Sony, rootkits, and the future of Compact Discs


The discovery that Sony has created CDs that, when placed into a computer running Windows, install rootkits in the system, has prompted some companies to ban the use of CDs within the office. Indeed, the reaction among tech people has been so unanimously negative that we can begin to wonder whether the CD, as a format for selling musical content, can survive in the long run.

The compact disc format has already taken some hits from technology developed on computers, particularly the mp3 file format, which not only allows people to store a large selection of music on a computer, but also to share this music, using peer-to-peer file sharing software, with anyone in the world. The consequence of this has been the decline in CD sales, which has occasioned a great deal of histrionic hand-wringing in among corporate elites who run the music business: Sony, EMI, Universal, etc. etc. After bitching to Congress ad nauseum, they are now proceeding to harass and sue the file sharers out of existence. We hear ever so much from the Left about the erosion of civil liberties in this country under the patriot act. After all, how is it possible any man can consider himself free if his government can read his library records? How can anyone think well of due process if some murderous terrorist, his hands dripping in the blood of children and women, his mind set only on killing and destruction, can't enjoy the legal privileges which allow criminals with American citizenship to use quibbling technicalities to get off scott free so that they revisit their crimes on a fresh set of victims? Yet as concerned as the Left about these issues, they seem to care very little for what the big corporation in the music business are doing to "little people" in their pursuit of filthy lucre. Let us say you lend your computer to some friends who come over for a couple weeks. Their teenage kid spends the whole time sharing files on your computer. When the music companies get around to doing something about it, they aren't going to go after the teenage kid: they're coming after you. With an army of high-priced lawyers at their beck and call, they will force you into an expensive settlement: generally, around $8,000. And you have to pay, because it will cost so much more to contest the suit. Think of the power that these corporations have. They can use the law to extort thousands of dollars from anyone who is not a high-priced lawyer. Why is this permitted?

Yet, as egregious an abuse as these lawsuits clearly are, since they potentially can harm not merely those who are "stealing" digital content by sharing it, but also people who are innocent of doing anything wrong. Most file sharers are young people. Many are kids using their parents computers. Their parents don't know enough about computers to even understand what's going on. So why this draconian policy of, in effect, fining families $8,000 to protect a corporation's monopoly privileges? Where's the indignation at this injustice?

Well, it's not clear that this policy is bearing fruit. It's only making people pissed off. Kids don't see sharing files as stealing. It's sharing, it's being nice, it's a kind of etiquette. Changes in moral perceptions do change over time. A hundred years ago most people would have looked upon the practice of abortion with horror. Now it's accepted by the majority of Americans as a fait accompli. Not many people care much for it; but a majority opposes making the practice illegal. The simple fact is: the morals in the mores, not in the laws. If the mores accept a certain practice, the laws aren't going to stop it. In other words, you've got to change the mores if you want to change a widely accepted behavior. Changing the laws only works if you are willing to medieval on people, which of course is not an option here in the United States, despite what the Left may think (or fail to think).

The consequence of going after file sharers, then, has only been to hurt the compact disc industry even more. So what is the music business doing about it? Well, Sony has come out with these CDs that install rootkits on your computer. Now this is a big deal. Installing a rootkit on someone's computer would be like installing a chip in a person's brain that allows that person to be controlled. It's a more serious infringement of a person's property rights than any file sharing could possibly be. Worse, these rootkits are completely invisible to the system, so people have no idea they are there. And even if, through special software, they are discovered, they can be a bitch to remove.

Yet this is not all. The sony rootkit makes one's computer extremely vulnerable to other crackers. Imagine if Sony had figured out how to prevent you from locking your house when you go away. Think how pissed off everyone would be at Sony. Yet this is what Sony's rootkit does to your computer. It makes it very easy for any cracker his own nefarious doings on your machine, so that if you're infected by anyone else, there may be little that you can do about it.

When the word gets around of how serious this whole issue is, what sort of impact will it have on CD sales? Won't people be afraid to buy them? Won't they be afraid even to play them on CD players, which aren't affected? I would guess so. These rootkits may be just the thing to bring the whole CD industry to its knees. And I have only one thing to say to that: it's about time!

Posted: Wed - November 16, 2005 at 04:07 PM          

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