- seems to have backfired a bit.
WSJ.com - Sony BMG Faces Civil Complaint Over CD Software
Intensifying Sony BMG's headaches over a copyright-protection plan that went awry, the music titan yesterday was hit with a civil complaint over the software included on 52 of the company's recently released recordings.The suit, filed in District Court of Travis County by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, alleges that Sony BMG's XCP software violates the state's recently enacted antispyware law. Mr. Abbott called elements of Sony BMG's software -- which is designed to thwart copying of the compact discs -- “a direct violation, almost word for word,” of the law, known as the Consumer Protection Against Computer Spyware Act.
Ha, that's a great quote. This is one class-action suit I'd actually join. Screw Sony.
The Texas law provides for penalties of $100,000 per violation, or each computer on which a Sony BMG CD installed its software. Any money collected would be paid to the state and not be distributed to consumers.Also yesterday, Sony BMG was hit with the third suit seeking class-action status to arise over its copy-protection software. The suit was filed in California Superior Court, Los Angeles County, by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital-rights advocacy group, on behalf of three individuals. The new suit alleges that harm was caused not only by XCP but also by Sony BMG's other copy-protection software, which the company has used more extensively, known as MediaMax and created by SunnComm Inc.
more from the SF Chronicle:
The Electronic Frontier Foundation said it tried to persuade Sony to take the offending software off the discs. “We negotiated with them,” Cohn said, “and they agreed to do a lot of things. But they left undone a lot of things they said they wouldn't do.”
In its suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, the group makes four main demands:
-- Sony should give consumers refunds, instead of merely exchanging the discs;
-- Sony should conduct a marketing campaign to inform consumers of the problems;
-- Sony should rewrite its licensing agreements, which at this point do not disclose some of the discs' features;
-- And Sony should give consumers the ability to take the software off their computers, which they are now unable to do.
...
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco consumer group, and the Texas attorney general on Monday sued Sony BMG Music Entertainment, claiming that software embedded on some of its compact discs is actually spying on consumers....
Sony recalled discs by 50 artists with the vulnerability earlier this month, but the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Texas attorney general said the company did not go far enough.The consumer group said about 24 million CDs with the software were distributed. The CDs not only made computers vulnerable to viruses, they contained “phone home” software that reported back to Sony how often the CDs were played.
“I think that's creepy, and most people think that's creepy, and it's not disclosed,” said Cindy Cohn, the consumer group's legal director.
The CDs containing the offending software include a range of artists, from Frank Sinatra and Louis Armstrong to Earl Scruggs and Van Zant.
Tags: DRM
