that you have been hijacked to? That usually is a good way to find out the solution. If your home page keeps being switching to !@#xyz.com, just google it, unless it's very new the solution will be out there.

If you have problems you probably want to get Sypbot and Hijack This and run them. You have to start your computer in Safe mode, if you want to be sure you are removing it correctly.

Sony Music's malware worked perfectly also in Safe Mode. The same would apply to any spyware set up to benefit from the $sys$ cloaking that is installed by just playing a Sony protected music CD on your computer.

I bought exactly one (1) protected CD and that was last year overseas. Since that mistake I have always put back in the rack any CD that even smells of this.

Agreed. A "root kit" overtakes your operating system. In place after boot, whether in safe mode or not. If you have a boot disk that is not infected, the root kit should be bypassed. (does XP have a boot disk?) They open up your PC to the world that it is directed to. Much worse than a normal virus.

Sony may or may not have known what DRM implementation was being implemented. I would hope that knowing what is known now, that they make things right. I'm impressed with the Sony offerings in the content creation segment. I would hope that they do not hinder the equitable distribution of the results of their (co)creations.

Can this be damaging to Sony? Well, I was just looking into getting a Sony Vaio desktop. NO LONGER. I'm already convinced it's been preloaded with this malware.

Windows calling the kettle black. They're probably really mad that Sony beat them to their own game.

I wouldn't punish any part of Sony, except Sony Music that is just 1 mile down the street from me... But only by not buying their CDs.

The different divisions of Sony have had virtually no contact with each other so far. This may change in the future, but Sir Howard (da boss) really has his work cut out for himself.

On the good side, this is more reason to switch to Windows x64 which has turned out to be immune to this!

Longhaul, er, Vista is also immune, but it remains to be seen if a dual-core CPU will be 90% busy just feeding its pretty face (I hear the GUI is very resource demanding).

AMD dropped Opteron prices yesterday at the wholesale level, hopefully this will trickle down to us peons soon also.

My understanding from reading the article is that Sony's copy protection uses the same approach as Malware (i.e. hidden install with no way to remove it short of the surgery the writer went through), but isn't actually Malware by its currently accepted definition. Sony's version is just a very ill-conceived copy protection scheme.

IMHO, this is yet another nail in the coffin for commercial CDs, and possibly major labels (since indies usually don't bother with copy protection schemes). Downloadable music just won another major battle, and music as an artform just took a nosedive. I prefer higher quality CDs to mp3, but unfortunately this isn't helping. The bigger problem for Sony Music now is that most wary buyers won't differentiate between Content/Copy protected and regular or enhanced, unprotected CDs. The cost of the copy protection software development may well be exceeded many times over in lost sales for Sony Music.

I fully support keeping artists rights and royalties protected (esp. for artists and writers), but making buyers pay twice isn't the right way to go about it. Peer pressure is the best defense against piracy of any kind. It won't stop every occurance, but even in this current culture it will go a long way towards making music and software pirating inconsequential.

Glad to see you raised the issue of artists rights.
Well guess what, the artists in question never authorised this half baked scheme. They're now having to apologise to their fans for Sony's actions.
And does any of this even have anything to do with copy protection?
No, it's part of some even more half baked scheme to try and have a dig at Apple, iTunes and iPods!
Now I'd wager decent money that the artists would never have given permission for their work to be used for in this way. This surely makes a mockery of Sony complaining about kids stealing their IP when it seems they've had no respect for the IP rights of one of their own artists.
Bob.

" My understanding from reading the article is that Sony's copy protection uses the same approach as Malware (i.e. hidden install with no way to remove it short of the surgery the writer went through), but isn't actually Malware by its currently accepted definition. Sony's version is just a very ill-conceived copy protection scheme. "

Rootkits are intended only for stealth and deceit. Installing any software on a PC without the owner's permission strikes me as "breaking and entering". It does not matter to me what the supposed intent is - the act itself makes it malware in my definition.

As you say above it is a very ill-conceived scheme.

For those who wish to know, here's an article about turning off autorun/autoplay. Thanks to Paul Holmes for sending this gem to me. :)

http://office-watch.com/winxp/archtemplate.asp?2-n29

I highly recommend the registry method as it is more complete and secure and should survive various Windows updates.

Wow! You give me credit for something I've completely forgotten and lost the link to, but I'm glad you brought back the link so I can do it again!

Another mention of the same story just popped up on Infoworld's RSS feed:



This issue seems to be getting a lot of attention, which can only be a good thing.

(update: The article gives the URL of a page with uninstall instructions):

http://cp.sonybmg.com/xcp/english/faq.html#uninstall


--Pete

Fixing your link:

Infoworld.com article

You didn't start it with http://

well I haven't bought a CD in more years than I can remember, so I won't worry about it lol..

ken

"Now I'd wager decent money that the artists would never have given permission for their work to be used for in this way. "

You have a good point, but artist contracts usually make provision for release in multiple media formats, including CDROM. So in effect most artists gave their consent when signing the contract. That said, I'm sure copy protection is, and has been, making its' way into contracts for artists that see the problems it is causing, or on the flip side, labels requiring it to ink the deal.

The music industry is changing for certain - there is quite a bit of talk about it from time to time in the pro audio circles - including the closing of large, long-time studios and the changing face of the record label. Major labels are grabbing at whatever mechanism they can (copy protection, their own download services, shares of portable devices, etc) to keep their business growing, but I'm not so sure it's working - at least it's in growing pains. This could continue to open doors for indie artists, as I would hope, but if major labels find a way to clamp down on the industry (including ownership of downloadable formats), then it could seriously endanger the indie world (online services that once catered to indies began charging for up front appearance on a site, which was snapped up by majors, leaving indies buried in a search engine of thousands). I would hate to see that. Let's keep it fair to artists, writers and composers, and fans, first; labels and distribution outlets second.

(update: The article gives the URL of a page with uninstall instructions):

Where? All I found was:

If at some point you wish to remove the software from your machine simply contact customer service and a form where you send in a) the country of purchase, b) the name of the album, c) name of the store where it was purchased and d) your e-mail address.

They also state:

The disc has been manufactured using content protection technology to prevent unlimited copying and unauthorized redistribution of the audio on the disc.

and

6. I have heard that the protection software is really malware/spyware. Could this be true?

and

SonyBMG: On slower machines, especially ones running Windows 98 and Windows ME, the player may consume a high amount of CPU cycles even if it is not playing back audio. If you experience audio playback problems try quitting out of other open applications.

They aren't doing themselves any favors with this, that's for sure.

"http://cp.sonybmg.com/xcp/english/faq.html#uninstall"

Has anyone noticed that the section referred to at the top of the page listed as "iPod questions" is mystericly missing? I really like the steps of uninstalling the software, "Contact customer service". Yeah, the phone number to the customer service hotline is 1-800-Warez and if that line is busy then please contact Malicious_Spyware@We_Got_caught_with_our_hand_in_the_cookie_jar.COM

Nice move Sony, I guess you didn't expect that a geek smart enough to dig down into the core operations of Windows isn't someone that listens to music and might put a CD with this malware into one of the 50 PC's they probably own.? Where's a picture of this guy Mark on the web?

For some reason I expect his bedroom to look like this, but I highly doubt this is what he looks like, although it would be nice.

Mark's Bedroom
Mark doing investigation

that's what my room looks like, even more pcs/monitors...

but alas, I have no miss carrera in my room lol

ken

Great.....I just bought Sound Forge 8 & Vegas 6. I was irked enough at having to install .NET (which I found is not really problematic).

I assume that there is little chance Sony put any of this nonsense in the SF or Vegas products...but the whole thing has annoyed me greatly.

If you can't sell your product to legitimate buyers for a profit, then you probably need to make a different product or market to a more ethically stable consumer group.
--
Mike

If you can't sell your product to legitimate buyers for a profit, then you probably need to make a different product or market to a more ethically stable consumer group.

Unfortunately, that group no longer exists, I don't think. Who knows what happens in the privacy of the home....but bandwidth, the popularity of Limewire and similar all evidence that a lot of people are downloading pirated software, video, and music.

That said, the copy protection referred to in this thread is found only on copyprotected music CDs at this time.
Blame the artist too, if you want, because the label offers the artist the option of copy protection not being on the disk. And/or the artist can make quite a stink if the label doesn't offer it, but in recent industry mags, most artists prefer it.
Software, music, video...not the same as nails, tires, or shoes. Kinda hard to steal those tangibles in the privacy of your office or home.

I don't think Sony Media Software is following the policies of Sony Music and vice versa.

One of the referenced articles indicated that the artists had protested about this copy protection scheme to no avail, so the policies may be different in Europe.

The bigger problem for SonyBMG will be when serious malware writers (even serious terrorists) start using the $sys$ cloaking installed by just playing a SonyBMG CD to hide software used for identity theft , vacuuming users' bank accounts, selling their homes, and setting up zombies to attack U.S. Government networks, and/or shut down major power plants (this has been done already).

CD buyers will rightfully claim ignorance about this, but for SonyBMG it could become a big enough issue to warrant its own line on their next Annual Report to shareholders.

Agreed, it's an ugly thing. As an artist on a competing label to Sony, I'd never opt for this. But Im not Eminem or Linkin Park, either.