Sony BMG Offers Lordi Mp3's From Illegal Source

[hajj_3]

Fun with Sony BMG & MP3 metadata

Finnish Eurovision entry for 2006, Lordi, has a small website at

http://eurovision.lordi.org/ with some interesting info. The site is

probably run by Sony BMG given the logos and the contact address at the

bottom. Nice part is the "Video&Music" department. Direct link to audio

player is

http://eurovision.lordi.org/main.site?acti...pdate/view&id=8

or only for the SWF part of the player

http://eurovision.lordi.org/flash/lordi_mediaplayer.swf

First thing to impress me was the good quality of sound right from the

beginning. Usually one can hear at best only low-quality 96/128kbps MP3 or

WMA samples from official sources. I noticed that my browser of choice,

Opera, created a real MP3 file to its cache directory when the first song

started (192kbps MP3 file for "Hard Rock Hallelujah"). Nice, I thought,

one could easily copy the few files to hard drive/MP3 player. Just for

future reference, I wanted to dig up the complete URL of the downloaded

song. Opera or Firefox didn't show this info easily, so I quickly checked

the SWF file, no metadata in plaintext. A little googling revealed that

there exists some kind of SWF extractors/decoders. I tried out "Action

Script Viewer" demo from

http://www.buraks.com/asv/1.html

which could extract the SWF file to some extent (after several complaints,

though). ASV demo spitted out SWF action script lines as below:

stage.showmenu = false;

mp3player = new Mp3Player ();

mp3player.setVol(0);

mp3player.setMaxVol(30);

mp3player.setLooping(true);

mp3player.setAutoplay(true);

mp3player.setFadeIn(true);

volslider.hslider._x = mp3player.getVol();

cb_songlist.addItem("Hard Rock Hallelujah", "/flash/hard_rock_hallelujah.mp3");

mp3player.addSong("/flash/hard_rock_hallelujah.mp3", 0);

cb_songlist.addItem("Devil Is a Loser", "/flash/devil_is_a_loser.mp3");

mp3player.addSong("/flash/devil_is_a_loser.mp3", 0);

cb_songlist.addItem("Would You Love a Monsterman", "/flash/would_you_love_a_monsterman.mp3");

mp3player.addSong("/flash/would_you_love_a_monsterman.mp3", 0);

cb_songlist.addItem("Devil Is a Loser.mp3", "/flash/devil_is_a_loser.mp3");

mp3player.addSong("/flash/devil_is_a_loser.mp3", 0);

cb_songlist.addItem("Blood Red Sandman", "/flash/blood_red_sandman.mp3");

mp3player.addSong("/flash/blood_red_sandman.mp3", 0);

So, the URLs were not encrypted or obfuscated in any way. One could save

the songs easily with e.g. browser or wget as below, using the complete

URLs.

wget http://eurovision.lordi.org/flash/hard_rock_hallelujah.mp3

wget http://eurovision.lordi.org/flash/devil_is_a_loser.mp3

wget http://eurovision.lordi.org/flash/would_yo..._monsterman.mp3

wget http://eurovision.lordi.org/flash/blood_red_sandman.mp3

The metadata for the songs are as below

blood_red_sandman.mp3 [3 897 344 bytes, 128kbps MP3]

GENRE = Other

TRACKNUMBER = 03

TITLE = lordi-bloodredsandman

devil_is_a_loser.mp3 [6 769 523 bytes, 256kbps MP3]

TITLE = Devil Is A Loser

ARTIST = Lordi

ALBUM = The Monster Show

COMMENT = www.GrupoeMusica.com

TRACKNUMBER = 6

GENRE = Hard Rock

hard_rock_hallelujah.mp3 [5 942 418 bytes, 192kbps MP3]

TITLE = hard r hallelujah

ALBUM = 3rd lopullinen masteri

ARTIST = LODRI

TRACKNUMBER = 7/12

ENCODERSETTINGS = Audiograbber 1.83.01, LAME dll 3.93, 192 Kbit/s, Stereo, High quality

would_you_love_a_monsterman.mp3 [2 956 643 bytes, 128kbps MP3]

TITLE = 06

GENRE = Blues

Hmm. Nice, free MP3s, no DRM crap, unfortunately 2 MP3s out of 4 were of

inferior quality. And they can't spell LORDI correctly, have to fix the

tags for own use. And.. what's that.. the best-quality file

"devil_is_a_loser.mp3" has comment field "www.GrupoeMusica.com". Let's

check.. a P2P music site? [speechless] Yep. Spanish site offering direct

ed2k-links to full songs, albums, etc.

Shame on you, Sony BMG for downloading your artists' own music

from P2P networks, hope you get sued!!!

Edited May 21, 2006 by hajj_3

[Fedr0]

Never heard of them. The fun thing to me is that "lordo" (the singular for "lordi") in Sicilian means "dirty". :laugh:

[bdsams Veteran]

dont worry im sure they will sue the owner of the mp3 for not legally giving it to them and then return the favor by breaking his knee's

[hajj_3]

fedr0, lordi won the eurovision song contest tonight.

[The Jorge]

Heh, that's pretty funny. :laugh:

[exotoxic]

if its true it makes them look extremly stupid... get the info spread all around the internet fast!!

[Gavin001]

hahaha thats excellent!

[lhnz]

Get this on digg. Now!

[webeagle12]

RIAA gonna have a fit over this :pinch:

[Jordan M.]

lol

[crimsonhead]

GENRE = Blues

LMAO

[oldaccount1]

RIAA gonna have a fit over this :pinch:

indeed.

[djesteban]

Get this on digg. Now!

indeed ...now!!!!! :o

[Maxious]

Domain ID:D86104707-LROR
Domain Name:LORDI.ORG
Created On:30-Apr-2002 07:14:44 UTC
Last Updated On:25-Jul-2005 10:46:06 UTC
Expiration Date:30-Apr-2007 07:14:44 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:Network Solutions LLC (R63-LROR)
Status:CLIENT TRANSFER PROHIBITED
Registrant ID:34738801-NSI
Registrant Name:BMG Finland Oy
Registrant Organization:BMG Finland Oy
Registrant Street1:PL 173
Registrant Street2:
Registrant Street3:
Registrant City:HELSINKI
Registrant State/Province:
Registrant Postal Code:00210
Registrant Country:FI
Registrant Phone:+1.358961320
Registrant Phone Ext.:
Registrant FAX:
Registrant FAX Ext.:
Registrant Email:[email protected]

Digg link (to this thread): http://www.digg.com/music/Sony_BMG_hosting_MP3_from_P2P_Site

[AZKABAZ]

But if they own the rights to the music then they can illegally download and be legal can't they?

[NienorGT]

But if they own the rights to the music then they can illegally download and be legal can't they?

Yes, nobody can sue them since you can't sue for stealing to yourseft...

Still.. it's amazing to see them use the P2P for themself when they are versus P2P...

[Maxious]

Breaking News: The Lordi Eurovision site just got pulled :D

http://eurovision.lordi.org/ = Error 403 Forbidden

[Beastage]

[burns] Excellent [/burns]

[Colin-uk Veteran]

so they wernt actually offering you a download of the mp3, its not like they were expecting someone to go in and view the page source & decompile the flash file.

... :blink:

[Express]

Wow! Thats some amazing research.

[Kulstad]

wget http://eurovision.lordi.org/flash/hard_rock_hallelujah.mp3

wget http://eurovision.lordi.org/flash/devil_is_a_loser.mp3

wget http://eurovision.lordi.org/flash/would_yo..._monsterman.mp3

wget http://eurovision.lordi.org/flash/blood_red_sandman.mp3

Almost, but not quite. You need to use the source of the SWF media player (http://sitefactory.epte.fi) instead of the one you have (http://eurovision.lordi.org).

wget http://sitefactory.epte.fi/flash/hard_rock_hallelujah.mp3

wget http://sitefactory.epte.fi/flash/devil_is_a_loser.mp3

wget http://sitefactory.epte.fi/flash/would_you..._monsterman.mp3

wget http://sitefactory.epte.fi/flash/blood_red_sandman.mp3

Just sayin' is all :D

[crimsonhead]

Wow! Thats some amazing research.

This sounds like something I would do, that's why I like it so much. :D

[Xantheus]

lol @ sony

[Boo Berry]

Gotta love free MP3s...

[gaurav]

Yes, nobody can sue them since you can't sue for stealing to yourseft...

Still.. it's amazing to see them use the P2P for themself when they are versus P2P...

but using P2P, they're also sharing the file when downloading...and thats illegal.

RIAA should feast upon this. :laugh: