Sony Music and the Rootkit Scandal

2122 Words9 Pages
When a consumer purchases a CD of music by their favorite artist, they feel that they now own a copy of the songs contained on the CD. They have the ability to listen to the music wherever they may be – at work, in the car, at home. Technology such as the Apple iPod, released in 2001 (Apple, Inc, 2012), changed how people listen to the music that they own. Gone were the days of carrying around a cassette box full of tapes, or a CD wallet packed full of discs. Now an entire library of music could be carried in a device the size of a pack of cigarettes. Software such as iTunes and Windows Media Player allowed people to convert CD’s over to a new file format – MP3. The recording industry became concerned about piracy because of peer-to-peer file sharing services such as Napster. With audio tracks now digital files, sharing became as easy as clicking a link on a webpage. In 2005, Sony felt that they had a solution to the piracy issue by including digital rights management software on several albums that they distributed. Sony’s actions were unethical in nature because they did not advise consumers of the inclusion of this software, or that it would be installed on their computers without their consent. Sony’s actions also violated consumer’s fair use rights, and opened their customers up to potential threats such as hacking and personal information theft. In 2005, Sony was concerned about the growing threat of piracy related to digital copies of music. Sony management decided to take an unprecedented step by including copy protection on approximately 50 albums released on compact discs (Schneier, 2005). The software included on the CD’s was a rootkit, or software that runs without the knowledge of the computer operator (Schneier, 2005). Rootkits are often referred to in terms of viruses affecting computers. Rootkits are hidden programs that can open up pathways for
Open Document