Sony is evil!

Scary stuff
http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/

Good I don't buy music CD's.

I'm surprised you have any interest in this subject. Especially considering the images in your sig.

So what's new?

the rootkit thing is being used to hack into MP games like world of warcraft undetected, and already has 4 viruses working through it that compromise your system.

There's also a new class action lawsuit against it from PC developers. So Sony aren't getting a lot of love right now. They have made a public apology though.

Another DRM related thing is that the blue ray disks have the capability to be locked to a player once used. So certain disks can be programmed to be non transferable.

Interesting bits from doom9.org (pretty much all of it):

anti virus programs get updates that recognize this form of DRM as malware and remove it.
Meanwhile, other music studios are falling over themselves trying to point out that their DRM is safe and not evil.
On the HD DVD front, MGM announced that it'll support Blu-Ray.
Last but not least, DRM is going PlayStation: Sony recently filed a patent over technology that would allow them to tie video games to the console it was first played on.

Sony are facing law suits in both the US and Italy.

Goddam, it just gets worse and worse. I already thought region codes were annoying, but discs that are locked to a specific player? WTF?

I don't even know how that is possible, short of your average player being equipped to burn info onto a disc.

This whole corporate manifested digital rights movement has to be nipped in the bud early, not just this, but the HDTV stuff and Windows Vista, are we really that addicted to cheap reality tv that we're prepared to live in the big brother ourselves?

The only solution I see is to abuse the technology to make it unviable. I predict a lot more virus' in the future, even if I have to write them myself!

DRM is wrong, it's totally wrong. If anything was ever likely to make me turn to pirated goods rather than originals (I dont touch pirated goods) then this is it.

I want a set of standardised EULA's and consumer rights geered toward protecting the uses we've come to accept as our right. What is wrong with watching a movie on more than one telly? What is wrong with having a copy of an .mp3 on my computer *and* an iPod? Why can I not copy a file instead of only moving it (at a maximum number of 1 times)?

Why am I being treated like i'm a criminal on probation by companies who are trying to sell to me?

I dont want it, and I wont buy it.

It's the age old 'people who abide by the rules are treated like criminals' situation, where the actual pirates will get around it every time. I can tell you which category you'll find me in. Cats.

if people would not purchase these things... the mandate these corporations hold over you would evaporate...

you are all willing victims... and they know it...

that is their control over you...

so, no sense whining about it...


--Mike

I'll whine about it all I like. PS3 modchips might not be available in any decent way for quite some time! And even then it'd cost me extra money to get it fitted.

Such is the price of freedom I suppose.

Slowly the people who try to protect themselves against pirates are turning into things worse than the pirates.

that's your priviledge... go ahead... whine on dude...

but all your whining aint gonna change diddly... hey, as long as you're enjoying yourself... whine on...

--Mike

Sony wouldn't be dumb enough to tie games to one console. Then how would you bring games over a freind's house to play? Bring your whole console over? Yeah like that's easy, and like parents are going to let kids bring a $400 console over a freind's house.

Tell me about it. I have up until now always turned down friends who offered to show me how to chip my PS2 and download games, but if Sony keeps things up then all bets are off.

Like many others I'm boycotting Sony products. Have been pretty much anyway since quality has dropped significantly the past 2-3 years.

Thing is despite piracy, the market still makes pooploads. The question is will it increase with the younger generation used to piracy, will they ever buy anything? Well here's a case study (and I wonder how many of you are the same) ... when I had a C64 I *might* have accidentally left a blank tape in a double deck on record whilst playing a C64 game in the other slot by accident on more than one occasion. Also I bought a Freeze Frame to cheat with and I might have accidentally fell on the freeze button and then hit save to disk more than once, it was so easy to slip up. Also when I had an Amiga, people gave me disks that I never really paid much attention to but could of have gameson I guess, I thought they were PD disks. Also with the PC people *might* have installed stuff like Doom and I might not have noticed. BUT this was when I was a teenager with no money, when I got a job I bought loadsa FPS games (and I mean loads) and console games, only after many years did I twig to buy them used and about a year old for a massive discount. Could some teenagers actually change from piracy to buying stuff when they are older or will they all continue the same "evil" ways? Who knows. It sure gonna be different when mr 4 and 1 year old sons are 14 and 11 that's for sure!

WTF! So when your console breaks you would have to bin your software collection aswell?

they'll probably have a HD that you call and say "console broke" and some dude just gives you a new key. MS does this all the time with it products, "oh I had trouble installing my new Office CD" ... user gets lame excuse ready ... MS employee "yeah whatever, here's your new code".

Unless they actually do something to the discs themselves, as the patent seems to be all about.

I was looking forward to PS3, but now I don't know anymore.. if there's all this spyware and lockdowns included, I will play my C64 instead.


EDIT: @Becky Rose: I read your "online diary".. nice read :) keep it up!

hehe, that Doors poem/song thing came to mind when I looked at the Diary. Something like "Adolph Hitler is still alive... I slept with her last night"...... or something.

Hope that wasn't too rude for the forums?

Im with Ashmantle, except the C64 part, I might just get the Xbox 360 (I won't pay of course, my brother will)

From what I read of the article I linked to, there is code on the (PS3) discs, the console/player reads the code, stores it in flash mem and then BURNS THE CODE 'off' the disc. A player who can't read the code, will apparently refuse to play it.

If it is manufactured by Sony. Just don't buy Sony products and you'll *probabky* be OK ;]

It should probably be a trivial matter to refit your player or PS3 with a laser incapable of burning, but reports 'OK' to everything. It could even be possible maybe to protect your disc with some kind of clear extra layer. Completely hypothetical.

I'm still looking forward to the PS3 - but I'll wait for the price to halve and by then there will be some mods for it. I never modded my PS2 but I have every intention of modding my PS3, if these stories keep up...

Simple solution guys. Don't buy it. Don't use it. Find something else.

If it bugs you, vote with your dollars.

In the case of gameing systems. You aren't buying into the disks... you are buying into the system.

Just make sure the Blu-Ray dies, dies as hard as betamax.

Make sure the only ones you own are ps3 disks. Shouldn't be too too hard...

Course.. it won't matter... The same people who hate walmart and yet do all their shopping there will yell about how lame it is while they are buying the latest release of the Pirates of the Lower East Side. Or Survivor season 15... Or the complete Anthological Dr Dre. Or some other piece of crap.

As long as people buy it, they will keep making the restrictions tighter and tighter.

Buy your music from a place like www.allofmp3.com Only rent movies, and all around, don't buy crap you don't like...

easy peasy

Of coure, the ultimate irony is that the movie & music industry just scream bloody murder because 'obviously' people are just stealing their content online and try to find even more restrictive DRM garbage. (Which ticks off even more people to not buying their products, etc.)

They have so many bogus studies it's not even funny anymore...

For example, for some time ago they were complaining that music sales were down x%, attributing it in full to illegal file sharing... Conveniently forgetting that the economy as a whole was down a bigger percentage, and that 'entertainment' is one of the first thing people cut down on when they have less money to spend.

Or large studies that showed that CD stores near college campuses sold comperatively less CD's than 'average' stores, so it's 'obviously' piracy responsible for that... Conveniently leaving out sales by online retailers like amazon.com and other internet-based CD stores, which is where many students & others in their age demographic would turn first instead of their overpriced neighborhood CD store.

It's amazing that the entire movie & music industry is getting away with treating their customerbase as criminals -- people *most* inconvenienced by all their measures (no more personal back-up copies to use in your car, security compromised home computers, only 'approved' playing devices, non-portability) are those who buy the media. People who pirated it from the internet somewhere won't have all of those restrictions.

All it takes is *one* person to jump through whatever hoops necesary and waste a bunch of time pirating a *single* copy -- and once he posts that to the internet, millions of other pirates won't even have to blink twice to get their copies as well, minus all the restrictions & limitations that a legitimate buyer faces.

If the choice is DRM-infected disks vs. no music at all, I'll gladly go for 'no music at all', it's not like there's much worth listening to in the first place.

The issue is that some people like the junk that the record companies pass off as music. Hell, I even respect some of the lesser known or sometimes just oddly good artists. (such as the White Stripes) (shoot me) thats what taste is. You never know who is going to like what.

There are pefectly acceptable avenues to use. www.allofmp3.com for example. No protections, you pick the level of detail and file format, and it is 2.5 cents per Mb on downloads. thats anywhere from a few cents to 20 cents for a song. And anywhere from less than 50 cents to a few bucks an album.

You can always just rent movies. Net flicks and physical stores .... Just rent the movies you here from friends with the same taste are good. Or only rent classics... or stop watching movies all together. Because there isn't a source for unprotected movies on the internet, yet.

Wow, that site is pretty sweet. I thought they would have just 1 or 2 artists that they had an agreement with, but they have everything I have looked up so far.

They sure do, all the artists are jumping on that site because it is fair... and they can upload their stuff themselves and make loads off it without a label... tho the labels have started to use it to keep their artists from bailing.

The trick is that you have to pay first... and most people don't finish off all that they buy... So if you buy 50$ you don't realize that is more than 50 CDs worth of music... and you run the hell out of music to get hahahaha (at lowest quality it is more than 50 CDs)