The Red Brick Times

I've been following the Sony BMG copy-protection story (scandal?) for awhile but, because it's a long story, been widely reported elsewhere, and is kind of complicated tech-wise, never posted about it. Then I started thinking how many of us may be giving/getting CD's as presents and decided to provide a few links that, should you be interested, will bring you up to speed on the whole issue. My personal take is that I won't be buying any music CD's at all for a long time to come.

Wired News: Real Story of the Rogue Rootkit
"It's a David and Goliath story of the tech blogs defeating a mega-corporation.
On Oct. 31, Mark Russinovich broke the story in his blog: Sony BMG Music Entertainment distributed a copy-protection scheme with music CD's that secretly installed a rootkit on computers. This software tool is run without your knowledge or consent -- if it's loaded on your computer with a CD, a hacker can gain and maintain access to your system and you wouldn't know it."

Wikipedia: 2005 Sony CD copy protection controversy
"The 2005 Sony CD copy protection controversy is a public controversy relating to copy protection software known as Extended Copy Protection (XCP), created by First 4 Internet and used by the media company Sony BMG Music Entertainment (henceforth "Sony", though that more accurately refers to the corporate parent of one of the partners in Sony BMG) on audio CD's."
Posted 6:07 AM by whatley (1) comments

       Comments:

Geeze. It should be safe if you don't play the CD on a computer? Stick to car players or dumb stereos? Between laws against sharing, and subversive copy-protection, the music industry is paranoiding itself into extinction. Here comes the rise of self-publishing musicians who do direct download to their fans. I would rather pay the artist than the mega-store.

# posted by  Andy : December 03, 2005 3:58 PM
 
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