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Sony Fixes Problems With New DVDs
An anonymous reader writes "Following up on reports that DVDs for some Sony titles were causing problems, Video Business is reporting that Sony has fixed the copy-protection problem on recent DVD releases, and will provide replacement discs to customers. The problem was with the ARccOS DRM system. The company issued the following statement: 'Recently, an update that was installed on approximately 20 titles was found to cause an incompatibility issue with a very small number of DVD players (Sony has received complaints on less than one thousandth of one percent of affected discs shipped)... Since then, the ARccOS system has once again been updated, and there are no longer any playability problems.' Customers can call 800-860-2878 to inquire about replacement discs."
It's called the AVI file format...
I think most of the people didn't even report to Sony.
If a DVD was not working, I would just bring it back to the shop, the second time I would exchange it for another DVD (not the same movie).
My 2 cents on what probably happened is that they did not count all the returns for these titles, they just counted the people who sent emails complaints or called their hot-line and who told specifically about the DRM problem so they could minimize the problem, which is alot better for them from a marketing point of view.
Don't you know it is now both immoral and criminal to think beyond the next quarterly report?
Maybe the only way to be heard by the SONY CEO when you are complaining is to be his whife or son.
GreyPoopon
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Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
I guess that would work out to 1 complaint. One one thousandth of one percent would need to assume 1 complaint for every 10 million copies sold, right?
... not nice people....
Does anybody believe that Sony sold 10 million copies of Casino Royale? Personally, I have a hard time believing they even pressed 10 million copies of that.
This is like their inflated Blue-Ray numbers as well.
You can't trust what Sony says. They are a bunch of
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Instead of calling the 800 number, consumers can visit their local torrent site and download the movie for free long before the replacement disc reaches their door.
Have a great day Sony.
1 percent is 1/100. One thousandth of that is 1/1000 * 1/100 = 1/100000
Or one out of a hundred thousand. Your argument still stands, though.
"I think it would be a good idea" Gandhi, on Western Civilisation
So Sony once again swapped discs for DRM'd version and didn't tell anyone.
That's a pity, there comes a point where a company gets bigger than it's customers, and it looks like Sony have reached that point. Well the PS3 was only a discretionary buy anyway, I was torn between a Wii and a PS3, now that decision is a lot clearer.
Then there's my camera update, I'll opt for the Canon Ixus now over the Cybershot.
Knock yourself out Sony, really, I can avoid buying your stuff till the cows come home with no inconvenience to myself.
So as soon as this story started to gain momentum, they issued a fix and a statement offering a replacement disk. Well, full marks to Sony for learning from recent public relations disasters, but I doubt I'd be so impressed if I was one of the people who had experienced this problem, and I had been complaining left right and centre to no avail for several weeks. Seems as though Sony only back-pedalled on this issue once they feared another DRM PR-storm was the brewing up.
When your stuff works too well, you have to "fix" it. When it doesn't work well enough, you have to fix it. And in the theoretical scenario where you get it to work just right, you'll be hated, and likely out of a job.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
STOP buying SONY media all together. First they plant rootkits on the PC's of their loyal customers and now this headache. I vote with my wallet plain and simple. Any company that is going to be a pull these sorts of antics simply won't be getting any $$ love from me. People forgive and forget far too quickly and thus the big monster doesn't learn it's lesson.
One lesson here: Vote with your Wallet and don't give your money to prick companies.
But this 'fix' came a lot quicker than their debacle with the broken CDs.
On the other hand, this fix would not have been necessary, had they not used DRM in the first place.
And it doesn't leave the fact, that I'm still not buying anything that Sony makes.
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There were a few titles affected, and a couple of them were major releases.
But who complains to the publishers? I tried to find a number or email address ro anything to complain about the stupid anti-piracy ad at the start of DVDs but the contact details are pretty hard to find (Which is strange. I'd have thought they'd like to know when they're irrritating their customers). It's a lot easier to just take it back to the shop.
Who exactly are they fighting? The people who buy their products?
Is shipped the same as sold?
They might have shipped 100gazillian disks but if they are sat in a distribution warehouse in each respective country then that could explain the difference.
liqbase
That's my point. I can easilt rip a DVD and produce a perfectly acceptable single or dual layer DVD+R with about 90 minutes work. I don't see any point at all in Sony or anybody else attempting to copy protect DVDs or CDs since the measures are trivial to circumvent. So what if it prevents bit-for-bit copies? I expect the first thing most pirates would do is run the disc through DVD decryptor or similar first to strip out macrovision, region encoding etc. anyway.
We've only got a report about this not the actual Sony statement to go on, but it seems to me that there's a total lack of apology here, just a blatantly absurd claim about how few complaints there were. Come on Sony, at least have the guts to say you are sorry... if if it's only 'we're sorry we got caught'.
Sony's PR department really don't seem to understand that they have a monumental image problem. A bit of humility in their press releases could have won back some respect for free, but instead they sent out something that reeks of arrogance.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
After the PS2 class action, the rootkit DRM fiasco, and now this DVD DRM fiasco, how many more times will it take for the public to wake up and realize they have ALL of the power in this situation?
Check out http://defectivebydesign.org/ for details on how DRM hurts consumers.
If you don't buy ANY of their stuff, including movies, you can't get hurt. The last Sony product I purchased was a movie ticket to a showing of Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.
As for Microsoft avoidance, that's what GNU/Linux systems are for.
CD standards are set in stone
DVD standards seem to be set in jello
Sony has the math right. Only one out of 100,000 discs sold had a complaint, you just don't understand their logic behind it.
They sold 200,000 discs. Complaint #1 was from Wal-Mart, and #2 was from Best Buy.
You didn't really think they include what consumers think in any of their decisions, do you?
This sentence no verb.
This is based on my own past work experience, but often times our corporate numbers were based primarily on a specific statistic. For example, I wouldn't be surprised if, in this case, "Sony has received complaints on less than one thousandth of one percent of affected discs shipped." really translates to "Sony has received complaints from registered users on less than one thousandth of one percent of affected discs shipped."
If a client of ours had failed to register their software, we would still process their claim but label it as an "external client." I never trust numbers anymore...
Why are we not applauding them for biting the bullet, actually fixing the problem and replacing the affected discs which a lot of companies wouldn't do? Is everybody just so firmly strapped to the Anti-Sony bandwagon that it's impossible for anything sony does to be met with anything but derision and petty insults?
"The stupider people think you are, the more surprised they will be when you kill them..."
Think about it. You go out to the store and buy a DVD and have this problem. Say that you have the persistence to play with the problem and somehow figure out that it is the formatting of the disk that causes the problem.
How are you going to "contact Sony"? This company has a billion contact points and none of them are labeled "call here when your DVD disk has a problem". The likely course is that you return it to Circuit City or Best Buy and the pimply kid behind the counter certainly isn't going to call Sony and report it.
Basically there is almost no chance that Sony will hear a thing because they are structured so they don't have to listen to customers.
"Why are we not applauding them for biting the bullet, actually fixing the problem and replacing the affected discs which a lot of companies wouldn't do?"
A lot of companies wouldn't do? Just off the top of my head, I can think of two examples: When Back to the Future was released on DVD, the panning for the full screen version was messed up. The discs were recalled and re-released. People who purchased copies of it got a replacement. The Twilight Princess for the Wii had a bug in it that could cause a player to get stuck. Nintendo's now offering free replacements of the game. I'd bet that if I hopped on Google, I'd find more examples of that. But is that really the issue? I don't think so. They twiddled with copy restriction, which in reality has a harder effect on legit users than pirates, and some of their own players couldn't even handle it. Then they went on to claim there were dizzyingly few complaints about it. Bit the bullet? They're still using the scheme and claiming virtually nobody was really affected.
"Is everybody just so firmly strapped to the Anti-Sony bandwagon that it's impossible for anything sony does to be met with anything but derision and petty insults?"
*Sigh* Anti-Sony bandwagon. I love it. Sony racks up numerous complaints over the course of a year, but really it's just a fad. Right? You would think with all the bad PR, especially surrounding copy restriction, they'd pull back a bit. Instead they just keep getting into mischief. Yet there's always somebody who says "I don't understand, so you must be some group of crazy people." Whatever. The next time you stay up late one night pondering Sony's predicament, at least try to give everybody a little credit and assume they weren't born with S0N3 SUXX0Rs tattooed to their forehead.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)