Free Downloads End Sony CD Saga

Millions of music fans will be given free music downloads or money to compensate for flawed anti-piracy software on CDs from label Sony BMG. The final approval to the settlement for lawsuits against the music giant was granted by a US judge on Monday. Sony BMG was accused of using copy protection program on CDs that left computers vulnerable to hackers. The episode caused much embarrassment for the world's second largest music label.

(click here)

while googling for more info about the My Morning Jacket Album (which i very much want to get), i came across an interesting blog discussion on the topic ~

DRM Crippled CD: A bizarre tale in 4 parts


they also link to the following info on the ATO Records site:

10.07.05

Information Regarding Our Artists' Music, Copy-Protected CDs and your iPod

We at ATO Records are aware of the problems being experienced by certain fans due to the copy-protection of our distributor. Neither we nor our artists ever gave permission for the use of this technology, nor is it our distributor's opinion that they need our permission. Wherever it is our decision, we will forego use of copy-protection, just as we have in the past.

Meanwhile, Sony has set up this site to help you deal with any issues you may have: http://cp.sonybmg.com/xcp/

Or go to: this link ... Fill out a support ticket and they will email you instructions for one of several "workarounds" you can find for this "Sony BMG" "copy-protection."

There are a few other ways around this copy-protection that you should be able to find online.

We also recommend assuring that "auto-run" is not enabled for all discs you use on your PC, and not accepting Windows Updates that include changes to your "DRM" or Digital Rights Management (especially those in Windows Media Player 10), until we can guarantee these problems won't arise. In the meantime, the easiest way around these issues is to use Apple Computer products in conjunction with your iPod.

We can not apologize enough for the difficulties you've encountered trying to experience the disc you've purchased. We hope you'll continue to have a long and rewarding experience with music after this regrettable situation is sorted out.

Thank you for your support.

ATO Records

Sony BMG tentatively settles CD software suits

NEW YORK, Dec 30 (Reuters) - Sony BMG Music Entertainment has reached a tentative settlement with consumers who filed a class action lawsuit over the music company's copy-protection software on CDs, court papers show.

The settlement would entitle people who bought the CDs with the copy protection to a cash payment of $7.50 and one album download from a list of more than 200 titles. Alternatively, they could download three albums from the list.

Here's the NYT editorial Bill mentioned just now (by the lead singer of OK Go):
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/06/opinion/06kulash.html

Buy, Play, Trade, Repeat

By DAMIAN KULASH Jr.
Published: December 6, 2005
Los Angeles

THE record company Sony BMG recently got in trouble after attempting to stem piracy by encoding its CD's with software meant to limit how many copies can be made of the discs. It turned out that the copy-protection software exposed consumers' computers to Internet viruses, forcing Sony BMG to recall the CD's.

This technological disaster aside, though, Sony BMG and the other major labels need to face reality: copy-protection software is bad for everyone, consumers, musicians and labels alike. It's much better to have copies of albums on lots of iPods, even if only half of them have been paid for, than to have a few CD's sitting on a shelf and not being played.

The Sony BMG debacle revealed the privacy issues and security risks tied to the spyware that many copy-protection programs install on users' computers. But even if these problems are solved, copy protection is guaranteed to fail because it's a house of cards. No matter how sophisticated the software, it takes only one person to break it, once, and the music is free to roam and multiply on the peer-to-peer file-trading networks.

Meanwhile, music lovers get pushed away. Tech-savvy fans won't go to the trouble of buying a strings-attached record when they can get a better version free. Less Net-knowledgeable fans (those who don't know the simple tricks to get around the copy-protection software or don't use peer-to-peer networks) are punished by discs that often won't load onto their MP3 players (the copy-protection programs are incompatible with Apple's iPods, for example) and sometimes won't even play in their computers.

Conscientious fans, who buy music legally because it's the right thing to do, just get insulted. They've made the choice not to steal their music, and the labels thank them by giving them an inferior product hampered by software that's at best a nuisance, and at worst a security threat.

As for musicians, we are left to wonder how many more people could be listening to our music if it weren't such a hassle, and how many more iPods might have our albums on them if our labels hadn't sabotaged our releases with cumbersome software.

The truth is that the more a record gets listened to, the more successful it is. This is not just our megalomania, it's Marketing 101: the more times a song gets played, the more of a chance it has to catch the ear of someone new. It doesn't do us much good if people buy our records and promptly shelve them; we need them to fall in love with our songs and listen to them over and over. A record that you can't transfer to your iPod is a record you're less likely to listen to, less likely to get obsessed with and less likely to tell your friends about.

Luckily, my band's recently released album, "Oh No," escaped copy control, but only narrowly. When our album came out, our label's parent company, EMI, was testing protective software and thought we were a good candidate for it. Record company executives reasoned that because we appeal to college students who have the high-bandwidth connections necessary for getting access to peer-to-peer networks, we're the kind of band that gets traded instead of bought.

That may be true, but we are also the sort of band that hasn't yet gotten the full attention of MTV and major commercial radio stations, so those college students are our only window onto the world. They are our best chance for success, and we desperately need them to be listening to us, talking about us, coming to our shows and yes, trading us.

To be clear, I certainly don't encourage people to pirate our music. I have poured my life into my band, and after two major label records, our accountants can tell you that we're not real rock stars yet. But before a million people can buy our record, a million people have to hear our music and like it enough to go looking for it. That won't happen without a lot of people playing us for their friends, which, in turn, won't happen without a fair amount of file sharing.

As it happened, for a variety of reasons, our label didn't put copy-protection software on our album. What a shame, though, that so many bands aren't as fortunate.

Damian Kulash Jr. is the lead singer for OK Go.

Another Sony-BMG Security Vulnerability Discovered
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004235.php

EFF and Sony-BMG today announced the existence of a new security vulnerability that affects Sony-BMG CDs that include SunnComm MediaMax Version 5 copy protection software. The vulnerability was discovered by the security firm iSEC Partners after EFF requested an examination of the SunnComm software.

From Slashdot

Sticky Tape Defeats Sony DRM Copy Protection
cybrpnk2 writes "As reported by InformationWeek, Sony BMG Music's controversial copy-protection scheme can be defeated with a small piece of tape. According to thinktank Gartner analysts Martin Reynolds and Mike McGuire, Sony's XCP technology is stymied by sticking a fingernail-size piece of opaque tape on the outer edge of the CD. 'After more than five years of trying, the recording industry has not yet demonstrated a workable DRM scheme for music CDs. Gartner believes that it will never achieve this goal as long as CDs must be playable by stand-alone CD players.'"

Texas Sues Sony BMG over Rootkit
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051121/tc_nm/sony_texas_dc
HOUSTON (Reuters) - Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott filed a civil lawsuit on Monday against Sony BMG Music Entertainment (6758.T) for hiding "spyware" software on its compact discs in a bid to thwart music copying. (...) Texas is seeking civil penalties of $100,000 per violation of the state's Consumer Protection Against Computer Spyware Act, which was enacted earlier this year.