The Inquirer has a good story about the new Sony DRM scheme. I think it was Mark Russinovich who originallyfound the problem. To summarize, he bought the Van Zant's brothers CD "Get Right with the Man" which is marked as a "Copy-Protected CD" but then found it surreptitiously installs very nasty software on your computer made by a company called First 4 Internet.
Mark's article describes how bad the software is. It uses techniques that viruses and other really nasty programs use. It slows down your computer and is not easily removed (in fact, trying to do so might damage your computer). The Inquirer article describes Sony's reaction: "So, rather than come clean, Sony minimises the problem, blames the user, and refuses to help you out."
So here's the problem. Companies want to prevent illegal copying. I'm fine with that, but the problem is there's no way to do that without restricting legitimate users from doing legitimate things. I also think there are more good users than bad users. I might loan or give someone a song or album thinking they might like it. If they do, they'll go buy it or other music by the group, that's a good thing. The pirates are bad, but they are also ones who weren't going to give the record companies much money anyway. I don't think they are losing business as much as being stolen from, there's a difference and they shouldn't hurt their legitimate customers to correct it.
Data and software really should stay separate, you should be able to open a data file with any program you want, not just what the owner wants you to use. This allows for competition in software, smooth upgrades, and protection of content if a company goes out of business or discontinues a product. This is why MA is trying to switch from MS Office documents to an Open Document Format that many programs can read. It's a good thing, but I also don't think it can be legislated. I think the only way to fight this is economically. Sony just lost my business, until they stop such practices.
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