DailyTech - Sony Sues Rootkit Developer Over Faulty Music CDs

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IT Sony Sues Rootkit Developer Over Faulty Music CDs
Tuan Nguyen (Blog) - July 12, 2007 5:00 PM

31 comment(s) - last by Chaser.. on Jul 16 at 11:48 AM

Users sued Sony; Sony sues its partner

Early last year the Electronics Frontier Foundation went very public with Sony BMG and its case regarding music CDs sold with a copy protection called MediaMax. Developed by a company called The Amergence Group Inc., customers complained that Sony's music discs caused a number of discs to be unreadable on their computers. The biggest complaint was that customers were unable to extract tracks for playback in other devices.

Because of all the lawsuits and complaints, Sony was forced to settle litigations with $5.75 million USD. This week, Sony BMG filed a lawsuit against Amergence alleging MediaMax did not perform as expected.

Using rootkit technology, MediaMax installed low level software on a user's computer system without permission from the user. Rootkits often cause problems and many users complained Sony's discs using MediaMax even forced them to have to reformat their systems.

Sony BMG seeks roughly $12 million USD in damages from Amergence. Representatives from Amergence disagreed with Sony's lawsuit and said Sony's claims were unwarranted. Amergence also noted that discs exhibiting problems used different types of technologies Amergence did not supply.

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RE: I think this is a GREAT idea!

By harshbarj on 7/15/2007 8:56:32 PM , Rating: 2

How do you know Sony asked for a rootkit? No one knows for sure. They likely just asked for software that would block copying and to report on usage. Sony's not 100% off the hook but it may not be totally their fault as it all depends on the wording in the contract.

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