Apparently, Sony BMG didn't get the memo: Apple's iPod has taken over the music world.
With annual sales of roughly $13 million, the iPod is the weapon of choice among music lovers.
Nevertheless, in a futile challenge against Steve Jobs' digital music superpower players, Sony has begun encoding many of its CDs-among them, The Bad Plus' Suspicious Activity (how apropos), Kasabian's Kasabian and The Kings of Leon's Aha Shake Heartbreak-with anti-piracy software for PCs. This encryption limits the number of copies listeners can make of the disc, and most irritatingly, interferes with iTunes compatibility.
Perhaps you know the feeling: In the excitement of purchasing the new My Morning Jacket album Z, you race home to import the music into your iPod via iTunes. After insertion, the disc doesn't appear in iTunes-instead, its own lame player appears.
You either pound your head on the keyboard in frustration, or search the Internet for methods of getting around this obstacle-which is possible, but a pain in the ass.
And if that weren't bad enough...
An article published Thursday, Nov. 10 in The Washington Post warns that difficulties with iTunes importation could be the least of your problems when dealing with Sony-encrypted discs.
Failing to realize that they've lost the battle in digital music, Sony BMG may actually stand to lose a bigger war by harming the music industry at large.
Sony's anti-piracy software does more than affect compatibility-it installs a hidden and nearly impossible-to-remove program called Rootkit that is harmful to computers in more ways than one.
This software offers a backdoor for viruses-allowing them to steal personal information, launch attacks and send spam.
A class action lawsuit against Sony BMG was filed on Nov. 1, claiming that Sony's actions "constituted fraud, false advertising, trespass and violated state and federal laws barring malware and computer tampering."
Can't we all just get along?
Experiencing the lowest sales in decades, record companies need to cooperate now more than ever. And scaring away customers with hidden, irremovable software is not going to help anyone.
m.hogan@chronicle.utah.edu
