http://www.boingboing.net/2005/11/14/sony_anticustomer_te.html
Good summary of the latest events. Interesting that the uninstaller Sony provides leaves behind a nice API for anyone with a web page to reboot your computer or possibling uninstall / install software.
And yet they still get business, funny that.
Microsoft is/has updating/ed their malware removal tool for this.
Im rather suprised at how MrA defends this company. How could anyone ever approve of actions like this? Unethical and illegal in every sense of the word.
What defence? All I'm saying is that they are equally ass and yet people still buy gobs of junk from the both of them.
...i have to think that the reason for this is that 99% (made up statistic) of the populous isnt in "the know". I brought up the rootkit thing this weekend when doing some updates on my dads machine and he was all like "uh...root what?".
Consumers for the most part are sheep. Im a sheep as well, i'll admit it, but i think the consumer should start to pay a little more attention.
SONY BMG COMMENCES COMPACT DISC EXCHANGE PROGRAM FOR XCP CONTENT PROTECTED CDS
http://cp.sonybmg.com/xcp/
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1. SONY BMG has ceased manufacturing compact discs with XCP software.
YAY!
This content protection technology was provided by a third-party vendor, First4Internet, and was designed to prevent unlimited copying and unauthorized redistribution of the music on the disc. Oh puhleeze, cry us a river you poor rich megacorp, you...
^ Found this "affishal" site linked from this handy EFF page:
http://www.eff.org/IP/DRM/Sony-BMG/
Other news updates here: http://www.boycottsony.us/ and http://sonysuit.com
...One might wonder if Sony's decision to finally WAKE THE HELL UP AND DO THE NOT-STUPID THING is cuz of EFF's excellent work: http://www.eff.org/IP/DRM/Sony-BMG/?f=open-letter-2005-11-14.html
Quote from: "Open Letter To Scummy-BMG"
You must be aware that the discovery of this software has shocked and angered your customers. Software that deceives the owner of the computer it runs upon and opens that computer up to attacks by third parties may be expected to come from malicious cyber-attacks; it is certainly not expected nor acceptable to be distributed and sold to paying customers by a major music company. Accordingly, EFF welcomes your company's decision to temporarily halt manufacturing CDs with XCP and to reexamine "all aspects" of your "content protection initiative."
But if you truly intend to undo the harm you have caused, your company should immediately and publicly commit to the following additional measures:
Recall all CDs that contain the XCP and SunnComm MediaMax technology. The recall must include removing all infected CDs from store shelves as well as halting all online sales of the affected merchandise. We understand from a recent New York Times article that well over 2 million infected CDs with the XCP technology are in the marketplace and have yet to be sold.
Remove from all current and future marketing materials statements like that on http://cp.sonybmg.com/xcp/english/updates.html that say the cloaking software "is not malicious and does not compromise security."
Widely publicize the potential security and other risks associated with the XCP and SunnComm MediaMax technology to allow the 2.1 million consumers who have already purchased the CDs to make informed decisions regarding their use of those CDs. The publicity campaign should include, at a minimum, issuing a public statement describing the risks and listing every Sony CD, DVD or other product that contains XCP or SunnComm MediaMax. The publicity campaign should be advertised in a manner reasonably calculated to reach all consumers who have purchased the products, in all markets where the CDs have been sold.
Cooperate fully with any interested manufacturer of anti-virus, anti-spyware, or similar computer security tools to facilitate the identification and complete removal of XCP and SunnComm MediaMax from the computers of those infected. In particular, Sony should publicly waive any claims it may have for investigation or removal of these tools under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and any similar laws.
Offer to refund the purchase price of infected CDs or, at the consumer?s election, provide a replacement CD that does not contain the XCP or SunnComm technology. For those consumers who choose to retain infected CDs, develop and make widely available a software update that will allow consumers to easily uninstall the technology without losing the ability to play the CD on their computers. In addition, consumers should not be required to reveal any personally identifying information to Sony in order to access the update, as Sony is currently requiring.
Compensate consumers for any damage to their computers caused by the infected products, including the time, effort, and expenditure required to remedy the damage or verify that their computer systems or networks were or were not altered or damaged by XCP or SunnComm MediaMax products.
Prior to releasing any future product containing DRM technology, thoroughly test the software to determine the existence of any security risks or other possible damages the technology might cause to any user's computer.
Certify in a statement included in the packaging of every CD containing DRM technology that the product does not contain any concealed software such as the XCP rootkit, does not electronically communicate with Sony-BMG or any other party, does not initiate the download of any software update or other data without informed consent of the consumer immediately prior to each communication, can be uninstalled without any need to contact Sony or disclose personally identifying information to anyone, does not present any security risks to any consumer's computer, and will not damage or reduce the performance of the consumer's computer or data in any way.
^ Most of the above is now a fait d'complet (!) - other than the whole "Compensate Affected Consumers" thingie, yeah like they'd ever admit wrongdoing and thus have an insanely large class action suit come crashing down on them...
Oh, and I thought this was ha-ha-halarious -- http://www.boingboing.net/2005/11/16/sony_cds_banned_in_t.html ( yup, in all the world, Ag is the most despotic place to work when it comes to over-reacting to Sony's f-up :P )
France attempts to outdo Sony when it comes to stupid copy protection stuff:
http://www.doom9.org/ -- re. French DMCA variety called DADVSI
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12/6 Here's one for all French readers: You're about to enter the DMCA age as well as the government is trying to fast-track the French DMCA variety called DADVSI through parliament. But until the votes are cast, you can still do something about it, so head over to eucd.info, sign the petition and get in touch with your elected representatives today. They may not need you once they are in office and only cater to the ones that paid for their ad campaign, but come reelection time, they once again depend on you, so make them feel that..
UK's copyright law will get a closer examination in the coming 12 months as the Chancellor has ordered a review of IP laws (http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/newsroom_and_speeches/press/2005/Press_102_05.cfm). The scope of the review includes fair use rights, and since we as consumers are stakeholders as well, you have time to speak up now.
Why is there a tendency in Hollywood to favor Blu-ray over HD DVD? Fox Filmed Entertainment co-chairman James Gianopulos, in what probably wasn't meant to come out that way, spilled the beans: It isn't about size, it's not about cost, it's not about features, it's about even more restrictive DRM that Blu-ray "offers" (http://www.betanews.com/article/Fox_No_Plans_to_Support_HD_DVD/1133539971) (shackles you with would be a more appropriate description I think). Not that managed copy was nowhere near far enough to satisfy fair use, but keep in mind that on Blu-ray it's up to the studio to allow you to make only one heavily DRM'ed copy of content you're supposed to own and do with as you please.
Yahoo focuses on other aspects of essential the speech (or interview or whatever it was), and I feel the urge to comment on the "You can never compete with free" aspect. Free to air TV seems to work just fine, Internet radio seems to work just fine as well. And if you go to the bottom of it, I need to pay a certain fee to legally receive TV and radio broadcasts and a certain fee to get on the Internet, so when you get right down to it, even P2P downloads aren't free. And I still recall attempts to get an entire album on Napster. Sure it's possible, but if you have to invest time searching for tracks in matching quality, then rename files, add ID3 tags, it's suddenly not so convenient anymore. If you go to school, you may have that time to spend, but I found that getting out of university changed certain realities somewhat. I suddenly find myself paying for certain things I used to do on my own before, just because I'm unwilling to spend the time anymore, and I'm convinced I'm not the only one. I'd also pay for an 1080p x264 High Profile encoded episode of 24 - it's just a matter of how much and if I can play the file anywhere I like. Season 4 of 24 is available for $45.49 at Amazon. That's $1.875 per episode, plus you get packaging, physical discs and extras. So here's my pledge to Fox: I'll buy all 4 seasons for $2 an episode under the conditions previously mentioned (even though I already have the DVDs). I have no physical support, no extras, there's no manufacturing and packaging cost, no case designers, no photographs, just me spending days downloading and then having to buy my own DVD-Rs to burn the episodes. And how about offering episodes of season 5 a day after they first air? I might even be willing to pay a few cents more. But of course, if you want 5 bucks a pop, and with DRM... now why is nobody buying that? It's not about pay-product versus free, it's about how much effort you have to put into something and how much you get for it. Those of us who had DRM licenses revoked because of hardware failures (and subsequent changes) or snags in software had to find out the hard way just how much "value" a DRM release has.
12/7
I apologize to everyone who tried to sing the petition against the DADVSI, I suppose it's a pretty hard thing to do ;) However, reading a bit more French, the law is actually getting way beyond the DMCA by banning (in)voluntary dissemination of any information about tools that this directive would outlaw, even if it's of academic nature (so researchers are no longer allowed to tell people a product is unsafe because the encryption can be broken - next thing they can no longer tell you if the encryption your bank uses for online banking is unsafe and you'll only be the wiser when your bank account is empty). And it gets even better: DRM for online radio, a universal filtering system for all ISPs to filter out content the content industry doesn't want to be transmitted (you know how filters are, put anything you don't like in it and nobody will get it anymore - it's a slippery slope towards universal censorship), and any software that can be used to transmit copyrighted material could be forced to implement and recognize DRM. Any software implementing any protocol would be affected. And the last straw is an attempt to ban all free software altogether (http://www.fsffrance.org/news/article2005-11-25.en.html). I will spare you the collection of swearwords, but nobody in their sane mind could be for such a proposal.
...also see the 12/1 news story -- Smithers, unleash the (legal) hounds...
- - -
``Bill Gates, however, recently labeled Blu-ray's content protection as anti-consumer. "The inconvenience is that the [movie] studios got too much protection at the expense consumers and it won't work well on PCs," Gates explained.``
It's getting hard to keep up with all the new security blunders Sony keeps making.
First - another copy protection technology they use was found to also have a security hole. http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/07/1343236&tid=233
So they patch it and all that stuff, but it turns out that the patch introduces even more holes. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4511042.stm
And in only semi-related news, I'm getting rumors that the PS3 won't be in north america till holiday-season 2006.
Quote from: "Cova"
And in only semi-related news, I'm getting rumors that the PS3 won't be in north america till holiday-season 2006.
Not to get too off topic, but that is probably good for MS, as the 1.5, 2nd gen games with longer development cycles will probably hit at that time, going up against the PS3 launch titles.
I read today that Sony would have the PS3 out for spring, but if its like the PS2 launch USA will be a good bit behind.
I think that a year headstart is gonna be a bad thing.
You might be referring to the press release (http://www.us.playstation.com/pressreleases.aspx?id=279) SCEI had back in May that stated that the PS3 would tentativly be ready for a North American release in the late spring of 2006 (to try to make the launch for E3).
Since very little news has been coming out of the Sony camp concerning the release date, I can see them slipping into the fall with previews only available for E3. The biggest challenge Sony has is acquiring enough killer app titles to launch with.
Right now the biggest X factor are pulishers like Square / Enix (which is sitting firmly on the fence (http://www.square-enix.com/jp/company/e/news/2005/download/release_051118en)) deciding what hardware to support. Coz let's face it, you can have technically superior hardware but you need great games to make it work.
Quote from: "Shayne"I think that a year headstart is gonna be a bad thing.
Historically speaking, a "head start" in
generational console wars hasn't had all that much of an advantage. Sega released the Genesis a year before the SNES and didn't benefit from it (mostly because of weak launch titles), as well as the Dreamcast vs. the PS2.
I was refering to http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticleSearch.aspx?storyID=37181+09-Dec-2005+RTRS&srch=ps3+spring actually.
I have no doubt that Square/Enix sell a ton of games and consoles, but for me, having them on either side bothers me none as i truely do not like that style of RPG. However if it sells consoles, then you gotta hope they land on your side of the fence.
Other "console sellers" are being a lot more open minded now, concider that Resident Evil is expected to launch on the PS3/X360 on the same day. Normally a heavy Sony title, now multi platform. In the end its gonna come down to "the other stuff", and i think the centralized system for online gaming Microsoft has is a winner over the "nothing" that Sony has (or has announced at least).
We'll have to revisit this topic in 5 years time :)
javascript:unhijackThread(); ;)
Quote from: "Cova"It's getting hard to keep up with all the new security blunders Sony keeps making.
So has anyone on here actually boycotted all Sony products? I know a couple people from elsewhere who have...
Its been my policy to avoid Sony products since long before the whole rootkit thing started, just because I don't wanna pay a ton extra for the name, and not even that great of a product anyways. But if they were to realease a product that was both the best in its class, and available at a reasonable price (and obviously something I need/want anyways) I'd still buy from them.
I'm with Cova on this one actually. I havent bought Sony in a long time due to them being greatly overpriced compared to other competing products.
Im also with him in the desire to buy something from them if i have a need, and they do compete on both a feature and a price. Perhaps Sony is a better name in other markets, because locally (Canada), i just dont see them being the uber high quality, uber high technology they once were.
The only good products Sony has been associated with is the walkman and the playstation, just about everything else is crap.
Heh, Sony's not on my list of quality manufacturers either. I was more interested in finding out if there is a real backlash for Sony deriving from the rootkit issues that have come to light.
What surprises me is that so far very few of the affected artists have been upset by this. Interesting...
Well I wouldn't buy a copy-protected audio disk (they technically don't qualify as CDs) from any of the labels - so the Sony rootkit thing hasn't really had any effect on my music buying habits.
Nice wrap-up article on this: http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/Business/2006/01/07/1382748-sun.html