From Slashdot
Sony Pulls Controversial Anti-Piracy Software
“An anonymous reader writes “Bowing to public outrage, Sony BMG has temporarily halted the use of its controversial anti-piracy software in all of its music CDs, the company said in a statement today . The move comes just a day after a top Bush administration official chided Sony and the entertainment industry for going too far: according to this story over at Washingtonpost.com Stewart Baker, the Department of Homeland Security’s policy czar warned would-be DRM makers: ‘It’s very important to remember that it’s your intellectual property — it’s not your computer. And in the pursuit of protection of intellectual property, it’s important not to defeat or undermine the security measures that people need to adopt in these days.’ The Post has the full text and video of his commentary.” “
Comments from Slashdot:
” An interesting read at: http://www.changethis.com/4.drm [changethis.com] :
“DRM punishes honest people!” … “Without DRM, people will steal and artists won’t get paid!” … Usage of Digital Rights Management (DRM) has been hotly debated since a college student threatened to put an entire industry out of business with a little application he built in his spare time, Napster. In this transcript of a speech he gave at Microsoft’s campus, Cory explains why DRM doesn’t work, why DRM is bad for society, bad for business, bad for artists, and a bad move for Microsoft.
Using Sony and Apple as examples of companies that are using DRM to punish consumers, he suggests Microsoft use the opportunity to once again champion users’ rights. To follow our current path, Cory argues, is to stifle innovation and contradict the purpose of American copyright law: to promote the useful arts and sciences.”
I always find it very remarkable that the content industry treats the people who pay for their products — in other industries also known as customers — as criminals. People don’t buy cd’s because they want to screw the people who made them and make a zillion copies. Those people buy the damn things because they do not want to wast their time on copying!
And I also don’t think the way customers are treated is in the interest of the artists, in whose name this whole mess is being created. Take a look at an excellent article by Janis Ian, a respectable musician:
http://www.janisian.com/article-internet_debacle.h tml [janisian.com]
“They told me downloads were “destroying sales”, “ruining the music industry”, and “costing you money”.
Costing me money? I don’t pretend to be an expert on intellectual property law, but I do know one thing. If a music industry executive claims I should agree with their agenda because it will make me more money, I put my hand on my wallet…and check it after they leave, just to make sure nothing’s missing.”
For what it’s worth: this is a women who made more then 25 albums and wrote some very well known songs for other artists. One of her most known songs is “At seventeen”, which can be downloaded for free, just like some other songs of here:
Stewart Baker, the Department of Homeland Security’s policy czar warned would-be DRM makers: ‘It’s very important to remember that it’s your intellectual property — it’s not your computer. And in the pursuit of protection of intellectual property, it’s important not to defeat or undermine the security measures that people need to adopt in these days.’
How about: “it’s not your computer. You do not have the right to install software components on someone’s computer that spy on them, without their permission. That is computer trespassing and wiretapping. The FBI is currently investigating; in the meantime, here is a court order to remove any CDs with this software from shelves immediately, and we expect you to fully assist consumers with identifying whether a machine has the software installed, and the removal process.”
What Baker is doing is trumpeting the Homeland Security line (“Won’t someone PLEASE think of the Homeland Security?!”), and distracting us from the more important issue-that a corporation installed trojan programs that spy on people, and probably broke an number of laws doing so.
It’s not like we should be surprised. Does nobody remember this from five years ago? Emphasis mine.
Posted by markp at November 11, 2005 04:32 PM“The [music] industry will take whatever steps it needs to protect itself and protect its revenue streams. It will not lose that revenue stream, no matter what. Sony is going to take aggressive steps to stop this. We will develop technology that transcends the individual user. We will firewall Napster at source - we will block it at your cable company, we will block it at your phone company, we will block it at your [ISP]. We will firewall it at your PC. These strategies are being aggressively pursued because there is simply too much at stake.” —Steve Heckler, Sony senior VP, 2000