Virus Music – Sony Gets Down With the Sickness

So. Sony has gone to using rootkits as a method of providing Digital Restrictions Management.

For those who aren’t aware, here’s a quick rundown on what a rootkit and what DRM is: A root kit is a set of tools used by an intruder after cracking a computer system. These tools can help the attacker maintain his or her access to the system and use it for malicious purposes. In other words, they change the underlining OS so that it works against you, rather than for you.

DRM (short for Digital “Rights” Management a.k.a. Digital Restrictions Management) is the name applied to malware that stops you, the user, from doing what you want with the data you’ve bought and paid for. Typically, DRM is employed by paranoid pointy-haired bosses in the entertainment industry who are terrified that you might not have to pay their exorbitant prices for terrible content. Even worse, you might be able to change your media without having to fork over money to do so! The Horror!!

Theoretically, DRM is designed to protect the creative constructions of copyright holders. In practice, it just makes things entirely irritating for everyone involved and probably ends up costing the content providers sales. The copy protection on many games is a form of DRM; we all know that pirated games NEVER can be found, right? We also all know that it doesn’t slow down the game to ridiculousness or, in some cases, causes the game not to even play. Indeed, it’s pure insanity and communist lies that, in order to actually PLAY the game in many cases, one has to crack a game to remove the copy protection.

DRM is usually easily defeated and only ends up irritating legitimate customers. That is, until now. Now Sony, in their infinite wisdom, have unleashed a DRM system that is a freakin’ ROOTKIT! Rootkits are notoriously difficult to remove once installed (that is, after all, their primary purpose) and can actively cause serious damage. Thank you, Sony, for being such Good Corporate Citizens. Fuckers.

The CD in question, Van Zant’s “Get Right with the Man” (though probably more sooner than later), installs the rootkit on a Windows PC which intercepts several of the Windows library calls to route through the rootkit’s libraries. In addition, it causes any file named with $sys$ to be both executable and hidden. Wow. Just… wow. Does Sony have any clue just how much they are opening the already swiss-cheese armor of Windows to even more exploits? But I suppose that doesn’t matter; fucking customers are all thieves and liars anyway! They deserve it!

But wait! Maybe some of you are thinking that this sort of thing is illegal and Sony can get in trouble. Well, ordinarily you would be right; this sort of thing is considered illegal. The wrinkle here is that it’s being used as a method to ensure copyright protection, which means it falls under the auspices of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). This particularly odious piece of legislation makes it a criminal act to try and circumvent copyright protection systems. This means that, if you try to remove the rootkit, Sony can sue you! You could even go to prison!

God Bless America, huh?

Fortunately, the DMCA is only currently available in the US, England, and soon Australia, but the Powers That Be have been at work trying to get it included everywhere. It looks like Canada may fall soon, and likely the rest of the European Union. Pretty much all of the Cold-War Era first world. A sad day, indeed.

The rootkit isn’t mentioned specifically in Sony’s EULA, but they have the constant CYA clause in there where they are not responsible if your computer ends up coming to life and murdering in your sleep or anything else as a result of their work.

The thing here is that Sony isn’t JUST hurting their (evil, lying, thieving hobbetesses) customers. They’re also hurting the producers of the music, the artists themselves. The musicians here probably had no say over the matter, but if word of this gets out? Well, you can bet people are unlikely to buy the CD. It’s a fucking VIRUS ON THE CD! That is illegal to remove! And difficult to remove! People may be incalculably stupid, but even a slack jawed yokel is likely to think twice here.

Unfortunately, there isn’t much that can be done. What needs to happen is for these companies (which don’t actively produce anything, they just hold the copyright) to be cut out of the production and distribution loop and then die horribly like all bad businesses in a capitalistic system. The problem is that most people think that these companies are the only places to go for music and artists, in turn, are conditioned to only go to music labels. It’s not impossible to break away from this, but it is very hard. A good start, at least, would be to tell all your friends not to buy any Sony CD that has DRM or copyright protection measures and why. Maybe if enough people do this, the label’s unshakable power will begin to erode and distribution through alternative channels (like the Internet) will be possible.

We can dream, can’t we?

-Josh

References:
http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/10/sony-rootkits-and-digital-rights.html