For starters, happy holidays to everyone.

So, whether you did or didn’t know about it, Sony BMG installed rootkits on a lot of their music CD’s a couple of years ago “to help prevent piracy”. When these rootkits were first publicized by a man named Mark Russinovich, the message spread like wildfire and Sony was quickly confronted about the issue. Suprisingly enough, Sony BMG immediately had a “patch” developed to fix the rootkit issue. Anyway, after this lawsuit has been going on for some time, they have finally been settled.

Music giant Sony BMG settled two lawsuits brought by the Attorneys General of Texas and California on Tuesday, agreeing to pay fines of $750,000 to each state and up to $175 per consumer impacted by the company’s decision to include invasive copy-protection software on dozens of music CDs.

The case came to light a year ago, when an antivirus company and a security researcher separately discovered that a music CD published by Sony BMG silently installed rootkit-like software on the purchaser’s computer. Sony BMG quickly became the poster boy for dissatisfied netizens’ pent-up anger over the increasing erosion of digital rights by copyright holders.

Among other consumer lawsuits, both Texas and California’s top attorneys filed their own lawsuits against the company.[more]

Tags: Lawsuits