A letter posted online yesterday by Sony BMG Music Entertainment reads as follows:
November 16, 2005
To Our Valued Customers:
You may be aware of the recent attention given to the XCP content protection software included on some SONY BMG CDs. This software was provided to us by a third-party vendor, First4Internet. Discussion has centered on security concerns raised about the use of CDs containing this software.
We share the concerns of consumers regarding these discs, and we are instituting a program that will allow consumers to exchange any CD with XCP software for the same CD without copy protection. We also have asked our retail partners to remove all unsold CDs with XCP software from their store shelves and inventory. We will make further details of this program available shortly.
We deeply regret any inconvenience this may cause our customers and we are committed to making this situation right. It is important to note that the issues regarding these discs exist only when they are played on computers, not on conventional, non-computer-based CD and/or DVD players.
Our new initiatives follow the measures we have already taken, including last week’s voluntary suspension of the manufacture of CDs with the XCP software. In addition, to address security concerns, we provided to major software and anti-virus companies a software update, which also may be downloaded at http://cp.sonybmg.com/xcp/english/updates.html . We will shortly provide a simplified and secure procedure to uninstall the XCP software if it resides on your computer.
Ultimately, the experience of consumers is our primary concern, and our goal is to help bring our artists’ music to as broad an audience as possible. Going forward, we will continue to identify new ways to meet demands for flexibility in how you and other consumers listen to music.
Sony BMG Music Entertainment’s letter here: http://blog.sonymusic.com/sonybmg/archives/111505.html
Sony-BMG also offers a FAQ page here: http://cp.sonybmg.com/xcp/english/faq.html
Bloomberg reports, “Sony BMG, a joint venture created last year by Sony Corp. and Bertelsmann AG, produced about 4.7 million discs of artists including Celine Dion and sold 2.1 million of them. The recall comes as record companies are entering their strongest sales period ahead of the Christmas holiday. ‘It’s a big mistake. They shouldn’t have done it,’ said Leigh, an analyst at Inside Digital Media Inc. in Tampa, Florida. ‘They were so concerned about piracy that they were not careful about how they would control it. They shot themselves in the foot.’ Installed on about 50 recordings distributed by Sony BMG, XCP was designed to prevent illegal duplication by limiting the number of copies that could be made once a title has been installed on a personal computer. However, the technology could also be used to monitor the users’ online activity and made PCs vulnerable to computer viruses… ‘The continued chasing of copyright protection technology is like chasing the white whale,’ Leigh said. ‘It’s an obsession that destroys the people obsessed by it.'”
Full article here.
Related information: Red Book audio CD standard.
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We see Sony addressing the XCP malware-style ‘root kit’ issue for Windows users, but we see no mention of Sony’s other SunnComm-laced CDs that can install kernel extensions on Mac OS X which is what prompted our boycott of all Sony products in the first place. This is highly troubling, to put it mildly. Therefore, based on a strong consensus of our readership, MacDailyNews and iPodDailyNews are continuing to boycott all Sony products until this and other “copy-protected CD” issues are addressed appropriately by Sony and recommend that our 2.2+ million unique visitors per month from 136 countries worldwide do the same.
For some more information, Larry Loeb writes for Security IT Hub, “Sony says it will discontinue distribution of its DRM software, which could pose a “rootkit” security threat to users. But does that include the OS X version? Sony is reportedly pulling its digital rights management “rootkit” from the market. But it isn’t reporting everything. ‘The Sony copy-protection software does not install itself on Macintosh computers or ordinary CD and DVD players,’ Reuters reported today [Nov. 11]. There’s just one problem with that statement: it happens to be flat-out wrong. While the XCP version of copy protection is for Windows, there is another Mac-only version of copy protection installed by Sony/BMG CDs.”
Loeb writes that the Sony SunnComm CDs contain a Mac OS X application in the “enhanced” section of the CD called, start.app, that presents a EULA and upon the users’ agreement, “actually installs two kernel extensions, PhoenixNub1.kext and PhoenixNub12.kext, in the OS X system files. These turn out to be part of a DRM codebase developed by SunnComm. According to the SunComm Web site, their MediaMax DRM allows for a limited amount of CD burns from the source material, and then will block further copying. The DRM also can make time-expiring (or number-of-play-expiring) copies of the tracks… So, while Sony may be backing down from its acts regarding Windows modification, it is yet to be seen whether the recent firestorms will cause it to pull the DRM installed on Macs.”
Related articles:
Sony BMG infected music CDs could be good for consumer rights – November 16, 2005
Microsoft to remove Sony BMG malware – November 15, 2005
Sony BMG infected music CDs could lead Sony into ‘big-league legal trouble’ – November 15, 2005
EFF publishes open letter to Sony-BMG calling for recall of all infected Sony-BMG CDs – November 15, 2005
Boycott Sony – November 14, 2005
Sony BMG ‘temporarily suspends’ production of music CDs with copy-protection scheme – November 11, 2005
Boycott Sony products: Sony music CDs can install kernel extensions on Mac OS X – November 10, 2005
Computer security firm: ‘Stinx’ virus hides within Sony’s copy protection scheme – November 10, 2005
Sony sued over copy-protected CDs – November 10, 2005
SonyBMG antics may well cause public to turn on them and turn many people onto Apple Macs – November 06, 2005
Report: Sony copy-protected CDs may hide Windows rootkit vulnerability – November 01, 2005
Analyst: Sony BMG’s boycott of Apple’s iTunes Music Store Australia won’t last long – October 24, 2005
Apple launches iTunes Music Store Australia – October 24, 2005
How to beat Apple iPod-incompatible Sony BMG and EMI copy-protected CDs – October 04, 2005
Japan music labels look to impose ‘iPod Tax’ while Sony, Warner still not signing with Apple iTunes – October 10, 2005
Why aren’t Sony, BMG, Warner, Victor making their artists’ music available on Apple’s iTunes Japan? – October 06, 2005
Sony and Warner holding out on Apple iTunes Music Store Australia – September 08, 2005
Musicians stage mutiny against Sony, defiantly offer music via Apple’s iTunes Music Store – August 10, 2005
Sony BMG and EMI try to force Apple to ‘open’ iPod with iPod-incompatible CDs – June 20, 2005
New Sony BMG copy-protected CDs lock out Apple iPod owners – June 01, 2005
Record company causes Apple to hit ‘pause’ on Australian iTunes Music Store – May 05, 2005
HECK NO!!! DON’T LET THEM OFF THAT LIGHTLY!!!
What would happen if I came to take your house and decided to let you have half back in compensation?
SONY IS GARBAGE, DON’T BUY SQUAT FROM THEM UNTIL THEY OVERHAUL THEIR MUSIC DIVISION AND SUPPORT iTUNES JAPAN and ELSEWHERE!!!
Stupid a$$ess.
I agree, my boycott will continue indefinitely, this action was well planned to start the ball rolling in us accepting these root-kits as normal in anticipation of even more stringent DRM schemes.
You’ll see when the MacTels arrive…
MacDailyNews is correct to lift their boycott. You shouldn’t start adding reasons to continue a boycott when the reason for the boycott has been addressed. That said, of course, it’s up to each individual to do what they think is best.
Remember: wait for Sony’s PlayStation 3. Vote NO on Microsoft’s Xbox!
Microsoft makes Sony look positively angelic.
SONY BlueRay DVD drives supposely has a DRM scheme so tough that it verifies your drive, DVDs and other media over the internet. If it finds a discrepency or if a error occurs a drive disable feature is enabled.
Don’t buy SONY until they become more consumer friendly.
chill out MacDude and MacDude alias MacAnimal! They took it off! This is awesome! They’re likely not to repeat a DRM move which will take away ability to put stuff on an iPod. We won.
Sony is being rediculous with the whole iTunes Japan/Australia, but can you blame them? That was there last stronghold for online music.
Chill out… we just won, and, ummm, Sony has some pretty sweet products. I wish Apple would come out with a sub-notebook.
It was me saying I had decided not to buy 5 cams for my kids ha ha. Perhaps I should hold out until the see the itunes light
Sony blows. I can easily find a substitute for their products! What they have been doing to Apple is unforgiving. When you live by the sword you must die by the sword.
‘The continued chasing of copyright protection technology is like chasing the white whale,’ Leigh said. ‘It’s an obsession that destroys the people obsessed by it.
Now here is a guy who knows what he’s talking about. Sony did shoot themselves in the foot by trying to hard to protect there media and now they really hurt there reputation and people will be weary about buying CD’s with the Sony BMG label on it. Especially around the holidays.
Consumer,
Let me come and smack you around and then apologize five minutes later and see how you feel.
SONY got rootkits installed on millions of machines, including Mac’s and we are supposed to just say “That’s ok Sony, we’ll let you off the hook”
Those ba$tards knew exactly what they were doing, don’t think for a minute they weren’t.
Microsoft has been pulling this “Stockholm Syndrome” abusive effect for years.
Abuse > Apologize > Make Amends > Promise to make it better > Abuse Again.
It’s a way to gain a advantage on people through abuse. The answer is if a person or corporation abuses severly like this is to never deal with them again. Either that or your the fool and the victim.
Talk to any abusive spouse in treatment.
I think MDN is lifting the boycott much too soon. Sony’s statement makes no reference to the other DRM software they employ, from SunComm which is practically just as malicious and definitely falls under the category of “spyware.”
http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=925
What few people realize is that Sony uses another copy protection program, SunnComm’s MediaMax, on other discs in their catalog, and that this system presumably is not included in the moratorium. Though MediaMax doesn’t resort to concealing itself with a rootkit, it does behave in several ways that are characteristic of spyware.
…
1. MediaMax installs without meaningful consent or notification
…
2. MediaMax discs include either no uninstaller or an uninstaller that fails to remove major components of the software
….
3. MediaMax transmits information about you to SunnComm without notification or consen
Viewed together, the MediaMax and XCP copy protection schemes reveal a pattern of irresponsible behavior on the parts of Sony and its pals, SunnComm and First4Internet. Hopefully Sony’s promised re-examination of its copy protection initiatives will involve a hard look at both technologies.
Sounds like Sony is putting out a fake apology while continuing to put out malicious DRM that goes by name that isn’t “XCP.” Furthermore, they never promised they wouldn’t do something similar in the future.
Boycott Sony!
no way !
it’s an issue of trust for me personally. They have been nothing but deceptive and dismissive about this entire affair.
it will take Sony some time before they can convince me to even consider purchasing or recommending their products.
I say continue the boycott. That letter tries to blame XCP and the outside vendor, First4Net, as if Sony didn’t know what was happening. The letter makes it sound like Sony is on the consumer’s side, when they are the ones asking for the DRM to be put on in the first place. Sony is not on the consumer’s side. Sony needs to step up and take the responsibility and the blame. The lawsuits should continue but if this is Sony’s attitude, they are going to set up First4Net to take the fall.
If Sony was truly a Japanese company following Japanese cultural norms, the CEO would’ve resigned by now in shame.
MacDude,
Consider changing the nickname to White Knight:)
Seriously, they will just fix the protection soft and it will be back soon and nobody can do anything about it. Consumers will forget that incident soon. There will never be free music. Neither there will be an easier to steal music. DRM has only one way to go and that is the way to tougher protection so that when next time labels gonna raise the price nobody would be able to seriously consider blackmailing them be saying smth like “in that case I am going back to P2P.
In brief – u should better apply your energy to earning more money so that you can afford future higher prices:)
I’m still getting a PS3.
Arnold writes
“SONY BlueRay DVD drives supposely has a DRM scheme so tough that it verifies your drive, DVDs and other media over the internet. If it finds a discrepency or if a error occurs a drive disable feature is enabled.
Don’t buy SONY until they become more consumer friendly.”
This is pretty amazing stuff, if it’s true.
Arnold we need verifiable sources for this information. Will this extend to drives in future macs? We need to know this because it may have a bearing on the future purchase of affected computers. Likewise if this is the case I would expect MDN to take a similar stand against such invasive technology. IF THIS IS TRUE!!!
Arnold please get back to us via this website so myself and others can verify or dismiss this assertion.
Kenny,
Whether you boycott Sony or not is up to you and I have no doubt that the PS3 will be one sexy piece of hardware. But given how important this issue is, if you won’t boycott Sony products, can you at least consider waiting a few months to buy that PS3?
The problem with big corporations like Sony is that they don’t get the message unless there are big economic repercussions, ones that lead to the perpetrators geting fired and drop-kicked out of the company, which allows fair-minded people to establish sensible policies.
So fine, get your PS3. But at least try to send Sony a message by holding off on your purchase and spending that time playing the Xbox 360.
Link here to self destructing BlueRAY DVD drives
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/10/1917210&tid=188&tid=198&tid=126&tid=233
MacMania and his affiliates will continue the boycott of all $ony products.
SONY is out of touch, out of control and out of their minds.
Of course they can recover because they simply are not in touch with their consumers anymore.
Microsoft is totally evil and not to be trusted one bit.
Apple is to be trusted until proven otherwise.
what about the [nausous] MDN mantras regarding the significance of high-quality aesthetic and functional design? sony has lost it all since the 80’s/90’s when they were the mainsteam king. tv’s, stereo components, etc. now samsung tv’s ream the wegas (what exactly is a “wega”) and everything else looks and works more “asian” than pokemon, even with that brit-fag stringer running the show. the boycott should continue on principal.
Dear Arnold,
Thanks mate. I’ll follow this up to the best of my ability
br
Sony only stopped using the XCP “protection” scheme – which does not affect the Mac. They are STILL using the SunnComm (http://www.sunncomm.com) DRM which DOES affect the Mac and, according to numerous security analyst, is as dangerous as the XCP scheme.
It is WAY to early to claim victory and to let Sony (as well as EMI and others) off the hook. They are still intent on DRM and preventing we the consumers from using our fair-rights.
The Media companies are fighting a tide. They should be embracing the new technologies rather than trying to keep things the same as they always were. It won’t work. DRM such as Apple introduced is accepted because it is unobtrusive but many people still don’t like it and it, as well as every other DRM that I know of, has been cracked in some way or another. Unless the Media Content Producers start to try and find new ways to use the new paradigm to their advantage they will continue to lose money rather than make more.
It took someone with vision like Apple to show them one way that the new technology available today could work. I think ITMS would have been much more of a blow out success if there was no DRM on the content at all. But the record companies insisted and Apple has used that situation to their advantage by locking in the iPod/ITMS combination. I think Apple would have been happy to distribute non-DRM content at the beginning but now I doubt they would give up the advantage that it currently affords them (but then again I am not Steve Jobs and he might see an “outside the box” that most of us cannot).
At any rate, I doubt that the visionless old guard at the Media companies will drop their attempts to DRM things anytime soon so Apple will continue to enjoy their lock in and will continue to use it to their advantage to even further their strength and position. Since Apple generally thinks a lot about what the consumer wants and makes insanely great products this is not necessarily a bad thing. Being a major Apple fan, I love to see them do well so they have more cash and clout to bring us even better solutions that take into account the desires of the consumer.
A tremendous opportunity exists with the extremely low overhead content distribution situation that the internet produced. Unless a Media company has the chutzpah and vision to risk it all and drop the old system and completely dive into the new paradigm, they will continue to lose ground and it will be innovative companies like Apple that has to show them the path.
Let me pose you a hypothetical: If one of the the big Media Content companies like ABC started offering their entire library of content in downloadable format that either you could buy for a nominal fee (1.99 per episode perhaps
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” /> without commercials, or for free if it came with commercials, how much of a response from the user community do you think they would get? How great of an advantage over the competition do you think this would afford them?
MW = ideas
Oh, and in the above hypothetical, I don’t think it would matter much if they DRMed the content or not. If the content was available for free (albeit with commercials) most people would not go to the trouble of hacking it or cracking the DRM themselves or trying to find the same content in a DRM-less version on the peer to peer file swapping networks. Why bother if it is free and it is easy to get from a legitimate and easy to use central clearing house location? If you really want to avoid the commercials, pay the two bucks and avoid the risk of getting a virus with the download. And if most people would not bother trying to get the content in a DRM-less version somewhere else, why bother DRMing it in the first place?
Arnold —
A phone home Blu-Ray DVD player will have a hell of a time succeeding in the marketplace. As soon as someone’s legitimate disc can’t be verified and won’t play, everyone everywhere will start screaming. And as for a player that “self-destructs”, so to speak — no fscking way. That will NEVER succeed in the American marketplace.
Just as DIVX players lost out to DVD players, so too will anything that requires any sort of “verification”. The market always knows best.
I’d advise everyone to remain vigilant about this, but I wouldn’t worry too much about it.