Slashdot Mirror
Rick Rubin Discloses Sony Rootkit Called Home
caffeinemessiah writes "Rick Rubin, the legendary music producer, recently signed on as co-head of Columbia Records, which is owned by Sony BMG. In a recent New York Times interview (on pg. 4 of the online version), he discloses, possibly accidentally: 'It was the highest debut of Neil [Diamond]'s career, off to a great start. But Columbia — it was some kind of corporate thing — had put spyware on the CD. That kept people from copying it, but it also somehow recorded information about whoever bought the record...' Seems like the rootkit might have been a little more than your vanilla invade-your-rights-DRM scheme."
Maybe it didn't phone home, and Rick Rubin (a music producer, not a computer geek) just doesn't understand what the root kit did.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
...Bravias have rootkits! Honestly, at this point, I think non-rootkit news about sony would be front page worthy. At this point, it is just expected.
The analysis of the trojan already showed that it phoned home. Of course the point of this was to gather data.
I guess this is their "We can't afford watermarking all the CD's music, but we'll steal the buyer's identity instead" solution.
Although somewhat difficult to understand at first, I find that as an allegory for DRM, your story works quite well.
There's an interesting discussion on the same topic over here.
ENDUT! HOCH HECH!
http://games.slashdot.org/games/05/11/07/1221209.
Oh, one, touching one, reaching out
Touching me, touching you...
The number of people who own a computer, are technically smart enough to listen to music on it, and who listen to Neil Diamond, is zero.
And yet Sony has walked away with less than a slap on the wrist.
Replace "Sony" with "Al Queda" or "North Korea" in the same story and see how it reads. Amusing, isn't it?
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
Home isn't a "game", per se, but a three dimensional environment where one, represented by an avatar, may interact with others, launch games, play movies and music, etc. on their PS3. It's essentially an interactive 3D replacement for the XMB (media cross bar), or rather, it's an adjunct to the XMB. No one is quite sure yet and Sony isn't saying.
Home could be the next great thing from Sony or it could be utter shit. Personally, I think it's shit. Why I would want to cruise around what is essentially a Second Life clone on my PS3 simply to launch a game or view a video? The XMB does that job just fine, thank you.
Now that Sony knows the true identities of all the Neil Diamond fans, they can now complete their deathstar and will be the ultimate power in the universe!
If they want him to "save the record business", the first thing they better do is lose the RIAA, and stop manufacturing that huge steaming pile of bad will.
The industry's refusal to get into digital sales online was criminally stupid. Everyone told them that, and they just dug in. They're a brontosaurus standing on its head.
We now know how they always worked; the truth is out there. You can feel it all over. If we ever did, we don't *need* them any more. We don't like them any more, and we don't like the homogenizing and genericizing of the sound. Artists need them for one thing only: marketing.Since they've been worse than useless for decades, they'll need a lot of re-org and a lot of giveaways and a lot of goodwill-mending to survive.
I don't think they can; I hope they can't. Good riddance. I haven't bought a new RIAA product in five years; I won't pay $20 for a record I bought 20 years ago either. Personally I'll smile every time one of them buys it. They had their chance, and they gave us the finger.
"You must try to forget all you have learned. You must begin to dream." -- Sherwood Anderson
This shouldn't be a hard concept here on slashdot, but the article is talking about some type of "spyware" that tracks people who own the CD. This is distinctly different from a rootkit.
Astroturf much? I mean, seriously, which idiot modded this up? No one with more than basic English skills would have been confused by that title (which is a surprising rarity for Slashdot) in the way you describe, and all you do is promote a PS3 feature in an anti-Sony article. Sorry if this is harsh, but "Home" is neither revolutionary nor innovative (although it is unique to consoles), and it is completely irrelevant to this story (at least until next month, when we find Sony using it to disable PS3s of people they don't like).
So he's a music producer, but somehow knows about the inner workings of the rootkit, and he discloses something that NOBODY else figured out about the rootkit? Amazing.
Or, he's talking out of his ass.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
sounds like multi player Microsoft Bob to me...
well, at least he's creative........ right?.....
Then I read this quote: ""You would subscribe to music...You'd pay, say, $19.95 a month, and the music will come anywhere you'd like. In this new world, there will be a virtual library that will be accessible from your car, from your cellphone, from your computer, from your television. Anywhere. The iPod will be obsolete, but there would be a Walkman-like device you could plug into speakers at home.
Yes, the iPod will be obsolete. Just ask Napster...or Yahoo...or Microsoft. Sigh.
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
Should we tell Rob Manuel so he can update Name That Beard?
http://www2.b3ta.com/namethatbeard/
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Oh, one, touching one, reaching out
Touching me, touching you...
Sweeeeet Dee Arr Emm
Rootkit really got me good...
I'm too naive,
To think that Sony never would
Oh, no, no..
By the time Barnett first approached Rubin about coming to Columbia, Rubin had already decided that he would have nothing more to do with Columbia Records. This was because of the company's handling of the Rubin-produced Neil Diamond record "12 Songs" in 2005. Diamond was a hero of Rubin's, and he spent two years working on the album, persuading Diamond to record acoustically, something he hadn't done since the '60s.
"The CD debuted at No. 4," Rubin told me at Hugo's, still sounding upset. "It was the highest debut of Neil's career, off to a great start. But Columbia -- it was some kind of corporate thing -- had put spyware on the CD. That kept people from copying it, but it also somehow recorded information about whoever bought the record. The spyware became public knowledge, and people freaked out. There were some lawsuits filed, and the CD was recalled by Columbia. Literally pulled from stores. We came out on a Tuesday, by the following week the CD was not available. Columbia released it again in a month, but we never recovered. Neil was furious, and I vowed never to make another album with Columbia."
What Rubin didn't get is the fact SONY had a hand in the same bad management. He won't produce with Columbia, but WTF is he doing with SONY? Maybe he is just not informed.
clip from bottom of page 4;
As a kind of test, Rubin made some unusual demands. "Oh, God, I would have liked to have heard those negotiations," Natalie Maines exclaimed. "Rick knows what he's worth, and I can just hear him telling them, 'You might never see me, I may never wear shoes, you're not the boss of me.' And I'm sure they were saying, 'Whatever you want, Mr. Rubin.' I was surprised Sony made such a smart decision: someone who knows music should be running the company."
I hope he is able to get SONY to drop all the attempted DRM & anti-copy junk starting with mini disk and CD's and ending with DVD's and thumb drives.
The truth shall set you free!
If you listen to Neil Diamond, you have something to hide.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Yeah I've seen that type of first post before. . .ah, here it is After the first few words I realize I should just stop reading. . .but it's just so damn ridiculous I have to keep reading to see where the madness will end. . .like I said before, it's the literary form of goatse; curiosity is a curse.
If you are about to mod me down, keep in mind that this post was most likely sarcastic.
I saw those same comments and I'm surprised nobody picked up on it.
The record companies have concluded the only way to do business is essentially through getting rid of music that you "own". All music will be streamed to you via industry approved devices and if you want it, you have to pay your $20/month. What a deal.... for the record companies.
This does two things... it guarantees them a stream of money for essentially doing nothing, and it locks small artists and labels out of the distribution channels.
The chances of this happening, however, are pretty close to zero. This is just a pipedream of an industry that is about dead. Their dreams about every man, woman and child paying them an annuity are the same dream where I win $300M in the lottery, but a huge house on Maui, and have swimsuit models working as cabana girls for me at the mansion.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you