It may now be safer to pirate music than to actually buy a Sony music product

[The Mullinator]

http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/05/11/13/1419206.shtml?tid=233&tid=141&tid=17

Also the DRM root kits aren't some theoretical thing that Sony could implement in the future, the software is there on many CD's right now and Sony is even being sued by a few people. Microsoft has even released something to try and remove part of software once its on your computer.

Also according to Slashdot's summary of the EULA:
'If your house gets burgled, you have to delete all your music from your laptop when you get home. ... Sony-BMG can install and use backdoors in the copy protection software or media player to "enforce their rights" against you, at any time, without notice. ... Forget about using the music as a soundtrack for your latest family photo slideshow, or mash-ups, or sampling.'"
Sony has really gone way too far with this.

[Muffin Man]

Sony is teh sux0r

[Adabiviak]

Ouch. Haven't purchased a CD in quite some time - how does this rootkit get on your computer? From the audio CD?

[The Mullinator]

Ouch. Haven't purchased a CD in quite some time - how does this rootkit get on your computer? From the audio CD?
The article talks about some pretty complicated stuff but this quote starts off the part where he talks about how it got onto his computer:
The DRM reference made me recall having purchased a CD recently that can only be played using the media player that ships on the CD itself and that limits you to at most 3 copies. I scrounged through my CD’s and found it, Sony BMG’s Get Right with the Man (the name is ironic under the circumstances) CD by the Van Zant brothers. I hadn’t noticed when I purchased the CD from Amazon.com that it’s protected with DRM software, but if I had looked more closely at the text on the Amazon.com web page I would have known:
http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/10/sony-rootkits-and-digital-rights.html
EDIT: Forgot to actually post the link. :o

[Adabiviak]

oh HELL no will I buy a CD that comes with a proprietary media player!

"Get Right With the Man" :laugh:

[Kangy]

Yeah, until I'm sure the CD I'm buying is free of this crap, I'm not actually purchasing music.

[Muffin Man]

Yeah, until I'm sure the CD I'm buying is free of this crap, I'm not actually purchasing music.

*backfire into sony's face*

[Septih]

Yeah, until I'm sure the CD I'm buying is free of this crap, I'm not actually purchasing music.

make sure that the CD is a CD, i read somewhere that the discs sony use aren't the same thing as a CD.

I love the fact that one of the protected albums is called 'The Invisible Invasion'

[Adabiviak]

lol :upstare:

Time for a new thread! Music titles that poke fun at this. I remember a similar thread in another forum where people posted movie titles that were fitting for STDs, my favorite of which was "Fire Down Below".

let me look through my music...

[Space Farm]

Sony won't be doing this anymore. It's okay you can all relax. Search Google news or something, they decided not to go ahead with the rootkit.

[Dr. Freeman]

Sony won't be doing this anymore. It's okay you can all relax. Search Google news or something, they decided not to go ahead with the rootkit.

yeah i bet...i mean millions of angry customers would force something like that :P

[The Mullinator]

Sony won't be doing this anymore. It's okay you can all relax. Search Google news or something, they decided not to go ahead with the rootkit.
They said they would halt production for now but they are still going to go forward with it.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2005-11-14-sony-cds_x.htm
The label says it will issue all major releases with copy-protection in 2006, as will rival label EMI. The other major labels, Universal Music and Warner, have yet to release copy-protected CDs.

[Space Farm]

Damn, check this out. Microsoft is getting involved:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20051115/tc_pcworld/123543

[jmjneary]

well this seals it sony are gonna **** with the ps3 too there was already a rumor about copy protection on games

[JellyWorld]

Just wondering, can the music in the CDs be ripped as mp3s?

[Beerdude26]

Just wondering, can the music in the CDs be ripped as mp3s?It completely ****s up your music anyway :|

Think of it as MP3 Starforce

[Dr. Freeman]

Damn, check this out. Microsoft is getting involved:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20051115/tc_pcworld/123543

hmm...i think u might have mis-understood Microsoft's involvement.
while Microsoft may come up with its own copy protection software, its treating Sony's XCP software as spyware.

Microsoft joins security vendors like CA and Symantec in identifying XCP as a possible security threat. Computer experts had worried that hackers might use XCP's cloaking capabilities to hide malicious software of their own, and last week the first few examples of such programs began surfacing.

not sure what this means in the long run tho because im sure Microsoft is working on something similar for the future.

[Space Farm]

...Microsoft is treating Sony's XCP software as spyware...

Exactly. I know.

The "damn" part was referring to The Mullinator's post about Sony's decision to still go ahead.

[Dr. Freeman]

Exactly. I know.

The "damn" part was referring to The Mullinator's post about Sony's decision to still go ahead.

oh okay...just a mis-understanding on my part then :)
sorry about that.

[Space Farm]

No worries. :cheers:

[Space Farm]

Also:

"As reported by InformationWeek, Sony BMG Music's controversial copy-protection scheme can be defeated with a small piece of tape. According to thinktank Gartner analysts Martin Reynolds and Mike McGuire, Sony's XCP technology is stymied by sticking a fingernail-size piece of opaque tape on the outer edge of the CD. 'After more than five years of trying, the recording industry has not yet demonstrated a workable DRM scheme for music CDs. Gartner believes that it will never achieve this goal as long as CDs must be playable by stand-alone CD players.'"