Sony BMG offers music downloads as rootkit compensation

[Steve]

US consumers who bought a Sony BMG music CD protected with the XCP rootkit are to be offered compensation in the form of cash of three free album downloads. Consumers with the MediaMax DRM'd CDs (which, while not rootkits, do make a PC vulnerable to exploits) can also make use of the free downloads.

The deal also means Sony BMG must abandon use of the XCP and MediaMax programs and provide tools that help people clean the software from their PCs.

It must also fix any new vulnerabilities the programs are found to create or which are created by any anti-piracy system it adopts in the future.

Sony BMG must also change the way that it tries to protect music on discs and in the future must clearly label and test its anti-piracy systems. The methods it wants to adopt must also be independently audited.

[BBC News]

It's just a shame the music downloads will be DRM'd themselves.

[Jonny M]

This isn't a personal dig at you Steve, but I wish the vocal minority who think that large-scale, big-name artists music downloads, free of DRM, are anything but something which will never happen, would stop going on about it. DRM is here to stay, and it's working to prevent casual piracy. Nothing is going to change that, stop dreaming that one day Sony will turn around and accounce that the Connect store will now only sell LAME -aps ripped MP3s.

Those of you who say you will never pay to download a DRM song might as well say that they are never going to pay to download a song.

Yes I know about Bleep, I'm talking about the huge stores.

[MAdMaN]

Those of you who say you will never pay to download a DRM song might as well say that they are never going to pay to download a song.

Well, I'm never going to pay to download a DRMed song. I use Linux so the songs most likely won't play on my computer.

Now, where was that site that sold music in Ogg Vorbis format?

[Funkstar]

I'm with you MAdMaN (well, appart from the Linux part)

[SpawnofSonic]

DRM is a strange topic, Im not a huge fab of it but understand the reasoning, surely the cost of songs are still too high though. At least Sony are providing some form of compensation, although it will cost them pittance.