Month: September 2006

DRM – Sony’s Stupidity

A court ruling today in a class action lawsuit filed in Ontario confirms it – I’m not the only one who thinks Sony’s most recent DRM attempts were stupid to the point of being negligent.

The discussion around the ruling also points out some interesting things:

  1. Sony still plans on using and deploying DRM, but doesn’t want the consumer to know about it at the point of purchase
  2. Sony doesn’t want to allow the user to know what Sony’s software is doing to their computer when they’re installing

“Sony refused to agree to put in the more specific protections that we wanted them to put in that do exist in the U.S.,” said Lawson, such as putting labels on CDs that contain copy protection and requiring a plain-language user licence agreement that is displayed before any software is installed.

This ruling excludes Quebec and BC, but if anyone else outside of these provinces bought an afflicted CD – you’re able to get compensation.

An Ontario court approved a settlement deal Thursday that has the music giant offering $8.40, a replacement CD and free downloads of selected CDs to hundreds of thousands of customers who bought the affected discs.

Those of us in BC or Quebec have to wait until our own class action lawsuits go through a settlement approval hearing (Sept. 28 in Montreal and Sept. 29 in Victoria).

Of course, Sony is only promising to do these things until December next year – after that they’re free to be stupid once again. Maybe we as consumers need to do our part here and avoid buying a product from a company that is so obviously unconcerned with their customer’s needs and interests? If we ask Sony’s plans, we can see the following in their FAQ:

17. What is SONY BMG doing about its future content protection initiatives?

We are reviewing all aspects of our content protection initiatives to be sure that they are secure and user-friendly for consumers. The consumer experience is our primary concern, and our goal is to help bring our artists’ music to as broad an audience as possible. As we develop new initiatives, we will continue identifying new ways to meet consumers’ demands for flexibility in how they listen to music, while protecting intellectual property rights.

So seriously, who exactly wants the DRM? Have you asked the artists involved what their opinion of this fiasco is? My guess is that if you really are so concerned with being “user-friendly” you’d look back at those old days when CDs weren’t a threat to the user at all. DRM does nothing but reduce user-friendliness.

Software Accessibility Redux

After the flurry of comments on my last post about accessibility on the web, I wanted to add another tidbit of interesting and related news. An aspect of accessibility that is often not thought of during software and web site design is the troubles that occur for users who are colour blind. Basic usability tenets hold that encoding meaning into colour needs to be done carefully for various reasons such as colour blind users and the large variance in cultural significance for a single colour.

But I’ve always wondered what colour blind users actually experience of my designs. It is a simple thing to activate a screen reader and check to make sure that it is able to convey the meaning of the screen verbally. But how do I check to see what a colour blind person sees?

I came across this neat blog entry by a programmer about a new tool that allows you to preview software in the 3 distinct “flavours” of colour blindness. Note that I did not say you can easily do the preview – it doesn’t look easy at all and seems to be limited to a specific means of building software. However I think tools such as this are a great idea and if we could make this kind of analysis easier and more commonplace I’d be a much happier guy.

NFB vs. Target – Part 2

Sorry for the bad pun in the title.

In February I noted that Target is being sued in a class action lawsuit because its website purportedly discriminates against blind users or anyone else using screen reader technology to shop at the website. I wasn’t shy about my opinion either:

… I support this guy, and I think that if the judicial system chooses again to say that the rules of brick-and-mortar stores do not apply online, screw that. The Internet is no longer a toy or hobby. Social and consumer pressures exist – acknowledge this and don’t let people get away with laziness at the expense of the disabled.

Last week a judge ruled that this lawsuit can go forward – she believes that

… the ‘ordinary meaning’ of the ADA’s prohibition against discrimination in the enjoyment of goods, services, facilities or privileges, is that whatever goods or services the place provides, it cannot discriminate on the basis of disability in providing enjoyment of those goods and services.

I think she’s right – if you offer the public a consumerist service you need to ensure that you do not do so in a discriminatory fashion. Period.