“Sony BMG has rushed forth to settle a class action lawsuit brought by Girard Gibs and Kamber & Associates in New York over its embarrassing rootkit scandal,” Ken “Caesar” Fisher reports for Ars Technica. “The settlement will include a promise by Sony to stop all use of the XCP and MediaMax DRM technologies, which is a given. Then, after paying lawyers’ fees (what is a class action for, if not that?), the company will recall all remaining XCP and MediaMax DRM-backed CDs, and then compensate customers who have purchased the ill-begotten discs.”
“Customers who purchased the poisoned discs will have two options. First, they can cash in on a payment of US$7.50 per CD they purchased (aka, much less than they paid for it), and snag one free album download. Or, if one don’t want to bother with cashing a check for $7.50, the cash payment can be cast aside in favor of three free album downloads. In both instances, the offending CDs will be replaced with DRM-free discs, but the album downloads will most likely use a less heinous form of DRM. The company will also be required to provide a safe tool for removing the rootkits,” Fisher reports. “Sony has the right to limit the albums that are available to a list of 200, but the company cannot force you to use their music store. Instead, Sony must use at least three different venues to distribute content.”
Settlement Class Members may download albums from any one of three major download services. SONY BMG will use commercially reasonable efforts to offer Apple Computer, Inc.’s popular iTunes as one of the download services available to Settlement Class Members.
Fisher reports, “The settlement will not take place until it is approved by the court. Proof of purchase will be required, or proof of a return if a disc was taken back to a retailer after November 14.”
Full article here.
If this comes to pass and Sony does indeed offer settlement members (in New York and elsewhere) the option of downloading from Apple’s iTunes Music Store (hence such tracks will work on iPods), we will seriously consider lifting our Sony boycott and again recommend waiting for PlayStation 3 instead of settling for a Microsoft Xbox to our 2.2 million unique visitors per month. Your thoughts?
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Related articles:
Trouble snowballs for Sony – December 22, 2005
Apple tramples Sony in Japan: iPod grabs 60-percent share of DMP market, Sony drops under 10-percent – December 22, 2005
Texas expands tainted CD lawsuit against Sony BMG – December 21, 2005
Texas sues Sony BMG for ‘spyware’ on CDs – November 21, 2005
Sony Boycott continues: Sony recalls XCP-tainted music discs, offers Red Book compliant CD exchanges – November 17, 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
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
Record company causes Apple to hit ‘pause’ on Australian iTunes Music Store – May 05, 2005
Um, people, if you don’t like the MDN take, don’t read it, dipsticks. There are plenty of other websites that aggregate Mac news from around the web without commentary. The fact that you are here, and commenting (morons), is that you come FOR the commentary. So, as someone sagely suggested earlier, stop sampling the air somewhere inside your colon and stop griping about MDN’s take.
Dear Jay posing as oh, come on dude: Nice try, sycophant. Stop feeling so important about your preaching and go get your own website if you want to proselytize.
Everyone else here can make up their own minds. Fraud.
Interesting. I wonder if they have to pay full retail for the downloads. That would be funny.
MW: Record. Wow, that can’t be just a coincidence.
I was planning on getting a PS3 anyway. No way in hell am I going to pay for a piece of shit Microcrap Xbox 360. I’d rather poke both my eyes out first
sorta off topic..but…What is it that is supposed to make the Revoluton so special? And how is Nintendo culture similar to Apple Culture?
—
cheaper, free online, full backcatalog of Nin titles downloadable (like iTMS) and a interesting new controller (think DS)
as for #2.. they are because they are hardware and software smart.. which means they can leverage their own properties on both counts, and understand how to intergrate hardware and software. The result is attention to not just a hardware platform, but a SUPPORTED hardware platform with Nintendo killer apps (like Zelda, Mario, Metroid, etc)
their emphasis on cheaper, means a better market share and better proposition for all devs (big and small)
“the company will recall all remaining XCP and MediaMax DRM-backed CDs”
I thought Sony already claimed they did this awhile ago?
“This time we really really really mean it!”
Did Sony ever give out a list of the infected CD’s? How will you know if you have one?
Nintendo invented everything we associate with being ‘video-game’ the same that Apple invented everything we associate with ‘personal-computer’:
Nintendo:
Handheld games
Analogue sticks
3D platform games
Controller feedback (rumble, etc)
Apple:
The GUI
The mouse
As well as making a host of other things more available, suck as trackpads, DVD burners, all-in-one computers etc
Another thing is the companies’ attention to detail. (If you own a GC, hold down ‘z’ [on either P1 or P1-4] when you switch it on and turn up the volume)
Proof of purchase? Who the hell saves receipts on CDs. Hope we can just send in the CD.
Err… there were analogue pads/sticks out for PC’s and even 1 for the sega genesis long before the n64 got one. Infact there was an analogue stick on the sega saturn before the n64 came out. As for 3d platform game.. Tomb Raider was out before mario 64.
2.2 million unique visitors a month?
Dippety-doo! I’m famous!
Uh, hi everyone!
RS–
Apple didn’t invent the GUI, or the mouse.
Jay, agree with you 100%
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MDN is a source of news NOT opinions! The takes are about as objective as the MS PR-team’s!
How come Apple (according to MDN) can’t do ANYTHING wrong? I’ve been an Applefan since 86 but I admit Apple fucks things up once in a while (read: nano scratches)
If I was to buy a console I would buy a ps3 no matter what MDN thinks of sony!
I still read MDN for the news though!
Ok about the Sony thing, its interesting to see the justice system forcing a music company to provide iPod compatible music in a settlement. I wonder if it could have implication for the future…
As for the PS3 (and Xbob 360), I don’t care much. I’m 30 and the current video-games best-sellers don’t appeal to me, I don’t care how racing game have become very realist, its still the same boring game mechanics (turn right, left, break, accelerate). This obsession with war and violent games also bothers me, and I don’t have this mysterious phobia of bright colors. The Nintendo Revolution is exactly the kind of system I want, plain and simple.
When Nintendo naysayers sound like Apple naysayers, it tells you a lot about their similarities…
Apple didn’t invent the mouse, they were pioneers into implementing it and releasing it as a consumer item. They did invent many things while developping the Mac, things that Xerox and others didn’t have.
Nintendo didn’t invent the analog stick, they were the first to push it as a main control input for a game console.Why didn’t Sony include an analog stick when they released the PS1? Amongst other things, Nintendo did invent the D-Pad, a thing we take for granted today. They also hold many patents on videogames related things.
Before Donkey Kong, there was nothing like it, same with Super Mario Bros., Zelda, Metroid, they defined whole genres in themselves. You may find games looking like them being released in the same period, but only after they were released…
Naysayers are narrowing down definition of innovation to suit their needs. People that don’t see how Apple and Nintendo were and still are innovators are either missinformed or blinding themselves to the obvious. Read the history of those two companies, in detail, not just some exerpt on a blog.
I could go on and on listing the “similarities” between both companies, but let’s just look at the latest: the remote controls…
Take the Front-Row remote, and the Revolution “remote-shaped” controller and put them side by side. Isn’t it obvious?
Oh and before I complete this long post, the Revolution controller is much more than any cheezy accessories released before like the eye-toy or PowerGlove. It can sense not only X and Y position, but also Z, and rotation around to axis. It’s also much more precise than any “similar” controllers released before for consoles. And the main difference is that Nintendo is pushing it as the primary controller input, so developpers will have to use it.
Something else occured to me. It’s amazing how easy Sony is being let off by this. Remember these are the same people who are pushing for jail time for people who download music illegally off P2P.