Sony BMG Offers XCP CD Exchange Program

SONY BMG has announced an exchange program allowing consumers with XCP-encoded CDs to exchange them for non-copy protected CDs. In addition, retailers are removing all XCP-encoded CDs from their shelves.

The move follows recent controversy regarding the technology's impact on users' computers. The software was designed to restrict music copying and sharing, and was provided to SONY-BMG by third party vendor First4Internet. However, it apparently creates a security hole in the Windows operating system, leaving computers vulnerable to viruses. Click here to view a list of CDs containing the software. A security update is available by clicking here.

Details of the exchange program will be posted shortly on www.SONYBMG.com. Consumers will be given the opportunity to return by mail previously purchased CDs employing the XCP software, and will have unprotected CDs without the XCP software mailed back to them. Shipping in both directions will be free to consumers. SONY-BMG has also contacted all of its retailers, requesting them to remove from inventory all affected titles. Replacement titles that do not carry the XCP protection software will be provided as soon as possible.

In other SONY BMG news, the NEW YORK POST's "Page Six" is speculating that SONY CORP. Chairman SIR HOWARD STRINGER will remove either SONY BMG CEO ANDY LACK or SONY BMG Chairman ROLF SCHMIDT-HOLTZ, the latter of whom is being blamed for the leaks about LACK and his rumored early exit from the company.

"This is an untenable situation. Something has to change. We need to stabilize the company," a source inside the company told the POST.

One "SONY loyalist" told th POST, "SONY executives have the upper hand. SCHMIDT-HOLTZ may be the one who gets fired -- he's engineered all of this backbiting. ANDY pushed this merger between SONY and BMG. He cut $400 million in expenses and turned it into the second largest music company in the world."

Yet another SONY rep was quoted as saying, "ANDY LACK is not going anywhere."

For more on this story from the POST, just click here (free registration required).

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