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In Reply to: by your interpretation posted by tunenut on April 17, 2007 at 09:33:34:
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.
Follow Ups:
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.
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