14 DAY TRIAL // Live from the DRM wars, once more: this last battle was won by the anti-DRM fighters. And I, along with millions of other people, rejoice every minute of this small victory. Shortly, the story: Sony BMG has included on a lot of its CDs a small application which supposedly was gathering information "for marketing purposes". That would be OK if it hadn't been proved that the little software was a self-installing gimmick which would silently integrate in the consumers' PCs without their consent and more sinister, it was "exposing consumers to significant security risks and was unreasonably difficult to uninstall" as the Federal Trade Commission has said when settling the Sony BMG new agreements.
As a matter of fact, the same FTC has given a term until the end of June for all the consumers to have their CD brought back to the stores they were bought from before 31st December 2006. Sony BMG is also to fully disclose the content and limitations of consumers' use of music as well as publish on its website the exact program of repair and reimbursement for the harm done.
For two years starting now Sony BMG will have to release uninstall tools for their tricky software and that's really no matter to comment on as the FTC expressly requested that explicit and detailed information regarding changes made by their devious software inclusion in the consumers' OSs, as well as patches and repairing tools to compensate for the security risks and vulnerabilities which may have affected the computers be posted regularly and publicly on the Sony BMG website.
And if this wasn't enough, the FTC also made Sony BMG to pay up to $150 for the damage done by their software; this happened because a lot of people have suffered PC-related damages while trying to uninstall the "marketing information collecting tool" the media giant installed in their computers without their consent. Even though Sony BMG has not admitted yet any law infringement in this matter and its representatives have not yet stated any declarations, there are still 30 days of public comment until the Federal Trade Commission will have the last word.
Out of the total of 12 million discs (52 Sony BMG titles) containing the questionable software, 7 million have already been sold and the media giant has already agreed to pay $4 million for repair purposes in more than 40 states. Sony stocks have dropped 19cents to $46.80 on Tuesday morning while the starting price for today was $46.30. It remains to be seen what will follow; nevertheless, I'll have a pint tonight to honor this anti-DRM small victory as finally those "up there" begin to realize that DRM isn't by far the "nice harmless child" it has been said to be.