Sony BMG Agrees to Pay States $4.25 Million to Settle Anti-Piracy Software Probes
Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly announced today that Sony BMG Music Entertainment will pay Massachusetts and 39 other states a total of $4.25 million to settle the states' investigation of Sony BMG's placement of anti-copying software on music CDs. The settlement provides for entry of an injunction barring Sony BMG from using anti-copying software on its music CDs unless the software complies with conditions set forth in the settlement. It also requires that Sony BMG inform consumers of any Digital Rights Management (DRM) software contained on CDs it sells in the future.
The AG probes arose out of Sony BMG's 2005 distribution of more than 12 million CDs that contained secret anti-copying software. One version of this software, XCP, rendered Windows-based computers vulnerable to viruses and other security threats. Consumers who tried to remove XCP from their computers often had their CD- ROM drives crash. The other anti-copying software used by Sony BMG, MediaMax, downloaded a driver onto consumers' computers even if the consumer declined to accept the software. One version of MediaMax made it possible for later users to modify the contents of the computer and to run dangerous programs that the computer otherwise would not have run.
The settlement requires SONY BMG to refund up to $175 to consumers whose computers were harmed when they tried to remove the Sony BMG software.
The states participating in today's settlement are: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhodes Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming, as well as the District of Columbia.