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In Reply to: Anyone have experience troubleshooting problems with Sony/BMI music copy protected discs? posted by j_thunders on April 16, 2007 at 11:54:48:
A couple of notes: the person who detected the presence of the rootkit, Mark Russinovich, is considered by some to be the foremost expert in the world on the Windows operating system. He posted his findings in his blog, which was mostly dedicated to the software business he had. A key product he had recently released involved detecting rootkits on computers.Three years ago I had put a CD with MediaMax--which was later considered to be even more potentially destructive than XCP--and it installed its own player, without my consent. It was a Fountains Of Wayne CD, and I immediately ejected it & used my Philips standalone audio burner to create rippable CDRW copies that I could place into the player I wanted to use, rather than the one they wanted to force me to use.
The SonyBMG/XCP issue had much to do with trying to force people to purchase Sony portable MP3 hardware, as the round of XCP discs with the rootkit (there have been different versions of XCP) were not only DRM'd as to prevent use by iTunes, and, therefore, the iPod, but also installed a player, which had not been the case with certain XCP discs that had been sent out previously (not necessarily retail copies).
The company that created XCP, First4Internet, may well have gone a little beyond what SonyBMG might have wanted to see happen. However, due to the then-recent merger, it was said that the various divisions of both companies were experiencing communications difficulties; and of course Sony was both a hardware and content/software company. It didn't help that a high-ranking Sony official, Howard Stringer, when questioned, said that most people don't know what a rootkit is anyway, so why should they care?
Well, it's spyware. And it's been said that the EULA that accompanied the prompt for the installation of the XCP software wasn't clear about exactly what the ramifications were. Rob Doorack, who is probably reading this, seemed to know quite a bit about it at the time. In fact, he knew the name of the person who either authored the software, or authorized its inclusion on the SonyBMG titles. And what emerged later is that whoever did write the software--Lynn something?--just happened to use open-source components, but pass off the finished product as a result of the work of his company & his company alone. That's a big no-no right there, of course, but the details in all this represents such a clusterf*ck & dereliction of ethics that I'm still amazed how Sony's stock performed in the period following this issue.
Russinovich reported daily on how SonyBMG reacted to this: first they offered a patch, then that wasn't good enough, so there was another. If I recall, you can't really ever remove the rootkit, it's there forever. The only real solution is to format yr hardrive. Sony offered a 'rootkit removal' tool on their website, but that turned out to be problematic as well. Then issues emerged regarding MediaMax. At some point, Russinovich put it into layman's terms on his blog (Sysinternals) how one could see if the rootkit existed on their drive. The filename for the rootkit, if I'm relating this correctly, had a prefix to it, a code that the computer had been modified to ignore. A component of the rootkit adds a registry key, I believe, that says there is nothing with this prefix on this box. Technically I'm probably relating this poorly, but that's the nuts & bolts of it. It's like if you had a jpeg photo file that you named Hawaii, let's say...and you changed a registry key to not detect the presence of any file whose name begins with 'hawaii.' Therefore, to the user, it doesn't exist, because the computer can't find it.
How much damage these rootkits were ever going to do, is unknown. The idea was more about compiling research involving music consumers back to SonyBMG for the sake of their marketing more than anything else. While of course that's spyware, and against the law to place on one's computer unless you consent to it, that by itself probably isn't that huge an issue unless you're a consumer advocate extremist. However, rootkits are potentially dangerous, given what hackers can do to yr computer if they use them for various purposes. If a hacker finds a rootkit on your system, the possibility is that they can exploit it for a variety of activities, the most likely of which would be to turn yr computer into a spambot. Since a good portion of spam involves phishing & spoofs, you could then be a pawn in an attempt to get someone who doesn't know any better to divulge personal information to nice people in places like Eastern Europe who apparently don't tire of trying to get people's banking passwords.
That said, if I'm going to actually minimize the ramifications of the presence of a rootkit, I should also point out that this is not just home PCs we're talking about: how many people brought XCP CDs to work & ripped them there? How many corporate servers were infected? Government computers?
An exploit or two was discovered before the situation was properly dealt with, but I think it was fairly benign, involving online gaming--not gambling, a PC gamer/hacker sort of competition, you know what I'm talking about. Within a few weeks, the CDs had been recalled (I still have a few in my possession, actually, though they'll never go anywhere near my computer, which wouldn't matter anymore anyway as I've mostly forsaken Windows for my iMac & will never purchase a Windows machine again), and legalities were being discussed. There was a class-action suit, a couple of cases brought...one in the state of Texas, New York might've done one, and I believe there was a criminal proceeding of some sort in Italy. Oh, and then there was the issue of a couple of records that should've been readily available throughout the Christmas shopping season. Many were reissues, quite a few jazz resissues; but then there was the Neil Diamond CD, a major comeback for him considering he'd been paired with producer Rick Rubin. To my ears, it's a great album, with very much the feel that Rubin coaxed out of Johnny Cash on the first record they'd done together. Oh, and then there were a few Christmas albums (I think the Bette Midler title was one?) as well as platters from people like Jane Monheit, who are on a commercial level that is extremely vulnerable to such a f*cked up ass-fest. Russinovich had first posted about the rootkit at the end of October; the decision to recall the CDs wasn't made until shortly before Thanksgiving, at which point it was said that no production facilities had even begun the process of producing a new round of XCP-free versions of the 50 or so affected titles.
Speaking of the titles, it's a curious list, I've always thought. Jazz reissues? SonyBMG was trying to limit the copying of reissues by people like...Bob Brookmeyer, for Pete's sake? Well, either it was an experiment prior to unleashing the forces of the rootkit on the kiddy stuff, or SonyBMG was actually taking the specific step of targeting the people who'd buy those sorts of titles, presumably Boomers & even perhaps folks older than that, who I guess they'd think of as a demographic with more disposable income than the crowd who'd be more likely to purchase the CD that Russinovich had ripped to his computer...the Van Zant CD.
But the absolutely most amazing aspect of the entire thing to me is that...in spite of the rootkit being obviously illegal...and in spite of it being plagiarized to an extent...and in spite of the damage done to the careers of some of the affected artists...is that looking for rootkits is illegal. Uncovering their presence is illegal. Doing anything to alter them, or to remove them, is illegal.
Russinovich broke the law every step of the way. And it doesn't matter that SonyBMG also broke the law, or that First4Internet broke the law. Every action that Russinovich took is, at least according to the multiple sources I looked to make sure I wasn't seeing things the more people started to report on this, in clear violation of the DMCA.
Because you can't take someone's software & make changes to it without their consent.
That this law is a poorly written piece of crap that wasn't on a par with then-current technology when it was written was bad enough; that it hasn't been scrapped in favor of something that addresses valid needs, even in the face of what's gone on involving the music business over the past several years, is surprising, even considering that we're at war. I recently argued all this with the usually very reasonable Mark Rohr on Rocky Road, in a very long thread that's now somewhere on the second page over there--not the rootkit issue specifically, but some of the factors that need to be examined & usually aren't in knee-jerk evaluations of other problems facing the music business that I won't go into here (the thread should be easy enough to find over there, there's more than 80 posts in it).
Mark hasn't been very happy with me lately for this. Well, that's a shame, but I can't get too worked up about it. This is an issue I remain concerned about, and apparently more than a lot of people. Frankly, and I don't mean this as a putdown in spite of the ridicule you heaped on me a few days ago on another board here, I'm shocked you didn't know about this. Not surprised, shocked. I would've thought anyone who cared enough about music to post on an audiophile board would've been aware of this, it was only 18 months ago.
I'll tell you this: I will never, ever again, so long as I live, ever purchase a Sony or SonyBMG product. That means electronics, CDs, you name it. Never. They earned a lifelong boycott from me. I don't think they're worried, but this whole mess is something that represents the actions & behaviors of a company that I have no interest in doing business with. Period.
Here's a link to Wikipedia's take on the whole thing. Some good links here. My account may not be 100% accurate, but I think I nailed it pretty well. I read theirs recently, and it seemed to cover most if not all the bases, didn't look at it now, but I suspect it'll help fill in any blanks I might've missed. If nothing else, check the link on Mark Russinovich and/or Sysinternals. I often wonder what would've happened if he hadn't decided to tinker with his box. And I remember the disbelief I had when I tried to read his very technical, very involved blow-by-blow description of how he uncovered the presence of the rootkit.
I don't know if it's practical for you, but if you had a day or two on a weekend to invest, I'd seriously consider backing up everything important you've got on yr box, storage is cheap & I've found additional hard drives to be great peripherals for years now, and do a format & reinstall. OR, I'd buy an iMac.
Follow Ups:
J wrote:
"I don't know if it's practical for you, but if you had a day or two on a weekend to invest, I'd seriously consider backing up everything important you've got on yr box, storage is cheap & I've found additional hard drives to be great peripherals for years now, and do a format & reinstall. OR, I'd buy an iMac. "Backing up your PC, formatting the drive, and then re-building it using your backup ain't gonna help. You'll simply restore the bad stuff along with the good.
If you want to get rid of rootkits, get the AVG AntiVirus software (FREE) and have it ferret out the rootkits and remove them...
-RW-
Thank you for presenting the issues involved. The DMCA is indeed
some of the most screwed-up legislation to come out of Washington.
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
Sony is not the only perpetrator of this, and for all I know, this type of chicanery could be going on for things outside the realm of music and audio. In doing some research in spyware removal products (there is no definitive product), it's scary how much bad stuff might be percolating on our hard drives.
Ever. And I'm not an Apple fanboy or Microsoft-basher, just a switcher who'll never go back. And I'm well aware that Mac shouldn't be considered bulletproof by any means, but these sorts of things are going to be far more prevalent on Windows systems. It certainly was in the case of the SonyBMG DRM. I felt extremely lucky that the MediaMax CD I placed in my PC in 2004 didn't seem to leave any traces, or the one, non-rootkit XCP CD that I put in there.I would say that my pointing out the legal ramifications of Russinovich's actions to be akin to what you said in that other thread--like pointing out that someone's stepping on an ant. Does it make sense to you that I am pointing to these extremes with consistency for a reason?
Here's an example of how this could've been a problem for Mac users, also.
Better uninstall your antivirus software immediately!Otherwise, some music industry a-holes who pretend to be against the music industry may arrest you!
I also hope nobody reads this and then follows through in compromising the security of a PC......Installing rootkits as consequence to copyright violation is nothing more than vigilantism which, if anything, should be deemed as a worse crime than the one that it was intended to curtail. If copyright violations occur, the best means is to take legal avenues, where the procedures in nailing the violators don't go on the wrong side of the law.
Section 103, Chapter 12, sections 1201 & 1202.`Sec. 1201. Circumvention of copyright protection systems
`(a) VIOLATIONS REGARDING CIRCUMVENTION OF TECHNOLOGICAL MEASURES- (1)(A) No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title. The prohibition contained in the preceding sentence shall take effect at the end of the 2-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this chapter.
`(B) The prohibition contained in subparagraph (A) shall not apply to persons who are users of a copyrighted work which is in a particular class of works, if such persons are, or are likely to be in the succeeding 3-year period, adversely affected by virtue of such prohibition in their ability to make noninfringing uses of that particular class of works under this title, as determined under subparagraph (C).
****B is interesting. According to SonyBMG, it was only copy protection, not malware; so, unless identified as malware, which was not even attempted by folks like Norton & the like, or even Microsoft, it's not malware, and Russinovich does not qualify for an exemption.
****
`(2) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that--`(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;
`(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; or
`(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.
****I wasn't the one who looked at this & said 'looking for rootkits is illegal!' However, some people did, and I have seen nothing that says this is NOT the case. So, as I said, in providing an unbelievably necessary public service to anyone who buys pop music CDs, Russinovich was, as I stated, BREAKING THE LAW. Got it now?
****
`(3) As used in this subsection--
`(A) to `circumvent a technological measure' means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner; and
`(B) a technological measure `effectively controls access to a work' if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work.
`(b) ADDITIONAL VIOLATIONS- (1) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that--
`(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof;
`(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof; or
`(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof.
`(2) As used in this subsection--
`(A) to `circumvent protection afforded by a technological measure' means avoiding, bypassing, removing, deactivating, or otherwise impairing a technological measure; and
`(B) a technological measure `effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title' if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, prevents, restricts, or otherwise limits the exercise of a right of a copyright owner under this title.
****More of the same. This goes on for awhile. Getting boring, isn't it? There are exemptions, mind you. But it doesn't look like Russinovich qualified for any of them, although the section that refers to Encryption Research may have provided him an out...except that anyone with the ability to do research on the rootkit had already agreed to a legal digital document that said that it was only copy protection. So, why would there be a reason to believe that any research to try to find flaws would likely be considered to be valid enough as to qualify for an exemption? Especially when nobody else said a damned thing about the rootkit? The silence from Norton & Macafee, et al, was deafening. Which means either they were afraid to announce the discovery because it put them at legal risk (which it could have, of course only in theory, as nobody would've prosecuted them, Russinovich, or whoever unearthed the rootkit, though that's not the likely reason), or they were simply inept & didn't know about it in the first place. The consensus was that Russinovich & his Rootkit Revealer (which resembles everything the above quoted sections are saying is a no-no, doesn't it?) was the first & only example of someone nailing XCP's rootkit for what it was.
For everyone else, the only way you could find a way to expose Sony for having broken the law, was to not live up to the terms that you agreed to when you allowed the EULA! And if you didn't permit the EULA, you could not play the CD on yr computer.
The rest of the relevant section is available at
http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/hr2281_dmca_law_19981020_pl105-304.html
But I'll end this nonsense, for now, with a passage that further bolsters my assertion, which you for some reason see fit to deny, relating to how looking for a rootkit was indeed a violation of the DMCA. This is from a blog called Freedom To Tinker:
"Researchers like Professor Edward Felten and Alex Halderman waste valuable research time consulting attorneys due to concerns about liability under the DMCA. They must consult not only with their own attorneys but with the general counsel of their academic institutions as well. Unavoidably, the legal uncertainty surrounding their research leads to delays and lost opportunities. In the case of the CDs at issue, Halderman and Felten were aware of problems with the XCP software almost a month before the news became public, but they delayed publication in order to consult with counsel about legal concerns . This delay left millions of consumers at risk for weeks longer than necessary."
And here's a link to the paper eventually published by those researchers, which I haven't read in its entirety, to be perfectly honest. Tell you what, if it turns out that I'm wrong about this, I'll have no problem admitting it. I never saw a source that talked about the IRONY of Russinovich having been in violation of the DMCA that I didn't find trustworthy. You are free to disagree.
turning off autorun on your computer CD drive is a criminal act.Common sense should tell you that nobody will ever be prosecuted for this.
Nor will Russinovich be prosecuted for providing a free rootkit remover. I'm sure you understand this is not going to happen.
So the fundamentalist interpretation of the law is really not useful.
First of all, it wasn't my interpretation, it was the interpretation of legal and computer security experts. I saw this posed in many places, not challenged, but perhaps poorly understood.Disabling autoplay has nothing to do with it. If it was disabled, you still couldn't play the CD unless you agreed to the installation of the included player, which of course came with the malware that SonyBMG claimed was only copy protection.
The only person who did anything that was illegal, and only then in a strictly technical, legal sense, was Russinovich. Once declared malware by Microsoft, nobody was committing any illegal acts by doing anything to find, alter, or remove the rootkit, or to circumvent the copy protection as part of that process. Whether or not Russinovich would've been prosecuted--and of course we all know he didn't--doesn't change the fact that what he did was a violation of the DMCA.
And just because you see no worth in identifying the extremes of the law for what they are, doesn't mean that none exists: pointing to the fact that Russinovich's actions constituted a violation is exactly why we're able to make a determination that the law is absurd & needs an overhaul. Perhaps that case could be made anyway, but there are some who would disagree--the RIAA, for instance, who are on record, I do believe, as saying these types of copyright protections don't go far enough!
I won't argue that this is a relatively trivial point in the scheme of things, but I will say that being able to point to this as an example of exactly how extremely absurd the law is, is not insignificant in the debate, and the discussion that will hopefully lead to an overhaul of this legislation.
The way this type of copy protection works is to install a player and play a DRM file instead of the WAV files. The WAV files are also on the disk, or else it could not play on a normal non-computer CD player.If you disable autorun, there is no EULA, no player installation, and you can play the WAV files on the computer just as though it was a standalone CD player. On a PC, you do this through the registry.
Now again, since you have gotten around copy protection, your narrow interpration would have to rule this an illegal act.
The point is, courts interpret laws all the time. There are many marginal cases that are hard to predict. This is not one of them. Again, Russinovich is not going to be prosecuted. So the narrow interpretation posited on the Internet is obviously not going to be the court interpretation. The law is what the courts say in the end.
I hate the DCMA and I hate rootkits almost as much as you do, although I will still go to a Sony motion picture. I'd be glad to see it overturned myself.
We agree more than we disagree. But I remember this from when SonyBMG first went into damage control mode, and guess what, it's still posted on their FAQ page devoted to the XCP/MediaMax issue. You may very well be correct about this, and I probably saw conflicting reports about this, but if what you're saying is true, they're still lying about these discs. The Wikipedia page I linked to in my initial post in the thread does contain links to pages that offer advice on circumventing the rootkit, but I remain curious, as I'm still not 100% on whether or not these CDs can be safely & properly used even with autorun disabled. I sure don't trust them. If you're right, then why would they still have this posted on their FAQ site?"When listening to music directly off the disc, you must use the player provided on the disc. Attempting to play the audio on the disc (while the disc is spinning in the computer drive) with another player (i.e. Windows Media Player, Real Player, iTunes) will result in distorted sound."
They are being a little deceptive.If you put one of these disks in your computer even one time without disabling autorun, there is no telling what crap they might install. Once a rootkit is installed, it may act to prevent proper playback of the WAV files on this computer using any normal playback software. And once it is on there, you're screwed, it's tough to remove a rootkit.
However, if autorun is disabled from the very first time you insert this disk, nothing can be installed on your computer from this disk. In this case, you can play the WAV files using any normal CD software including Windows Media Player etc.
It is in their interest to make people think they cannot play these files or rip them, that they are stuck with the DRM files.
And since most people don't mess with the registry, in most cases people will be stuck with the DRM files.
But people with just a little computer savvy will not. So I do not believe these are completely honest statements that they have written.
How is it in their interest to continue even a low level of deception?
In my opinion, the content companies have always tried to present an image of unbreakable copy protection. And the copy protection on popular media is all cracked. DVDs are cracked. SACDs are not. But if any substantial number of people bought SACDs, they'd be cracked too.But the companies will not ever admit any vulnerability in their copy protection schemes. That would make the whole effort seem pointless. So they posture as though they have taken effective measures.
That post may well win the prize for the longest I've seen on this site.I do not recall heaping scorn on you in Priya's thread. I may have made fun of you a little for your stated admiration of a certain British ex-pat who I find to be perfectly twisted under the current circumstances we find ourselves in. But I feel like that was more popping you in the ass with a towel. Not heaping. :-p
It is true that I do not know a lot about the technical aspects of Sony/BMI's rootkit, but I was aware of it going on, generally, and I do know a little about this after reading up on it lately. As such, I am not sure what I might have said that left you with the impression that this was a recent discovery for me.
In any event, thanks for your input. Informative and interesting.
But the absolutely most amazing aspect of the entire thing to me is that...in spite of the rootkit being obviously illegal...and in spite of it being plagiarized to an extent...and in spite of the damage done to the careers of some of the affected artists...is that looking for rootkits is illegal. Uncovering their presence is illegal. Doing anything to alter them, or to remove them, is illegal.Russinovich broke the law every step of the way. And it doesn't matter that SonyBMG also broke the law, or that First4Internet broke the law. Every action that Russinovich took is, at least according to the multiple sources I looked to make sure I wasn't seeing things the more people started to report on this, in clear violation of the DMCA.
To make a long story short, Russinovich is helping the average music buyer, and you're some twit who is only interested in stretching the interpretation of some law sponsored by RIAA lobbyists and other scumbags. Pathetic. By your bullshit "logic", uncovering any virus is illegal. What an absolute freaking crock. "Looking for rootkits is illegal" GMAFB and FOAD.
Is reading comprehension not yr strong suit? Assuming you're not joking, seek help.Assuming you're just trolling, then you know that my intent is to see a law put in place that protects intellectual property rights, yet would not cause those such as Russinovich who are looking for problems such as this one, to be running afoul of the law.
I'm not the one who was trying to twist the interpretation of the law. That's the law, and if I hadn't read about how Russinovich's actions related to it several times a day for weeks on end in late 2005, then I wouldn't know about it. And that's only part of what I found amazing.
Kindly direct yr anger at those who thought it was a good idea to criminalize people who do what Russinovich did, as well as those who were involved in the placement of the rootkit, and refrain from directing it at me, when all I'm doing is trying to point to the absurdity of the law itself (not to mention that I'm serious about my boycott of anything that says Sony on it, period, ever). If you'd like to have a pissy attitude about it, that's yr prerogative. I'm a nice guy, so I'll give you a mulligan. But yr post is--I'll be kind--misguided to an unbelievable extreme, and it would be wise of you to realize this.
Even after your post above, it still appears your view is that Russinovich broke the law. This is apparently at odds with how the court decided. If the court had decided that Russinovich had broken the law, I suspect that they would not have decided against Sony in this case. So you give the appearance of rather extreme hypocrisy here. Namely, you're attempting to discredit Russinovich, while claiming to be against Sony. I don't buy it. Not for a second. In my view, anybody attempting to discredit Russinovich is not on the side of the consumer - to put it mildly.I did in fact read your post, for all its verbosity. But reading someone's post is less difficult than reading their mind. In the post above, you expound on your supposed philosophy of how you think things should be. But there is absolutely nothing in your original post that suggests this to be your actual view. If you were to renounce this absurd view that "It's illegal to search for rootkits" when faced with maiicious software having been put on one's computer, then I might begin to take you seriously. And if your view is that this is what the DMCA says, then this suggests that the court that ruled against Sony misinterpreted the DMCA. I don't buy that either.
You're kidding, right? The court didn't find that Russinovich broke the law because that wasn't the issue brought before the court. Do you actually believe SonyBMG would've brought suit? Aside from the fact that it would've been laughed out of court to begin with, there would've been no basis once the security companies & Microsoft got on board & declared XCP to be malware.It's beyond comprehension how you could think that I'm doing anything but pointing out the absurdity of the law that was violated, but let me ask you this: if you're rushing someone to the hospital, and by exceeding the speed limit you might save their life, does it mean you're not breaking the law?
That's a dramatic analogy, but an accurate one. SOMEONE had to break the law in order to provide the necessary information to classify XCP for what it was. It couldn't be done otherwise, since SonyBMG represented it ONLY as copy protection.
What's so difficult about this to understand?
If you doubt my sincerity, that's fine. I've been fairly consistent in my posts on this site on any topic, including this one. For several years now. I invite you to check out that 80+ post thread on the second page of Rocky Road, since you seem to have some warped view of my opinion. And if you think I'm some kind of industry stooge, that's yr delusion. I say what I mean, and I mean what I say, and I AM serious when I say I will never again purchase a Sony product of ANY kind.
Until decided otherwise in a court of law, I will continue to maintain that illegal file-sharing is copyright infringement & not theft, and whoever says otherwise helps contribute to an environment where a much-needed overhaul of this absurd law will prove more problematic & difficult than it needs to be. My dismay at the devaluation of music is FAR exceeded by my disgust & loathing for the RIAA, their members, and their tactics. The mess the music business has become is due far less to their scapegoat of copyright infringement than they claim it is. Beyond that, I believe that the RIAA is an organization that involves a lot of people who know about things like business, and marketing, and precious little about music.
Sorry to change the subject, but I don't like being called a liar, pal. Meanwhile, you might find that thread interesting. But for now I'll link to this one, which I feel bad for having hijacked, and worse for making an enemy of someone I like & respect & agree with on many issues, but not this one. Continue to believe whatever you wish about me if it makes you feel better.
Have fun.
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