom du Keyboard]

CD Copy Protection: The Road to Spyware

So if you're designing a CD DRM system based on active protection, you face two main technical problems:

1. You have to get your software installed, even though the user doesn't want it.

2. Once your software is installed, you have to keep it from being uninstalled, even though the user wants it gone.

These are the same two technical problems that spyware designers face.

You can read the rest of his fascinating article here.

Words are cheap.

[Spy der Mann]

We want UNINSTALL. And I don't mean an "inhabilitating patch", i mean a full uninstall of the rootkit.

No need for a cost/benefit analysis

[Anonymous Coward]

Neil Diamond's new CD opened in the top ten, then sank down into the mid 50's the following week when the news about Sony DRM hit. Same goes for new CD's by their other major stars. The artists this affects are already mighty pissed.

Do you think that Sony is tripping all over themselves apologizing for the DRM fiscao hand-in-hand with the Free Software Foundation because they give a shit about your computers? Read the numbers in Billboard - Sony sure as hell does.

Re:No need for a cost/benefit analysis

[OzPhIsH]

"Neil Diamond's new CD opened in the top ten, then sank down into the mid 50's the following week when the news about Sony DRM hit. Same goes for new CD's by their other major stars. The artists this affects are already mighty pissed."

Now I'm not saying that the news about Sony DRM didn't affect the slides of these albums down the billboard charts, but certainly other factors that need to be considered. Really, was Neil Diamond's latest really destined for anything more than 1 week in the top 10? Probably not. I would imagine most all the Neil Diamond fans bought the album in the first week. The slide down the charts is probably the result of the rest of us not giving a fuck about Neil Diamond, or about any other of those artists. I know I don't.

Re:No need for a cost/benefit analysis

[ChrisKnight]

"Neil Diamond's new CD opened in the top ten, then sank down into the mid 50's the following week when the news about Sony DRM hit. Same goes for new CD's by their other major stars."

You don't think this had anything to do with Sony pulling these CDs off the shelves when the shitstorm hitr the media? I'm pretty sure having the albums unavailable in stores had a lot to do with the sales numbers dropping.

-Chris

Sony is sorry alright...

[SengirV]

...Sorry they got caught. That is it. Why do you think they have been trying to push their own crappy MP3 type format? To get you to buy all new hardware that WILL work with their form of DRM. The best thing we can do as a customer base is to avoid all Sony CDs like the plague. It's the only thing they can possibly understand.

Repentence at the Temple of Doom

[digitaldc]

Today class we will have a lesson on "How to get Busted and Not Apologize for It" I submit to you the following 'must-use' phrases:

"But this whole story has led us to look at the approach we have to take going forward..."

"...diligently re-evaluate..."

"Its fairly common and the fix is easy to provide through a software update."

"Even if the issue is only a slight one, at Sony BMG we are very clear that any software security issues are taken with the utmost seriousness."

Now you will know what to say if you ever get caught in a spyware scandal. Class dismissed.

Soon installed by default

[msbsod]

What bothers me most about the discussion is that DRM (restriction of consumers' rights), rootkits (hiding certain software), spyware (online monitoring), trusted computing (owners denied access to their own computer) and all that crap will be part of the next Microsoft Windows release. Soon companies like Sony will no longer have to distribute malicious CD. The malicious software will be installed on most PC's by default. Heck, even the signals over the monitor cables and be encrypted. The future already arrived with some products. Popular DVD players for PC's do not play some DVD's if the TV output of a graphics adapted is enabled (this is absurd!). Proprietary file formats require Internet access so that companies can monitor everybody and, if they wish, deny access. People are buying such products. Most people do not know what they buy, because the mass media are either in one bed with those who advocate the malicious software or they are completely blind. Sony rootkits are just the beginning.

Insufficient response

[keraneuology]

They didn't go far enough.

Saying they're sorry is not enough.

Being sorry is not enough.

Understanding that they were wrong is not enough. (Though I doubt that they actually grasp this concept... Sony's executive and official remarks along the lines that since most people don't know what a rootkit is therefore they shouldn't care about one fairly accurately indicate the corporate culture over there. They aren't sorry that they did wrong, they are sorry that they had to listen to their customers and non-customers alike whining about the situation.)

I want somebody fired over this. The president would be great, but handing a sacrificial pink slip to a VP would suffice. Such a great and monumental screwup - including the intentional introduction of inadvertant (no, not a contradiction) security holes onto the computers of the people who are paying their salaries is, IMNSHO, criminal, but fat chance of charges ever being pressed. I'm sure the execs would fire their assistants for putting Splenda (tm) in the morning coffee instead of Equal or printing out the day's email in 11.5 New Roman instead of 12 Times, but when it comes to something that actually matters not a demotion or even a negative review in the executive's employment file. In fact, I'll wager the screwup who gave the green light to this whole project still gets a fat six figure bonus for "great" performance.

If Sony wants my money again they they have to can an exec and have security escort him from the building. If all sony music fans followed suit then a message would be sent loud and clear that this abuse of the customers will not be tolerated and execs throughout the industry would understand that what they do may actually have ~gasp~ consequences.

Repent?

[Snorpus]

I don't see repent in "reevalutate."

I don't see "We're sorry." I don't see "We were wrong." I don't see "We promise we won't do it again." I don't see "Please forgive us."

All I see is "We're going to think about how we do this in the future."

XCP CD's still on the shelf

[tube013]

I was out at Best Buy today, and was looking at a few cds. And came across a whole stack of cds with the suppossedly recalled xcp copy protection. I thought about saying something to the store. Sort of bewilders me that this shit is still sitting on shelves at the store. I almost bought one so I could join in the class action lawsuits.

cheaper prices

[zogger]

The RIAA folks could get people to switch to the new drm'ed format easily by using human nature-greed. Cheap sells. Witness Walmart. It works. By offering the disks much cheaper than standard disks are today they could influence the hardware market. Store shelf, old CD title, 20$, new DRMed disk that needs the new DRM'ed hardware, same title, 3$. Something like that, side by side. They could easily drop prices to only 10% (whatever) of what they charge now (which is what they should be doing business-ethically and then there would be no problems really), sort of a generational loss lead. the first few years they could dump the hardware cheap too for that matter. Want the cheaper discs with DRM,OK then, they work in these approved players, etc. A few years later, poof, a done deal. Millions will adopt and adapt. Cheap *works*. And because the music industry is by and large a closed shop cooperating monopolistic cartel, if they all did it at once, well there ya go, a fait accompli. You combine that with increasingly severe laws for "piracy",which is happening,and you now have the carrot and the stick approach, a time tested workable solution. You won't get everyone, but if you get the bulk of them, you win. They have the organization, the cash and the bribery expertise with congress. How are they going to lose eventually? The US in particular has an offical economic position of a raging hard on for "IP" protection, because we have decided manufacturing tangibles is passe. Copyrighted music is right up there in that scene.

  They really don't care much yet in the "developing world", where copying is even more widespread and common, because there's not much cash there anyway for full price disks, so for now if they strictly enforce it law-wise and do the loss lead concept, they could conceivably win in the developed world where there's still serious cash to be grifted.

The music industry isn't in the "Music" business, they are in the music "Distribution" business. It's easier to see how they think if you look at it from that angle.