Sony-BMG caves after copy-protected CD DRM uproar

21 years ago

“On Tuesday, we reported the story of Mark Russinovich’s discovery that the new new Van Zant CD, published by music giant Sony-BMG, contains aggressive anti-piracy malware. This low-level, hidden code not only prevents you from playing the CD in Windows Media Player, WinAmp or any other software, but the drivers installed without user consent to run the in-built player chew CPU time even when you’re not playing music, and can leave your PC crippled if you attempt to remove them,” Geoff Richards reports for bit-tech.net. “In a victory for common sense everywhere, the enormous public backlash (including bit-tech readers) against this ‘technology’ has forced Sony-BMG into an embarrassing U-turn.”

November 2, 2005 – This Service Pack removes the cloaking technology component that has been recently discussed in a number of articles published regarding the XCP Technology used on SONY BMG content protected CDs. This component is not malicious and does not compromise security. However to alleviate any concerns that users may have about the program posing potential security vulnerabilities, this update has been released to enable users to remove this component from their computers.

“You can download the Service Pack from the XCP-Aurora,” Richards reports. “Amusingly, the fun & games doesn’t stop there, as the download requires the use of Microsoft’s ActiveX – one of the major vulnerabilities in the browser-based security issues that have plagued Internet Explorer. FireFox is commonly believed to be a more secure browser because it does not support ActiveX, yet FireFox users wanting to download the XCP Service Pack because of concerns it opens them to ‘potential security vulnerabilities’ are greeted with this message:”

ActiveX Unsupported
Sorry, your Internet Browser does not support ActiveX Controls.
Please use Microsoft Internet Explorer to continue.

“In other words, please switch back to the browser you’ve moved away from for security reasons in order to download the patch that removes the security issues from our software that we installed without your permission,” Richards writes.

Full article with links to the Service Pack here.

[Thanks to MDN reader “DreamTheEndless” for the heads up. If you have an article, you’d like to see, click “contact” above and send us the link and the name you’d like us to use to thank you below the article.]

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Sony lost their edge long ago. That company needs to conduct a serious rethinking of its goals. Does Sony want to continue to throw up 1-inch tall wet cardboard roadblocks that Apple doesn’t even see as it drives of them at the speed of music? Or does Sony want to start making quality products again and compete with others on the merits of their products and services?

Our advice to Sony: give up the music device and music service markets. You’ve already lost badly and you simply look foolish and full of sour grapes. Concentrate on working WITH Apple and you’ll end up with Sony monitors, cameras, etc. in Apple Stores, Sony Pro products tied to Apple’s pro audio & video applications and systems plus, who knows, maybe even a Mac OS X license for your PCs (okay, that’s pushing it, but you get the idea).