p2pnet - rss feed: Sony boss on DRM spyware mess
p2p news / p2pnet: “Clearly the perception out there is that we shouldn’t be doing too much of that copy protection stuff.”
The admission came from Howard Stringer, the man who runs the Sony half of Sony BMG, as he tried to address the, “recent controversy over a copy-protection system employed on music CDs from Sony BMG Music Entertainment,” as PC World describes it
Far from being a mere controversy, it’s an unmitigated PR catastrophe that’s still ringing down the halls of the corporate music industry, amplified by the fact Sony BMG and the other four members of the Organized Music cartel are also being examined by New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer over how much they charge for digital music downloads.
Stringer, meanwhile, was speaking at the International Consumer Electronics Show.
The “controversy” blew open when Sony BMG’s attempt to secretly plant First 4 Internet XCP rootkit DRM on user’s computers was revealed. Then MediaMax, a second DRM application from SunnComm which exposed customers to serious security vulnerabilities, was uncovered.
Sony BMG was forced to recall the polluted music CDs, offer replacements and cash to people whose systems had been affected, and answer a large collection of class actions, including one from the state of New York.
However, the current buzzword is ‘video’ now Apple has established that in the same way some iPod devotees will pay $1 and up for low quality digital music tracks offered by the likes of Sony, with a foot in the movie, music and hardware [read camcorders and disc burners] camps, they’ll also fork out $2 a pop for video clips.
“In the video business moving on this is going to be something of a tug of war for the reasons that protecting the artist’s right is not something that should be automatically dismissed by the push-and-pull generation,” PC World has Stringer, who purports to care about artist rights, saying.
“We have to walk the line at Sony between the needs and technology of the customer and the rights of the artist, which we feel fairly strongly about.”
Stringer also said he was worried about the negative impact the scandal could have had on Sony because of Sony BMG’s actions, says PC World.
“Every headline was about Sony, as if Sony Electronics was behind all of this and we took quite a beating,” he said. But it wasn’t Sony, “it was a Sony BMG copyright protection tradition and this was a bad situation.”
Sony, one of the Big Four record labels which are currently trying to sue its customers into buying its over-priced low-fi digital music files, “took a bit of a beating for it, which was somewhat unfair,” he added.
Engadget has an item on Stringer’s Carly Fiorina-like CES dog-and-pony show, starring Tom Hanks who, “walks on and gets huge laughs by pretending to squint at the teleprompter: ‘Thank you, Howard. It’s a great honor (SQUINTS) to be here today (SQUINTS) to deliver (SQUINTS) these heartfelt comments about Sony’s new SXRD High-Definition Television’.”
Etc, etc.
Also See:
PC World - Sony Seeks a Balance for CD Copy Controls, January 7, 2005
Engadget - Live coverage of Sony’s Sir Howard Stringer, January 5, 2005
January 9th, 2006 at 1:29 pm
If you don’t have control over something, don’t put your name on it. “Sony” is the first half of “Sony BMG” so yeah, it’s still a Sony problem.
Way to dump your failings on your subsiduary companies Sony. You fucked up and we caught you.
Nice try though.
January 9th, 2006 at 3:18 pm
“”In the video business moving on this is going to be something of a tug of war for the reasons that protecting the artist’s right is not something that should be automatically dismissed by the push-and-pull generation,” PC World has Stringer, who purports to care about artist rights, saying.”
What “artist’s right”? Artist’s sign it all away to the record companies more often than not with terrible contracts because they don’t have much of a choice, and are lucky if they make anything in the end. You have to be pretty big and successful (talent is irrelevant here) to actually get anywhere or make anything. It’s the record companies that take the lions share, and pretty much always all the rights too. It’s not the artists they are worried about at all, nor are they really interested in protecting them. The record companies care about number one, themselves, and will obviously do absolutely anything they think is needed in order to achieve their goals. It was already bad enough that they started alienating compltely ordinary people, their own customers, by suing everyone in sight, but then to have the gall to think they have a right to do what ever they want to you and your PC… it truly boggles the mind, and even more mind boggling is that they seem to be completely ignorant and can’t see what they’re really accomplishing with these kinds of actions. If they keep it up, we’ll see physical violence at some point, mark my words. History is full of the terrible things completely ruined people have done. When you have nothing to lose, revenge against your perpetrators starts looking mighty fine I’ll bet. It’s a crazy, crazy world. I mean, look at the movie industry, the music industries alter ego for all intents and purposes. The artists in this case (the actors I mean) make many millions for each movie they star in. Now how does that make any sense? And there are so many forms of entertainment. Do we even need the music and movie industry? Truly? I mean, it’s not like we need them like a roof over our heads and food in our belly. It’s like what someone here often posts. Life would go on without them, as if nothing had changed. If anything, life would likely be more normal, more sane. They really need to realize that they are not nearly as important as they think they are, and that the only certain in life is change. Either you change with times or you fade away.
Oh, and Sony is Sony to me. I have no plans to buy anything with the Sony name on it ever again. It’s not all that hard though as my uncle, whom is an electronics repair person by trade (has been for several decades), has been telling the entire family for many years to avoid them. The few things I actually have owned have always failed right around when the warranty ended. It’s overpriced junk. When you buy anything from Sony, you’re paying for the name, not the quality.
January 9th, 2006 at 9:02 pm
Don’t you just love this? The only reason anyone from Sony is responding is because they are being nailed in the wallet over it. Therefore damage control is in order to attempt to put on the “happy face”.
You see all the key buzz words but still no where do we see the admission of screwing up. No where do we see any apology to date. All that is seen is a “So what”?
How’s this for a “So what”, I don’t want Sony music. Not today, not tomorrow, not next year. Simply I can’t trust them and have no idea when the next great idea will be to slip in another little present for free.
Sony is great in using this commission idea in works for hire. I am sure the dealing with First4Internet and Mediamax are much in the same vein. Now they may have been dealing with idiots for all I know, but it is Sony that included this crap in the data track, no one else. Trying to shift a share of the blame to BMG is like the nose complaining the tail stinks, it’s the same dog as far as I am concerned. The labels have always been at this game of confusing the issues. One has only to look at the vast amount of labels out there to get a clue. It’s so confusing that even they have a hard time telling who owns what. For the public it is all but impossible. So much for blaming the right companies. (Of course that little part has been carefully not mentioned I see.)
Artists rights? Oh, pray tell when was any music house gonna let the indy have a chance? No money in it for them. Guess that’s why Sony got nailed for payolla practices, umm? Thanks to the likes of Sony and the others, the FM radio is nothing now but a wasteland to hear the same songs over and over every hour. Where is the fresh new stuff? Where is the exposure to something that might interest the music listener back to the stores to buy? It’s all gone for the guarenteed ability to buy what they want exposed and it is the listener and the artists that suffer for that. I’m not even going to get into the one sided contracts, false billing accusations, or past history of accusations of double pressing without paying the artists royalities.