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Rick Rubin Discloses Sony Rootkit Called Home
caffeinemessiah writes "Rick Rubin, the legendary music producer, recently signed on as co-head of Columbia Records, which is owned by Sony BMG. In a recent New York Times interview (on pg. 4 of the online version), he discloses, possibly accidentally: 'It was the highest debut of Neil [Diamond]'s career, off to a great start. But Columbia — it was some kind of corporate thing — had put spyware on the CD. That kept people from copying it, but it also somehow recorded information about whoever bought the record...' Seems like the rootkit might have been a little more than your vanilla invade-your-rights-DRM scheme."
Given the context, it doesn't sound like he was too au fait with the technical details, so I wouldn't read too much into it.
Maybe it didn't phone home, and Rick Rubin (a music producer, not a computer geek) just doesn't understand what the root kit did.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
...Bravias have rootkits! Honestly, at this point, I think non-rootkit news about sony would be front page worthy. At this point, it is just expected.
The analysis of the trojan already showed that it phoned home. Of course the point of this was to gather data.
Rick Rubin is listening. A song by a new band called the Gossip is playing, and he is concentrating. He appears to be in a trance. His eyes are tightly closed and he is swaying back and forth to the beat, trying at once to hear what is right and wrong about the music. Rubin, who resembles a medium-size bear with a long, gray beard, is curled into the corner of a tufted velvet couch in the library of a house he owns but where he no longer lives. This three-story 1923 Spanish villa steeped in music history -- Johnny Cash recorded in the basement studio; Jakob Dylan is recording a solo album there now -- is used by Rubin for meetings. And ever since May, when he officially became co-head of Columbia Records, Rubin has been having nearly constant meetings. Beginning in 1984, when he started Def Jam Recordings, until his more recent occupation as a career-transforming, chart-topping, Grammy Award-winning producer for dozens of artists, as diverse as the Dixie Chicks, Slayer, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Neil Diamond, Rubin, who is 44, has never gone to an office of any kind. One of his conditions for taking the job at Sony, which owns Columbia, was that he wouldn't be required to have a desk or a phone in any of the corporate outposts. That wasn't a problem: Columbia didn't want Rubin to punch a clock. It wanted him to save the company. And just maybe the record business.
What that means, most of all, is that the company wants him to listen. It is Columbia's belief that Rubin will hear the answers in the music -- that he will find the solution to its ever-increasing woes. The mighty music business is in free fall -- it has lost control of radio; retail outlets like Tower Records have shut down; MTV rarely broadcasts music videos; and the once lucrative album market has been overshadowed by downloaded singles, which mainly benefits Apple. "The music business, as a whole, has lost its faith in content," David Geffen, the legendary music mogul, told me recently. "Only 10 years ago, companies wanted to make records, presumably good records, and see if they sold. But panic has set in, and now it's no longer about making music, it's all about how to sell music. And there's no clear answer about how to fix that problem. But I still believe that the top priority at any record company has to be coming up with great music. And for that reason, Sony was very smart to hire Rick."
Though Rubin maintains that his intention is simply to hear music with the fresh ears of a true fan, he has built his reputation on the simultaneously mystical and entirely decisive way he listens to a song. As the Gossip, which is fronted by a large, raucous woman named Beth Ditto, shouts to a stop, Rubin opens his eyes and nods yes. This is the first new band signed to Columbia that he has been enthralled by, but he is not yet sure how to organize the Gossip's future. "Let's hear something else," Rubin says to Kevin Kusatsu, who would, at any other record company, be called an A & R executive. (Traditionally, A & R executives spot, woo, recruit and oversee the talent of a record company.) "We don't have any titles at the new Columbia," Rubin explains, as Kusatsu, the first person Rubin hired, slips a disc out of its sleeve. "I don't want to create a new hierarchy to replace the old hierarchy."
Rubin, wearing his usual uniform of loose khaki pants and billowing white T-shirt, his sunglasses in his pocket, his feet bare, fingers a string of lapis lazuli Buddhist prayer beads, believed to bring wisdom to the wearer. Since Rubin's beard and hair nearly cover his face, his voice, which is soft and reassuring, becomes that much more vivid. He seems to be one with the room, which is lined in floor-to-ceiling books, most of which are of a spiritual nature, whether about Buddhism, the Bible or New Age quests for enlightenment. The library and the house are filled with religious iconography mixed with mementos from the world of pop. A massive brass Buddha is flanked by equally enormous speakers; vintage cardboard cutouts of John, Paul, George a
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I guess this is their "We can't afford watermarking all the CD's music, but we'll steal the buyer's identity instead" solution.
Cue the always present "if you don't have anything to hide" corporate apologists.
The article is possibly the first time I'd say tl;dr, but then again it isn't something that would interest me normally. Regardless, if the claims prove to be true, is anyone surprised? The prerequisite lack of morals necessary to build a rootkit into your DRM surely cannot be all that far from the prerequisite lack of morals necessary to add spyware to the mix.
Although somewhat difficult to understand at first, I find that as an allegory for DRM, your story works quite well.
There's an interesting discussion on the same topic over here.
ENDUT! HOCH HECH!
http://games.slashdot.org/games/05/11/07/1221209.
Oh, one, touching one, reaching out
Touching me, touching you...
The number of people who own a computer, are technically smart enough to listen to music on it, and who listen to Neil Diamond, is zero.
And yet Sony has walked away with less than a slap on the wrist.
Replace "Sony" with "Al Queda" or "North Korea" in the same story and see how it reads. Amusing, isn't it?
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
The thing that scares me in this world is that something like this probably wasn't written just to shock people, it was most likely stroke material for poo fetishits. Things like this make me think that people like Osama are right. But then I consider that Osama's own society is full of sex freaks and I realize he doesn't have a leg to stand on, either.
And who the fuck has so little time on their hands that they hang around waiting for articles to post so they can drop a frist pr0st in that will be immediately downmodded?
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Bottom of the 3rd page of TFriendlyA.
For some reason they can no longer use radio to push singles. They are looking for other avenues and focusing on (huh?) popular TV shows and the like.
Internet radio?
File sharing?
Do they not understand word-of-mouth? Have they no sense at all?
Well, big corporations are going the way of the dinosaur, which, in evolutionary terms, is appropriate.
joudanzuki
Home isn't a "game", per se, but a three dimensional environment where one, represented by an avatar, may interact with others, launch games, play movies and music, etc. on their PS3. It's essentially an interactive 3D replacement for the XMB (media cross bar), or rather, it's an adjunct to the XMB. No one is quite sure yet and Sony isn't saying.
Home could be the next great thing from Sony or it could be utter shit. Personally, I think it's shit. Why I would want to cruise around what is essentially a Second Life clone on my PS3 simply to launch a game or view a video? The XMB does that job just fine, thank you.
Hitler was a sensitive man who was mildly understood
Now that Sony knows the true identities of all the Neil Diamond fans, they can now complete their deathstar and will be the ultimate power in the universe!
If they want him to "save the record business", the first thing they better do is lose the RIAA, and stop manufacturing that huge steaming pile of bad will.
The industry's refusal to get into digital sales online was criminally stupid. Everyone told them that, and they just dug in. They're a brontosaurus standing on its head.
We now know how they always worked; the truth is out there. You can feel it all over. If we ever did, we don't *need* them any more. We don't like them any more, and we don't like the homogenizing and genericizing of the sound. Artists need them for one thing only: marketing.Since they've been worse than useless for decades, they'll need a lot of re-org and a lot of giveaways and a lot of goodwill-mending to survive.
I don't think they can; I hope they can't. Good riddance. I haven't bought a new RIAA product in five years; I won't pay $20 for a record I bought 20 years ago either. Personally I'll smile every time one of them buys it. They had their chance, and they gave us the finger.
"You must try to forget all you have learned. You must begin to dream." -- Sherwood Anderson
Usually if I like a song enough to keep it, I'll go buy the real CD, or grab it off iTunes if it's DRM-free.
But If I ever want any music from Columbia/Sony (which is bloody unlikely anyway), I'm not going to pay for it. Ever.
Fuck them.
It's only misleading if your an A. Idiot or B. Sony Shill or C. Both. You are C.
This shouldn't be a hard concept here on slashdot, but the article is talking about some type of "spyware" that tracks people who own the CD. This is distinctly different from a rootkit.
Astroturf much? I mean, seriously, which idiot modded this up? No one with more than basic English skills would have been confused by that title (which is a surprising rarity for Slashdot) in the way you describe, and all you do is promote a PS3 feature in an anti-Sony article. Sorry if this is harsh, but "Home" is neither revolutionary nor innovative (although it is unique to consoles), and it is completely irrelevant to this story (at least until next month, when we find Sony using it to disable PS3s of people they don't like).
It was only recently that I got a flamebait rating for being humorous and saying Rick Rubin is the music industry new messiah ...... so everyone bow down to him and buy what he says to buy.
He promoted to know all even before he reads the long running comments made by consumers....
Has anyone at Sony done gaol time yet? If not, why not?
I don't therefore I'm not.
I could swear I plugged this article three days ago here for different reasons.
The game.
So he's a music producer, but somehow knows about the inner workings of the rootkit, and he discloses something that NOBODY else figured out about the rootkit? Amazing.
Or, he's talking out of his ass.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
sounds like multi player Microsoft Bob to me...
Parent post brought to you by: http://www.info.ucl.ac.be/~pvr/decon.html
How to Deconstruct Almost Anything--My Postmodern Adventure
Chip Morningstar, Electric Communities
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
well, at least he's creative........ right?.....
I cannot think of an artist who would be more likely to have, say, a retired judge with time on his hands, as a fan.
Just sayin.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Jesus was a Leprechaun.
When I read the title, I thought the article was about Home being a rootkit. That is clearly not the case. I just wanted to clarify that.
That's what they want you to think...
Almost every single one of your comments talks about how great Sony is, how great BluRay is, the PS3 is a supercomputer, Halo 3 isn't impressive, Microsoft is anticompetitive, and you think anyone trusts anything you say?
I hope you are getting paid for this, seriously.
Who posted this, someone who owns stock in the New York Times? How about a link that DOESN'T require registration?
Rude much? When I first read the title I thought it was about a new rootkit called "Home", not that the old rootkit reported back to Sony. Title Case Doesn't Help. Neither does using the ambiguous word "called".
Jesus was a leprechaun - with a dick out to here!!
Parent may be violating copyright, but he's not a troll. The subject refers to a username / password you can use to bypass NYT's lame required registration thing (see http://www.bugmenot.com/view/www.nytimes.com )
Well, aren't you just a festive little ball of hate. Have fun with your trolling.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Did you get a free PS3 for that? Let me try!
I love Sony! They make the best video games and have for generations! Blu-Ray is clearly superior to HD-DVD in every way. I hated rumble anyway. HDCP is the way of the future. $599 is perfectly reasonable for what all you get.
(If it's all the same, can I have the cash instead? I'd like to buy a Wii if I can find one.)
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
... Gossip isn't a new band either.
*/me realizes entirely too late that it was karma burnt without a cause...*
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
I have college-level English skills and my first thought was "Why would the new Sony 'Home' game be a rootkit? That doesn't make sense..." After re-reading the title 3 more times, I finally managed to make sense of it.
It -is- an easily misunderstood title, especially with the hype about the 'Home' game lately. And yes, it's hype. From what I can tell, it's Second Life, but on PS3 and completely run by Sony. You'll be able to buy brand-name gear and advertisements for your character to wear and advertise different companies... Why you'd pay for this privilege I have absolutely no clue. The game itself may be free, but they've already said you'll have to pay real money for the items in it beyond a very basic set.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Then I read this quote: ""You would subscribe to music...You'd pay, say, $19.95 a month, and the music will come anywhere you'd like. In this new world, there will be a virtual library that will be accessible from your car, from your cellphone, from your computer, from your television. Anywhere. The iPod will be obsolete, but there would be a Walkman-like device you could plug into speakers at home.
Yes, the iPod will be obsolete. Just ask Napster...or Yahoo...or Microsoft. Sigh.
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
Should we tell Rob Manuel so he can update Name That Beard?
http://www2.b3ta.com/namethatbeard/
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Oh, one, touching one, reaching out
Touching me, touching you...
Sweeeeet Dee Arr Emm
Rootkit really got me good...
I'm too naive,
To think that Sony never would
Oh, no, no..
He works inside Sony.
Perhaps someone inside Sony who actually knows about it said something to him?
Or, he's talking out his ass. But then, so are you.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
If this is indeed happening, then the public at large should be well informed about what is going on with the music purchases they are making and I suspect that most of the buying public even the computer illiterate folks would discontinue buying CD's or find a way to obtain the music through other channels.
Further eroding of the CD medium that we all originally liked, and still do; that if it not for the rampant pimping and crapware these idiots decided to load on there with our purchased tracks, things would be more like it was in the 80's. They can't do that with Vinyl, so why isn't someone proposing bringing back the analog record??? I made copies from it cleanly all the time and still can. I bet there are hosts of them out there ready to do that.
All content in this message is copyright (c) 2008. All rights reserved. RIAA is prohibited here.
You crazy for this one Rick
- Your boy
While he was astroturfing, I disagree that this is an anti-Sony article. This is an anti-Sony-BMG article. FYI Sony-BMG is a separate entity that is 50/50 owned by Sony and Bertelsmann. Furthermore, the BMG side holds the top executive spots. If anything, Bertelsmann is more to blame that Sony for the rootkit, since they promoted the executives that made the decision to use the rootkit.
/moving along now
Like the other replies have said, when the hell has that ever happened?
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
The OP didn't even write that. I saw it posted on a newsgroup more than 10 years ago.
This guy isn't even creative, he's just trolling with offtopic stories.
By the time Barnett first approached Rubin about coming to Columbia, Rubin had already decided that he would have nothing more to do with Columbia Records. This was because of the company's handling of the Rubin-produced Neil Diamond record "12 Songs" in 2005. Diamond was a hero of Rubin's, and he spent two years working on the album, persuading Diamond to record acoustically, something he hadn't done since the '60s.
"The CD debuted at No. 4," Rubin told me at Hugo's, still sounding upset. "It was the highest debut of Neil's career, off to a great start. But Columbia -- it was some kind of corporate thing -- had put spyware on the CD. That kept people from copying it, but it also somehow recorded information about whoever bought the record. The spyware became public knowledge, and people freaked out. There were some lawsuits filed, and the CD was recalled by Columbia. Literally pulled from stores. We came out on a Tuesday, by the following week the CD was not available. Columbia released it again in a month, but we never recovered. Neil was furious, and I vowed never to make another album with Columbia."
What Rubin didn't get is the fact SONY had a hand in the same bad management. He won't produce with Columbia, but WTF is he doing with SONY? Maybe he is just not informed.
clip from bottom of page 4;
As a kind of test, Rubin made some unusual demands. "Oh, God, I would have liked to have heard those negotiations," Natalie Maines exclaimed. "Rick knows what he's worth, and I can just hear him telling them, 'You might never see me, I may never wear shoes, you're not the boss of me.' And I'm sure they were saying, 'Whatever you want, Mr. Rubin.' I was surprised Sony made such a smart decision: someone who knows music should be running the company."
I hope he is able to get SONY to drop all the attempted DRM & anti-copy junk starting with mini disk and CD's and ending with DVD's and thumb drives.
The truth shall set you free!
Where is my right to privacy codified in law?
Here in the US I do see that I have some rights: right to religion, right to free speech, right to establish a militia(nobody is certain if that is an individual right or a state right), right to refuse to quarter soldiers, protection from warrentless searches, right to a "fair" and speedy trial, protection from excessive punishment, right to own property, right to not be enslaved or indentured, right to petition the government, right to vote.
There seems to be only limited protection of an individual's privacy, and it does not seem to be codified in the Bill of Rights. Also I fail to see how a corporation has to follow the the same restrictions as the government. Individuals and corporations can limited a person's free speech in legal ways, such as an employer prohibiting an employee from disclosing information. Even if that information is not covered by trade secret, copyright or patent laws. they can be fired is the consequence. I can't walk into a job site and start spouting off idealogical rhetoric, and a business has every right to fire me for something unwanted that I am doing on company time. there seems to be court precedent that prevents a company from regulating your life outside of work, but there are exceptions to that as well.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Wow, it's about time someone actually realized that there are other companies involved. I get sick and tired of people bashing Sony Computer Entertainment over something that Sony Music did, or Sony Pictures over something that Sony Online Entertainment did. Sure, they all have the word Sony in their name, but that doesn't mean they're the same people.
I'm not sure you fully understand the ramifications of your quote.
It seems to me that if a "legendary music producer" seems to be discussing the notion of what essentially amounts to a library "subscription service" for music, perhaps we ought to listen? It doesn't seem all that far-fetched that this could be the ultimate end-game of the RIAA after all. Strip the individual's freedom to copy and listen to music they have purchased, and what are you left with? If legislation comes about that effectively outlaws any form of copying, I could certainly see a world where iPods are defunct and the only way one can listen to music is to use their recording industry-approved Sony "Netman" for their listening pleasure.
And sadly, if it were essentially ubiquitous, perhaps that legislation isn't necessary, after all. Provide a service for convenience and a large subset of the population will probably gobble it up--even for a monthly fee.
"What about your rights to copy the music as you choose," you might find yourself asking some stranger on the streets.
The answer? "Oh, why would I? I'm paying $19.95 a month to Sony. They let me play my music anywhere."
If the industry moves to a subscription model, you can bet your last dollar that CDs or any other form of copy-capable music distribution will be extinct the following day. Now, let's see if they start pushing for "secure" digital speakers so that listeners cannot intentionally use the analog signal to record from...
He who has no
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
The irony is I found out about Home because you complained about the astroturfing and got modded up.
The article is recent, but the incident itself, that the OP mentions, happened in 2004.
Not if you believe jasen666, see above post
Well, the lack of control over the channels in the new business model is one thing that's causing the bean counters over there nightmares, I'm sure, but they have to get used to the fact that this world contains no real guarantees just like the rest of us.
And there ain't really any "or else" in this. There were no guarantees in this world before the big institutions were built up. The big institutions were able to give an illusion of guarantees, but that illusion has been stripped away by the power of the buyer when the buyer is informed and mobile.
Even the farmers have never had any guarantees.
They've just got to get used to living on spec just like the rest of us.
joudanzuki
Why would Home need to be a "rootkit"?
You gave Sony all the personal information they'd want to create your PSN login. Sony wrote the OS that your PS3 is running. While connected to Home or any other PS3 online service it is securely communicating with their servers and verifying that you've not done anything to remove unwanted 'features' from that OS - they have the perfectly good reason that they're stopping cheats.
None of the above is hidden in a "rootkit", because all of it you agreed to when you signed up for a PSN account, and it's the same for 360 owners with XBox Live. If you're the sort of person who doesn't trust Sony with your personal details, you'd be nuts to connect a PS3 to the internet. If you're not nuts anyway.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Yeah I've seen that type of first post before. . .ah, here it is After the first few words I realize I should just stop reading. . .but it's just so damn ridiculous I have to keep reading to see where the madness will end. . .like I said before, it's the literary form of goatse; curiosity is a curse.
If you are about to mod me down, keep in mind that this post was most likely sarcastic.
They don't get it.
Ok. Whatever.
A maharishi that like Beastie Boys. A guru that leads a yoga session with Metallica.
Gimme a break.
What the music industry needs is something like the SEC.
Information.
At least that's what the SEC aims to provide -- in the first place. Information. A 10-K. An 8-K. Etc.
What do music fans need? Information.
Give me the name of an artist or a group and five seconds with Google and I'll have a website at my fingertips. Yet you want me to go down to the nonexistent Tower or whatever. Or perhaps wait a couple minutes for the sexy flash to load. I want a sample flac. Gimme a sample flac, mr. guru!!!
It's over. The game is over. NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) won't save it.
Filesharing (real filesharing, that is) provides a forum where music fans can discover new artists. What is needed is a "forum" of sorts, a "meeting place", or something along those lines -- a place (most likely virtual) where fans can meet artists and can make connections -- perhaps connections that can last a lifetime. NPD and corporate corruption can't provide even 0.00000% of what's necessary.
P2P is a forum. It's a meeting place.
Listen to me... Hendrix - Joplin - Morrison - Scott - Cobain - and many, many more. The industry has dues to pay. An industry that kills people for money. And bookcases full of unread spirutuality and bare feet aren't going to save anyone - they never have, and they never will.
Music that sells itself -- they sure are willing to discriminate - to take years - to present to the public music that sells itself. But do they care about art? Do they care about creativity? Perhaps if it makes money...
The "prospectus" and the "stock" need to be seperate things. The information about the music and the music need to be seperated. The "hook" reverses this situation. The "hook" incorporates the prospectus, the merchandising, the marketing, and the passion into the song. The song sells itself. You call this art? Gimme a break.
Only accepting songs that sell themselves? That's not art. It's BS.
Narcissism brought down Europe. Mussolini, Stalin, Hitler. All products of cold-bloodedness. Narcissism is obviously about to bring down the American "entertainment" industry. Bravo. What this really means is more art for the masses, which can only be good.
Long live art.
"If they don't want this crap surrounding their entertainment, they can stop pirating"
So they targeted the people who actually buy the music? Isn't that backwards? They took the customers willing to pay for their music, and trashed their computers, and spied on their listening habits. The people who simply downloaded the tracks were treated much better, as their computers were fine, and their habits were not tracked.
This is what most people call an "idiot test".
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
I saw those same comments and I'm surprised nobody picked up on it.
The record companies have concluded the only way to do business is essentially through getting rid of music that you "own". All music will be streamed to you via industry approved devices and if you want it, you have to pay your $20/month. What a deal.... for the record companies.
This does two things... it guarantees them a stream of money for essentially doing nothing, and it locks small artists and labels out of the distribution channels.
The chances of this happening, however, are pretty close to zero. This is just a pipedream of an industry that is about dead. Their dreams about every man, woman and child paying them an annuity are the same dream where I win $300M in the lottery, but a huge house on Maui, and have swimsuit models working as cabana girls for me at the mansion.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
What, a member of the GNAA stole your computer?
;)
*me ducks*
...and I'm not the only person who thinks so, either
Oops. Forgot to check the Post Anonymously button, didn't we?
"But this one goes to 11!"
It's usually the mastering, not the mixing, that compresses out the dynamic range. The musician may be there with the producer and sound engineer and whoever for the mixing, but the mastering is done later by the record company. So I have read.
Wow! Thanks for the update. I thought this person was maybe kinda sort of original but I guess not, LOL! It makes me think that this person is obviously very young and a bit unfulfilled. Well, that's my take on his trolling habits. I wonder what a professional profiler would have to say about such online tendencies?
You ruined the joke. Correction follows.
Jesus was a leprechaun - hung like this!
No, I didn't forget to post anonymously.
Music has no value. The price that people are willing to pay for music is zero. Some music has a negative value - you have to pay to put it in front of people and they still will not buy it.
People will not choose to pay for music when it is available for free. 40 years ago the transistor radio began this movement when people could turn on the radio instead of putting a record on the phonograph. Radio existed before but it was low quality and the sort of music people listened to demanded high quality. Today, between extreme compression and tinny little ear-speakers quality is a thing of the past. Quality is irrelevant. Quantity, both in size of a collection and in how loud it is, is all there is left.
Recorded music has no value. I can download anything I want for free. Everyone I know fills their iPod with whatever they want for free. The idea of paying for 10,000 songs is so completely out of sync with today's generation that if you do not understand you never will.
And don't tell me about the thriving iTunes marketplace. They have maybe 3% of the music downloads that are happening and it gives the Apple folks a good feeling that they have added some more songs to a few iPods. Compare this with your average iPod user with 1,000 or more tracks on it. Did they pay for all of those? Maybe a few rich people did. The rest, they downloaded it all for free.
Rubin was tearing Colombia a new asshole for fucking up one of his pet projects. He's the boss now, and frankly I don't blame him for rubbing Colombia's nose into the stain they made on his carpet.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
That is a big big problem in this country right now. We are congregating around a huge population of "Sheep" and various "sheep herders". These are the nincompoops that go out and buy the dribble that is produced by said RIAA. Of course these are the very same sheep that then the said RIAA goes after to make them an "example" for the rest of the sheep.
This whole thing sucks and stinks to high heaven. At some point I hope the RIAA just goes off and dies a very very painful and expensive death and ultimately goes away. They're helping to perpetuate the sheep in this nation and lack of brain matter therein.
All content in this message is copyright (c) 2008. All rights reserved. RIAA is prohibited here.
Honestly, I don't understand that point of view.
To me, if they want to use SONY in their name,
then they inherit every thing associated with
that name.
Reputation is a double edged sword.
It takes time to build a good one, and but a
moment to destroy it. I'm over the walk man,
what has SONY done for me lately ?
And sure, these SONY companies are different
people, but they are all trying to get your
attention by using the SONY name. I think
marketing types call this brand recognition
or something. People bond with brand names,
and people learn to avoid brand names too.
Because the good SONY companies can't be bothered
to separate themselves from the bad SONY, neither
shall I bother. If it is labeled SONY, I will
assume it comes from the SONY that supports and uses
invasive and limiting DRM technologies.
Because replacing every instance of 'you' on the front page with "YO' CRACKA ASS" would cost a fortune in bandwidth. Add to that the cost of getting the /. office cafeteria to stock that much fried chicken and watermelon and you realise that black moderators would would bankrupt the company. That's if they didn't rob it first.
Man, Rubin definitely marches to the beat of his own drummer. There was a tiny blurb about the rootkit stuff, but the other 9.75 pages were about how he approaches producing music. A good read!
Maybe if black people (or as I like to call them, shitskins) were not so stupid, agressive, and unable to utilise technology except to an extremely primitive level (nextel chirp instead of actually dialing a number on a cell phone being a key example), then maybe Slashdot, home of the white and proud would have some shitskin editors. Until this changes, we have no choice but to make sure that no shitskins gain access to the upper echelons of the slashdot management.