| Why SonyBMG is really Apple's best friend! | | Date Created: 07 Nov, 2005, 01:41 AM |
 Have you been following the antics of Sony's music arm, SonyBMG?
Here in Australia, we've been very conscious of the fun games this company plays with its consumers and artists. The last of the dinosaurs, it held back the entry of iTunes Music Store in both Japan and Australia, where Apple decided to eventually open for business without SonyBMG despite the potential loss of custom.
As it turns out the opening garnered huge media coverage with SonyBMG's invisibility being a final brief coda in most stories.
Here in Oz, the stories continued to flow after the successful opening suggesting SonyBMG would soon join the iTMS but this hasn't happened yet. One wonders when its artists will jump ship, although it must be kept in mind that stores like the iTMS are responsible for only a few percent of total legal music sales.
SonyBMG has numerous recording labels within its stable, and one wonders how many of them are in receipt of Sony's latest folly: its digital rights management (DRM) implementation.
The mainstream media took their time bringing readers attention to SonyBMG's activities, perhaps faced with withdrawal of advertising revenue, but the story has now grown so large and ugly that not even your local newspaper or TV station can ignore it.
Two security-based websites individually investigated reports from readers about Windows PC difficulties. F-Secure and SysInternals each devoted extensive blogspace to sleuthing so-called "rootkit" problems. These are often the source of malware and spyware on PCs.
Sysinternals was testing its latest freeware kit for identifying the presence in the bowels of Windows of hidden devices when it located "a hidden directory, several hidden device drivers, and a hidden application".
Investigation revealed that the source was a SonyBMG legally purchased CD of a van Zant music album, complete with content protection software which self-installed after the operator agreed to a EULA in order to play the CD.
Now when was the last time you recall putting a CD in your car, or on your Mac and agreeing to an EULA before it could play?
In any case, the SonyBMG CD installed what some have come to call its own version of spyware. Once the blogging and security world jumped on it, and it then made mainstream via technology columns and radio broadcasts and podcasts, SonyBMG added a service pack to its support site - yes, a service pack for music! Only in the Windows world!
The pack "uncloaked" the SonyBMG DRM components but did not remove them. Previous attempts by others to remove it saw CD functionality disabled, re-enabled only with a fresh install of Windows OS. Need I say more?
Ok, just a little more.
Also, on the SonyBMG website where the patch resides is an FAQ section, with one section devoted to owners of iPods who wish to legally transfer their CD content to listen on the go.
When you click on the appropriate link, this is what you see: |
|
(Click to enlarge)
So I entered the details of a Diana Krall CD I had listened to last night at friends' which I recalled was on Verve, a SonyBMG-owned label.
(UPDATE: I'm wrong - it's the case that Verve belongs to Universal; thanks to one of my commenters for the heads-up. But does make you worry about what happened next since Krall is not a SonyBMG artist).
And included my .mac email address.
In a few minutes, a canned response was received.
It started this way:
"Thank you for contacting Sony BMG Online.
We appreciate your purchase of our CD and apologize for any inconvenience. Please follow the instructions below in order to move your content into iTunes and onto an iPod."
Here's the advice offered to mac users:
"[Macintosh]
If you have a Macintosh computer you can copy the songs using your iTunes Player as you would normally do."
That's it. One line - stick the CD in, and rip as you ordinarily would with Apple's ease of use.
Scroll down further in the email and we discover advice to Windows users, who by now will be saying to themselves, having already gone through a patching experience, "Oh, no, not more Windows nonsense":
"[Windows]
If you have a PC place the CD into your computer and allow the Sony BMG audio player on the CD to automatically start. If the player software does not automatically start, open your Windows Explorer. Locate and select the drive letter for your CD drive. On the disc you will find either a file named LaunchCD.exe or Autorun.exe. Double-click this file to manually start the player.
TIP: If your CD does not contain either the LaunchCD.exe or
Autorun.exe files, it may not be compatible with this iPod
solution. Please reply to this letter for more information.
Once the Sony BMG player application has been launched and the End User License Agreement has been accepted, you can click the Copy Songs button on the top menu.
Follow the instructions to copy the secure Windows Media Files (WMA) to your PC. Make a note of where you are copying the songs to, you will need to get to these secure Windows Media Files in the next steps.
Once the WMA files are on your PC you can open and listen to the songs with Windows Media Player 9.0 or higher (or another fully compatible player that can playback secure WMA files, such as MusicMatch, RealPlayer, and Winamp). You can then burn the songs to a standard Audio CD. Please note that in order to burn the files, you will need to upgrade to, or already have, Windows Media Player 9 or 10.
Once the standard Audio CD has been created, place this copied CD back into your computer and open iTunes. iTunes can now rip the songs as you would any normal audio CD."
After all this, SonyBMG ends up trying to blame Apple for its DRM:
"Please note an easier and more acceptable solution requires cooperation from Apple, who we have already reached out to in hopes of addressing this issue. To help speed this effort, we ask that you use the following link to contact Apple and ask them to provide a solution that would easily allow you to move content from protected CDs into iTunes or onto your iPod rather than having to go through the additional steps above:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/ipod.html
Thank you for the opportunity to be of assistance."
So all of this Windows sophistry is Apple's fault... correct?
I wonder if SonyBMG truly believes one can never underestimate the stupidity of the general public? If it's true that Windows owns 90% of domestic desktops, then they have reason to believe its truth.
But if evidence exists that Apple market share is slowly increasing, along with alternate browsers to Internet Explorer, then there is also evidence that a gullible public may well turn on SonyBMG, especially as more details of this lamentable effort to protect copyright are unveiled here.
Oops - wrong link. That was to a July 2005 Washington Post article (rego required) to a SonyBMG payola story.
The DRM story is here.
If SonyBMG keeps up these efforts, they will be turning a lot of people onto Macs.
Now before my Windows visitors say this will all end when Microsoft releases Vista in the near future, one of F-Secure's researchers told the Washington Post that the SonyBMG software "breaks the operating system (Vista) spectacularly".
Kinda makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside, doesn't it?
UPDATE - November 11, 2005: A UK-based site, newcriminologist.co.ok, is carrying a story about an Italian consumer rights group, ALCEI-EFI , asking police to bring charges against SonyBMG for breaching some of Italy's "computer security laws".
Also, NPR has an great audio file featuring a number of the people in this blog here.
It features a quote from SonyBMG Executive, Thomas Hesse, which will become almost as famous to music fans as "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job!" Hesse stated, "Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?" (Famous last words)
And others in California and New York are preparing law suits too, as documented here and here.
The latter contains an unbelievable section from the Sony EULA. According to the Register:
"Any copies of the CD kept on a laptop or other device must be deleted if the original CD is stolen or lost. They cannot be stored on your work computer only a "personal home computer system owned by you". If you move countries you must delete all songs covered by the license. If you file for bankrupcy you must delete all relevant files.
Any consumer who fails to keep up-to-date with the hidden software is in breach of the agreement.
In exchange for all this the license also limits Sony BMG's liability for any damages this might cause to just $5 per CD - or slightly less than you paid for it in the first place."
No surprises either that the Register is reporting also first instances of virus and trojan writers making use of the rootkit software from SonyBMG:
"The malware arrives attached in an email, which pretends to come from a reputable business magazine, asking the businessman to verify his/her "picture" to be used for the December issue. If the malicious payload contained in this email is executed then the Trojan installs an IRC backdoor on affected Windows systems."
One wonders how SonyBMG will spin its way out of this tzures. The prediction that its PSP may be the big holiday season winner for 2005 may need to be reassessed if consumers see anything Sony to be "on the nose" or if rumour mongering starts about PSP vulnerabilities to malware. Sheesh - what a PR nightmare.
|
|
|
|
