it would take any criminal action against Sony. However, Stewart Baker of the Department of Homeland Security publicly admonished Sony, stating, "it's your intellectual property—it's not your computer." On November 21, the EFF announced that it was also pursuing a lawsuit over both XCP and the SunnComm MediaMax DRM technology. The EFF lawsuit also involved issues concerning the Sony BMG end-user license agreement. It was reported on December 24, 2005 that Florida attorney general Charlie Crist was investigating Sony BMG spyware. On January 30, 2007, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced a settlement with Sony BMG on charges that the CD copy protection had violated federal law—Section 5(a) of the Federal Trade Commission Act, 15 USC 45(a)—by engaging in unfair and deceptive business practices. The settlement required Sony BMG to reimburse consumers up to $150 to repair damage that resulted directly from its attempts to remove the software installed without their consent. The settlement also required them to provide clear and prominent disclosure on the packaging of future CDs of any limits on copying or restrictions on the use of playback devices, and the company was prohibited from installing content-protection software without obtaining consumers' authorization. FTC chairwoman Deborah Platt Majoras added: "Installations of secret software that create security risks are intrusive and unlawful. Consumers' computers belong to them, and companies must adequately disclose unexpected limitations on the customer use of their products so consumers can make informed decisions regarding whether to purchase and install that content." Copyright infringement Researchers found that Sony BMG and the makers of XCP also apparently infringed copyright by failing to adhere to the licensing requirements of various pieces of free and open-source software that was used in the program, including the LAME MP3 encoder, mpglib, FAAC, id3lib, mpg123 and the VLC media player. In January 2006, the developers of LAME posted an open letter stating that they expected "appropriate action" by Sony BMG, but that the developers had no plans to investigate or take action over the apparent violation of LAME's source-code license. Company and press reports Russinovich's report was discussed on popular blogs almost immediately following its release. NPR was one of the first major news outlets to report on the scandal on November 4, 2005. Thomas Hesse, Sony BMG's president of global digital business, said: "Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about