Sony May Settle CD Lawsuit

PCWorld.com - Sony May Settle CD Lawsuit: "Sony BMG Music Entertainment is hoping to put some of the heat behind it caused by security flaws made public in early November in the controversial copy-protection software the vendor was shipping on some of its CDs. Together with SunnComm International and First 4 Internet, Sony has tentatively agreed to a settlement in a nationwide class-action lawsuit about the security flaws, according to court documents released last week.

Lawsuits from consumers begun to fly in mid November after it was revealed that Sony had been installed copy protection software on some of its music CDs which could leave a purchaser's PC vulnerable to security attacks. The software, XCP (Extended Copy Protection), designed by First 4 Internet, was also very difficult to remove. After weeks of criticism, Sony announced plans to remove the CDs containing XCP and launched an exchange program so consumers could trade in their XCP CDs for discs without the copy-protection software.

The class-action lawsuits from around the U.S. were consolidated into a single case--Sony BMG CD Technologies Litigation--pending in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. At the same time, a number of U.S. states, including New York, have been looking into Sony's use of XCP, with the company already being sued by the Texas Attorney General.

Sony begun including the XCP software in some of its CDs in January 2005. The company has also been shipping CDs containing SunnComm's MediaMax content protection software since August 2003, according to the court documents. More than 15 million CDs are believed to contain XCP or MediaMax, the court documents state..."