Posted by Bob on 11/17/05 14:39

Copyright � 2005 MarketWatch, Inc.

Commentary: Sony faces 'spyware' backlash
By John C. Dvorak

BERKELEY, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- Content theft is here to stay and
the big media companies are going to have to get used to it.

Attempts to manage content with protection tricks simply antagonize
the consumer and can become a long-term public relations nightmare.

Over the past few weeks such a PR nightmare unfolded for the Sony
Corporation music division as the company attempted to protect its
music with a Digital Rights Management tool that consisted of what is
considered onerous spyware. And it was the worst kind of spyware --
the dreaded "rootkit." It makes a computer vulnerable to all sorts of
other forms of malicious software.

Numerous geeks and nerds discovered this and became alarmed. Within
hours of the discovery of the Sony malware, the intertwined mesh of
blogs and websites went berserk and the situation forced Sony to
recall all the discs. Now Sony is seen as some sort of evil villain.
Its reputation tarnished.

Here is probably the most elaborate explanation of what this onerous
software is all about.

http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/10/sony-rootkits-and-digital-rights.html

It tells the whole story followed by a massive public denunciation of
Sony by way of added reader comments.

Thinking you are going to trick an audience filled with technologists
who hate to be tricked is folly. From my perspective all DRM schemes
have to be out in the open and people need to be warned in advance
about what they do and how they work.

It seems that the marketing folks know that this sort of thing will
actually hurt sales and thus you have attempts to fool the public in
hopes that nobody figures it out. One day someone will realize that if
DRM is hurting sales, then perhaps it's not such a good idea after
all.

The idea behind DRM is that content in electronic form is so
effortlessly copied and distributed with computers and networks that
some tool is needed to keep tabs on the content itself. It needs to be
managed somehow in the wild.

This means mechanisms not dissimilar to the copy-protection schemes
designed to keep commercial software from being copied. These began to
appear in the 1980's resulting in the growth of commercial companies
such as Central Point Software which specialized in devices that could
defeat these systems.

Back then there was a real fear that not having backup copies of
software could be a disaster. This was a legitimate argument.

But the rationale for defeating these systems has changed.

Today the users and buyers of content who dislike DRM mechanisms
believe that once they own a copy of the content they should be able
to listen (or watch) it on whatever device they choose and make as
many personal copies as they want. This is a massive change in
rationale for cracking the protection mechanisms.

This change in mentality I believe evolved from the cassette tape era
when people legally copied music from record to tape. Each blank tape
had a copy fee attached to it paid to the record companies who
factored this into their finances. Once this model was established it
became common (and acceptable) to copy.

It is not possible to reverse this mentality. Any attempt to do so
brings with it a backlash, as we've seen with the Sony situation.

Once computers were able to read data from CD's and DVD's it was
inevitable to everyone (except those who did not understand computers)
that copying would run rampant. Worsening the situation was the
Internet that allowed the data on the hard disk to be transferred over
a network to anyone. Thus an actual sale was lost with each transfer
and the industry saw this as a theft -- not of physical property but
of a virtual sale whether real or imaginary.

From here it gets fuzzy and debatable with the concept of "sharing"
suddenly appearing.

There is absolutely nothing that can be done about this problem.

Content management will never work. If it did work then nobody would
buy the products. The fact is that content producers are going to have
to rethink their business model and make less money, the way print
folks have had to do.

Writers like myself and my editors make 1/10 the money people can make
in the movie or music business for doing about the same amount of work
(content generation). Our value is lessened by the fact that we cannot
protect the written word from rampant copying. It started with the
printing press, bootleg publishing, plagiarism, Xerox machines, email,
online pilfering, cut-and-paste, etc., etc. We simply got used to it
and live with it.

Sony and all the other big media companies are simply going to have to
live with what writers and editors have lived with for some time: a
big cut in pay.


--

BOYCOTT SONY!

SONY IS TRYING TO TAKE OVER YOUR COMPUTER!

HOMELAND SECURITY TOLD SONY TO CEASE AND DESIST!

YOU DO THE SAME - BOYCOTT SONY!

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