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11-10-2005, 11:58 PM
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#1 of 63 
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Member
Join Date: Sep 2001
Local Time: 01:23 AM
Local Date: 10-08-2008
Posts: 760
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Sony sued over copy-protected CDs
From the BBC and then from another vnunet.
I bought 3 Sony CDs this year, and was very very angry to find this copy protection non-sense on each disc, and the fact that the software from these CDs could lead to my computer being compromised is infuriating. This is the equivalent of placing those anti-piracy trailers at the beginning of movies: if I've paid for the product, DO NOT tell me about why piracy is so wrong!  |
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11-11-2005, 05:40 AM
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#2 of 63
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Member
Location: Edmonton Alberta Canada
Join Date: Oct 2000
Local Time: 10:23 PM
Local Date: 10-07-2008
Posts: 1,734
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Good. I'm tired of Sony's underhanded tricks. I gave up on this company back around 1999 and now you will not find one Sony product in my home.
I hope they lose big and realize that the consumer can in fact make or break them.
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11-11-2005, 07:54 AM
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#3 of 63
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Member
Join Date: Jun 1999
Local Time: 12:23 AM
Local Date: 10-08-2008
Posts: 3,349
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I hope the lawsuit is successful.
This is really no different than a virus, and Sony should be treated as a virus creator.
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11-11-2005, 08:19 AM
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#4 of 63
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Member
Join Date: May 2002
Local Time: 11:23 PM
Local Date: 10-07-2008
Posts: 742
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Sadly, Sony has yet to provide a complete list of CDs affected. Thankfully, Electronic Frontier Foundation's Web site has a partial list of CDs containing this devious software:
Quote:
If you have one of these CDs, and you have a Windows PC (Macs are totally immune, as usual), you may have caught the XCP bug.- Trey Anastasio, Shine (Columbia)
- Celine Dion, On ne Change Pas (Epic)
- Neil Diamond, 12 Songs (Columbia)
- Our Lady Peace, Healthy in Paranoid Times (Columbia)
- Chris Botti, To Love Again (Columbia)
- Van Zant, Get Right with the Man (Columbia)
- Switchfoot, Nothing is Sound (Columbia)
- The Coral, The Invisible Invasion (Columbia)
- Acceptance, Phantoms (Columbia)
- Susie Suh, Susie Suh (Epic)
- Amerie, Touch (Columbia)
- Life of Agony, Broken Valley (Epic)
- Horace Silver Quintet, Silver's Blue (Epic Legacy)
- Gerry Mulligan, Jeru (Columbia Legacy)
- Dexter Gordon, Manhattan Symphonie (Columbia Legacy)
- The Bad Plus, Suspicious Activity (Columbia)
- The Dead 60s, The Dead 60s (Epic)
- Dion, The Essential Dion (Columbia Legacy)
- Natasha Bedingfield, Unwritten (Epic)
- Ricky Martin, Life (Columbia) (labeled as XCP, but, oddly, our disc had no protection)
Several other Sony-BMG CDs are protected with a different copy-protection technology, sourced from SunnComm, including:- My Morning Jacket, Z
- Santana, All That I Am
- Sarah McLachlan, Bloom Remix Album
This is not a complete list. So how do you recognize other XCP-laden CDs in the wild?
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...go here.
From this list, I have only Sarah McLachlan's Bloom Remix Album and luckily have not played it on any computer. However, I like to play music while I work; I must effectively put this one in permanent quarantine.
ac
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11-11-2005, 08:26 AM
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#5 of 63
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Craig Seanor
Member
Location: League City, TX (just south of Planet Houston)
Join Date: Mar 2000
Local Time: 11:23 PM
Local Date: 10-07-2008
Posts: 5,902
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Windows users, if you want to avoid this crap being put on your machine in the first place, just disable the AutoPlay function on your CD & DVD drive(s)!!! Without AutoPlay, the copy-protection software never gets installed (unless you do it manually for some reason).
Easiest way is probably to download the TweakUI utility, which lets you enable or disable AutoPlay on all CD/DVD drives with one checkbox. Otherwise, just right-click on the drive in question and choose Properties. You'll see an AutoPlay tab which will let you customize the AutoPlay actions for different types of disks. I recommend you select No Action for everything.
Now when you insert these discs (assuming you haven't had the copy-protection installed earlier) you can play them with your normal software. For example, I have the Santana CD listed above, and I can play (and rip) it with both WMP and iTunes.
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11-11-2005, 08:58 AM
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#6 of 63
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Member
Join Date: Jan 2003
Local Time: 12:23 AM
Local Date: 10-08-2008
Posts: 3,944
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I've also heard you can hold down the Shift key as the CD boots up and that will disable any software being installed on your system. I can't confirm it works, but I have heard it has been known to work.
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11-11-2005, 11:45 AM
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#9 of 63
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Member
Join Date: Sep 2001
Local Time: 01:23 AM
Local Date: 10-08-2008
Posts: 760
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The latest Foo Fighters album, and the Sloan Greatest Hits album are also affected.
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11-11-2005, 12:35 PM
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#10 of 63
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Member
Join Date: Oct 2000
Local Time: 04:23 AM
Local Date: 10-08-2008
Posts: 3,289
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What's really silly is that it is most likely the people they're targeting would be more probable to look into this stuff and get rid of it. It's like looking for a needle in a hay stack. Why pollute many users when you likely will net none or very little of what you're looking to stop. If they really want to stop illegal copying of software, movies and music, all they have to do is send someone to major train stations in the North East. They have vendors right outside in the street selling plainly pirated stuff. I got off in Newark, NJ several mos. back and Newark Police were asking them when they would get certain movies or music in and buy from them on a regular basis. i asked one police officer if the stuff was good quality and he said he's been buying from the vendor on a regular basis for a couple of yeats.
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