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New Sony BMG DRM revelation! They violated the DMCA!

Opinion
Nov 30, 20051 min
Data CenterIntellectual Property

The Sony BMG fiasco just keeps getting better and better! Apparently the Digital Rights Mangling, er, Management (DRM) software that Sony BMG installed on unwitting users’ PCs contains code that violates the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA)!

According to an article titled “Five Reasons Why Sony Rootkit Is Good For You“* in the blog of Michael Robertson (ex-CEO of MP3.com and current CEO of Linspire) “the software that Sony installs includes DeDRM which makes iTunes songs work on Linux computers. DeDRM was written by new MP3tunes employee Jon Lech Johansen (‘DVD Jon1), who was sued twice in Norway for creating circumvention software.”

Justice doesn’t get much more poetic than this.

* The article is currently on the home page but as Robertson’s blog doesn’t offer permalinks, it may have moved by the time you read this and you’ll have to search for it so don’t bug me just cause other people don’t run their blogs properly.

mark_gibbs

Mark Gibbs is an author, journalist, and man of mystery. His writing for Network World is widely considered to be vastly underpaid. For more than 30 years, Gibbs has consulted, lectured, and authored numerous articles and books about networking, information technology, and the social and political issues surrounding them. His complete bio can be found at http://gibbs.com/mgbio

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