About 120,000 Canadians may have bought Sony BMG CDs that can damage their computers. Sony announced Friday that 120,000 of the CDs were sold in Canada, but did not say which artists' albums were affected.
The company is to announce an exchange program next week, according to John McKay, a Sony BMG spokesman. McKay said the company will list for Canadians all the affected titles by Monday on its website.
The problem stems from a software program
Sony put on the CDs to prevent illegal copying. The XCP software was designed to let Sony know when songs on the discs were being copied.
But it also leaves behind spyware when customers play the music on their PCs. Spyware leaves PCs susceptible to hackers and viruses.
Consumers who tried to delete the programs manually ran into even more trouble, as the software can disable the computer's CD drive. A patch created to address the issue also ended up worsening the security hole.
Consumers can identify if they have an affected CD by checking the packaging, according to Canadian Press. They should look on the back side for a box labelled "Compatible With." Discs with the XCP software will have the following URL at the bottom of that box http://cp.sonybmg.com/xcp.
Going straight to the source, i like that :P