Michaelson, Edelstein v Sony BMG Music Entertainment and First4Internet
Sony Faces Yet Another Lawsuit Over Anti-Piracy Software
Sony BMG faces yet another class action lawsuit stemming from the controversy over its anti-piracy software, this time from a New York attorney who filed a federal case that could potentially include consumers in all 50 states.
The New York attorney that filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, named Sony and First4Internet, the company that produced the anti-piracy software (a technology the company dubbed XCP). The suit names two plaintiffs --James Michaelson from Illinois and an Ori Edelstein from New Jersey.
The lawsuit claims "To date, over 3 million copies of XCP encoded disks have been sold. It is probable that millions of consumers have played these discs on their PC's and thus compromised their systems without knowing it."
This would be the second class-action suit filed against Sony seeking monetary damages and a halt to the production of CDs equipped with the anti-piracy software. Recently, an attorney in California had filed a class-action suit on behalf of California consumers.
Security experts warned that the anti-piracy software's ability to hide on a Windows-based computer could also be used by viruses to remain hidden on a PC, even from anti-virus programs. Reports confirm that omeone mass-spammed several versions of a virus that uses Sony's technology to remain cloaked on victims' machines. Since then, anti-virus companies -- and even Microsoft -- have said they will consider Sony's software as spyware and remove it as such.
Security experts also found that removing the Sony software could cause some Windows systems to crash, and uninstalling any of the software's components without first going through Sony's multi-step authorization process can render the user's CD-rom drive completely useless for anything other than a cupholder.
The complaint says the court needs to intervene to stop Sony from possibly using this type of technology in other product lines or reintroducing it in CDs at a later date. Sony said that it would temporarily suspend production of CDs that include the anti-piracy software, but it did not rule out using it in future products, nor did it issue a recall of the CDs already sold.
