Ah Sony Music is involved.
Remember the time Sony Music installed a rootkit on peoples’ computers via commercially purchased CDs because hacking paying customers’ computers seemed like a good way to combat piracy?
I can’t believe I hadn’t heard of this.
Sony BMG initially denied that the rootkits were harmful. It then released an uninstaller for one of the programs that merely made the program’s files invisible while also installing additional software that could not be easily removed.
And then they just paid some settlements, recalled some CDs, and continued to operate as if nothing has happened. Bloody hell.
I remembered there was a Part II to the story that made it even worse, but did not remember those details. Should have read my own link! Thanks for highlighting that because it truly is the icing on the cake.
Yup, I got rootkitted by those fuckers just installing their bullshit software for my mini-disc player.
I remember Sony forcing everyone to use their proprietary SonicStage software and proprietary ATRAC3 audio file format with their Mini Disc players. Nothing else would work on their products. Thank goodness big industries don’t influence governments worldwide, or we’d be heading into some kind of dystopia DRM-laden in every aspect of our lives. Oh wait…
All these lawsuits do is show me new cool stuff that Internet Archive has.
First the Streisand effect led to her home. Now it leads to her entire discography. Poor Barbara Streisand.
Someone needs to archive the Internet Archive before we lose it
Time to donate to the Internet Archive again: for those who want to and can afford it: https://archive.org/donate/
Just something funny: First time I donated to archive.org my bank blocked my card due to being a “suspicious payment”.
I had to physically go to the bank because due to security reasons I couldn’t unblock it in internet banking.
The high security looked like this:
“Hello. You blocked my card due to suspicious payment.”
“OK, what’s your name”
“[name]”
“I see. Did you make that payment?”
“Yes.”
“OK, I’ll send an e-mail to management. It should be unblocked in a few hours. Have a nice day.”
“Bye.”They didn’t want to see my ID card, not even the debit card. Nor sign anything. Just and only hear my name. “Security”.
I had my insurance company ask me for my phone number for security purposes. It was an old one I had since replaced and forgotten, so they read it out to me and asked me to confirm it.
This has happened to me with my own bank sometimes, though thankfully all I have to do is call them, report the blocked payment, and answer the same useless questions that don’t really prove anything security-wise, and that’s it. I’m not sure why they insist on doing this song and dance, but at least I don’t have to drive all the way to one of their locations to get it resolved, lol.
Here is how record companies have treated their own precious assets: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Universal_Studios_fire
10s of thousands of original master recordings lost forever. They should fucking be paying archive.org for preserving these artists’ works
*Edit: and of course Universal is one of the plaintiffs. I hate these fuckers so much
The same music industry that made it impossible to have open mics in my city because their reps lurk around like little beady eyed trolls threatening to sue coffee shops and taverns over amateur musicians playing covers?
They suck the joy out of music and the day they finally wither and die will be a great day for intellectual freedom.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The labels’ lawsuit filed in a federal court in Manhattan said the Archive’s “Great 78 Project” functions as an “illegal record store” for songs by musicians including Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis and Billie Holiday.
Representatives for the Internet Archive did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the complaint.
The Internet Archive is already facing another federal lawsuit in Manhattan from leading book publishers who said its digital-book lending program launched in the pandemic violates their copyrights.
A judge ruled for the publishers in March, in a decision that the Archive plans to appeal.
The labels’ lawsuit said the project includes thousands of their copyright-protected recordings, including Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas,” Chuck Berry’s “Roll Over Beethoven” and Duke Ellington’s “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)”.
The lawsuit said the recordings are all available on authorized streaming services and “face no danger of being lost, forgotten, or destroyed.”
I’m a bot and I’m open source!
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I feel so hopeless, so pissed, all these news and how these corporations are destroying open web. I really had hope with new generations being more tech savvy and more online would push for openness of web, instead I’ve come to realize that new generations are really into apps and not going beyond that, not interested in deeper look into software and tech - as long as the gadget works and no matter any subscription cost or microtransactions or surveillance.
I try to be hopeful, but damn it is hard to stay optimistic. I’ve been trying little by little to push friends and family in a nice way into using Firefox, alternatives to big corporate software and so on, but I understand it takes too much effort for someone who is not really interested in these things. But I will be advocate of open web forever myself.
Edit: okay unfair to expect anything from new generations, and of course there are more tech savvy people than there probably use to be, but had hoped for a huge change in that demographic.
I mean it’d be a terrible shame if Frank Sinatra and Billy Holiday went broke and had to come out of retirement because of the internet archive’s actions, maybe the labels a have a point here…
Pretty wishful thinking to suggest any of this effort is in support of the actual artists.
