Anne Saita of SearchSecurity.com writes:

Sony BMG has agreed to stop incorporating prying copyright-protection software on its CDs and to provide millions of free music downloads as part of a tentative settlement it reached this week [Dec. 28] in New York. If the agreement meets court approval, at least 15 other nationwide consumer class-action suits will become part of the settlement, as well as another lawsuit filed by the digital civil rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation.

“Sony agreed to stop production of these flawed and ineffective digital rights management technologies,” EFF attorney Kurt Opsahl said in a prepared statement. “We hope that other record labels will learn from Sony’s hard experience and focus more on the carrot of quality music and less on the stick of copy protection.”

[Continue reading Sony BMG settles DRM lawsuit for cash, ‘clean’ music]

Tags: sony, drm, rootkit, digital rights management, first 4 internet, bmg, sunncomm, mediamax, xcp