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President of RIAA Says Sony-BMG Did Nothing Wrong
Zellis writes "In a press conference held on Nov 18 Cary Sherman, the president of the RIAA, stated in reference to Sony BMG's "rootkit" software that "there is nothing unusual about technology being used to protect intellectual property." According to Sherman, the problem with Sony BMG's XCP DRM software was simply that "the technology they used contained a security vulnerability of which they were unaware". He goes on to praise Sony's "responsible" attitude in handling the problem, saying "how many times that software applications created the same problem? Lots. I wonder whether they've taken as aggressive steps as SonyBMG has when those vulnerabilities were discovered, or did they just post a patch on the Internet?" It seems that the latest spin is to portray the Sony rootkit as no more of an issue than a software coding error that unintentionally creates a security hole. Will they get away with it among the non-technical public?" Arguably, Sherman is right -- but I enjoy much more the fact that this whole r00tkit fiasco has set DRM back by years. Gogogo poor implementations!
I'd much rather have the physical CD itself.
...but then again, I'm old and not hip. I like to be able to hear the background noise created by John Bonham when he's playing the drums... I like to hear the humm of the tubes in the amp between riffs when SRV is playing "Little Wing". I still remember when Album's were released on those 12' discs with the grooves in them. You just can't get that with a commercial MP3.
It all comes down to the sound quality.... something that the "iPod Generation" seems to have forgotten exists.
On top of that, what are you going to do when you lose your iPod? The CD is a hard copy of the music at the best quality you are able to get. With the CD you can rip down the MP3's to whatever quality you want to play on your laptop, etc., but you will still have that CD to play on your stereo.
If I had the choice between payign $12.00 for a CD with a few songs I might or might not like vs $1.00 a song for an MP3, I'll pick the CD every time.
From what I understand is that Sony built this rootkit themselfes though they did steal GPL code on the way.