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Roy and GM

GM, San Francisco
likes: fighting games, 2D, big breasted video game characters, podcasts, coffee, Star Trek, getting into fist fights
dislikes: Sony, HALO, organic food, iPods, EB Games, macs

Roy, Los Angeles
likes: meat, polyester twill pants, cuddling, Pride FC, sweaters, PDAs, Tekken
dislikes: Itagaki's face, RPG players, HALO/HALO players, The Beatles, "brahs", winter, Xbox controllers, crooked titties, Star Wars fans

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018 :: Phony Sony

filed:11/13/2005 by GM


By now you've probably heard about the Sony DRM incident involving Sony shoving a hidden program on their music CDs to prevent a user from creating too many copies of the music. The end result was someone figuring this out and exploiting it via a trojan.

There are so many things wrong with this situation. Firstly, taking advantage of consumers' trust. Who thought that just by simply listening to a CD on your computer that you could have software unknowingly installed on your computer and well hidden? Nothing is safe anymore. Above that, it's an invasion of your space. There's no problem with the company who created the rootkit but there is a problem with the fact they sold the technology to Sony. When this is brought to court, they'll probably be forgotten.

And then you have to think.. Sony is in hard times. They're so desperate to cash in our their investments (musicians) that they'd do something so goddamn underhanded. That's the corporate mentality for you.

How long is it going to take before this completely blows up in Sony's face, leaving bits and pieces to permanently scar the company? When a large company grows a Capcom complex (a complete lack of consumer care, bloodlust for more cash, compromising quality), the consequences can be quite depressing.

Now, I don't buy CDs. They're too expensive and I don't believe enough of the money actually goes to the artists. What do I do? I go to the shows. I know that the money I hand the doorman will in some way reach the band at some point after they pay whomever for setting up the venue. I buy merchandise straight from the band. While this might seem completely unbelievable to those who like mainstream, expensive bands.. it's a completely healthy win-win situation.

This isn't going to solve the people of the world's problems. But if you feel uncomfortable downloading MP3s and not buying their CD, just keep my simple plan in mind. And remember how TLC went broke. You can sell millions of records and still end up with no cash. When artists are only getting quarters for every CD sold, someone has to do something. But then on the other hand, the RIAA is still bloodthirsty for those who still download MP3s illegally. So maybe there's no way to prevent buying CDs.

If Sony is employing these tactics to keep their investments, what are other record companies going to do? What are they doing now? This is one incident out of what could be many more to come regarding DRM bullshit.

How is this going to hurt Sony.. It seems as the business quarters come and go, Sony continues to dig itself a larger and larger grave. Sony's electronics have the prices of Apple but the quality of third-party Chinese parts. Coincidentally, I happen to live in a Sony household. And the ratio of working to non-working Sony products in this house seems to hold steady at 5:2. Let's not even get started on the horror stories of the PlayStation console itself..

One of the last Sony products that I still have faith and love for is the Mini-Disc. I love my Hi-MD player. I love MDs and the cuteness of having awesome floppy disk-looking disks containing playlists upon playlists of music. But on the other hand, I hate the fact that right at this moment, I have doubles of MP3s in Sony's music format.. because MD players (cheaper ones) can't play MP3s. It's not so inconvenient that it bothers me honestly.. but ease of playlist functions and being able to draw pictures on my MDs are the only reasons I keep a MD player.

There's nothing holding Sony up anymore. And nothing for them to fall back on. Who knows what will happen after this but they better think of something.

I'll probably still end up going to the Metreon tomorrow.

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