Hook 'em Horns

Texas is suing Sony for their rootkit and other nefarious DRM-related practices. This avalanche of lawsuits, bad publicity and huge financial losses couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of folks! Sony's over-the-top and dishonest DRM practices are setting back the whole idea of draconian DRM more then a million anguished EFF press releases ever could have hoped.

Maybe this is the beginning of the end (rather then the end of the beginning) of the idea that the owners of media content have the right to dictate how legal purchasers of their product use it. Sony treated consumers like thieves, and tried to shackle them with the equivalent of a house-arrest ankle bracelet (and in this case, a side-effect of the ankle bracelet was that it caused the locks on your doors to stop working!)

Ideally, when I buy media, I should have the right to do with it as I please, with a few limitations. I can't copy it and sell the copies. I can't copy it and give copies away to strangers. However, beyond that, I should be able to do what I want with it...listen to it anywhere I wish, rip a back-up copy for my car or iPod, and if I don't like it or tire of it, sell the original to whoever may wish to buy it (without, of course, keeping any copies). This should be true whether the media is a music CD, a movie DVD, or a book.

Music companies have been trying very hard to gradually constrict consumers' ability to control music, and the move towards more and more DRM has seemed to be inevitable. It still may be, but possibly not. The huge fiasco that Sony is experiencing is the case of a hungry python that tried to swallow way more then was really good for it. That usually isn't a good idea for the snake.