Friday, November 11, 2005
California
,
Italy
and
New York
are the first to bring litigation against
Sony BMG
's
digital rights management
(DRM) software found in at least 20 music discs released by Sony. The software automatically installs after the user agrees to a
end user license agreement
(EULA) before the music disc can be played, and includes a
rootkit
that can create vulnerabilities in the user's
Windows
computer. One
trojan horse
exploiting the hole has already been discovered online.
The California lawsuit, filed on November 1, claims that the software violates the Consumer Legal Remedies Act, the Consumer Protection Against Computer Spyware Act, and the California Unfair Competition Law. The upcoming lawsuit in New York would seek restitution for consumers nationwide.
Mathew Gilliat-Smith, the CEO of
First 4 Internet
, the company that created the software, claims it is "benign content." Meanwhile, in an
NPR
interview, a Sony BMG Music Entertainment Vice President said, "Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
Sony and First 4 Internet have released "patches" and uninstall kits, after programmer
Mark Russinovich
discovered the hidden files from the rootkit. However, these uninstall kits are only installable online through an
ActiveX application
, a technology many security experts advise users to deactivate due to its high execution privileges on host computers.
In addition to questions of legality, the DRM software has come under fire from media rights activists and even artists who unwittingly found their albums more stringently protected than they approved of. Furthermore, Sony's DRM software "phones home" each time one of their CDs is played. The license agreement does not reveal this behavior, nor does it acknowledge the existence of the rootkit itself.
Thomas Hesse of Sony BMG recently told the San Francisco Chronicle that 60 percent of Sony BMG CDs released in the United States currently have copy protection measures, and that they aim to hit 100 percent by early 2006.
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This page is
archived
, and is no longer publicly editable.
Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.
Got a correction? Add the template {{
editprotected
}} to the
talk page
along with your corrections, and it will be
brought to the attention of
the
administrators
.
Please note that due to our
archival policy
, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.
Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.
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