Sony DRM is "Made For Mac" too!

It won't be around for much longer. Sony finally agreed to "temporarily" remove the Windows rootkit software from the CDs it presses; I would imagine this applies to the Mac version too. (I have the distinct feeling that "tempoary" really means "permanent" for the particular app they were putting on the CDs.) They'll probably move back to the standard Suncomm copy protection (which doesn't do anything if you have autoplay disabled) until they come out with something better (that will probably be just as easy to corcumvent).

It's been entertaining watching Sony's meltdown day by day. I'm astonished that in such a company, that on the long path from idea to implementation, somebody didn't point out that this was a really bad idea.

Remember that Sony is a very large company, and its record labels have nothing to do with its electronics division or movie studios. I really like Sony's electronics, but their record labels are as slimy as all the others.

I completely agree. However, to Joe Sixpack, Sony is Sony. It doesn't matter if its Sony Music or Sony Electronics. People will associate this bad press with Sony, and the entire organization will be painted with the same brush. As a result, many will divert their purchases elsewhere.

I think Sony will lose much more money because of the tainted perception of the entire Sony marque than it would have lost through music piracy.

Cheers,

The Czar

Count me among them.

Really? I tend to think of Sony as a really good company that makes really good products, and has a really good reputation. It's not as though they're producing SUV's that rollover because of bad tires, or products that explode, risking life & limb, due to poor design.

I dunno, when I look at Sony Corporation, I think, "one bad apple doesn't spoil the whole bunch." To me, Sony's reputation is nothing short of stellar, and I would not think twice about buying a Sony product.

Sony music, however? Well, I offer no comment...

Rootkits and kernel patches which are meant to be installed by oblivious users are not acceptable behaviour for any company. I couldn't care less which branch of the corporation is responsible for it, until I see a public apology from them, I will not buy any more products from any branch.

I dunno, I have a hard time seeing this affecting sales of PSP or PS3, or hardware in general. Techie types might take a stand on principal, but I don't think the average joe will hold it against them, if they are even aware of why this is more serious than previous DRM attempts. Edit: or I should say, *because* I don't think they'll be aware of this being more serious than previous clumsy DRM attempts.

Sony has long been hampered by its acquisition of its movie and music half. If I had a say in running it, I would have jettisoned that part of the company a *long* time ago.

Are you serious?

It would be extremely foolish for Sony to rid itself of the content portion of their business! I don't know how profitable the music and movie business is, but I know that Sony's other business units derive huge benefits from the convergence.

Could you imagine how much of a flop the Sony Playstation would have been if Sony didn't have their content division to support its release? Sony Entertainment helps Sony in ways that you probably wouldn't even imagine.

They're complementary... They're like salt and vinegar -- they make a mighty fine potato chip!

I am definitely serious. The content people (movie studios and record labels) are always in tension with the hardware people (Apple, Dell and the like), over DRM issues. With Sony, they are together in one company; neither side is free to pursue the most profitable strategy without the agreement of the other. Apple got the jump on Sony with the iPod and the iTunes music store in part because the content portion of Sony wouldn't let the other parts do their jobs out of fear of piracy. Portable music players are Sony's home turf, and they were pretty embarrassed to get their butts spanked so badly. And go all the way back to the 70s- if Sony had owned a movie studio back then, do you think they ever would have developed the Betamax? Instead of owning a studio, they were sued by one.

If Sony had content ownership in the Seventies, like they do today, the Betamax would have been the standard. Think about it! Sony could have used licensing to restrict the release of movies on the VHS format. The Betamax would have been hugely successful!

With portable music and online music services, Sony's ownership of music content gives them a competitive advantage in that they can offer exclusivity. In addition, they are able to free themselves of licensing harangues that companies like Apple, have been forced to contend with.

For video games, Sony's ownership of film and music gives them unique marketing opportunities and exclusivity in content production.

I could not possibly imagine how Sony could lose by retaining ownership of their content divisions. Sony Corporation is a very well oiled machine.

It was successful, just not with consumers. Professional video commonly uses Betamax or Digital Betamax because of its superior video quality. Before DVCAM came out, what do you think most professional video was shot to?

Everyone is always quick to declare a winner in format wars (Betamax vs. VHS, MiniDisc vs. CD, and we'll see this soon with HD DVD and Blu-Ray), but they also believe that the "loser" will fade into oblivion. Often times, the "loser" simply moves to another market (Beta went to the professional marker, MiniDisc became hugely popular in Asia and Europe, as well as among radio stations, etc.).

Case in point for MiniDisc: A band I like once played a multi-band show that opened for a great industrial band (Bile) but they had to cut their segment of the show short because the effects kept screwing up. Turns out they had tried to use a CD in a pinch instead of their regular MD setup. They only got 17mins of stage time instead of 1 hour. CDs suck for pro work where vibrations might cause it skip and jump and stutter and stop and...

I knew someone would mention this. I'm sure it's partly why Sony bought CBS. But I'm not sure owning *some* movies would have made a difference, given that more manufacturers were making VHS and more cheaply. Format wars hang on complicated balances. Available content is only one of them. If one format had more content than another, but was more expensive and lower quality and lower flexibility, it wouldn't get far.

MiniDisc brings up an interesting point- how long did Sony drag it's feet to have digital transfer at high speed on MiniDisc? How long did it take to get non-compressed quality? These are things that make it difficult to copy music digitally at full quality, but it also handicaps musicians who just want to record themselves. When mp3 players came along and became popular enough, Sony had no choice but to give in, but only after being forced. I can't imagine that Sony would have hobbled it's own technology and intentionally held back features we could have used if it didn't own a record label.

Loser? Don't you mean, the lesser-winner? The loser always fades into oblivian; in the real world, products that fail to attract a market, don't get produced.

Sometimes people confuse the terms "winner" and "loser" and never fully understand that they're doing so. For example, product 'A' might do well in one market, while product 'B' does better in another market. Both products are "winners" in their respective markets and each vendor probably pursued each market in different ways.

i.e. If Coca-Cola focuses their marketing efforts on the North American market and Pepsi-Cola focuses on the European market, does Pepsi stand to lose the North American market? Possibly, but the interest of Pepsi's directors, lies with the European market. Consequently, Pepsi loses only what it wasn't interested in to begin with.

If you wanna talk about market winners and losers, there are a whole host of factors to be considered. Not least of which is demographics and branding.

NOTE: The Coke/Pepsi thing was hypothetical and used for illustrative purposes only.