OH MAN! I hadn't even thought of the DMCA angle. That would be absolutely hilarious if DMCA turned around and bit the hand that feeds it. I wonder how long it would take RIAA and their nasty friends to try and repeal DMCA if Sony were sued under it.

Looks like Sony is going to get away with it...

They are playing ignorant and blaming it on First4Internet, the company that they _bought_ the rootkit from...

If your just one person, you would go to jail for life for this:
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/dev...2119206,00.htm

But if your Sony?

yup ... RIAA is supporting Sony

However, Texas is going to sue Sony using its anti spyware law. If it ever gets to trial, this could be good.

Does anyone know if these XCP CDs were sold internationally, or just in the US? It seems to me that Sony could be made to pay even more if they were sued in a country where the government/courts were more sympathetic to the rights of consumers than the US....

This Texas lawsuit is encouraging though.

yup, we have this kind of CD's on México. I have seen a couple doing their magic trick ... given solution? format C: LOL

All 49 albums protected by this software now have to become public domain works. They can't be bought and they can't be sold. Because now they belong in the public domain!

Note:

GPL != public domain

GPL does not mean you cannot sell GPL code (you can charge for distribution, which is exactly the same as selling it)

GPL also means you cannot restrict redistribution of the code and whatever it's bundled with

This may mean in theory that the content on the CDs may now be resold, er, distributed for charge by anyone who wishes, or be given away freely (with source) by anyone who wishes. Sony may have REALLY f#*@ed up worse than they imagine with this one.

The devil is in the details of this one.

Here are the links to the code commentaries:

http://www.the-interweb.com/serendip.../20051117.html

http://hack.fi/~muzzy/sony-drm/

While you are once again technically correct. In reality those albums might as well be public domain works.

Who can undercut the freeware distribution of these works?

I think the difference between the content of the CDs and the code that was supposed to be protecting them is being confused.

The albums/songs most certainly would not be Public domain nor even GPL licensed. The GPL does not (specifically) cover musical works, only source code and documentation. The _source code_ of the rootkit should now be GPL, after using GPL code in it.

The GPL is not so viral that it applies to everything on the same physical media...thats inane. That would mean that you could not dualboot with windows, as windows is not GPL compatible....

I found out particularly interesting the second link it was very nice, thanks a lot

It just made me think what we have been stating here since awhile ... Sony is in deep sh*t

Bulliver,

Here is my response regarding the copyright of the musical content:

Because First4internet’s XCP software plagiarized source code from various LGPL and in one instance of GPL’d source code, the terms of sale for the 49 albums manufactured and distributed by Sony BMG have changed dramatically. The song writer’s and musicians still maintain (unless contractual obligations to Sony BMG dictate otherwise) their respective copyrights to the lyrics and the musical notation of the music contained on the 49 albums manufactured and distributed by Sony BMG. However, the 49 audio compact discs manufactured and distributed by Sony BMG containing the First4internet XCP DRM program, and henceforth referred to as “Albums”, infringed on the various LGPL and GPL copyrights of the software authors whose source code was plagiarized by First4internet, and because the recorded music contained on said albums is inseparable from the XCP player, the music as contained on said albums is now in the GPL domain as is.

Sony BMG’s copyrights on all 49 albums manufactured and distributed by Sony BMG with the First4internet XCP DRM program are null and void because they bound their music to a program that infringes upon the copyrights of others. Thus the terms and conditions of the copyright holders whose work was infringed takes precedent over the copyright of Sony BMG who produced the 49 albums in question with the knowledge and the intent to bind the recorded music to the XCP DRM program.

This seems to be the key point of your argument, and I still don't think I agree with it...

First of all, the CD will still play on a regular redbook CD player, so it is only bound to the player when played on a PC...

Second, I think you would have a hard time convincing a Judge that these two things (XCP source code, and recorded music tracks), which were created in physically different locations, at different times, by completely different people, with zero knowledge of what the others were doing, could even tenuously be 'inseparable'...

But IANAL, and this is all airchair conjecture right? We will have to see what happens in court.

Bullivar,

It is not just that "the recorded music contained on said albums is inseparable from the XCP player"

But also " Sony BMG who produced the 49 albums in question with the knowledge and the intent to bind the recorded music to the XCP DRM program."

Sony BMG knowingly bound the recorded musical audio to the XCP program.

Perhaps this metaphor will help you understand what I am talking about:

You want to obtain an armored car to transport your valuables. So you ask your friend obtain an armored car. Your friend is kind of shifty so instead of buying one, "borrows" one from somewhere. Now you load your valuables in the borrowed armored car. Now while on route to wherever you are going the armored car damages someone’s personal property but you think you are safe because the armored car just happens to be invisible.

But then someone notices the damage and finds a way to defeat the invisibility of the vehicle.

Now people start to complain and the authorities come to arrest you and your friend. You are the passenger and your friend is the driver. Both of you are positively identified as being in the vehicle together. Now your alibi is that you are just an innocent passenger in the armored car.

However, your friend states that you asked him to obtain the vehicle to transport the goods.

Now because the valuable goods are contained in someone else’s stolen property that puts the provenance of the goods contained within the stolen property in question.

Furthermore you have contained your goods within the stolen vehicle in such a way that they are now inseparable from the vehicle that contains them.

The bottom line is that putting copyrighted music onto any sort of distribution medium doesn't place said music "in the public domain." It has already been established that the "copy right" is an intangible right, and that the properties covered by them are also intangible -- in other words, not linked to any physical medium of expression.

---

Nonetheless... to me the real bottom line is that: Sony is clueless. Again. And the sooner they wake-up and smell the roses, the sooner they have even a slim chance to compete in this new marketplace, which otherwise is simply going to sweep them aside and keep right on going. Music, like a genie, is never going to be squeezed back onto "a disc" and stuffed back into "a box." If the likes of Sony don't accept the simple fact that the Customer has spoken on this matter, they'll be listening to nothing but crickets in a still, dark, cold night.

There are still plenty of ways that Sony can add-value to the music process: musicians still need promotion, still need to give concerts, still need to ply their trade. Only the form of distribution of the material has changed ... and if Sony would take an honest look at that, it means that they could save a whole lot of money on warehousing, packaging, unsaleable product (the same thing that hurt DreamWorks so badly with Shrek 2, turning what should have been a big profit into a big loss and a long-term hit on their share price). They could cut prices, roll out an entirely new form of music store (after all, not everyone has high-speed), introduce tangible media based on RAM-chips instead of discs, and so-on. And when they booked a sale, it would consist almost entirely of profit and would be delivered instantly, at no cost, to a customer who is certain to be satisfied.

But Sony's still got its massive head stuck up .. ahem .. that is to say, in the sand. Trying to dictate to the Customer what he "really wants" (when he obviously doesn't), and more damagingly, trying to limit what he "is allowed to have." And no one gets away with that. Sony doesn't know that they could revolutionize their business model, make a ton of money, eliminate huge amounts of overhead, all these things, if only they would!

Music consumers have always traded music with each other, and they always will ... but I believe that they never were "simply using the Internet just to steal things." What Napster et al really proved is: what the Customer really wants is downloadable music. Their thirst for it is huge... old stuff, hard-to-move stuff, exotic stuff, special-interest. It all moves!

This, in my , has nothing to do with copyrights. It has everything to do with a big company, caught off-base by a change in the wind, who's stuck in corporate denial and completely devoid of imagination.