The Register has an opinion piece today on the EFF, claiming that they’ll lose their case against Sony. They go back through the history of the EFF and it’s “successes?” or not… in the realm of attempted protection against IP overprotection.
Tag: EFF
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EFF gives up on DMCA exemption process
There’s a story over at PC Pro, that says the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) has given up on the process for obtaining exemptions from the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act). They claim that the three year exemption period is meaningless. All of their requests for exemptions have been declined. Including requests to allow DVD purchasers to be able to play DVD’s purchased from any region, to allow CD purchasers to play copy protected discs on a PC, and to allow skipping of “unskippable” ads at the beginning of DVDs.
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The DMCA exemption process…
Another entry from the “how do the good guys keep from getting their pants sued off…” files. Freedom-to-tinker has an entry on their application for a DMCA waiver. (The DMCA (among other things) makes it against the law to circumvent copy protection (or to communicate ways of circumvention)) It sounds like the exemption process is slanted towards not issuing exemptions, but they’re trying. There are some interesting notes from their application.
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Today’s Sony DRM rootkit stories….
Amazingly I haven’t seen any big Sony news today, but there are a couple stories out that are worth noting… First up is freedom-to-tinker with their take on the lawsuits announced yesterday and the one thing that isn’t getting much press coverage, the MediaMax DRM software. XCP is the name of the rootkit that Sony had used for Digital Rights Management that’s caused all the fuss lately, through it’s way of hiding in the system, it’s security vulnerabilities, it’s difficulty to remove (damage to the system) and vulnerabilites in the uninstaller. Well…
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OTHER Sony DRM software has security flaws too.
You almost want to bury your head in the sand at this point if you’re Sony…. Freedom-to-tinker has some details. The last couple weeks the XCP copy protection that Sony uses has been the center of a Firestorm for rootkit capabilities and massive security problems. Well, it seems the OTHER Digital Rights Management (DRM) software they use ( SunnComm MediaMax ) has some serious flaws too.
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The Continuing Stooo-ry of the Sony DRM rootkit debacle….
Let’s see there are a couple more notes to pass along on Sony DRM rootkit news. This story could go on for some time, it’s already had legs for about a week or more and just when things started to wind down a bit, there’s a bit more. First up, the EFF has a writeup on the EULA that Sony sends along with it’s DRM-ified Cds. Among other things it obliges you to wipe any copies of songs of your pc if you’re cd is lost or stolen, it cannot be played on a work computer, you can’t take it with you if you leave the country, you MUST install any and all updates to their software or the content is forfeit, SONY-BMG reserves the right to install backdoors or other means to protect their content, SONY will only be liable for a maximum of $5, if you declare bankrupcy you must forfeit all the music on your pc, no derivitave works, (photo albums for family/friends, mash-ups, or sampling), music on the pc may NOT be transfered even if the cd accompanies the transfer.
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More Sony DRM news
It looks like a list of Sony Music titles with the recent onerous DRM “rootkit” is being gathered. The Sunbelt blog has links to several lists. The EFF has a list here, there are two others though out there, here and here.
Among other things, another post mentions the stupid things Sony-BMG leadership has had to say on the matter…
“Most people, I think, don’t even know what a Rootkit is, so why should they care about it?”
and, it’s also noted the installer can be bypassed by pressing the shift key when loading the cd (to skip autorun.) (Does telling this actually violate the DMCA – spreading information on circumventing copy protection?)