Early last year the Electronics Frontier Foundation went very public with Sony BMG and its case regarding music CDs sold with a copy protection called MediaMax. Developed by a company called The Amergence Group Inc., customers complained that Sony's music discs caused a number of discs to be unreadable on their computers. The biggest complaint was that customers were unable to extract tracks for playback in other devices.Because of all the lawsuits and complaints, Sony was forced to settle litigations with $5.75 million USD. This week, Sony BMG filed a lawsuit against Amergence alleging MediaMax did not perform as expected.Using rootkit technology, MediaMax installed low level software on a user's computer system without permission from the user. Rootkits often cause problems and many users complained Sony's discs using MediaMax even forced them to have to reformat their systems.Sony BMG seeks roughly $12 million USD in damages from Amergence. Representatives from Amergence disagreed with Sony's lawsuit and said Sony's claims were unwarranted. Amergence also noted that discs exhibiting problems used different types of technologies Amergence did not supply.
Sony BMG Music Entertainment is suing a company that developed antipiracy software for CDs, claiming the technology was defective and cost the record company millions of dollars to settle consumer complaints and government investigations.Sony BMG filed a summons in a New York state court against The Amergence Group Inc., formerly SunnComm International, which developed the MediaMax CD copy-protection technology.Sony BMG is seeking to recover some $12 million in damages from the Phoenix-based technology company, according to court papers filed July 3.The music company accuses Amergence of negligence, unfair business practices and breaching the terms of its license agreement by delivering software that "did not perform as warranted."In a statement, The Amergence Group vowed to fight what it described as unwarranted allegations by Sony BMG.The company also suggested that lawsuits against Sony BMG over CD copy-protection primarily stemmed from Sony's use of another technology.New York-based Sony BMG, a joint venture of Sony Corp. and Bertelsmann AG, declined to elaborate on the suit. Sony BMG is home to names such as Bruce Springsteen, Carrie Underwood and Modest Mouse.It began including MediaMax on some of its compact discs in August 2003 and shipped about 4 million CDs equipped with the technology in 2005.The program restricted the number of copies of a CD that a user could make. Some users reported problems when the CDs were played on their computers.The record company also drew complaints over another type of copy-protection software that restricted CD duplication.The fallout over the copy-protected CDs sparked lawsuits and investigations.Last fall, the company agreed to pay a total of $5.75 million to settle the litigation and resolve investigations by officials in several states
