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Canadian Sony Rootkit Settlement Stirs Controversy

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the neighbors-to-the-north-getting-less-love dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Canadian law professor Michael Geist is reporting that Sony BMG Canada has quietly kept a key legal document secret as part of its class action settlement over last year's rootkit case. The document, which is not on the Sony settlement site but has now been posted on Geist's site (pdf), contains a series of bogus arguments about why Canadians are receiving far less than U.S. consumers."

1 of 96 comments (clear)

  1. I don't see why this is interesting... by cleverhandle · · Score: 5, Informative

    For those that haven't RTFDocument, it basically says two things:

    1) Sony BMG Canada will not accept any binding injuction based on legal proceedings from a different country with a different set of laws, but...

    2) Practically speaking, the actions of Sony BMG Canada will be the same as those of Sony BMG US (for technical/logistical reasons). That is, Sony BMG Canada will unofficially follow the terms of the injunction.

    What more do you expect? I'm no fan of lawyers, but certainly no company is going let a precedent be set that their operations in one country will be bound by the legal system of a different country. The document is just saying to Canadian consumers "Look, we can't legally submit to this injunction, but we'll be playing by its rules anyway."

    The whole Sony rootkit affair reeks, but this just looks like standard legal procedure - CYA of a fairly inoffensive variety.