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:
- Sony still plans on using and deploying DRM, but doesn’t want the consumer to know about it at the point of purchase
- 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.
Go rootkit!