Pixar, Final Fantasy, Google Video and YABPASyadayadayada...

You, know... yet another blog post about SONY's perspective on how to enforce DRM on their clients. Remember ? Those guys'n'girls that give them money to enjoy their products? :P

One needs to read Mark's Sysinternals Blog posts about Sony, Rootkits and Digital Rights Management Gone Too Far to understand what' this all about.

Yup, that's what you get for buying a legit Audio CD from SONY BMG and play it on your Windows machine with autorun turned on. A little "free" gift.

I especially like this comment:

Perhaps if you kernel level developer guys were a little less friendly and helpful on you're mailing lists you could prevent things like this being created.

Ceri Coburn of First4Internet.co.uk asking for help writing a cdrom filter driver

# posted by Edward : 8:22 PM, October 31, 2005

and, of course, this one:

First4Internet, eh?... let's see... according to public records, they were incorporated 24/11/1999. In 2004 they had a turnover of £709,941 and operating expenses of £1,301,546 -- meaning an operating loss of £591,605. In the last five years they have, on average, lost £541,067 a year. For 2004, their credit rating is "HIGH RISK" (complete with capitalisation). Meanwhile, the four directors share annual renumeration of £224,413 between them (average £56,103 each).

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.

A cynic might say Sony selected this inept copy protection technology because it was supplied by one of thier cronies. The reason this is a bad business practice can be seen by the software's many failings.

# posted by Michael Tandy : 3:20 AM, November 01, 2005

So... SONY... good move eh ? :)

Anyway, I never buy protected Audio CDs. If one was given to me (never happened, fortunatly), I would make a protection-free copy of the audio stream so I can play it whenever, wherever and how I want. ...and keep the original CD (the physical object) as another art manifestation of the artist, like the cover and the booklet, photos, etc...

If this is ilegal, ok, fine... there's plenty of listenable music on Radio or TV to listen to, so no need to support SONY's way by giving them what they want: my money.

I try to spend my hard earned money with those that I think deserve it. If I like the artist but don't like the label behind it, well... tough luck to both.

"Those who want it all, loose it all."


Speaking of this, Pixar is one of those where I like to spend my money on :)
For me, The Incredibles was their best work so far. The water effects, the hair, the characters, the story, the way the super powers were carefully matched with each family member, everything was great :)


hmmm... speaking of hair, you must check the latest Final Fantasy movie
WOW!!! ...now that's high quality 3D CG hair and fur :)

And... finally Video Google search engine now has integrated video feeds :D how cool is that, eh ?

ok, enough already.



For more about Sony's Rootkit issue:

1. More on Sony: Dangerous Decloaking Patch, EULAs and Phoning Home
2. Sony’s Rootkit: First 4 Internet Responds
3. Sony: You don’t reeeeaaaally want to uninstall, do you?
4. Sony: No More Rootkit - For Now

...and Microsoft's Jason Garms (Anti-Malware Technology Team) comment
  ¶ 13:57