Texas sues Sony BMG for spyware violations

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott filed a civil lawsuit on Monday against Sony BMG Music Entertainment (6758.T: Quote, Profile, Research) for including "spyware" software on its media player designed to thwart music copying.

According to the lawsuit filed in Travis County, several of the company's music compact discs require customers to download Sony's media players if they want to listen to the CDs on a computer.

Software included with that media player "remains hidden and active" after installation, the Attorney General's office said in a statement, and makes users vulnerable to security risks and possible identity theft.

Sony said on its Web site that it had recalled all CDs that were installed with its XCP technology designed to prevent illegal music copying, Abbott said, but Texas investigators were able to purchase several of the CDs at Austin retailers on Sunday.

more: http://today.reuters.com/business/newsArticle.aspx?type=ousiv&storyID=2005-11-21T180243Z_01_HAR163297_RTRIDST_0_BUSINESSPRO-SONY-TEXAS-DC.XML

Texas?




Texas?

I just don't normally associate Texas government with attacking large corporations for misconduct.

get involved and target a corporation, that corporation has to know that they've really f'ed up.

“They have apologized for their mistake, ceased manufacture of CDs with that technology,and pulled CDs with that technology from store shelves. Seems very responsible to me. How many times that software applications created the same problem? Lots. I wonder whether they've taken as aggressive steps as SonyBMG has when those vulnerabilities were discovered, or did they just post a patch on the Internet?”

http://www.malbela.com/blog/archives/000375.html

to either completely fix everyone's machines that already installed their virusware, or pay through the nose for their perfidy. Either way, it was a stupid, stupid, stupid thing to do and they need to make amends for it.

They used code from the LAME mp3 encoder/decoder project that is CLEARLY labeled as being under the LGPL license.

The LGPL license requires that commercial users provide the source code to the LGPL'ed portions along with the executable. Sony DID NOT do so, ergo, they were using the LAME code without a license, which means they PIRATED IT! What an outrage, right RIAA?

I hope Sony gets ROYALLY fucked on this. They've earned it.

By deliberatly putting viruses on millions of computers, Sony engaged in the practice of cyber-terrorism. They should be prosecuted accordingly. Also, the RIAA should be smashed into a million pieces.