Sony BMG - Beware

[Mobay45]

In Australia, a rootkit is a six pack and a condom.

LOL!!!

 

[philthygeezer]

In Australia, a rootkit is a six pack and a condom.

HAHAHA!!!



I think the artists should get (say) 2% royalty on all the songs they sell, and that yes, 99 cents is the upper limit of what I would pay.


Sony has been attempting to foist proprietary crap on all of us for years now. One only needs to look at their memory sticks and so-called 'mp3 players'.

And every time they issue another proprietary piece of crap, another legion of us boycott their products. I haven't bought a Sony product in years, and refuse to do so. I won't be messed with by a company who thinks its morality ought to be imposed to be followed. Or one that makes me buy stuff that only fits their products.

And the RIAA already gets royalties on all the blank CDs I buy for backing up data not closely related to music or sound. They have no sympathy from me either. The artists are the ones who deserve to make a buck for a change.

For the past five years I've only bought CDs from local talent at their live shows. Support your local artists: let's see a renaissance of real talent and leave the 3-minute radio format songs behind. Back in the day we could lose ourselves in songs like Dire Straits' 'Telegraph road': Works of art sometimes take longer than 3 minutes!

 

[bovinehost]

This is not recommended for the faint of heart, but it appeals to me.

Geeks rawk!

 

[phatduckk]

And the RIAA already gets royalties on all the blank CDs I buy for backing up data not closely related to music or sound.

i think, if i remember correctly, they only get royalties for the blank cds that are labeled "For Music" ... so if you see a blank CD that claims its "for music" dont buy it. theyre all the same

 

[tkarter]

They still only have power over Windoze users.


tk

 

[Steve Dude Barr]

Way too much reading in this thread right now as I listen to a bootleg CD set of the Lakland 10th Anniversary Concert...

 

[phatduckk]

the simple solution (aka the "not too much to read" version):

windows folks ... just disable autorun for your CD and dont click on the CD icon in My Computer ... open your media player of choice and point it at your CD when you wanna here some tunes.

 

[tkarter]

Yeah auto run is what you oughta do when you are thinking about buying the Windoze PC.


tk

 

[oldbluebassman]

Sony is being killed by Samsung in the consumer electronics arena. In the old days if you knew little about tvs and stuff you bought sony, now you buy samsung. HOW COULD YOU SCREW UP THE WALKMAN!!!!!!!!! Business schools will be studying this for decades.

Hey BP, it doesn't start or stop there.

In 2003 I was retired from Sony after 25 years. When I joined they only made TVs and HiFis but wanted to get into the broadcast and professonal equipment markets. The first step was to go after the market leader Ampex - remember them, the guys that invented video recording.

From 1978 through til the late 80s it was onward and upward as the product range grew and competitors fell by the wayside. Sony became all dominant. Then along comes an upstart company called AVID. Video editing on a computer. "It'll never catch on and anyway it will destroy the VTR market". Well it did catch on and Sony lost a huge market share. Then technology and operational philosophy changed and Sony was on the slippery slope.

Sony's strength was in its core technology. Recorders, Trinitron displays and cameras, and making them cheaply to a high standard. The Recorder market is shrinking fast as VHS recorders are replaced by hard-disk or DVD recorders plus as you say Walkman is dead but trying to rise again. Trintrons are dead, in fact they've closed the CRT factories and as far as I know Sony doesn't have any core flat panel technology which leaves cameras, which are good but competition is stiff.

It was no surprise to see the appointment of the first non-Japanese CEO this year. They are struggling and jobs will go, just like in Ampex and all the other companies that fell by the wayside as they grew.

I'm afraid "What goes around comes around".

 

[Colin]

Look's like Sony heard you Jack:

Sony recalls millions of CDs
Correspondents in New York
NOVEMBER 17, 2005

SONY BMG has recalled millions of music CDs with a controversial copy protection software that experts said could expose personal computers to viruses and hackers.

Sony BMG, one of the world's biggest music companies, said it was ending the use of the software provided by a third-party vendor and allowing consumers who purchased CDs to exchange them for similar items without the software.
The joint venture of Japan's Sony and German-based BMG reacted to a firestorm of protests and the threat of legal action over its use of the so-called XCP copy protection software.

When one of the CDs is inserted into a PC, the XCP software can modify computer settings and, according to some experts, expose the computers to a variety of malicious software programs.

"We deeply regret any inconvenience this may cause our customers and we are committed to making this situation right," Sony BMG said.

"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."

Sony said it was halting the use of the copy protection software developed by First4Internet, and providing technical data to anti-virus companies to help fix any problems on affected PCs.

One security firm, Internet Security Systems, went so far as to label the copy protection in the CDs as "malware," or malicious software, noting that it did not allow consumers the ability to remove it.

"This software actively attempts to hide its presence from users and does not offer uninstall functionality," ISS said.

"The software also provides a cloaking mechanism that is being used by different trojans to hide their presence," it said, referring to a common type of computer virus.

 

[SteveB]

Thanks Colin!


I love it! hahahha.. Sony eats some sh*t!

 

[tkarter]

Yeah but if you get it on 3 computers that are on the Internet full time it will spread without anyone sticking a new CD in the computer.

tk

 

[Golem]

The real problems generated by piracy have nothing to do with regular consumers like us. Go to any 'flea market' type thing in Asia or Latin America (probably elsewhere, too) and you can find any title you like, pirated by guys who are not at all like us. Big factories.

Do you think rootkit chokeholds slow them down? Of course not.

Well, that is about all it will or could do, just slow them down, just a little. As mentioned in another post, the "analog hole" is always there. If bootleggers copy movies right off the theatre screen with camcorders [how analog can you get...], and they still get repeat customers, then making a new, unprotected "master" music CD before cranking out zillions of bootleg copies is not a barrier, just a brief slowdown. And if the bootleggers go with Mac or Unix [as also in another post] they need not even waste their time on re-ripping to out the Sony sneakware.