ten billion butterfly sneezes

James Slusher has some interesting views on Sony, and the boycotting thereof:

James mentions that he hasn’t bought an RIAA-label CD in years; I have bought precious few myself. I also use a Mac, having abolished MS Windows in my Y2K readiness plan. He goes on to say:

People are really upset that this big corporation turns out to be a soulless money vacuum. Who would have ever thought that might happen?

I think in this case Sony has crossed the line for even a soulless money vacuum by
1) The clandestine installation of insecure, poorly-written software, that they saw fit to cloak with a rootkit; some estimates are that this stuff has been installed on approximately 500000 networks around the world. CERT, and even DHS, have issued warnings and advisories.
2) Providing a patch to remove same; the patch contained as great or greater security risks than what they were trying to clean up.
3) Installing software that phones home to the Sony mothership when a CD is played, without adequate customer disclosure.
4) Possibly using some software licensed under the LPGL in their player.

And, then after a visit to Sony’s music site so he could see what he is foregoing, he offers this:

I figured that I won’t miss any of their artists. I haven’t missed them yet, have I?

I wholeheartedly agree. I do wonder, however why some legacy artists like Roy Acuff are on the list. Must be because of the new copyright laws passed a while back. I could live the rest of my life quite comfortably without any Sony BMG music.

And finally, James points out:

If we (as podcasters, listeners and consumers) do things right over the next few years, we can create a music business that rotates around more informed axes.

Right on! I’ve posted a lot about Sony, so that the few folks who stop by here might be better informed in the here and now. But we all press on towards the goals that James states above. And the day will come when Sony CDs will be used in 100% compliance with Sony’s draconian EULA, and that will be because no one is using any of them. A win-win.

-k-

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