Sony DRM Part 2
Look up "public relations catastrophe" in the dictionary. Look--it's a picture of Sony!Here's an updated article from Sysinternals about the Sony DRM and the "patch" that "removes" it:
http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/11/more-on-sony-dangerous-decloaking.html.
Here are the highlights:
--to even get to the "uninstaller" that Sony hurriedly put up last week, you have to supply your e-mail address and other information in an e-form.
--The uninstaller actually installs a revised version of the software, now visible as an application and titled "MediaJam.
--MediaJam cannot be uninstalled.
--a new discovery that the software actually "phones home." It appears just to check for updated information about the CD being played, but does anyone really trust Sony at this point? And this function is not disclosed in the EULA.
In the comments below this article, "CindyRilla" posted a link to an interview with the President of Sony BMG’s Global Digital Business, Thomas Hessa. Listen to this beauty of a quote:
Most people, I think, do not even know what a Rootkit is, so why should they care about it?
Outstanding. That's going to play very, very well. Congratulations, Mr. Hessa--you've been awarded the Dubious Quality Mound of Asshead award for the month of November.
In answer to your question: most people do not know what a Boomslang is, but once they get bitten, they start caring.
[A boomglang is a snake. Very deadly, frequently fatal. Of course it lives in Australia. Everything that lives in Australia can kill you.]
There will be class-action lawsuits (or the equivalent) against Sony in every major country within weeks.
What amazes me most is that the music industry still doesn't understand the concept of portability. They don't understand that consumers have clearly indicated that portability is what they want most, even at the expense of some level of audio fidelity.
One other thing: the laws regarding EULA's need to be changed. There needs to be a section at the beginning of every EULA that catalogs, in plain English, what is going to be installed on the end user's system. And installing software that doesn't show up as an application in Windows should just be banned. I don't want anything installed on my system that then becomes invisible. Bad idea.
Here's a link to the NPR story, by the way:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4989260.
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