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Linux Pipeline Newsletter www.LinuxPipeline.com Wednesday, January 04, 2006 In This Issue: - Sony BMG To Settle Class-Action Suit Over Rootkit Use - Key Backer Of Mass. Open-Source Effort Resigns - Blogs Abuzz Over Google-Powered PC Report - More News... - Anti-Virus Gets An Open Source Boost - Linux Security: A Good Thing Keeps Getting Better - Permission Slips: Using Linux Access Controls - More Picks... Join InformationWeek for a FREE, live TechWebCast on Surviving IT Infrastructure and Change. In this TechWebcast IT executives will learn how to align IT capabilities with business strategies, leveraging balanced scorecards to define their goals and critical success factors for the provision of IT to the business, and using measurement frameworks to ensure IT is improving. Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - 11:00-12:00 PT / 2:00-3:00 ET "http://www.techweb.com/webcasts/improvingit030706" ----------------------------------------- Editor's Note: Ding Dong, Sony's Dingbat DRM Is Dead First of all, welcome back and happy new year. I hope you enjoyed your vacations -- or if you didn't take/get any, I hope you at least did your best to be lazy and uncooperative. After all, that's what the week between Christmas and New Year's Day is all about. If you took some time off and (wisely) ignored the news last week, you may not have heard: Sony BMG Entertainment reached a deal to settle the class-action lawsuits that were lined up around the block, waiting to extract their payback for the record label's botched, malware-laced copy-protection schemes. It will cost Sony BMG a lot of cash to buy its way out of the mess it made -- but that's not the real reason why this settlement represents a staggering blow to the music industry's insane, and in the end self-destructive, grudge match against its own customers. Check out the Electronic Frontier Foundation's reaction to the settlement, and I think you'll agree with my gut instinct: Sony BMG didn't craft the deal and may not have authored a single word of it. Instead, I think it's likely that the company rolled over, showed its belly, and accepted whatever EFF and its co-plaintiffs demanded as payback for the three million or so music buyers whose PCs could have been infested with rootkits, spyware, utterly incompetent "uninstaller" software, and other distinctly non-musical offerings. This toxic software stew was, according to Sony BMG flaks, just a harmless little scheme to . . . well, to cripple their customers' PCs, without their knowledge or consent, in order to prevent them from using their own property in lawful, widely accepted, completely ordinary ways. In other words, saying these class-action lawsuits had merit is about as controversial is arguing that the sky is blue -- that became clear the moment Sony's "harmless" code landed on Microsoft's monthly spyware-removal hit list. Add up the compensation, damage awards, and legal fees Sony BMG faced when (not if) it lost these cases, and you have the distinct possibility that the world's second-biggest record label could have ended up going straight from civil court to bankruptcy court. (In fact, Sony BMG isn't off the hook even with the settlements, since they do not include the Texas Attorney General's investigation into whether the company violated a state law forbidding the distribution of spyware on victims' PCs. And this week, the Florida Attorney General also jumped on the dogpile. Perhaps given enough time, Sony BMG execs can at least face indictment in a state with a more pleasant climate.) Financial ruin for Sony BMG may sound like a satisfying outcome to anyone familiar with the details of this case. Yet a settlement in lieu of tearing the company limb from limb could turn out to be even more satisfying. First, there's the gratifying sight of EFF spanking Sony BMG like an unruly child, in plain view of the people the company had until recently treated in exactly the same manner. In addition to agreeing not to tinker with these types of copy-protection schemes, or anything remotely like them, for at least two years, that includes forcing Sony BMG to accept outside oversight of its data-gathering practices, along with a number of other restrictions that will put it out of the DRM business for a long time, if not forever. The bottom line is clear: Sony BMG's sleazy campaign to prevent customers from listening to legally purchased music -- whenever, wherever, and however they choose -- through the use of copy-protection software is finished for good. But there's a still bigger upside: Sony BMG's settlement will, in an ironic twist that makes me smile just to think about it, almost certainly kill any other copy-protection scheme by any other record label. In practice, it's impossible to implement such a system on a PC capable of reading (and ripping) audio CDs if the owner knows it exists. (Or, apparently, if there's any scotch tape in the house.) That's why Sony BMG tried to use a rootkit to hide its DRM software from users -- and with the brain trust behind that bright idea now bartering its continued existence for a set of restrictions they would have guffawed at a few weeks ago, we won't see too many other labels trying their luck with this approach. Combined with complaints from the labels' own artists and employees who are fed up with their dimbulb execs' screw-the-customers attitude, it's hard to see how software copy-protection technology will survive Sony BMG's self-immolation. That does not mean this war is over: What the record labels lost in the courts, or upon pain of having to appear in court, they will almost certainly try to win back in Congress. Consider, for example, a bill currently before the House Judiciary Committee that would mandate (Hollywood-crafted) hardware-based DRM on analog connections in any device capable of handling a digital content signal. I actually thought this was a joke at first, and in a way it still is -- only it's at your expense. Ha, ha. If you don't relish the prospect of your PC turning into a combination watchdog, stool pigeon, and time bomb, all at your expense and courtesy of your own elected representatives, pay close attention to this and similar music industry-supported capers that are sure to pop up in the weeks and months to come. These guys are convinced they can't win unless somebody else loses -- and they hate to lose. Have a good week, and stay in touch.
Matt McKenzie
Don't let future editions of Linux Pipeline Newsletter go missing. Take a moment to add the newsletter's address to your anti-spam whitelist: linuxed@techwire.com If you're not sure how to do that, ask your administrator or ISP. Or check your anti-spam utility's documentation. Thanks. Top Linux News Sony BMG To Settle Class-Action Suit Over Rootkit Use Lawyers working a class-action lawsuit against Sony BMG Music have filed a proposed settlement in federal court, awarding free music and small cash awards for plaintiffs, as well as imposing a two-year ban on any music CD copy-protection schemes.
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