Last week gave us an interesting behind the scenes look into how content companies approach the ongoing copyright debate: we saw the Sony rootkit get exposed by the technology community, judged in the court of public opinion, and subsequently get left on the side of the road. So now Sony has promised to keep their CD's free of noxious content (at least as far as software goes - Ashley Simpson will apparently keep singing.) Everyone seems to be doing their victory dance, but I'm curious - how much did consumers really win? Was it a "confetti in the streets" victory - or maybe just a "Miller time" sort of victory? My apologies if I seem to have a negative outlook, but my quick take is that as far as things go, we won a "MillerTime" (kiddie size) sort of victory - if even that.
First and most importantly, we won nothing on the "fair use" front. It would seem to me that Sony maintains the same vise-like grip on when/how you play your music as they did yesterday. They just removed one of their technical controls. Do their rights change without the technical enforcement? If there's a cop sitting on the side of the road looking for speeders, does it become legal to speed when the cop pulls away? Clearly not. In other words, consumers are in the same position relative to Sony as they were before. Nothing's changed. In my opinion, the issue is that Sony felt it had the right to do what they did in the first place. I doubt that they're view of that has radically changed since they made their decision.
We got zilch on a technical front. The fact that this particular rootkit on this particular platform is gone doesn't mean that there aren't other technologies waiting in the wings that take away your control over a device you own... What's to come will take away our control just as effectively as Sony's rootkit, but will be forwarded by the technology. Mark my words, by the time DRM comes around, it will be so hidden inside something legitimate that we'll be begging for it to happen.
So, no - I don't think this was much of a victory. Sorry to disappoint.
Posted by Ed at November 14, 2005 06:35 PM