Sony Repents Over CD Debacle

schnikies79 writes "Sony BMG is rethinking its anti-piracy policy following weeks of criticism over the copy protection used on CDs. The head of Sony BMG's global digital business, Thomas Hesse, told the BBC that the company was 're-evaluating' its current methods. This follows widespread condemnation of the way anti-piracy software on some Sony CDs installs itself on computers. The admission came as Sony faced more censure over the security failings of one of its copy protection programs."

Consumer Trust

[N8F8]

I'm sure even Sony's dimwit management has to realize that they are losing sales due to slipping consumer trust. As media devices become more intelligent, the opportunities for manufacturers to secretely audit and control your use of media will increase. Trust wil become more and more important. Two years ago Sony was on my golden halo list of clever manufacturers. First I bought a Vaio computer and ran into severe issues upgrading the OS. Then I noticed that they keep pushing for proprietary formats for encoding and storage. Now this. Today a guy brought in a nifty looking PSP and all I could think of was what DRM easter eggs are waiting for the unwitting consumer.

Re:Re-evaluation != repentance.

[mellon]

What I want to know is what protects artists from dumb-ass corporate moves?

Nothing at all. In fact, unless the corporation has assumed liability on behalf of the artists, the artist is theoretically liable for damage caused by the CD that installed the malware. In the publishing industry, if you are worried about being sued, you have to get your own liability insurance - the publisher isn't going to indemnify you.

This situation is a bit different because the publisher added the malware, not the artist, but it's still not out of the question for the artist to be named in the lawsuit and wind up having to spend money disputing the assertion that they might be liable.

Of course, the artist can also sue the publisher for putting the malware on their CD, and in fact it wouldn't surprise me if we start seeing lawsuits from these artists, because regardless of whether or not they are sued, the fact that the music they've published isn't getting to the fans because of this fiasco is costing them money, and possibly also fans.

Words are cheap.

[Spy der Mann]

We want UNINSTALL. And I don't mean an "inhabilitating patch", i mean a full uninstall of the rootkit.

Sony BMG and Sony Music

[ucblockhead]

What often gets lost in all this is that "Sony BMG" is a joint venture owned equally by Sony and Bertelsman and is NOT the same thing as "Sony Music". AFAIK, they are fairly independent of each other. I do not know if all this copy protection bullshit was added before or after Sony acquired half of BMG, but I am pretty sure that Mr. Hesse does not at all speak for Sony music.

Re:Not too hard

[Anonymous Coward]

It's posible to watermark music in a way that crosses to analog and back.

Um, not. Do you have a source for this?

I dimly recall one or two stories (I think on /., but maybe I saw them somewhere else) a few years ago about some research team claiming they had come up with a watermarking scheme that could persist even after being played from loudspeakers and into an arbitrary room, with microphones (re-)recording somewhere in that room.

Thing is, AFAIK this went nowhere, because it's bunk. If you can't hear it, any decent psychoacoustic-based codec (MP3, AAC, etc.) will throw it out during compression. And if you can hear it, then it's bothersome from the get-go and so would be totally unacceptable as a watermarking method for music in the broad consumer market.

One way to highlight the key idea that the music industry bozos-in-charge don't understand is to point at the near-ubiquity of MP3 (at 128kbps, natch). The popularity of that format -- at that bitrate -- conclusively demonstrates that "near-CD quality" is good enough for the vast majority of listeners. Since the degradation you get from running a line out into a decent sound card is less than that, it follows that any audible recording can and will be ripped into unprotected digital files no matter what DRM or watermarking said bozos choose to implement.

/CF

Re:Not too hard

[geekoid]

But the trhings they do as an advantge, were't nearlty as good as the things that they lost. recordability. At the time.

See a similiar trend there? attempt to remove the technolgy that wasn't controllable, cassettes, and replace it with a technology that was.
Of course they failed, becasue market forces allowed consumers to still do what they want. In this case, make recording to share and listen elsewhere.

Re:No need for a cost/benefit analysis

[OzPhIsH]

"Neil Diamond's new CD opened in the top ten, then sank down into the mid 50's the following week when the news about Sony DRM hit. Same goes for new CD's by their other major stars. The artists this affects are already mighty pissed."

Now I'm not saying that the news about Sony DRM didn't affect the slides of these albums down the billboard charts, but certainly other factors that need to be considered. Really, was Neil Diamond's latest really destined for anything more than 1 week in the top 10? Probably not. I would imagine most all the Neil Diamond fans bought the album in the first week. The slide down the charts is probably the result of the rest of us not giving a fuck about Neil Diamond, or about any other of those artists. I know I don't.

XCP CD's still on the shelf

[tube013]

I was out at Best Buy today, and was looking at a few cds. And came across a whole stack of cds with the suppossedly recalled xcp copy protection. I thought about saying something to the store. Sort of bewilders me that this shit is still sitting on shelves at the store. I almost bought one so I could join in the class action lawsuits.

Re:Not too hard

[Ken D]

Well, yes and no,

look at DAT and MiniDisc. Both had DRM, and both went nowhere in the mass market. I guess you could add Divx to that too.

Re:No need for a cost/benefit analysis

[ChrisKnight]

"Neil Diamond's new CD opened in the top ten, then sank down into the mid 50's the following week when the news about Sony DRM hit. Same goes for new CD's by their other major stars."

You don't think this had anything to do with Sony pulling these CDs off the shelves when the shitstorm hitr the media? I'm pretty sure having the albums unavailable in stores had a lot to do with the sales numbers dropping.

-Chris