Sony officially lists 52 XCP infected CDs & faces a loss of sales

19 Nov 05 01:07 by in category Uncategorized

The controversial rootkit based copy protection used by Sony started out when the British company First 4 Internet had meetings with four major record labels in an aim to sell them the latest copy protection, XCP.  The intention was to restrict consumers to allow them to make only one copy of their original disc in an aim to defeat piracy.  At the time, EMI, Warner Music and Universal took on a limited form of the protection protection for pre-release promotional copies only as a trial.

However, Sony BMG decided to go ahead with the product and released over 50 album titles on the market using this sophisticated Rootkit based copy protection, which in turn caused a major headache for Sony once it was revealed how the copy protection works and the serious problems it occurs.  This resulted in several class-action consumer lawsuits, calls for boycotts, problems from antivirus companies and so on. 

Finally, Sony decided to discontinue these CDs and recall all CDs using this nasty XCP copy protection.   Unfortunately as Sony asked retailers to immediately remove affected discs from their shelves back on Monday, the replacements may not reach the shops until next Friday, thus causing lost sales for artists until that time, especially with Thanksgiving coming up next week in the US.  Thanks to Jim Kiler who used our news submit to let us know about the following news and the offical list of affected CDs:

src="http://www.cdfreaks.com/contentimages/newsimages/1223633914" align=right border=0
>It sounded like music to record executives’ ears.
Copy-protection software that would to do the impossible: make CDs that couldn’t be repeatedly copied.

Britain’s First 4 Internet landed meetings with the four major record labels, trying to sell software called XCP. The concept was that consumers could burn one copy and one copy only, defeating the rampant piracy that the industry says costs it billions in lost revenue.

Each label signed up. EMI, Warner Music and Universal employed the company only for trials, using a limited form of XCP that scrambled the CD for pre-release promotional copies sent to critics.

Sony BMG, the world’s second-largest label, decided to go one step further, releasing more than 50 consumer titles with the strictest form of copy protection ever used by the music industry. The move backfired after a computer researcher blogged about his discovery of potentially grave problems: Hidden files on the CD made PCs susceptible to viruses if the disc was played on a computer.

The full,  href="http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2005-11-17-sony-cds_x.htm"
target=_new>in-detail article can be read here.

CD’s Containing XCP Content Protection Technology

Note:  We will shortly be releasing new versions of these titles without the XCP software.  You therefore need to check this list for both the name of the album and the item number (which can be found on the spine of the CD).  If the item number is not listed below, your CD does not contain XCP content protection.

Affected list (Artist – Album Title)

  • A Static Lullaby – Faso Latido
  • Acceptance – Phantoms
  • Amerie – Touch
  • Art Blakey – Drum Suite
  • The Bad Plus – Suspicious Activity?
  • Bette Midler – Sings the Peggy Lee Songbook
  • Billie Holiday – The Great American Songbook
  • Bob Brookmeyer – Bob Brookmeyer & Friends
  • Buddy Jewell – Times Like These
  • Burt Bacharach – At This Time
  • Celine Dion – On Ne Change Pas
  • Chayanne – Cautivo
  • Chris Botti – To Love Again
  • The Coral – The Invisible Invasion
  • Cyndi Lauper – The Body Acoustic
  • The Dead 60s – The Dead 60s
  • Deniece Williams – This Is Niecy
  • Dexter Gordon – Manhattan Symphonie
  • Dion – The Essential Dion
  • Earl Scruggs – I Saw the Light With Some Help From My Friends
  • Elkland – Golden
  • Emma Roberts – Unfabulous and More: Emma Roberts
  • Flatt & Scruggs – Foggy Mountain Jamboree
  • Frank Sinatra – The Great American Songbook
  • G3 – Live in Tokyo
  • George Jones – My Very Special Guests
  • Gerry Mulligan – Jeru
  • Horace Silver – Silver’s Blue
  • Jane Monheit – The Season
  • Jon Randall – Walking Among the Living
  • Life of Agony – Broken Valley
  • Louis Armstrong – The Great American Songbook
  • Mary Mary – Mary Mary
  • Montgomery Gentry – Something to Be Proud of: The Best of 1999-2005
  • Natasha Bedingfield – Unwritten
  • Neil Diamond – 12 Songs
  • Nivea – Complicated
  • Our Lady Peace – Healthy in Paranoid Times
  • Patty Loveless – Dreamin’ My Dreams
  • Pete Seeger – The Essential Pete Seeger
  • Ray Charles – Friendship
  • Rosanne Cash – Interiors 
  • Rosanne Cash – King’s Record Shop
  • Rosanne Cash – Seven Year Ache
  • Shel Silverstein – The Best Of Shel Silverstein
  • Shelly Fairchild – Ride
  • Susie Suh – Susie Suh
  • Switchfoot – Nothing Is Sound
  • Teena Marie – Robbery
  • Trey Anastasio – Shine
  • Van Zant – Get Right With the Man
  • Vivian Green – Vivian

Note:  Two titles, Ricky Martin’s “Life” and Peter Gallagher’s “7 Days in Memphis” were released with a content protection grid on the back of the CD packaging but XCP content protection software was not actually included on the albums.

Source: href="http://cp.sonybmg.com/xcp/english/titles.html" target=_new
>Sony BMG Music Entertainment

Even though Sony BMG is unlikely ever to try out rootkit based copy protection again, this is a clear scenario of where using sophisticated copy-protection can cause a severe backfire and even a loss of sales. :p 


As Sony BMG has even taken the step of having their copy-protected discs
removed from shop shelves until new stock arrives next week, this is the first
case I’m aware of where copy-protection can cause a serious loss of
sales for the company as well as the affected artists, not to mention the costs
involved in recalling all these discs and supplying replacements!  In my
opinion, Sony BMG would have been far better off if they never used copy
protection from the very start. 

Source: USA Today – Money

11 Comments on Sony officially lists 52 XCP infected CDs & faces a loss of sales

jbailey8
Posts: 31
Posted on: 19 Nov 05 01:53
There is no such thing a 'copy-proof' cd/dvd, if the disk can be read period (protected or not), it can be copied. I really wish these jerks would drop this copy protection cr*p for the following reasons: 1. The only people that get burned are the paying customers, those who get what they want 'through other means' don't have to worry about that. 2. The copy protection companies always claim that there protections 'stop hackers, pirates, etc, etc'. I have yet to see ANY protection actually do that. 3. You can bypass a lot of this cr*p by simply holding down the shift key when the disk is being inserted or by turning off autorun completly. 4. It adds to the cost of already high prices for your cd/dvd. 5. If someone were to use the same technology sony/f4i used on their recent releases and got caught, that person would be arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. But it's ok if some of these big companies do this to their paying customers. (Actually, this has already happened I think). 6. Not everyone has a recent-enough reader burner capable of handling these new protections properly, so even if you have the proper disk inserted, you STILL might not be-able to play your payed-for game. 7. The only way I can think of to make a cd/dvd completly uncopyable is to make the entire disk un-readable by any current device. (But that's probably not going to happen). My 2 cents worth.... :r
freonchill
Posts: 73
Posted on: 19 Nov 05 01:57
im really surpised that many people were affected, other than Frank Sinatra, Louie Armstrong, and Billie Holiday - the rest of the titles are crap that no one would buy anyway. and probably most of the people who buy these titles, would NEVER play them on a computer; they would user their super HIFI system that they have had since these artists were playing live.
[edited by freonchill on 19.11.2005 01:58]
heystoopid
Posts: 307
Posted on: 19 Nov 05 03:56
Hmm, I doubt very much if this a complete list, for if Dan Kaminsky, an intrepid net analyst, in a sample of 9.9 million internet users, could identify SONY's DRM's unique virus signature on approximately 568,000 worldwide individual users on line, with some 200,000 in Japan, 130,000 in the USA(a number of users in this figure also included isp addresses allocated to state and federal network computers! oops that is federal felony jailable offence boys!!!), 44,000 in the UK, 27,000 in The Netherlands and Spain, and approximately 8,000 in Australia downunder! This would indicate, the number of infectious SONY cd's on issue, are far greater in number, than that which is claimed by NEW YORK HQ. Interestingly both here in Australia and New Zealand, SONY BMG, have on front web page an official disclaimer it weren't us that sold these diseased cd's!!!!!(Trades practice act permits parallel importation). Meanwhile back in New York HQ, the information is buried deep!, and no mention of the higher Japanese windoze infection rate. Me, I hope SONY BMG is buried on the consumer front(6 plus class action law suits plus total consumer boycott!), FTC gets of its backside for the defence of all consumers and acts under it's charter(*false fictious misleading advertising 4.7 million counts, supply of illegal copyright & copyleft software without user permission on audio cd's etc),an attack from the redoubtable Eliot Spitzer with 568,000 charges of illegal felony trespass on private and personal property, LGPL legal action over the illegal use of open source copyleft software for profit(billing artists for user fees from royalty charges due, without disclosure some 4.7 million cases, class action law suits for supply of windows file cloaking software for use by virii/trojan/phisher for current and future , to cover disinfection and cleaning costs and finally a class action law suit from the recording artists, if forced to compensate for replacement cd's if charges are levied against royalty payments! This a true PR disaster for SONY, and whilst they did it to themselves, I find it very strange over the lack of news on the Japanese front! Looks like SONY have totally lost FACE on all fronts(a key important asset in the far east!). The perpetrators deserved to be jailed for a minimum 20 to 30 years hard time for these felonies, and for total breach of all criminal and business ethics laws, for this fiasco!, in every civilised country in the world. Let the death of SONY, by a hundred million cuts continue(looks like the hamfisted contract specialist lawyers at SONY central New York are gonna be outmanned and out gunned, in this gunfight, they started) Oh well, ask for what you get, and get what you ask for!:r
tehGrue
Posts: 1476
Posted on: 19 Nov 05 04:53
I own the first two on the list, and a couple others with SunComm MediaMax... But as long as they never autoplay, I don't care.
naz2x
Posts: 11
Posted on: 19 Nov 05 11:09
Oh well Sony think always big dogs....
bkf
Posts: 1685
Posted on: 19 Nov 05 11:12
Gee I just checked, Im not a music freek but every title is sitting on various P2P networks as we speak. So much for rootkits
Nuke001
Posts: 138
Posted on: 19 Nov 05 11:32
All I can say "AH HA" :B
jbailey8
Posts: 31
Posted on: 19 Nov 05 13:49
Of course most of this stuff is already available on other networks, no surprise there...
Dick Rivett
Posts: 25
Posted on: 19 Nov 05 18:00
What I want to know is who else first 4 internet licensed this wonderful rootkit too? Is this just the tip of the iceberg?
bkf
Posts: 1685
Posted on: 19 Nov 05 18:35
"who else first 4 internet licensed this wonderful rootkit too?" I doubt they will be around much longer to even worry about it. Sony ain't looking so good either. All this and christmas shopping coming up. Can you say WOOPS three times real fast. Bigger companies then these have been taken out. Tip of iceburg? you got that right. The laywers have not even started second gear yet. :B
fatbaby
Posts: 94
Posted on: 26 May 09 19:43
(Spam)
Tell us, what do you think about

Sony officially lists 52 XCP infected CDs & faces a loss of sales

Most popular headlines

Windows Blue to allow boot to desktop and brings start menu back? (3)

  • Tue 16 Apr 16:12 by DoMiN8ToR
  • Software, Windows 8

The upcoming update of Windows 8 might allow users to boot to the desktop again.

Jobs in US entertainment industry on all-time high - piracy?! (8)

The number of jobs in the film and music industry in the United States has increased despite the claimed negative effects of illegal downloads.

The Piratebay domain moves to Greenland - circumvents blockade (3)

The PirateBay has moved to the domain thepiratebay.gl in fear that their previous domain would be ceased by Swedish authorities

Intel 9 series chipset has native SATA Express (SATA over PCIe) support (2)

A Chinese tech site has posted a picture that reveals details on Intel's 9 series chipset.

See all headlines

Active Commenters