In the third week of the brouhaha over First 4 Internet's XCP CD copy
protection software used in certain SonyBMG Music discs, the fallout is building
on all fronts. SonyBMG now faces a growing number of class action
suits, including one from the
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) for misleading consumers and one from
the state of
Texas for violating the its anti-spyware laws. First 4 Internet faces
the ironic
accusation of breaking a "copyleft" agreement by using some open source code
in a commercial product. And analysts at
Gartner have
found that a properly placed piece of tape can circumvent XCP, in a manner
similar to the black marker pen ploy on Sony's own, now-abandoned copy
protection software.
The EFF and Texas lawsuits admittedly smack of opportunism: a state attorney
general seeing a grandstanding opportunity, and a prominent advocacy group
looking to advance its hard-line anti-DRM agenda. The EFF is also using
the occasion to go after SunnComm, the other vendor of CD copy protection
technology used by SonyBMG, on similar grounds of neglecting to inform consumers
of its behavior. The charges that can legitimately be brought against
these vendors in the US are not all as clear-cut as those that have already been
brought in Europe, where the technology abridges consumers' rights to make
private copies of legitimately obtained content.
Once again, the backlash against CD copy protection is not new. The
novelty is in its ferocity, now that it has been unleashed in the United States,
the media and litigation capital of the world.
For its part, SonyBMG is now offering unencrypted MP3 versions of the music
that consumers may have bought in protected CD format, in addition to
unprotected CDs. It is recalling the protected CDs and putting its CD copy
protection program on hold.
The cost of this episode to SonyBMG is mounting -- not just in bad PR, the
effect of which is hard to measure, but in real expenditures on things like
litigation defenses and product recall programs. SonyBMG should be asking
itself how the ultimate monetary cost compares to that of paying for the design
of decent DRM technology that respects consumers as much as it protects
copyrighted material.
Events
IE 7
Firefox 2.0
