Thursday, November 10, 2005

DRM Stuff

More good news for Sony today on the DRM rootkit front.
--A class action suit has been filed in California. Sony will have a very difficult time defending themselves based on California consumer protection laws. Thanks Slashdot.
--Another class action suit is expected to be filed in New York shortly (ditto).
--In Italy, Sony is being sued by ALCEI, which I'm guessing is roughly equivalent to the EFF here (thanks to everyone who sent in the link).
--The Register has this headline today:
First Trojan using Sony DRM spotted

Oh, that's not going to help. Link here:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/10/sony_drm_trojan/.

I've been thinking about this, and in the big picture of things, Sony actually did all of us a favor. One, they are going to absolutely get their ass kicked hard over this, which is going to make other companies think twice about trying this garbage. Two, it's going to make everyone totally vigilant about any kind of DRM getting installed on a machine. People will be scrutinizing exactly what the software does to the most detailed degree.

Next, an e-mail about Starforce from DQ reader Brian Sanderson. He notes that Starforce (copy protection used by many games, including Space Rangers 2) is not removed when the game is uninstalled.

Bad.

He also include a link to a Starforce information page with a ton of information, including a link to a true removal program:
http://www.similarities.org/starforce.html.

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