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Sony BMG Offers Cash, Free Downloads to Settle CD Copy-Protection Suits

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on January 3, 2006 - 8:16am.
Los Angeles - Major record label Sony BMG has proposed offering free music downloads to millions of consumers who joined class action lawsuits after purchasing CDs containing anti-piracy software that created security risks for their computers. The proposed settlement, filed in federal court in Manhattan, would provide up to 11 million consumers who purchased the faulty CDs with either $7.50 in cash and one free digital album from a list of 200, or else three free albums from the list. "The proposed settlement will provide significant benefits for consumers who bought the flawed CDs," said Cindy Cohn, legal director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is representing some consumers. "Under the terms, those consumers will get what they thought they were buying -- music that will play on their computers without restriction or security risk. EFF is continuing discussions with Sony BMG, however, and believes that there is more they can do to protect music lovers in the future." Sony BMG was forced to recall millions of music CDs after it was discovered that the copy-protection technology they contained could allow malicious software to be installed on computers by third parties.
tags: Sony | CD | BMG | Copy-Protection | Cash | Free Downloads |

N.Y. Times: Deadheads Protest Band's Closure of Free Downloads Site

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 30, 2005 - 8:26am.
New York - The New York Times reported on Wednesday on the backlash from the decision of the Grateful Dead, which had always allowed fans to record live shows and trade recordings freely with others, to remove the ability to download live concert recordings from a website called the Live Music Archive. The site's recordings will now be available only in streaming format. Fans of the band, known as Deadheads, have threatened to boycott the band's own merchandise -- which now includes an online store where fans can purchase downloads of many of the same recordings -- if the decision is not reversed. "One-to-one community building, tape trading, is something we've always been about," the band's spokesman, Dennis McNally, told The Times. "The idea of a massive one-stop Web site that does not build community is not what we had in mind…Our conclusion has been that it doesn't represent Grateful Dead values."
tags: Website | N.Y. Times | Free Downloads |