DRM going way to far

[suryad]

Download TweakUI from Microsoft Powertools. Lets you fiddle safely with all kind of basic tweak settings.

Thanks but why download a util when you can hack the registry?

 

[Geo]

Even the Dept. of Homeland Security is chiding companies for excessive DRM.

Well, good on them! Haven't felt the urge to say that lately, it's nice to be able to do so.

And what a great statement and paradigm. This is, in my view, the fundamental difficulty from the IP owners end --many of them are not much better then the pirates in not giving a rats ass about the other fellows legitimate rights and concerns.

Edit: Softened to "many of them" for any honorable exceptions out there.

 

[Silanda]

This is interesting if true, so much for Sony's respect for copyrights: http://dewinter.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=215

 

[Tim Murray]

Does anyone really believe copyright will exist in regards to digital media within 25 years? Considering copyright arose out of a desire to protect content publishers, not content creators, it seems as though it is no longer necessary in its current form thanks to the intrinsic properties of digital media (the lack of a notion of an original, for example, and the fundamental ability to create identical copies). Copyright makes sense only when an author must rely on large amounts of capital to distribute his works (which implies the need for a publisher, who must then recoup those costs); it does not make sense when the number of copies that can be "produced" cheaply is far beyond possible demand.

 

[YeuEmMaiMai]

Well Sony has done it now..they managed to cheese off MS and MS will be issuing a tool to remove this crap from the Windows OS.

 

[Saem]

http://www.bash.org/?577451

This sums my feelings up about EULAs and various copy protection schemes.

 

[silence]

read this....

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004145.php

1. If your house gets burgled, you have to delete all your music from your laptop when you get home. That's because the EULA says that your rights to any copies terminate as soon as you no longer possess the original CD.

2. You can't keep your music on any computers at work. The EULA only gives you the right to put copies on a "personal home computer system owned by you."

3. If you move out of the country, you have to delete all your music. The EULA specifically forbids "export" outside the country where you reside.

4. You must install any and all updates, or else lose the music on your computer. The EULA immediately terminates if you fail to install any update. No more holding out on those hobble-ware downgrades masquerading as updates.

5. Sony-BMG can install and use backdoors in the copy protection software or media player to "enforce their rights" against you, at any time, without notice. And Sony-BMG disclaims any liability if this "self help" crashes your computer, exposes you to security risks, or any other harm.

6. The EULA says Sony-BMG will never be liable to you for more than $5.00. That's right, no matter what happens, you can't even get back what you paid for the CD.

7. If you file for bankruptcy, you have to delete all the music on your computer. Seriously.

8. You have no right to transfer the music on your computer, even along with the original CD.

9. Forget about using the music as a soundtrack for your latest family photo slideshow, or mash-ups, or sampling. The EULA forbids changing, altering, or make derivative works from the music on your computer.

they took a better look at Sony's EULA.....

 

[Mintmaster]

This is interesting if true, so much for Sony's respect for copyrights: http://dewinter.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=215

That's pretty shocking.

Previously, judges in Germany already forced various companies to release source code to the public and to deliver the goods necessary for compiling. It is also possible to demand financial compensation for damages.

Could this mean this nasty software will become open source for all the virus/spyware coders to take advantage of? Well, I guess they're doing that already, I suppose.

 

[silence]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4434852.stm

Microsoft to remove Sony CD code

Sony's controversial anti-piracy CD software has been labelled as spyware by Microsoft.

now this will certainly hurt Sony in all those lawsuits and i guess there will be even more now that M$ labelled it as spyware....

 

[cloudscapes]

I guess I,m not affected as a lot of people since most of the CDs I have (and a buy a LOT these days, 10-20+ a month) originate from independant artists and labels (constellation, alien8, many good underground rock/electronic, among others) who put no form of copy protection on their albums (in many cases, they can't even afford it, if they wanted to). Also, most are pretty lax about show taping for non-profit distribution, which says a lot about their views on copyright.

But it affects me to know that Sony are helping with this bastardization of copyright and media distribution. what happened to the good old days of making copies of mixtapes for friends? If you have this much trouble making a copy for *yourself* then the future of the media industry looks pretty bleak.

 

[silence]

when one publisher gets kicked in the balls... and i truely hope Sony will for this.... maybe other will change their approach to DRM issue. i do not expect them to give up on DRM, i just want fair play. and what Sony did is way beyong fair play.....

lawsuits will prolly end against Sony and i hope they will have to pay shitloads of money for what they did.... this isnt about me being anti-Sony, its about me being against this kind of DRM. there is _NO_ justification in the world for installing rootkits on your customers computers .... you want to protect your property? do it LEGALLY!!!!... last time i checked rootkits were illegal...

and for Sony... i have this ->

 

[_xxx_]

That was not all yet:

The more disturbing part is that it appears the control is signed. I wonder who at MS approved this, and how this blatant security hole got through the barest minimum of QC? Moral, if you bought Sony products, you are screwed. If it causes you problems, you are screwed more. If you uninstall, you are screwed yet harder. If you uninstall it yourself, you are a criminal under the DMCA. If you use an antivirus program to uninstall it, you spent money to fix Sony's problems, and you are still a criminal. That's what you get for buying music

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=27714

Hilarious.

 

[Xenus]

They really have something against Sony recently don't they. I'm not saying the rootkit thing isn't bad because it is but theinquirer seemed to have issues with Sony before this came to light.

 

[AlphaWolf]

They really have something against Sony recently don't they. I'm not saying the rootkit thing isn't bad because it is but theinquirer seemed to have issues with Sony before this came to light.

I've never noticed a particular bias against sony at theinq (well not any moreso than any other media giant). They are just catering to their target market.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

They really have something against Sony recently don't they. I'm not saying the rootkit thing isn't bad because it is but theinquirer seemed to have issues with Sony before this came to light.

That's because Sony deserve it. It's such a comedy of errors and incompetence, it's no wonder TheInq can't leave them alone. Sony have made mistake after mistake:

1. Sony silently installs badly programmed rootkit.
2. Rootkit is used by hackers and game cheats.
3. Sony denies problem
4. Issues patch that only unstealths kit while increasing DRM.
5. Refuses to release uninstall unless you agress to be spammed on their marketing lists.
6. Releases ActiveX uninstaller that opens your system to more hacking because it's signed "script safe".
7. Turns out rootkit player breaches copyright by using parts of LAME without following licence agreement.
8. Weeks later, after much pressure, including virus companies and Microsoft saying they will remove the rootkit, and several class-action suits in different countries, Sony finally says they will "suspend" production of rootkit trojans. Pity they've already sold over a million trojanned CDs over the last 8 months.

 

[silence]

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1887181,00.asp

Kaminsky, who is known for his novel security research on core Internet components like the TCP/IP communications protocol, identified systems running the copy protection software from First 4 Internet using a technique called "DNS cache sniffing." Kaminsky searched through the saved (or "cached") DNS requests submitted to a large number of the world's publicly accessible DNS servers and looked for requests for domains associated with the XCP software, such as update.xcp-aurora.com and connected.sonymusic.com.

looks like rootkit was phoning home....

The search turned up almost one million references to the XCP and Sony domains. Kaminsky weeded out duplicate or forwarded requests from that number and narrowed the list down to 568,000 requests from unique IP addresses on the Internet.

568,000 IP adresses could mean much more infected computers..... many large organisation have one IP and dozens if not thousends computers connecting with that IP....


latest from INQ.....
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=27719

sometimes you have to like INQ.....



just found this :

Also on this topic, Matt Nikki in the comments section discovered that the DRM can be bypassed simply by renaming your favourite ripping program with "$sys$" at the start of the filename and ripping the CD using this file, which is now undetectable even by the Sony DRM. You can use the Sony rootkit itself to bypass their own DRM!"

muahahaha...... this is too funny to be true....

 

[silence]

about uninstaller....

The root of the problem is a serious design flaw in Sony’s web-based uninstaller. When you first fill out Sony’s form to request a copy of the uninstaller, the request form downloads and installs a program – an ActiveX control created by the DRM vendor, First4Internet – called CodeSupport. CodeSupport remains on your system after you leave Sony’s site, and it is marked as safe for scripting, so any web page can ask CodeSupport to do things. One thing CodeSupport can be told to do is download and install code from an Internet site. Unfortunately, CodeSupport doesn’t verify that the downloaded code actually came from Sony or First4Internet. This means any web page can make CodeSupport download and install code from any URL without asking the user’s permission.

A malicious web site author can write an evil program, package up that program appropriately, put the packaged code at some URL, and then write a web page that causes CodeSupport to download and run code from that URL. If you visit that web page with Internet Explorer, and you have previously requested Sony’s uninstaller, then the evil program will be downloaded, installed, and run on your computer, immediately and automatically. Your goose will be cooked.

 

[Zaphod]

Sony BMG, after a valiant (not) battle, finally sounds the retreat signal: Sony recalls risky 'rootkit' CDs.

Anyone who has purchased one of the CDs, which include southern rockers Van Zant, Neil Diamond's latest album, and more than 18 others, can exchange the purchase, Sony said. The company added that it would release details of its CD exchange program "shortly."

Sony reported that over the past eight months it shipped more than 4.7 million CDs with the so-called XCP copy protection. More than 2.1 million of those discs have been sold.

Edit:
Sony BMG statement
Mark's Sysinternals Blog

 

[silence]

it took them 2 weeks to say how many were shipped and sold.... thaz shit should have been removed ASAP when it was discovered. i really wanna watch what will Sony do in court...

 

[mangrove]

The Evil