Could Sony BMG have botched it any more badly? It's hard to see how. By now you've heard the story: Sony has been using a copy protection system called XCP on recent music CDs to discourage piracy. XCP, it turns out, installs hidden spyware on a Windows-based PC when an XCP-treated disc is put in the PC's CD drive. Mark Russinovich, chief software architect at Winternals Software, spotted the worm and raised a stink. Sony claimed that the worm was innocuous but issued a patch anyway. Now the patch may crash PCs, the spyware reportedly contacts Sony via the Internet, Italian police are investigating whether Sony committed a crime, and Sony's reputation is in the toilet. And the worst of it? XCP doesn't stop piracy. Not at all.
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