[DMCA-Activists] Bizweek: Sony's Escalating "Spyware" Fiasco

[Seth Johnson]

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Subject: [IP] Sony's Escalating "Spyware" Fiasco
Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 06:35:25 -0500
From: David Farber <address@hidden>
To: address@hidden


Begin forwarded message:

From: Monty Solomon <address@hidden>
Date: November 29, 2005 11:15:45 PM EST
To: undisclosed-recipient:;
Subject: Sony's Escalating "Spyware" Fiasco


NOVEMBER 22, 2005

News Analysis
By Lorraine Woellert

Sony's Escalating "Spyware" Fiasco
Along with lawyers, prosecutors, and furious fans, artists are
joining the backlash against the label for slipping a hidden,
anti-theft program into users' computers

Van Zant's Get Right with the Man CD was released in May, but six
months later it still was doing better-than-respectable business
on Amazon.com (AMZN ). The album ranked No. 887 on the online
retailer's list of music sales on Nov. 2. Then news of the CD's
aggressive content safeguards -- a sub-rosa software program
incorporated courtesy of Sony BMG -- exploded on the Internet.

To prevent audiophiles from making multiple copies of the CDs,
Sony (SNE) had programmed the Van Zant disk, and dozens of
others, with a hidden code called a "rootkit" that secretly
installs itself on hard drives when the CDs are loaded onto
listeners' PCs. Soon enough, hackers began designing viruses to
take malicious advantage of the hidden program, and a Sony
boycott had begun (see BW Online, 11/17/05, "Sony's Copyright
Overreach").

GROWING OUTRAGE.  Overnight, Get Right with the Man dropped to
No. 1,392 on Amazon's music rankings. By Nov. 22 -- after the
news made headlines and Sony was deep into damage control,
pulling some 4.7 million copy-protected disks from the market --
Get Right with the Man was even further from Amazon's Top 40,
plummeting to No. 25,802.

The wrath of fans killed Sony's CD copy controls, with the
company pulling 52 titles off retail shelves, beginning the week
of Nov. 14. But the wrath of bands could be far worse for the
company -- and for efforts to protect content in general.

Singers and songwriters are increasingly expressing frustration
at devices used by record companies to protect digital content
from widespread theft that results when CDs are copied repeatedly
or popular tracks are given away on peer-to-peer (P2P) networks,
such as LimeWire and BitTorrent. Sony's misstep has been bad for
the company -- and its effects could spread much further, should
the consumer   outcry gain traction with the recording artists
who need to keep their fans happy if they want to sell records.

...

> http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2005/tc20051122_343542.htm




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