Sony rootkit payouts hit $5.75M
Sony BMG Music Entertainment’s botched attempt to stop unauthorized music copying has cost the company another $4.25 million. Two days after reaching settlements worth $1.5 million with Texas and California, Sony agreed on Thursday to pay another 40 states the money to end investigations into its use of two copy protection programs: First 4 Internet’s XCP (extended copy protection), and MediaMax, written by SunnComm International.
More than 12 million Sony BMG CDs shipped with this software last year, according to a statement from the Massachusetts Attorney General. Sony’s trouble began in late 2005, when a computer science researcher disclosed that XCP used dangerous “rootkit” techniques to cloak itself after installation. Later, investigators found that even users who declined to install the MediaMax program would have software placed on their computers, and one version of the program created a security issue, the Massachusetts statement said.
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