Root Suit Loot

It wasn’t all that long ago.

November 2005, to be exact. That’s when Thomas Hesse, Sony BMG’s president of global digital business, appeared on National Public Radio and said, "Most people don’t even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"

Fourteen months and several lawsuits later, it’s probably safe to say that not only do a great many people know what a rootkit is, but they care a great deal about it.

A rootkit is a program often used to help hide other programs, such as malware, spyware or viruses, from users. Back in October 2005 computer security researcher Mark Russinovich found such a beast on his own computer, and traced its origin to a new Sony BMG CD he had played on his machine a month earlier.

In this case the rootkit was used to hide programs used for copy protection technology employed on certain Sony BMG releases. The discovery led to the record label recalling CDs from store shelves, Texas suing the record company under that state’s spyware law, followed by California and New York filing class-action suits.

Plus, the entire debacle gave the fledgling CD copy protection business a big black eye from which it has yet to recover. What’s more, the United States Department Of Homeland Security issued an advisory, calling the Sony BMG rootkit a security threat to computer owners.

Now Sony BMG has agreed to reimburse consumers up to $150 for any damage the rootkit may have inflicted upon consumers’ machines. In December 2006 the label settled similar cases with more than 40 states when it agreed to pay more than $4 million and reimburse customers.

The latest rootkit agreement is between Sony BMG and the Federal Trade Commission, which said the software "exposed consumers to significant security risks and was unreasonably difficult to uninstall."

Under the terms of the agreement, Sony BMG is required to let customers exchange through the end of June any of the label’s CDs that contained the rootkit. The label must also reimburse the customers up to $150 for any damage that might have occurred from attempting to remove the software.

Additionally, Sony BMG must clearly disclose any limitations regarding consumers’ use of music CDs. The label is also prohibited from installing any software included on CDs without consumer consent and is barred from using any user information that might have been collected via the rootkit.

Finally, for the next two years the label must provide an uninstall tool and patches to repair security problems caused by the rootkit. The label must also advertise those fixes and publish information describing the exchange and reimbursement program on its Web site.

Sony BMG does not have to admit to any law violation in the settlement, which is subject to public comment for 30 days before the FTC makes a final decision.

But no matter what the FTC decides, it’s a sure bet that more people know what a rootkit is today than they did in 2005.

 

Collusion Infusion

The recording industry suing people for pirating music on peer-to-peer file sharing networks isn’t anything new. The labels have been doing it for the past few years, filing suit against whomever is at the other end of an IP address when copyrighted tunes pop up on the Net courtesy of someone’s shared directory.

But despite all the noise about the labels suing individual P2P users, very few cases ever make it to court. That’s because those targeted in such suits quickly discover it’s cheaper to settle with the labels for a few thousand dollars than to pay legal fees. Plus, if found guilty, a person could be liable for up to $150,000 per song. So it’s no wonder most people choose to settle.

But Patti Santangelo isn’t like most people. The 42-year-old mother chose court over settlement, and the labels eventually dropped their case against her last December. But while the labels were finished with Santangelo, they were hardly finished with her family.

After dropping its case against Santangelo, the labels quickly filed similar suits against her son and daughter. Recently the daughter, Michelle, 20, was ordered to pay $30,750 in a default judgment because she did not respond to the lawsuit.

On the other hand, not only did son Robert decide to fight the lawsuit, but he filed a countersuit, denying he ever illicitly distributed music. Plus, he claims it’s impossible for anyone to prove he did.

The 16-year-old defendant, who was 11 when the alleged piracy began, and his lawyer responded at length to the record labels’ charges, raised 32 defenses and demanded a jury trial. Santangelo also filed a counterclaim charging the labels had damaged his reputation, distracted him from school, and caused him to run up a legal bill.

As part of his defense, Santangelo claims he never sent copyrighted music to others, and that average computer users were never warned that doing so was illegal. Santangelo also claims that the labels had once promoted P2P file sharing before turning against it, and that the statute of limitations on suing him has passed.

But if the judge sides with the labels on Santangelo’s defense points, the teenager has yet another defense – all the music on the computer was purchased by his sister.

Evidently Santangelo believes a good defense is a good offense. The teen has taken more than a few jabs at the recording industry, claiming that the individual labels "are a cartel acting collusively in violation of the antitrust laws and public policy," and that the industry files cases jointly using the same agency "to make extortionate threats … to force defendants to pay."

Of course, the Recording Industry Of America, that "same agency" mentioned in Santangelo’s claims, had a response.

"The record industry has suffered enormously due to piracy," the RIAA said. "That includes thousands of layoffs. We must protect our rights. Nothing in a filing full of recycled charges that have gone nowhere in the past changes that fact."

 

The Times They Are …

Billy Joel may have been a one-man hit machine back in the ’70s and ’80s, but the piano man hasn’t released a pop tune in 14 years. However, all that will change with the release of his latest single, a tune dedicated to his wife Katie Lee Joel titled "All My Life."

But it’s a different world for music distribution since the days of "Just The Way You Are", "It’s Still Rock & Roll To Me", "Uptown Girl" and "We Didn’t Start The Fire." Back then, Columbia radio reps would deliver the latest Joel singles to radio and then sit back and wait for the money to pour in.

This time, Joel’s new single will first be available on People magazine’s Web site on February 7th, and will appear on iTunes on February 20th.

Guess you could say he’s in a download state of mind.

 

. . . A Changing

When was the last time you used a floppy disk?

We thought so. Chances are you probably haven’t used any storage medium so small since … well, since Billy Joel released his last pop song.

Now a major U.K. retailer has decided it’s time to drop the flop.

PC World, Britain’s largest chain of computer retail stores, says it will not reorder any floppy disks once its current supply runs out.

The chain, which has 155 stores in Britain, says it has about 10,000 disks in stock.

"It’s had a good, long and productive life, but really, it’s just too small to hold any real data," said PC World spokesman Hamish Thompson. "It just doesn’t make sense any more."

Adding insult to the floppy disk’s image was PC World’s commercial director, Bryan McGrath.

"The sound of a computer’s floppy disk drive will be as closely associated with 20th-century computing as the sound of the computer dialing into the Internet," McGrath said in a statement.