# "Anti-piracy measures" from Sony fucks your computer up.



## Roland777 (Nov 3, 2005)

Let's kick off the new board with an A-bomb:

Yes, it has now officially gone overboard. It's now proven that audio CD's from Sony contain certain hidden surprises designed to fuck your computer up if you try to violate "copyright laws", and even moreso if you try to delete the files themselves. A couple of articles on the matter:


For those of you who actually know jack about computers:
http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/10/sony-rootkits-and-digital-rights.html

For the rest of us:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4400148.stm


Well, I am now officially sticking to BitTorrent.


----------



## Leon (Nov 3, 2005)

BBC article said:


> The CD plays normally on a hi-fi system and the copy protection does not affect computers running on Apple Mac or Linux operating systems.




<-- Linux user (Fedora4)


----------



## stuz719 (Nov 3, 2005)

Could be illegal in the UK under the Computer Misuse Act 1990

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1990/Ukpga_19900018_en_2.htm#mdiv3


----------



## Drew (Nov 3, 2005)

Could potentially be illegal stateside too, although I'm not up to date on the laws...


----------



## Metal Ken (Nov 3, 2005)

Good thing sony doesnt have any bands i like lol


----------



## noodles (Nov 3, 2005)

That is the biggest load of BS I've ever read, and can most likely be construed as an illegal attack on someone's computer with intent to damage/destroy data.


----------



## D-EJ915 (Nov 3, 2005)

Yeah really, lol.


----------



## Leon (Nov 3, 2005)

noodles said:


> That is the biggest load of BS I've ever read, and can most likely be construed as an illegal attack on someone's computer with intent to damage/destroy data.


well, it _is_ illegal to copy music 

it only fucks shit up if you try to copy, right?


----------



## Drew (Nov 3, 2005)

technically no, and no. 

It's legal to make copies of music provided you do it within fair use restrictions - i.e - yuou can make a copy as a personal archive or make a copy for your own use. unlike software, you don't buy the right to a single instance, but rather a right to private use of the product. Much in the same way it's illegal to buy a CD for public broadcast without specific liscenses, you can do whatever you want with it if it's just for YOUR use. This includes making more than 3 copies. It's only illegal to SHARE music you've copied.

And no, the program inserts itself into the underlying code of Windows operating system, and could be used as a potential target site for a virus - once it encodes itself through the program at that level, it would be VERY hard to remove. Also, removing the program, once it installs itself, can potentially (in fact, likely will) cripple your system. 

-D


----------



## Digital Black (Nov 3, 2005)

Which is why I keep older CD and DVD programs when I don't need new DRM features interfearing.


----------



## Leon (Nov 4, 2005)

ahh, well, who honestly archives their stuff . whenever i think of copying music, i think of sharing it.

and, this is just another of many flaws of the windows OS... not only is it vulnerable to viral pests, but now it's vulnerable to greedy business giants


----------



## TheReal7 (Nov 4, 2005)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9911371/


----------



## Drew (Nov 4, 2005)

Leon said:


> ahh, well, who honestly archives their stuff



Doesn't matter - it's the fact that you no longer have the option to make unlimited "fair use" reproductions that's a violation of fair use policy under copywrite protection.


----------



## FoxMustang (Nov 4, 2005)

Leon said:


> ahh, well, who honestly archives their stuff .


I do  I rip all my good CDs to ISO, that way I can "mount" the ISO in a virtual CD drive and listen to it like I had the actual CD in an actual drive. Easier than swapping discs around. I'll also burn copies from that ISO to keep in my car, so I don't worry if they get scratched up or stolen.


----------



## Metal Ken (Nov 4, 2005)

I have mp3s of every CD i own ripped to my harddrive for easy listening... lol


----------



## Roland777 (Nov 4, 2005)

HateBreeder said:


> I have mp3s of every CD i own ripped to my harddrive for easy listening... lol




Same here.


----------



## Leon (Nov 4, 2005)

Drew, i guess i just fail to give a crap about this stuff to do any real research . i'm also not very impressed by those who argue these positions. the whole thing doesn't really seem to be between the few honest people who wish to make fair use copies, but people who are whiny about not being able to burn copy after copy of an album to share with their friends. when a Sony boycott is sucessfully off the ground, i'll be impressed 

i fail to see the validity of "the people's" argument in this case, i guess.

Tony, how much harddrive space do you use for all your music?


----------



## Metal Ken (Nov 4, 2005)

Dont know bout them, but on my hard drive, 47 gigs.


----------



## noodles (Nov 4, 2005)

Leon said:


> i'm also not very impressed by those who argue these positions. the whole thing doesn't really seem to be between the few honest people who wish to make fair use copies, but people who are whiny about not being able to burn copy after copy of an album to share with their friends.



I really hate these kinds of arguements. There is a certain mentality that some people have that they use when stripping our rights away from us. "Well, if you don't break the law, you have nothing to worry about." What about due process? Innocent until proven guilty? If we just assume poeple are going to break the law, and start stripping away freedoms, what separates us from China?

I don't care how small the issue is, I take an attack on someone's freedom as an attack on all of our freedoms. I make no distinction as to importance, because big brother always starts with the little stuff that few care about. Things like this set a dangerous precident, and if it doesn't get nipped in the bud now, then the next thing you know you'll need to keep an open connection to the record labels at all times in order to listen to music.


----------



## Leon (Nov 4, 2005)

and what about the artists who make a living off album sales? do they not have rights?

i agree that the record companies can go too far, because, like most coorporations, they are greedy. but don't forget that they financially support the musicians that we all love listening to.

what separates us from China? if Bush had his way, only population density


----------



## Roland777 (Nov 4, 2005)

Leon said:


> and what about the artists who make a living off album sales? do they not have rights?




Sorry, but that's bullshit. If you care about the artists, go buy from independent record labels. An artist on a major record label makes about 25 cents AT BEST for every sold album.


----------



## D-EJ915 (Nov 4, 2005)

bands make way more money at shows than through CD sales at stores...if you want to support the artist, go to their show and buy shit from them there.


----------



## Leon (Nov 4, 2005)

Roland777 said:


> Sorry, but that's bullshit. If you care about the artists, go buy from independent record labels. An artist on a major record label makes about 25 cents AT BEST for every sold album.


and what if my favorite band suddenly gets picked up by a major label?


----------



## Leon (Nov 4, 2005)

D-EJ915 said:


> bands make way more money at shows than through CD sales at stores...if you want to support the artist, go to their show and buy shit from them there.


then why sell CD's at all? why not just give them away for free? or is that your argument?


----------



## Leon (Nov 4, 2005)

it's just a vicious, interesting cycle to me, with the big companies finding ways to keep people from copying/sharing music, and people finding ways to do it anyways


----------



## noodles (Nov 4, 2005)

If music sharing is so bad, why did CD sales actually go up when Napster came out?


----------



## Leon (Nov 4, 2005)

well, i think we're thinking of two different "music sharing" beasts. i'm thinking of people who copy albums so that they don't have to buy them, and i think you're refering to people who download a few tracks to check something out before they buy... akin to listening to the radio.


----------



## noodles (Nov 4, 2005)

Wasn't the entire underground metal movement launched by copying music?

There is absolutely no way you can police this sort of stuff, it is always going to happen. It's as pointless as the war on drugs and the war on terrorism.


----------



## Leon (Nov 4, 2005)

well, again, you might be talking about a different horse here. if a band doesn't mind someone copying their music to get their names out, that's completely different than a band that would rather that not take place.

and, i certainly agree that there is no way to police this stuff. which, is why companies like Sony are going to these weird lengths to fight their battles


----------



## Metal Ken (Nov 4, 2005)

Leon said:


> it's just a vicious, interesting cycle to me, with the big companies finding ways to keep people from copying/sharing music, and people finding ways to do it anyways



The irony is that sony provides us with both CD burners and CDrs.


And yes, the metal movement underground was fueled throughout the 80s by tape trading.


----------



## FoxMustang (Nov 4, 2005)

Leon said:


> Tony, how much harddrive space do you use for all your music?


I'll have to check  Not as much as you'd think, though, I only keep my most-listened-to stuff on the HD. I have maybe 15-20 CDs on my hard drive presently, so at ~750 meg per CD that's 10-15 Gb total. I can rotate my collection, too, if I need to, it only takes a few minutes to rip a CD.


----------



## stuz719 (Nov 11, 2005)

Heh heh

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8307


----------



## Leon (Nov 11, 2005)

sueing won't solve anything. IMO, what would work better is a fullscale boycott of Sony. don't throw laws and lawyers at them, stifle their inflow of $$$. hit'em in the wallet


----------



## Leon (Nov 11, 2005)

FoxMustang said:


> I'll have to check  Not as much as you'd think, though, I only keep my most-listened-to stuff on the HD. I have maybe 15-20 CDs on my hard drive presently, so at ~750 meg per CD that's 10-15 Gb total. I can rotate my collection, too, if I need to, it only takes a few minutes to rip a CD.


so, you're ripping to WAV? why not rip to MP3 and save yourself some space? i can't really tell much difference between an mp3 ripped at 320kbps and a WAV (with my computer speakers/sub, anyways).


----------



## kovachian (Nov 11, 2005)

Every time a small-time band plays a cover tune at your local bar, does the cover band have to pay some kind of copyright fee, or any royalty out of their small profits? Nope. Never had too before either, but I wouldn't put it past the selfish major label pigs to squash that too. How many people have been imprisoned for copying vhs tapes? I'll bet the tally is zero. 

So wtf are they bitching about this? People are still going to pay to go to the shows, they still have their product endorsements so it's not like their livelihood has been lost here. Besides, when you consider that way too many music files being shared over the web are of poor sound quality, I'd rather buy the album anyways if I like what I've sampled. Last time I checked, CD sales are on the rise BECAUSE of free music; who wants to listen to some hissing crackling shithole 96kb MP3 when they can get the crystal clear hi fi of good ol' CD audio? 

(Yes I know not all MP3s sound like shit, so save your rebuttals)


----------



## Drew (Nov 11, 2005)

kovachian said:


> Every time a small-time band plays a cover tune at your local bar, does the cover band have to pay some kind of copyright fee, or any royalty out of their small profits? Nope.



However, to feature live entertainment, most bars and clubs have to pay liscensing fees to ASCAP. Same deal, just a different person bending over and taking it. 

-D


----------



## kovachian (Nov 11, 2005)

I forgot about the ascap. Good point.


----------



## Drew (Nov 11, 2005)

Yeah... I found out about them the hard way. A buddy of mine and I had the dubious distinction of being the last people to play at a local bar/resteraunt before ASCAP shut them down. The guy's strategy was whenever one of their lawyers called him up he'd just say, "Oh yeah... come on over and we can talk about it." Surprisingly, this worked for the better part of 5 years, before one of the guys answered. "Great, I'm sitting in my car in your parking lot. I'll be in in a moment." they got nailed pretty hard on penalties and back fees, and the owner decided to just cut his losses and stop having live music. too bad, it wasn't a bad venue, for what it was...

-D


----------



## FoxMustang (Nov 12, 2005)

Leon said:


> so, you're ripping to WAV?


Negative, I'm making a bit-for-bit copy of the CD onto my computer using a program called CloneCD. Then I can "mount" the image in a virtual drive (same program allows this), so it's just like putting the actual CD into an actual drive. Whenever I try to rip to MP3 the quality always seems to suffer no matter the bitrate and I always get fuckups in the conversion at some point.


----------



## Drew (Nov 16, 2005)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/200...17J2sUA;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

Sony relented, and is recalling all cd's with copy protection software and offering exchanges.


----------



## Digital Black (Nov 16, 2005)

I think i saw the new G3 on that list on some other site..


----------



## Leon (Nov 16, 2005)

Drew said:


> http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/200...17J2sUA;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl
> 
> Sony relented, and is recalling all cd's with copy protection software and offering exchanges.


wow.

and the game continues


----------

