Sony's DRM Draws Needed Attention

The Sony DRM scandal has become quite the internet journalists' coup. A story that might have been forgotten, or never a blip on the radar to begin with, rode the rabid rants of intellectual rights activists with a bias that dwarfs even the corporate end of the spectrum. I'd like to think that their hearts are in the right places, and it's certainly true that they played an important role in really breaking this story through to the mainstream media and inevitably your grandparents that read every single article in the paper.

But I'm not interested in that side of the story. I hope we all work towards bettering ourselves and our way of life, and that involves looking at the positive outcomes of any situation, no matter how fubar it may be. Sony may have infected over 500 thousand computer networks with their rootkit, a backdoor with a broken lock for hackers (or would it be crackers? sorry guys, don't hate me). They may have released a removal tool that further crippled the security of individuals' computers. They may have done all of this and more, but now, finally, the general public knows about it. The nerd and the average computer user can finally stand together against DRM.

This is the first big DRM scandal, or widespread recognition of the potential side effects of DRM. DRM was largely viewed with an "out of sight, out mind" regard. like the USA PATRIOT act that passed with so little outcry, Americans have become so pacified that their civil liberties are being eroded with "reactions" of indifference. I don't mean to get sidetracked on Americans' willingness to stand up and defend what they believe in, but the median American won't do it, as long as things are still just good enough.

I talked to a gentleman about to buy the latest Neil Diamond album, 12 Songs, which is one of the CDs infected with the XCP copy protection software. I asked him if he was aware of the recall and the ongoing backlash. He had no idea, and would've taken the CD home with him had it still been in the store and not on its way back to a Sony warehouse to be used as employee stocking stuffers for the illegal Mexican forklift drivers (they haven't gotten their forklift certification yet) who wouldn't know what a rootkit was, well, ever. I made up a lot of that last part. But the gentleman, probably not a CD copying kind of guy, would've taken the CD home and popped it into his computer as he surfed day trading websites.

I'm not saying it's a good thing we're breaking 500 thousand eggs to make this anti-DRM omelette. These DRM technologies are creeping into every form of digital media, and they've stayed innocuous, managing to control your property without you really caring that an invisible man says you can only copy your CD to MP3 three times. Now software companies are going to be much more careful in deploying anti-piracy measures that could potentially cripple a non-pirate's experience, and at worse, as we've seen here, endanger your property.

So what if the story never broke. Anti-virus companies didn't seem too interested in helping us. Hundreds of thousands unaware that they're installing a rootkit on their own computer, and clueless as to why their computer begins acting strange, and why they're receiving angry emails from others warning them not to send any more penis enlargement offers. Thanks are owed to the internet journalists who tirelessly crusaded in making this the newsworthy story it really is. Maybe the whole movement was the story, and maybe these journalists lined their pockets in the wake, but here we have a major blow to DRM software that will hopefully stall and ideally reroute the development of copy protection.

Maybe Sony and other companies dealing in intellectual property will learn something this time. Maybe they'll learn that their DRM will never be unbreakable. Maybe sony will be sufficiently embarassed that the DRM was bypassed using a piece of tape. Of course, enterprising internet entrepreneurs have already capitalized on the t-shirt sales relating to the fallout. Thanks to CafePress, all you need is a slogan and the right timing. Like a calendar store, they plan to fail. Until the next year, or next scandal.