Sony BMG recalls copy-protected discs

Canoe ^ | Nov. 16 | BRIAN BERGSTEIN

[holymoly]

A Sony BMG statement Tuesday said the company would pull unsold CDs with the software from store shelves and let consumers exchange already purchased ones.

How magnanimous of them. /sarcasm

Are they also going to compensate people whos' PCs have been hosed by their little rootkit spyware?

[sionnsar]

Easy solution: Don't buy anything Sony. You can't trust it.

[Cicero]

This little escapade is probably going to end up costing them at least a billion dollars in lawsuits and bad will. I can understand how such a stupid ploy could have slipped under the CEO's radar, but I can't understand how they could have been so stupid as to leave it hanging out there this long.

I posted the story here first, after it was posted at BetaNews.

Several Antivirus programs have added stuff that will uncover the Sony rootkit, but they have been slow to issue removal tools, probably because of fear that Sony might sue them for removing copy-protection, which is illegal.

Sophos was the first to issue a tool to detect and remove the Rootkit. Considering what has been happening, I would take a chance with their tool rather than anything Sony puts out, because so far all their solutions have only made things worse.

The Sophos rootkit detection and removal tool is at:

http://www.sophos.com/support/disinfection/rkprf.html

It will tell you if you have the rootkit on your computer, and several usually reliable sources have recommended it. I haven't tried it myself, since I don't have the Sony virus.

[ShadowAce]

[polymuser]

Ooooh, this is gonna leave a mark...

[mysterio]

They'll compensate them, all right. After the class action lawsuit which in this case is warranted. If they want to fight the cassette tape over and over again fine, but it's going to cost them.

[tutstar]

ping

[RabidBartender]

"The "XCP" copy-protection program was included on at least 20 CDs, including releases by Van Zant, The Bad Plus, Neil Diamond and Celine Dion. Sony BMG said 4.7 million were shipped, with 2.1 million sold."

It disturbs me that 2.1 million CDs can be sold that include Neil Diamond and Celine Dion.

[kaboom]

...including releases by Van Zant, The Bad Plus, Neil Diamond and Celine Dion.

Oh yeah, these are the artists that they need to protect with their spyware. Now if it was Engelbert Humperdinck...

[HawaiianGecko]

	It disturbs me that 2.1 million CDs can be sold that include Neil Diamond and Celine Dion.

 

 

[thoughtomator]

They will, 5 years down the line and millions of lawyers' fees later.

[HiTech RedNeck]

A coupon for a free CD.

[j_k_l]

Do people who listen to the "artists" even own computers?

Seems to me that this would be a much bigger problem whith the 8-track versions of these albums.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

So much for the much-vaunted synergies between hardware and software (content) in consumer electronics. Sony can make great consumer hardware -- but, their need to protect their investment in content is causing them a lot of grief. (Games are an exception, because everything is proprietary.) Sony needs to sell off its content businesses, so that their hardware side is free to design products, without having to worry about the effect on the content side.

[GraniteStateConservative]

Pirate Bay.

[zeugma]

Easy solution: Don't buy anything Sony. You can't trust it.

That's what I'm recommending to everyone this Christmas. If Sony or BMG is on the product, pass it up.

[doc30]

A few years ago, I was shopping for a home theater system. Nothing too fancy, just somehting with everything in one box. When I tried Sony systems, they were hard wired NOT to play any burned CD's. Needless to say, I didn't buy one and the salesperson said that before they knew about this, they had a lot of customer returns on Sony products.

[unixfox]

A coupon for a free CD.

Hah, this should allow for a free plasma HDTV. The cleanup on one single PC for this crap could take hours to fix.

[HereInTheHeartland]

Funny!

And in other news concerning the Sony spyware debacle:

It was discovered that Sony also included the rootkit on newly released 8 track tape versions of a Carly Simon album.
Reportably the root kit infected a customers 8 track tape player, and the customer's 1978 Pacer would not start.
The customer was able to work around the problem. She removed the Carter/Mondale bumpersticker from her car and wrapped it around the the tape player.

[Born Conservative]

"We share the concerns of consumers regarding discs with XCP content-protected software," Tuesday's statement said.

If that were true, then why did they release it in the first place?