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Sony Rootkit Settlement Gets Judge's Approval
Lewis Clarke wrote to mention a ZDNet story about Monday's final approval of the rootkit settlement in the case brought against Sony BMG Music. From the article: "The agreement covers anyone who bought, received or used CDs containing what was revealed to be flawed digital rights management (DRM) software after Aug. 1, 2003. Those customers can file a claim and receive certain benefits, such as a nonprotected replacement CD, free downloads of music from that CD and additional cash payments ... At least 15 different lawsuits were filed by class action lawyers against the record label, and the New York cases were eventually consolidated into one proceeding. The parties reached a preliminary settlement with Sony BMG in December, leaving it up to a judge in a U.S. District Court in New York to make it official. "
Yeah.
Cause clearly a filing clerk working at a completely unrelated division of Sony should be punished for this.
</sarcasm>
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
I believe the software did exactly what it was supposed to do. Shouldn't there be mention of a flawed *DRM *strategy being foisted upon consumers?
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
If a 15 year old script kiddie had done the kind of damage that Sony did with its rootkit, he'd be spending a couple of years in a "Federal PMITA prison" why does Sony get off this lightly?
Someone should be incarcerated over this.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
If some young "cranker" released this type of virus out in the wild, he or she would be looking at serious jail time. But as is normally the case with corporations, no one is expected to be personally responsible. Just a few dollars that amounts to jack shit for a huge corporation.
Just like when Ford and Bridgestone decided to go ahead and release the exploding tires. Sure a few people got killed, but we can't press criminal charges! These are our captains of the industry! Reason #122,234 that this country is seriously messed up.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
As others have noted, this is a joke. Those users who were affected are entitled to a replacement CD, free downloads of the music on the CD in question (in who knows what format) or a cash settlement. So someone spends hours cleaning up the mess that Sony made and they get what amounts to $15 to $20 bucks. Most people who are affected probaby won't even bother to claim anything so Sony isn't really hurt by this. It seems to me that the lawyers who brought the class action suit are the only ones who really benefit here.
Why don't you blame the temp receptionist for using her company computer for personal use?
Let me rephrase your question.
Why don't you blame the temp recpetionist for playing a music CD, instead of the amoral, multinational corporation that placed a piece of malignant software, designed to cripple the way a computer works on said music CD.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
I agree it sets a precedent. However, it's not the kind of precedent it should have set. It sets the precedent that a large corporation can do things that are completely illegal and cause widespread damage to the public and they'll just get a slap on the wrist.
A replacement CD, and a few DRM's music files doesn't exactly make up for the huge amounts of time it has taken and will take to fix their damage.
I know of a few computers just in my family that had this rootkit on it. My youngest brother is in college and the school provides a laptop to every student that the school maintains through an IT dept. They had to reimage his system when things got screwed up. My dad has a couple computers at work that got this thing. He had to reload everything on one and IT had to reload the other one. That was just from one CD that had been played on those computers.
There are countless people that have had to spend many many hours fixing what Sony did. What they did was illegal and very damaging. All they have to do is replace some CDs.
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Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
What makes you think that giving you a replacement CD or allowing you to download music is going to cost them anything? Giving you a CD will only cost them the actual cost of stamping the CD, which is probably less than 10 cents. Allowing you to download a music file from them will cost them nothing.
Sony is getting away with basically paying nothing here. Sure, they'll put it on their books as having cost so many millions in lost revenue or whatever for tax purposes, but the actual cost is pretty much zero.
I like that idea but for most of us small claims and legal stuff is unknown territory. Most of us don't know what to do from start to finish because we haven't done anything like that before. I would like to see (as in, someone else do it :)) someone like Groklaw post templates and procedures for filing small claims specific to a case. e.g.: how to stick it to Sony in small claims.
All the research of what to do is too difficult and I'm lazy and a bit intimidated. If it were made easier, I would do it and I'm willing to bet a lot of others would too.
A thousand people each filing small claims at $500 a pop would be more potent then one lawyer representing a thousand people in a class action. Think "Slashdot Effect" in the legal sphere. It might even set a legal/business precedent: don't screw your customers so bad that they'll mobilize against you.
I'm willing to overcome my laziness and contribute, but I need help and direction. Others need it too.