Sony Settlement Start of DRM Protection Act?

An anonymous reader writes "Sony BMG and a group of class action lawyers have reached a provisional settlement in the U.S. Sony rootkit class actions. Sony will pay cash compensation and give away free downloads from a choice of music download services including Apple iTunes as part of the deal. The settlement includes a host of restrictions on future Sony DRM use, which Michael Geist argues provides the starting point for a future Digital Rights Management Protection Act."

Comments

Re:Outrage!

[dangitman]

Well they have been infiltrated by "business" types, when they decided to distance themselves from the Mac and promote Windows and that god-awful Acrobat reader program to the corporate types. They used to be a highly respectable and trustworthy company. When it gets down to the actual image editing software, the meat of Photoshop and Illustrator - things are still done pretty well. It just seems they get a bunch of idiots to write the ancillary software like installers, Bridge, Acrobat. I hope they don't screw up the Macromedia acquisition.

My biggest worry is PDF, even though it's extremely useful to my business. Before PDF, it was difficult to get people to competently open graphics files and formatted typography. These days, even the stupidest office monkey or manager can open print-quality proofs delivered via email. But the thing is getting so bloated! i liked it when it was somewhat leaner. PDF will probably replace .DOC as the main format we all have to use, because there is little alternative.

Although I guess I could look at the bright side. If Adobe screws up the Macromedia acquisition, hopefully they will wreck Flash, so we see fewer fucking stupid Flash animations. But more likely, all our PDFs will soon be riddled with Flash banner ads. Oh crap, what if they turn Acrobat into a "free" service that is supported by embedded advertising in your documents? Sort of like how "free" email services put ads in the mail you send.