Line of Business
Bull from the entertainment industry
We shouldn't cave to paranoia that copying equals copyright infringement7/17/2006 1:33:00 PM By: Grant Buckler
When anti-virus software companies issue warnings about products from a major entertainment company, there's something odd going on. But that's what happened when word got out that a digital rights management scheme on audio CDs from Sony BMG Entertainment was installing software rootkits on its customers' computers.A rootkit is a nasty bit of software that hides itself on your computer. That’s right — deliberately conceals its presence and makes itself very difficult to uninstall. Sounds like a virus, right?
Sony’s rootkit isn’t really a virus, because it doesn’t directly harm your computer, but it does create a back door that a moderately astute virus-writer can use to install something even nastier. Even if it didn’t do that, hiding things on your customers’ computers isn’t the way we expect reputable companies to do business.
It shows how the entertainment industry’s paranoia about music copying is leading it to treat us more like enemies than customers.
You know it’s pretty bad when you see a call for a ban on digital rights management rootkits from the Border and Transportation Security Directorate, a branch of that noted advocate of the innocent-until-proven-guilty principle, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Canadian concerns
Here in Canada, the federal privacy commissioner and a couple of her provincial counterparts have raised concerns about DRM. Ottawa is considering new copyright legislation, and one thing that legislation might include is tougher provisions against circumventing digital rights management technology.
Page Navigation 1) Issue warnings
2) DRM has a place
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