Sony BMG sues CD software firm

Sony BMG Music Entertainment is suing a company that developed antipiracy software for CDs, claiming the technology was defective and cost the record company millions of dollars to settle consumer complaints and government investigations.

The music company accuses Amergence of negligence, unfair business practices and breaching the terms of its license agreement by delivering software that "did not perform as warranted."

It began including MediaMax on some of its compact discs in August 2003 and shipped about 4 million CDs equipped with the technology in 2005.

The program restricted the number of copies of a CD that a user could make. Some users reported problems when the CDs were played on their computers.

The fallout over the copy-protected CDs sparked lawsuits and investigations.