Posted on Tuesday, November 15 @ 17:52:49 GMT by tinfoil
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It has been a busy couple of weeks for Sony. First they get busted with not one, but two rootkits on their audio CDs. They are then hit with lawsuits in Italy and the U.S.A. and finally a virus has been spotted in the wild that takes advantage of one of the rootkits ability to hide programs, processes and files from the Windows PC user. Still, they've only made some half-hearted attempts to fix the situation, with a half-baked patch and an uninstaller that the user has to jump through hoops to get. They've also stopped making CDs with these DRM schemes on them, yet they've not offered to replace the CDs or pulled the CDs out of the market-place.
Well, that is, until now.
Starting today, Sony is requesting all retailers to pull affected titles from store shelves. About 20 titles are involved, from Dave Matthews to Foo Fighters. It has said it will follow up later this week with information on how to get replacement CDs that do not contain the dangerous DRM schemes.
Affected CDs aren't necessarily clearly labeled as such. To be sure, flip the CD over and look near the bottom of the back of the case for the text: cp.sonybmg.com/xcp
"Sony BMG deeply regrets any inconvenience to our customers and remains committed to providing an enjoyable and safe music experience."
Some artists whos CDs where affected by the malware have spoken out against it, including Van Zant manager Ross Schilling. "I said we've got to be proactive, or it could destroy the business model," Schilling says. "Sony should be in the artist business, promoting and selling records. This type of issue sheds a negative light on their ability to do that." Van Zant's Get Right with the Man was the CD that kicked this all off.
Sony has certainly seen more than their allotment of negative light due to this issue, and rightly so given how deeply their software invades the PC it is installed on. Indeed, it is worse than some of the early AOL software.
SONY BMG STATEMENT
We are aware that a computer virus is circulating that may affect computers with XCP content protection software. The XCP software is included on a limited number of SONY BMG content protected titles. This potential problem has no effect on the use of these discs in conventional, non-computer-based, CD and DVD players.
In response to these events, SONY BMG has swiftly provided a patch to all major anti-virus companies and to the general public that guards against precisely the type of virus now said to exist. The patch fixes the possible software problem, and still allows CDs to be played on personal computers. It can be downloaded at
http://cp.sonybmg.com/xcp/. Starting today, we will also be adding this link to the SONY BMG label and corporate sites. We deeply regret any possible inconvenience this may cause.
We stand by content protection technology as an important tool to protect our intellectual property rights and those of our artists. Nonetheless, as a precautionary measure, SONY BMG is temporarily suspending the manufacture of CDs containing XCP technology. We also intend to re-examine all aspects of our content protection initiative to be sure that it continues to meet our goals of security and ease of consumer use. More information about our content protection initiative can also be found at:
http://cp.sonybmg.com/xcp.