This BBC News story intrigues me. Here is a legitimate company trying to put software on your computer (the software itself is another issue), yet in other situations tojans do exactly the same thing. Neither have the blessing of the user, and both are being installed without permission. I'm wondering is there a legal case to answer to?
I can only assume that in buying a CD with copy protection on it, that legally holds as an agreement to accept the software. However, I have never bought such a CD so don't know how it is sticker, if at all. I'm dubious.
From what I've read in recent months, the clued-up people have return their CDs and demanded a refund. Hopefully, the record industry will get the hint. Especially when I read about Mike Oldfield's last record was copyright protected worldwide (except Canada) in an effort to stop piracy, and the album appear on the internet within hours of being released.
I don't do file sharing anymore, mainly due to the security issues. However, in the 70s/80s there was a big push with 'Piracy is killing the music business', when blank cassette buying reached an all time high. Unfortunately what many didn't realise is that much of the tapes were being bought to record live gigs, and then swapped between fans. Admittedly there were people who recorded albums for their mates. I used to record them so I could listen to them in the car. But it didn't kill the music business.
Piracy as it exists today is not going to kill the music business. However, the attempts by the record industry to disuade people buying CDs ever again and move to download from the internet is likely to serverely harm the record companies. Bands and artists who go out on the road or make and sell their music on a small budget, will likely survive for many years to come.
Re:Equipment
barbie on 2003-10-13T12:18:31
It wasn't so much the fact you can break the copy protection software, it's the fact that it is virtually no different from a trojan virus infilrating a computer without permission.Copy protection software is a false security. The record companies have been conned into thinking that they can put this software on CDs and everyone will buy into it. Thankfully a significant number don't.
If you are going to have copy protection it should not be to the detriment of my listening pleasure (several cases have highlighted the quality has been less than MP3s) and it should not try to install itself on any other machine that the owner has not given their explicit permission to do so. There are many Extended CDs out there now that have DATA tracks with lyrics videos, etc. All the ones I own (apart from the first few without the current technology) don't require anything to install, except perhaps readily available QuickTime or MPEG video players. So why should copy protection software ever require itself to be installed on your computer?
By installing itself during the autorun step then that violates MY terms and conditions of installing onto MY computer. Therefore should I be able to sue either the record company, the software writers or both? If a virus writer can be sued for doing exactly that, where is the difference here?
Welcome to this week's episode of "Corporate Stupidity", the program that shows you just how stupid companies can be when it comes to making money!
Today we take a look at SunnComm Technologies. They produced a CD copy-protection program for inclusion on music CDs. It is supposed to allow you to send tracks to people legally. The tracks would stop working after a limited number of times or a specific amount of time.
BBC News reported the following:
"Mr Halderman found that SunnComm's MediaMax CD-3 software could be bypassed by holding down the shift key on a Windows PC when a copy-protected CD was inserted. This temporarily disables the autorun function on Windows, stopping a anti-piracy program from installing itself on the computer."
It seems that a PHB at SunnComm thought that they could sue Mr. Halderman because he was sharing this secret information. Evidently, someone who is Windows literate set the PHB straight before the company sought legal action.
Imagine the hilarity that would have ensued had no one told the PHB! I've known the "secret" about holding down shift to disable autorun for years now.
That is about all of the time we have for this episode of "Corporate Stupidity". Join us next time when we explore just how stupid corporations can get in the pursuit of money.
