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Sony and Seppuku| Category | | | Summary | Mr. Smith, there's a call for you, line one, Sony headquarters.
Thank you Ms. Starr.
Yes, may I ... Yessir, I... Yessir, right away sir! Legal Department? Yessir! I'll get... Seppuku sir? Yessir, I'll Google it right away sir!
Ms Starr, please se |
| | Body | [i]Mr. Smith, there's a call for you, line one, Sony headquarters.
Thank you Ms. Starr.
Yes, may I ... Yessir, I... Yessir, right away sir! Legal Department? Yessir! I'll get... Seppuku sir? Yessir, I'll Google it right away sir!
Ms Starr, please see if you can get someone in Legal to take my call, thank you. Oh, and is anyone over at First4 taking calls? Vacation? Well, keep trying, and Ms. Starr, I apologize for the way security treated you when they confiscated your CDs this morning... No, it's official policy, you know how those IT department people are.
While Mr. Smith is contemplating the meaning of seppuku and waiting for Legal to take his call, I imagine every legal department at Sony is working up massive hours on a number of issues surrounding their XCP copyright protection blunder.
There are a growing number of class action suits in the US, a lawsuit in Italy, and Sony needs to make a decision on whether to try to defend their rootkitted DRM (Digital Rights Management) against security companies like Sophos and Microsoft. It has been labeled as MalWare and researchers are working on ways to remove it from compromised machines to save users from further criminal exploits that take advantage of the way the Sony rootkit allows files to be hidden. Removing the rootkit has been compared to open heart surgery.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has raised legal issues with the XCP software and with SunnComm MediaMax software, which is said to install files on computers even if users have declined to accept its licensing agreement. Apparently the software tracks customers' listening habits, although Sony has denied that the company collects such data. BBC News has reported; "This SunnComm software is on as many as 24 million CDs." and that EFF is; "... suing under a California (USA) law which bans collecting personally identifiable information through deceptive means." (1)
There's the decision to be made regarding the music discs that have already been loosed on an unsuspecting public. I can't call them CDs as they fail to meet the Phillips company's legal requirements. While Sony has offered an exchange program, if there is no effective recall, these discs will remain in circulation and act like time bombs for years to come. Sony must decide whether to pay to get them back and this will most likely entail many more billable hours spent hashing this out with vendors and distributors.
While this is going on, I suspect a legal firefight over First4Interne's liabilities in the matter, as First4 provided the rootkit to Sony. It appears that the XCP discs have 'borrowed' liberally from an open source project for their integrated CD player. As Finnish software developer Matti Nikki stated; "Multiple software components on the CD have references to the LAME open source MP3 code." (2)
Whenever open source software is tightly integrated in an executable file, the entire application has to become open source according to the licensing requirements, and this wasn't done. There is also likely to be a fuss raised over a few First4 people who were previously employed by Sony as well. One of the directors, Nicholas Bingham, (appointed in 2002) was director of "Sony pictures home entertainment Ltd. " from 1989 to 1997, and director of "Sony pictures television production UK Ltd. " from 1996 to 2000, and director of "Sony digital radio europe Ltd." from 1994 to 2000.
First4Internet is a Symantec partner and Symantec has posted the rootkit as not harmful. The legal departments at Microsoft and the security companies are going to be busy figuring out how to defend themselves if Sony goes after them for breaking the "protection" of copyrighted material and possibly thinking of ways to compel Sony to reimburse them for saving users from the rootkit. If there are problems with users CD players being corrupted in the process of removing the rootkit, a whole new field will be ripe for litigation. If new versions of Windows 64 prevent Sony's software from working, does that mean that Microsoft is violating the DMCA because it has made changes to its software to prevent copyright protection from working?
Although Sony has claimed the rootkitted discs were only distributed in the US, a number of reports are surfacing regarding worldwide distribution of the offending discs and if this bears out it's likely a lot more lawyers and solicitors will be busy. BBC News states"...respected net expert Dan Kaminsky found that ...44,000 copies were installed on machines in the UK." (3)
As user's machines are exploited and compromised it's likely there will be financial losses by fraud, thus drawing a wider circle of legal involvement.
And, lest we forget, the music industry as a whole is affected so quite a number of contracts are going to need scrutiny in an industry known for its litigious nature.
As if Sony's problems in the music divisions weren't enough, BBC News reports: "the UK's Office of Fair Trading (OFT) said it was examining a complaint from the Interactive Media in Retailing Group that says manufacturers have been raising wholesale prices for online retailers."
"Some media reports had suggested that one of the companies concerned was Sony, but the firm has strongly denied that it operates a dual pricing system." (4)
The upcoming legal battle will be watched closely by everyone concerned with Digital Rights Management and will likely affect future copyright protection law on all software, movies and games.
All in all it looks like Sony will be making the year end holidays happy ones for the legal profession.
Sources
(1) BBC News. Sony sued over controversial CDs
Tuesday, 22 November 2005. Accessed Tuesday, 22 November 2005
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4459620.stm
(2) Yahoo News (Reuters)
By Lucas van Grinsven, European Technology Correspondent
Thursday 17 November 2005. Accessed Sunday, 20 November, 2005
http://tinyurl.com/8qxsv
(3) BBC News. Sony recalls copy-protected CDs
Wednesday, 16 November 2005. Accessed Wednesday, 16 November, 2005
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4441928.stm
(4) BBC News. Firms 'ramping up online prices
Tuesday, 15 November 2005. Accessed Wednesday, 16 November, 2005
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4438298.stm
Author: 1746
Editor: Catfancy
SubEditor: craytonic |
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This article was imported from zZine. (original author: 1746)
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