Doctorow rips into Sony's EULA; Symantec finds Sony worm vulnerability...

Update 13 November 2005: Eric Eggertson is following this outrage pretty closely... I'd quote some of his stuff, but I would swear violently, and I don't like to do that on Sundays. Just go read.

Is Sony Music winning this week's Bacon's Information Cluelessness Award?

It would appear so.

Cory Doctorow uses his bully BoingBoing pulpit to tear apart Sony Music's EULA.
 

Sony's EULA is worse than their rootkit
If you're unfortunate enough to buy music from Sony, you may think that the worst thing they'll do to you is screw you by infecting your computer with malicious rootkit software. Not so! Rootkits are only the beginning. If you want to see how Sony really gives its customers the shaft, have a look at these conditions in the license you have to agree to when you put a Sony music CD in your computer:

1. If your house gets burgled, you have to delete all your music from your laptop when you get home. That's because the EULA says that your rights to any copies terminate as soon as you no longer possess the original CD.

2. You can't keep your music on any computers at work. The EULA only gives you the right to put copies on a "personal home computer system owned by you."

3. If you move out of the country, you have to delete all your music. The EULA specifically forbids "export" outside the country where you reside....

There's plenty more.

Still  considering buying Sony CDs. Then ponder this from today's Boston Globe:

Computer Worm Exploits Software on Sony's CDs

By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff  |  November 11, 2005

People who bought music CDs from Sony BMG Music Entertainment may have exposed themselves to a dangerous new computer worm.

Symantec Corp., the leading maker of antivirus software, said the worm has infected computers that played Sony BMG recordings. Two other antivirus firms, BitDefender Labs and Sophos PLC, also issued warnings yesterday.

The Sony BMG disks install software that is supposed to prevent the user from making illicit copies of the music and distributing them over the Internet. But the anticopying software conceals itself so that the computer user can't easily remove it.

Now someone has written a ''Trojan horse" program that exploits this feature of the Sony BMG software. The program, which is spread through spam e-mails, uses the Sony BMG code to hide itself. Then the Trojan horse uses the Internet to contact its creators for further instructions.

Eggertson calls for a Sony boycott: It will be a cold day in hell before I buy anything from Sony. I don't actually care if they are being scapegoated by bloggers and others. They deserve every bit of damage to their brand that they suffer.

Parmet asks: Why do companies act this way? And what makes them think that in the long run they can get away with it?

To which I can add only: Any company promoting Shakira, Ricky Martin, and Destiny's Child deserves an exclusive circle of hell.

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Bacon's Information

Posted by Allan Jenkins on November 11, 2005 at 10:15 AM in Business, Intellectual Property, Is Tedious in the House?, Management, Marketing, Music | Permalink

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» Sony faces another class action from Desirable Roasted Coffee
While still clueless, Sony has enough money to fend off lots of lawsuits. Still, it's nice to see lawyers lining up to do what they do best. Here's a snippet from Brian Krebs' post from WaPo:Sony Faces Another Class-Action Suit [Read More]

Tracked on Nov 15, 2005 6:58:25 AM

Comments

"I'd quote some of his stuff, but I would swear violently, and I don't like to do that on Sundays."

I laughed out loud when I read your update. ;-)

Posted by: Eric Eggertson | Nov 13, 2005 6:23:16 PM

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