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Sony Rootkit Settlement Gets Judge's Approval
Posted by
Zonk
on Tue May 23, 2006 10:06 AM
from the yay-free-music dept.
from the yay-free-music dept.
Lewis Clarke wrote to mention a ZDNet story about Monday's final approval of the rootkit settlement in the case brought against Sony BMG Music. From the article: "The agreement covers anyone who bought, received or used CDs containing what was revealed to be flawed digital rights management (DRM) software after Aug. 1, 2003. Those customers can file a claim and receive certain benefits, such as a nonprotected replacement CD, free downloads of music from that CD and additional cash payments ... At least 15 different lawsuits were filed by class action lawyers against the record label, and the New York cases were eventually consolidated into one proceeding. The parties reached a preliminary settlement with Sony BMG in December, leaving it up to a judge in a U.S. District Court in New York to make it official. "
Related Stories
[+]
Sony, Amazon Detail Rootkit CD Buybacks 240 comments
An anonymous reader writes "Washingtonpost.com is reporting that Sony BMG today detailed a program that should allow customers who bought one of the 52 titles known to be tainted with the company's deeply flawed anti-piracy software to exchange them for CDs of the same title, sans rootkit of course. Oddly enough, Sony is offering those who want to return the CDs the chance to download MP3 versions of the discs, but only after Sony has received the returned discs. Amazon.com also is sending out e-mails to customers who bought the discs, offering to replace or refund them at no cost."
[+]
IT: Sony DRM Installs a Rootkit? 801 comments
An anonymous read writes "SysInternals.com guru Mark Russinovich has a detailed investigation of a rootkit from Sony Music. It's installed with a DRM-encumbered music CD, Van Zant's "Get Right with the Man". (Mmmm, delicious irony!) The rootkit introduces several security holes into the system that could be exploited by others, such as hiding any executable file that starts with '$sys$'. Russinovich also identifies several programming bugs in the method it uses to hook system calls, and chronicles the painful steps he had to take to 'exorcise the daemon' from his system." This house is clear.
[+]
Sony Rootkit may Lead to Regulation 266 comments
An anonymous reader writes "Computerworld has a story about DHS officials meeting with Sony to read them the riot act, following the rootkit fiasco. From the story: 'A U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official warned today that if software distributors continue to sell products with dangerous rootkit software, as Sony BMG Music Entertainment recently did, legislation or regulation could follow.'"
[+]
EFF Pushes Consumers to Claim Rootkit Compensation 189 comments
An anonymous reader writes "'It's time for music fans who bought Sony BMG CDs loaded with harmful XCP or MediaMax copy protection to claim their settlement benefits', says the EFF's Derek Slater in an awareness campaign that is urging those inflicted with one of Sony BMG's rootkit infected CDs to collect what is due to them. The compensation is a DRM-free version of the original CD, $7.50, and album downloads from iTunes, Sony Connect, and others."
[+]
Entertainment: Canadian Sony Rootkit Settlement Stirs Controversy 96 comments
An anonymous reader writes "Canadian law professor Michael Geist is reporting
that Sony BMG Canada has quietly kept a key legal document secret as part of
its class action settlement over last year's rootkit case. The
document, which is not on the Sony settlement
site but has now been posted
on Geist's site (pdf), contains a series of bogus arguments about why
Canadians are receiving far less than U.S. consumers."
[+]
Sony Settles With FTC Over Rootkits 133 comments
The FTC has struck a deal with Sony punishing Sony for the rootkits it included on millions of CDs in 2005. The deal is exactly like the Texas and California settlements — $150 a rootkit. The settlement isn't final yet. There will be a 30-day public consultation. American citizens who read Slashdot might want to put in their two cents. Comments will be accepted through March 1 at: FTC, Office of the Secretary, Room H-135, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20580 (snail mail only). Here is the FTC page announcing the settlement.
[+]
Sony Sues Rootkit Maker 334 comments
flyboy974 writes "Sony BMG Music Entertainment is suing the company that developed anti-piracy software for its CDs, claiming the technology was defective and cost the record company millions of dollars to settle consumer complaints and government investigations. The software in question is the MediaMax CD protection system, widely derided as a rootkit. Sony BMG is seeking to recover some $12 million in damages from the Phoenix-based technology company, according to court papers filed July 3."
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Wow! A replacement CD! (Score:4, Interesting)
At the end of all your time, you still can't claim the replacement CD + download + patch, (let alone compensation for your lost time) because you didn't buy the offending CD (it was a temp receptionist).
I really want to see someone go after Sony for a real settlement. For that matter, I'd like to see a government go after Sony. Corporations have the same rights as individuals, how about we give them the same responsibilities as well. I think a four or five years of community service for the entire company (say 20 hours a week), would be about what's deserved for a widespread crack attempt like this.
Re:Wow! A replacement CD! (Score:5, Insightful)
Cause clearly a filing clerk working at a completely unrelated division of Sony should be punished for this.
</sarcasm>
Parent
Re:Wow! A replacement CD! (Score:3, Interesting)
You know, if I worked as a filing clerk, and got to do 20 hours / week cleaning the local church or helping old people or something whilst getting paid for and not doing my normal work I wouldn't consider it punishment.
But, what I meant was Sony as a company, doing the equivilant of 20 hours community service per week per employee for four-five years. They could pay others to do it, pay their employee
Re:Wow! A replacement CD! (Score:4, Insightful)
At least this will put record companies off this kind of behaviour.
Parent
Re:Wow! A replacement CD! (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree it sets a precedent. However, it's not the kind of precedent it should have set. It sets the precedent that a large corporation can do things that are completely illegal and cause widespread damage to the public and they'll just get a slap on the wrist.
A replacement CD, and a few DRM's music files doesn't exactly make up for the huge amounts of time it has taken and will take to fix their damage.
I know of a few computers just in my family that had this rootkit on it. My youngest brother is in college and the school provides a laptop to every student that the school maintains through an IT dept. They had to reimage his system when things got screwed up. My dad has a couple computers at work that got this thing. He had to reload everything on one and IT had to reload the other one. That was just from one CD that had been played on those computers.
There are countless people that have had to spend many many hours fixing what Sony did. What they did was illegal and very damaging. All they have to do is replace some CDs.
Parent
Re:Wow! A replacement CD! (Score:4, Insightful)
If this were the only action taken, sure. Fortunately, however, the *really* scary thing for Sony happened very early on: the DHS said they're choosing not to enforce the law on this basically because it was the first time any company had made this mistake, so they'll give the company the benefit of the doubt that it wasn't a deliberate attack. This one time.
Sony broke federal law (section 1030) many thousands of times, and the Feds noticed. Installing a rootkit on a computer owned by the government (one not for public use) is a crime even if you never use that rootikit for anything, and Sony was using it for profit. The DHS spokeman hinted that the only reason that Sony was still allowed to sell any product in the US was that the DHS was being nice, this one time.
This court settlement was nothing; the threat that Sony would no longer have a US division was everyhting.
Parent
Re:Wow! A replacement CD! (Score:4, Insightful)
Companies have directly plotted to murder a percentage of the population in some towns and gotten away with paying less in fines than it would have cost them to avoid killing the people in the first place. Even after it was revealed that this had been the prediction of estimates given to management before it made the decision. (The case was in Georgia, and I believe [with imperfect certainty] that the company was Dow Corning]. It involved the intentional poisoning of a town's water supply by illegally disposing of chemicals. It was a federal court.)
Parent
Re:Wow! A replacement CD! (Score:4, Insightful)
Not if you opted out. Which EVERYBODY should do to class action suits.
The more people that opt of of class action suits, the less likely the punishment is to be a "slap on the wrist". The last thing Sony wants is a bunch of individuals out there with money hungry lawyers free from the confines of the class action settlement. It makes the class action settlement worthless.
We enable the slaps on the wrists because 99.9% of us don't take the time/effort to opt out of class-action scams.
As usual, the enablers of this nonsense is us.
Parent
Re:Wow! A replacement CD! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wow! A replacement CD! (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me rephrase your question.
Why don't you blame the temp recpetionist for playing a music CD, instead of the amoral, multinational corporation that placed a piece of malignant software, designed to cripple the way a computer works on said music CD.
Parent
Re:Wow! A replacement CD! (Score:3, Interesting)
TFA: "Sony BMG still faces a separate lawsuit "over materially the same subject matter" from the Texas attorney general."
I've been trying to get Greg Abbott (TX's AG) to go after the antivirus companies, refuse to settle, and various other things that might keep this from getting swept under the rug. This was a devious and dangerous product that was released, not a minor technical flaw in a few CDs.
That's why I take Major issue (below) with the phrase "flawed digital rig
Re:Wow! A replacement CD! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Wow! A replacement CD! (Score:5, Informative)
Nothing is preventing you from filing a claim against them. From the court settlement notice:
http://www.sonybmgcdtechsettlement.com/Notice.htm [sonybmgcdt...lement.com]
NOTE: the "Do Nothing" option is also for anyone who didn't buy the CD, whose computer was damaged because someone else loaded the CD onto their machine, etc. (for example, a temp office worker decided to listen to the CD and infected a PC). Write Sony, state your claim (number of pcs affected, time lost) and that you are not part of the class settlement and would like to know what they're offering you to avoid court action.
Heck, up here small claims handles stuff like this up to $7,000.00 If I were affected, I'd send them a demand/notice, wait 10 working days, then pay the filing fee. If enough people did this, they'd make a SERIOUS offer, one in line with the actual damages.
Parent
Re:Wow! A replacement CD! (Score:5, Insightful)
I like that idea but for most of us small claims and legal stuff is unknown territory. Most of us don't know what to do from start to finish because we haven't done anything like that before. I would like to see (as in, someone else do it :)) someone like Groklaw post templates and procedures for filing small claims specific to a case. e.g.: how to stick it to Sony in small claims.
All the research of what to do is too difficult and I'm lazy and a bit intimidated. If it were made easier, I would do it and I'm willing to bet a lot of others would too.
A thousand people each filing small claims at $500 a pop would be more potent then one lawyer representing a thousand people in a class action. Think "Slashdot Effect" in the legal sphere. It might even set a legal/business precedent: don't screw your customers so bad that they'll mobilize against you.
I'm willing to overcome my laziness and contribute, but I need help and direction. Others need it too.
Parent
Re:Wow! A replacement CD! (Score:4)
Print out all the stuff where its obvious that Sony is in the wrong, and then a summary of your time that was wasted fixing this (a reformat, reinstall, and then reinstall of all software, and restore data from backups) + filing fee, if any, for the small claims action, + postage for the demand letter.
Parent
Opt-in website (Score:5, Informative)
The solutions given almost don't seem worth it, but I'll probably opt-in anyway just so that little bit of money gets drained from Sony so they don't do this again.
Re:Opt-in website (Score:5, Insightful)
Sony is getting away with basically paying nothing here. Sure, they'll put it on their books as having cost so many millions in lost revenue or whatever for tax purposes, but the actual cost is pretty much zero.
Parent
Flawed? (Score:5, Insightful)
If... (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone should be incarcerated over this.
LK
Re:If... (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:If... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sound harsh? I'm a professional engineer. I own a corporation. If somehting bad happens due to my negligence in a design, I am still personally responisible, and can (1) lose my license to practice (2) lose my corporate authorization to do business (3) face financial penalties (4) be found guilty of various criminal offenses personally for acts done as a managing officer of the corporation. I only ask that Sony be held to the same standard.
Oh, and while I'm at it, I'd like world peace, too.
Parent
I'm sorry, but that's not enough (Score:5, Insightful)
Just like when Ford and Bridgestone decided to go ahead and release the exploding tires. Sure a few people got killed, but we can't press criminal charges! These are our captains of the industry! Reason #122,234 that this country is seriously messed up.
Worthless! (Score:5, Insightful)
You are Living in a Empire, get over it. (Score:5, Insightful)
While you serve the sufferance of the 5% of the families in this empire that own 95% of everything here, please be advised that you do not and cannot own:
Any sort of source code, any sort of music, any sort of transportation, any energy source.
You can however, license it from said 5% of the population here that own 95% of everything else.
You may buy a "rights" upgrade to your license to do as you please here, if you get caught violating the law. But bear in mind, sometimes we have to not accept your cash so we can calm the masses and throw them a "justice bone". In that instance should it happen, your "rights" license is null and void.
Above all else, while you are here please be advised that any government official can be purchased for a limited time depending on how much cash you have, and how much influence you want.
Just do not make it obvious and please use foreign banks to make sure transactions are not traceable.
Thank You and enjoy your stay!
-The Empire USA
Re:How much $$ did the lawyers get? (Score:4, Informative)
You can read more about it here: http://sonysuit.com/ [sonysuit.com]
Parent