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.
Time to donate to the Internet Archive again: for those who want to and can afford it: https://archive.org/donate/
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
deleted by creator
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 lawsuit said the recordings are all available on authorized streaming services and “face no danger of being lost, forgotten, or destroyed.”
Yeah right, they all are poorly done digital remasters, edited versions and/or re-recordings. Funny how the record labels are the ones whose destroying their own music.
Not every track in their original form is available on streaming services, like you can’t stream the original “Set Adrift on Memory Bliss” by P.M. Dawn because all you can get is a cheap re-recording with a different vocalist.
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.
Good, they shouldn’t be stealing other people’s intellectual property.