Archive for the Music Category

Wired article on “Real Story of the Rogue Rootkit”

Posted in Music on November 20, 2005 by Shane Williamson
I4U News has a pointer to this Wired article about the Sony Rootkit DRM debacle. The article goes into quite a lot of facts that build up a discussion around the supposed collusion of SOMY BMG & Anti-virus companies.
 
This Wired article is a great read for those who want to understand the whole story around the technology in question and the events that have transpired because of its use.
 
Having been a victim of stupid CD copyright systems in the past, what Sony has done seems to be flat out criminal. I therefore will be supporting the boycott against Sony, by not purchasing any of their CDs, electronic equipment or peripherals.

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The ugly side of DRM – MediaMax

Posted in Music on August 1, 2005 by Shane Williamson
I recently purchased Royksopp’s new album, "The Understanding" and when you put the CD into a PC it autoplays an install for some DRM software called Mediamax. The software does not say what it is on the splash screen, but it is obviously there to stop the CD being copied.
 
If you disagree to the EULA question it ejects the CD from the PC. This is very badly developed to force an install on a user without explaining what the hell it is doing to the PC.
 
If you try and play the CD anyway on the PC, all you get is crappy sound like a badly scratched CD (the CD plays fine in non-pc CD players)
 
I was about to take the CD back to the store to demand my money back when I found this little gem….
 
AH HA! You can disable Mediamax by turning off Autoplay in Windows and it prevents the DRM driver component from auto-loading. So, once I did that, I could easily add the songs to my digital library, like I do all my CDs.
 
The major issue with this type of DRM is it is just plain annoying and secondly useless, as it is way to easily circumvented.
 
Another interesting thing I noticed is that the Phillips CD logo is missing from the CD packaging. So, guess what fails the CD standard……
 
…. oh and Royksopp rocks!

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