Got an e-mail from our techie at work, Mark (portions irrelevant to the general public removed), usually a pretty reliable sort:
Recently, Sony has been caught using some pretty underhanded, quite invasive methods to keep people from copying CDs released from certain artists. I’ve not discussed this with everyone until now, because Sony would not release the list of those titles that are affected by this “XCP” copy protection.
There are already at least four ways of using this “XCP” software for nefarious purposes.
Please note, this is about removing some nasty software that makes your PC vulnerable to many different attacks, not about bypassing legitimate software protection (which this is NOT).
Here is the list of CURRENTLY KNOWN artists/titles (more may come out of the woodwork):
Trey Anastasio – Shine
Celine Dion – On ne Change Pas
Neil Diamond – 12 Songs
Our Lady Peace – Healthy in Paranoid Times
Chris Botti – To Love Again
Van Zant – Get Right with the Man
Switchfoot – Nothing is Sound
The Coral – The Invisible Invasion
Acceptance – Phantoms
Susie Suh – Susie Suh
Amerie – Touch
Life of Agony – Broken Valley
Horace Silver Quintet – Silver’s Blue
Gerry Mulligan – Jeru
Dexter Gordon – Manhattan Symphonie
The Bad Plus – Suspicious Activity
The Dead 60s – The Dead 60s
Dion – The Essential Dion
Natasha Bedingfield – Unwritten
Ricky Martin – Life
I would suspect ANY SONY or BMG disc released during 2005. Some of you may note that I’m not calling these Audio CD’s or CD’s – they are in fact NOT true Audio CD’s. Many of these non-audio CD titles will cause damage to stereos (car and home) that do not know how to deal with the non-audio portion of the disc.
Anyone out there heard any more on this?
Addendum: I just came across this article.
The Boing Boing website has further info on this topic.
