I’m not normally into activism, but here is something that I feel needs to be addressed.
Amongst all the bruhaha about Digital Rights Management (DRM) and the music industry effectively becoming a law unto themselves by going to extra-ordinary lengths to ensure that I can’t play the CDs I personally paid money for on my personal mp3 player, Sony has now gone one big step too far.
If you don’t know what a rootkit is, there is a good summary on Wikipedia (Rootkit), but suffice to say, “a rootkit is a set of tools frequently used by an intruder after cracking a computer system. These tools are intended to conceal running processes and files or system data, which helps an intruder maintain access to a system for malicious purposes”.
What does this have to do with Sony ? Well, in their unsatiable quest for profits-at-the-expense-of-common-sense, they have gone overboard with their DRM strategy and have started releasing CDs that install a form of copy protection on your PC, without your knowledge. There is nothing reasonable that any company can install on your PC without your knowledge, there is no logical reason for needing to do so. The only conclusion that can be made by all of this is that this is a malicious attempt by Sony to further their own cause and protect their own profits.
Is this the dawn of a new era ? Corporations turning to hacking consumers to protect their profits ? This needs to be stomped on quickly.
Read more details, including links to more information about the situation on Wikipedia: Rootkits as copy protection
I am disgusted by these actions, and by Sony’s seeming lack of concern, they refuse to admit blame or take any responsibility for their actions, and there is even a question about the patch they have released to supposedly remove the malware not actually doing what it promises.
I am therefore joining the growing number of people who have decided to boycott Sony music, and by extension, Sony electronics – I will never again knowingly purchase anything created by Sony music, and I won’t be buying any electronic equipment from Sony in a long, long time.
This company needs to learn that they can’t abuse the trust of their customers. They need to get with the times and realise that they have lost the war and that they need to come up with a new business model and evolve to cope with the changing industry requirements of consumers when it comes to music and the way we buy and manage it.
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