Ah, this old story again. SonyBMG is suing two companies who together supplied one of those controversial copy-protection software systems the major record company installed onto numerous North American CD releases in 2005 in a bid to stop its customers from making copies of music they'd bought.
Amergence Technologies, formerly SunnComm International, and its partner MediaMax, supplied one of two DRM systems employed by SonyBMG which led to consumer outrage after it was revealed that the technology employed could pose security risks to the PCs the CDs were played on. Although another DRM system, the so called 'rootkit' system designed by British company First4Internet, initially got more media attention, the flawed SunnComm DRM grabbed the headlines when a 'patch' designed to fix the security risk, distributed by SonyBMG, was found to make the problem worse.
As much previously reported, aside from the PR damage to SonyBMG caused by the whole debacle, the major faced a number of class action lawsuits in the US and Canada from customers affected by the CDs. It is in a bid to recoup some of those compensation payments that the major is now suing the technology companies behind the flawed DRM. SonyBMG say the DRM they bought was defective and falsely advertised, and that their agreement with MediaMax required the software seller to indemnify them against the kind of fallout that followed their use of the technology.
However, those technology companies say it was the way SonyBMG employed the DRM technology, rather than the technology itself, that caused the problems. In a statement, Amergence told reporters this week that the problem was "Sony's under-tested release of a competitor's technology and BMG's 'final authority' input in determining the functional specifications of the MediaMax copy protection".
Interestingly SunnComm isn't the only company involved in all this to have changed its name. The aforementioned First4Internet registered its new name, Fortium Technologies, with Companies House at the end of last year. Given just how big a fuck up, and story, the rootkit debacle was, personally I'm surprised both are still in business.