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MediaMax CD-3
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MediaMax CD-3 is a software
Computer software
Computer software, or just software, is a collection of computer programs and related data that provide the instructions for telling a computer what to do and how to do it....

 package created by SunnComm
SunnComm
SunnComm International Inc. was the company that developed and owned the MediaMax technology software package, which was sold as a form of copy protection for compact discs...

 and was sold as a form of copy protection
Copy protection
Copy protection, also known as content protection, copy obstruction, copy prevention and copy restriction, refer to techniques used for preventing the reproduction of software, films, music, and other media, usually for copyright reasons.- Terminology :Media corporations have always used the term...

 for compact disc
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...

s. It was used by the record label
Record label
In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...

 RCA Records
RCA Records
RCA Records is one of the flagship labels of Sony Music Entertainment. The RCA initials stand for Radio Corporation of America , which was the parent corporation from 1929 to 1985 and a partner from 1985 to 1986.RCA's Canadian unit is Sony's oldest label...

/BMG
BMG
Bertelsmann Music Group, , was a division of Bertelsmann before its completion of sale of the majority of its assets to Japan's Sony Corporation of America on October 1, 2008. It was established in 1987 to combine the music label activities of Bertelsmann...

, and targets both Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

 and Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...

. Some users regard the software as a form of malware
Malware
Malware, short for malicious software, consists of programming that is designed to disrupt or deny operation, gather information that leads to loss of privacy or exploitation, or gain unauthorized access to system resources, or that otherwise exhibits abusive behavior...

 since its purpose is to intercept and inhibit normal computer operation without the user's authorization. MediaMax has received media attention in late 2005 in fallout from the Sony XCP fiasco. See also 2005 Sony BMG CD copy protection scandal
2005 Sony BMG CD copy protection scandal
The Sony BMG CD copy protection rootkit scandal concerns the copy protection measures included by Sony BMG on Compact Discs in 2005. Sony BMG included the Extended Copy Protection and MediaMax CD-3 software on music CDs. XCP was put on 52 titles and MediaMax was put on 50 titles...

.

MediaMax is a second-generation system meant to address the problems of earlier copy-preventing schemes, where many types of playback devices had difficulty reading discs in normal use. MediaMax was first used on Anthony Hamilton's
Anthony Hamilton (musician)
Anthony Hamilton is an American R&B, and soul singer-songwriter, and record producer who rose to fame with his platinum-selling second studio album Comin' from Where I'm From , which featured the singles "Comin' from Where I'm From" and "Charlene."-Life and career:Hamilton was born in Charlotte,...

 Comin' From Where I'm From
Comin' From Where I'm From
Comin' from Where I'm From is the second studio album by American R&B and soul singer-songwriter Anthony Hamilton, released July 15, 2003 on Arista Records in the United States. It debuted and peaked at number thirty-three on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart in October 2003 with first-week sales of...

 in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

; the first US No. 1 CD to use it was Velvet Revolver
Velvet Revolver
Velvet Revolver is an American hard rock supergroup consisting of former Guns N' Roses members Slash, Duff McKagan, and Matt Sorum, alongside Dave Kushner formerly of punk band Wasted Youth. Stone Temple Pilots vocalist Scott Weiland was Velvet Revolver's lead singer from their formation until...

's Contraband. (The Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

an release of the Velvet Revolver album used Macrovision CDS-200
Macrovision CDS-200
Macrovision CDS-200 is an Audio CD copy protection scheme from Macrovision, designed to prevent copyright infringement. Such discs contain software with the appearance of a computer virus that attempts to install itself automatically before the disc is used on a computer. Macrovision claims the...

 and the Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese is without copy protection.)

Identifying MediaMax discs

Some BMG discs using the scheme have a label affixed to the front that states:

This CD is protected against unauthorized duplication. It is designed to play on standard playback devices and an appropriately configured computer (see system requirements on back). If you have questions or concerns visit www.sunncomm.com/support/bmg


A section on the back of some packages states, in part:

This CD is enhanced with MediaMax software. Windows compatible instructions: Insert disc into CD-ROM drive. Software will automatically install. If it doesn't, click on "LaunchCd.exe." Mac OS instructions: Insert disc into CD-ROM drive. Click on "Start." Usage of the CD on your computer requires your acceptance of the end user license agreement and installation of specific software contained on the CD.

Method of operation

The music on a MediaMax disc is contained in tracks as on a regular compact disc, while the DRM software is present in an additional data track. Therefore such discs work with almost any CD playback device. Copy restriction is only enforced by the software on the disc: If the software is not installed, disc duplication is not inhibited.

On computers running Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

, the typical installation vector is the AutoRun
Autorun
AutoRun and the companion feature AutoPlay are components of the Microsoft Windows operating system that dictate what actions the system takes when a drive is mounted....

 feature of the operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...

. When a MediaMax disc is inserted into a Windows PC with AutoRun enabled, software on the disc called LaunchCd.exe installs a device driver
Device driver
In computing, a device driver or software driver is a computer program allowing higher-level computer programs to interact with a hardware device....

 that inhibits the ability of other software to directly read data from audio discs in the CD-ROM drive(s).

The installation program displays an end user license agreement (EULA) with options to accept or decline the agreement. The user is informed that they must accept the terms of this EULA to use the CD on their computer, but the DRM software is installed even if they decline, cancel, or terminate the program—without notice.

In Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...

, even an application that runs when the disc is inserted cannot install anything on the system without consent because it requires an administrative password from the user. There is no version of MediaMax for Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...

 or any other operating system.

Controversy

The software's propensity to permanently modify the computer's behaviour without knowledge or consent has caused controversy. MediaMax departs from the convention of digital rights management
Digital rights management
Digital rights management is a class of access control technologies that are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals with the intent to limit the use of digital content and devices after sale. DRM is any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that...

 (DRM) software by ignoring a user's desire to decline the installation. While it displays a license agreement with options to accept or decline, the DRM is installed regardless of the user's choice. When this functionality was brought to SunnComm's attention, the Company resolved the problem by issuing an update that insured that its DRM would never be installed on a user's computer should the EULA be subsequently declined by that user. This technology update was then applied to all previously sold music CDs (whose users had internet connectivity) as well as to all MediaMax CDs sold in the future.

Alternate options

Because of its dependence on AutoRun, the MediaMax restrictions can be bypassed by a conscientious user as follows.

Users concerned about installing software from discs without their permission disable the AutoRun feature on their computer. Such software includes computer viruses (rarely), spyware
Spyware
Spyware is a type of malware that can be installed on computers, and which collects small pieces of information about users without their knowledge. The presence of spyware is typically hidden from the user, and can be difficult to detect. Typically, spyware is secretly installed on the user's...

, and DRM software such as MediaMax.

People who do not disable AutoRun can prevent the software from loading by holding down the shift key
Shift key
The shift key is a modifier key on a keyboard, used to type capital letters and other alternate "upper" characters. There are typically two shift keys, on the left and right sides of the row below the home row...

 each time a disc is inserted.

Identification and removal

Windows PCs with MediaMax installed are identifiable by their having a Windows service installed named "sbcphid." Users who have agreed to the EULA may have a legal obligation to let this software remain on their systems. However, users who declined or did not agree to the EULA have no such obligation. MediaMax's stealth install provides no uninstall option, in keeping with the absence of notification that the installation happened. However, in contrast to the previous XCP copy protection components used by Sony/BMG, the Windows service that MediaMax installs can be safely and easily stopped, disabled and removed. Users with administrative privileges can accomplish this via Windows' Service Controller ("sc") command line utility (using the "stop" and "delete" arguments), after which MediaMax's driver file (sbcphid.sys) can be deleted from the Windows\System32\Drivers directory and additional files can be deleted from the Program Files\Common Files\SunnComm Shared\ directory.

To determine if MediaMax is installed on a Windows PC, one may launch a command prompt, from which the Service Controller can be queried. The command to test this is "sc query sbcphid". If installed, "sc stop sbcphid" will halt the service, and "sc delete sbcphid" will prevent it from automatically starting on subsequent reboots. More information about the Microsoft Windows Service Controller utility can be found in the external links below.

Once installed, the MediaMax software looks for a watermark
Digital watermarking
Digital watermarking is the process of embedding information into a digital signal which may be used to verify its authenticity or the identity of its owners, in the same manner as paper bearing a watermark for visible identification. In digital watermarking, the signal may be audio, pictures, or...

 inside all raw CD audio to recognize protected content. The watermark works by setting a sequence of low order bits to 1. This makes the watermark very brittle, and it will be defeated by most transformations of the audio, including converting it to MP3 and back.

When the MediaMax software is functioning as designed, it allows copying to a certain extent. Compressed audio is stored on the disc in Windows Media Audio
Windows Media Audio
Windows Media Audio is an audio data compression technology developed by Microsoft. The name can be used to refer to its audio file format or its audio codecs. It is a proprietary technology that forms part of the Windows Media framework. WMA consists of four distinct codecs...

 (WMA) files. The following activities are allowed: Copying tracks to the hard drive for playback without the original CD, burning up to three copies of the CD, and sharing email links to DRM-protected tracks that expire after ten days. Finally, tracks may be downloaded to DRM-enabled portable players.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
Silverdale Interactive © 2024. All Rights Reserved.
 
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