Sony and DRM (Digital Rights Management)

Re: Sony and DRM (Digital Rights Management)


I don't think so. I think the laws they can best be accused of having broken are, for the most part, untested or unused.

Sony's "rootkit" was a really dumb idea and they are paying the price for it with the recalls and such, but it wasn't their doing (3rd party on their behalf) and the software wasn't inherently malicious. It caused no real damage on its own even though due to the stupidity of its design it facilitated malicious exploits against the "infected" computers.

Sony's biggest misstep was lacking full disclosure of the DRM software and failing to adequately declare bundled software may actually be more common than to properly do so.

If anything I think the current laws governing disclosure in regard to bundled software are simply too toothless to protect computer users.

It's not like the law is doing much to protect against all the malicious spyware out there, and Sony's was just deeply misguided and not nearly as malicious as all the junk out there doing drive-by installs.

Hi,
Your right, this is the current story from the Sony camp. I say curent story because they have out and out lied from the start with different versions, and this is one most kind hearted people like to believe and even Mark Russinovich (the guy who broke the story) had said this was most probably the case.

So Sony is saying , oh boo hoo , we are victims too. we had no idea, it was all the fault of the 3rd party. OK.

But what they did was pretty serious. Illegally planting files on peoples computer that "phoned home" with their customers computer activites (although they said they never used the information), made impossile to detect by virus protection programs, impossible to remove and so on. Someone has to ask, if this were covered in the EULA, sould it be allowed anyway?

I think at least people deserve to know, was this deliberate or like they say (and most likely again a lie) just ignorance. And to this end it does seem the DOJ is helping sweep the mess under the floor for them, and so I have to ask why?

A related case (at least i think so in general terms), this time Micro$oft,




From Micro$ofts anti piracy measures

And no good news for Sony BMG as it looks like the meger between Sony and BMG might be revoked by the EU also causing problems for EMI and Warner.

No more Sony BMG?

One wonders if this ruling had anything to do with their earlier escapades.