Tag archive: BMG

The hacker group responsible for breaking into the website of PBS and posting a fake story about deceased rapper Tupac Shakur living in New Zealand has a new target: Sony. Known as Lulzsec, the group has already launched one attack against Sony's BMG website in Japan. And since its new-found place in the spotlight after this weekend's PBS.org shenanigans, Lulzsec has been boasting about its plans to take Sony to task, warning that… Read More

Sony BMG has agreed to pay $1 million to settle allegations the company has been in violation of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by collecting information from children under the age of 13 on some of its Web sites without parents' consent. The COPPA act is enforced by the Federal Trade Commission, which alleged in a suit that Sony BMG was collecting, maintaining and disclosing personal information about… Read More

Remember back in 2005 and 2006, Sony BMG repeatedly shot itself in the foot with its handling of controversial copy protection software embedded in selected audio CDs? In an effort to cut down on music piracy, Sony experimented with two copy protection schemes on standard audio CDs. The technologies went by the names XCP and Mediamax, and Sony got itself into trouble in two ways: first, it never really told consumers what they might be… Read More

It's been more than a year since Sony BMG's Music CD rootkit fiasco came to a head, and now Sony BMG, one the world's four largest music distributors, has agreed to pay the state of California $750,000 to settle a lawsuit stemming from the blowout. For folks who don't remember (or who are new the whole thing) Sony BMG shipped almost 30 million selected music CD titles with embedded copy protection software (XCP or… Read More

Sony BMG just can't seem to catch a break: just as the public firestorm of controversy and outrage over the XCP copy protection software (and the Windows security nightmares it engendered) begins to fade from everyday headlines, the company has to perform another mea culpa. SunComm's MediaMax? That other copy protection system Sony BMG has shipped on some of its music CDs in an effort to cut down on piracy? Yeah

Due to the popularity of online CD sites such as Amazon.com, CD club sales have diminished in the past few years. Columbia House will be added to Bertelsmann's U.S. CD club BMG Direct. Stuart Goldfarb, CEO of BMG Direct, will serve as president and CEO of the newly acquired company. Bertelsmann is the fourth-largest media group in the world, that has risen due to its CD club business. BMG Direct is currently the largest direct to consumer… Read More

The two companies will reportedly keep their autonomy sharing their power 50-50 but now have the opportunity to compete with Universal Music Group to become the largest record company in theworld. The Sony-BMG merger comes as two suitors are hunting down another juicy target in Warner Music (WEA). EMI reportedly is close to submitting a 1 billion dollar offer for the vast WEA operation whilebillionaire movie producer Haim Saban and former… Read More

 The combination of the two labels would reduce the "big five" down to four. CNN says both sides aren't commenting what is to be expected in such a large scale deal, if it is in fact goingdown. With the music business sucking wind for the last two years, record companies are prime for consolidation and the economies of scale that come with making two big companies into one. AOL is comingoff of the worst quarter for ANY company in… Read More