Comments on: Sony DRM rootkit saga

By: shawn

shawn — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 20:47:03 +0000

Sue ‘em.

You’ll have all of us behind you.

Good luck!

By: walters

walters — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 10:22:14 +0000

So sue Sony, Jon!

By: Thomas

Thomas — Tue, 14 Feb 2006 08:20:22 +0000

Jon !

Sue Sony ! You will be rich!!!

Good luck!

By: Shnap

Shnap — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 15:43:34 +0000

Posted above… “Sony would just say “not me, Jack – it’s those lazy F4I boys who sold it to us under false pretenses”. You’ll probably find that their pockets aren’t quite as deep as Sony’s”
- This is true but it was Sony who distributed the copyrighted material. You can quote Sony from there own lawsuits against p2p users…distribution is a violation of copyroght law and ignorance of wrong doing is no defense. If they turn around and sue F4I that’s their business.

The fact that Sony used copyrighted material for commercial gain is enough to sue. The money they made off the sale of Jon’s work, in violation of the gpl, is his monetary loss. Just because he never intended to sell the code himself does not mean he is not entitled to royalties or fees based off someone else selling his code.

The fact that its not registered with the U.S. Copyright Office might be hard to work around.

Whatever you decide, I wish the best to you.

By: Just Johnny

Just Johnny — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 22:00:38 +0000

In any lawsuit, there is the question of “standing”. This means that the plaintiff actually has to suffer some form of harm (which need not be economic — damage to your good name, psychological pain, and time spent fixing a problem all count) in order to bring a lawsuit. For code that one intends to give away for free, it’s probably difficult to convince a judge that you were harmed by having your freely-available code “stolen”.

Can anyone brainstorm ways in which Sony’s actions “harm” Jon or other potential plaintiffs?

By: Johnny-Come-Lately

Johnny-Come-Lately — Sat, 21 Jan 2006 00:22:18 +0000

RGE should have been RCE – Region Code Enhanced

By: Johnny-Come-Lately

Johnny-Come-Lately — Sat, 21 Jan 2006 00:20:41 +0000

The movie title was “The Cave” and in small print has copy-protected on the lower right edge of the back sleeve. The soundtrack for this movie is also list as having the XCP stuff on it too.

By: Johnny-Come-Lately

Johnny-Come-Lately — Sat, 21 Jan 2006 00:17:32 +0000

Somebody needs to stop them and stop them fast — I just loaded a Sony DVD into my PC running Windows Media Center Ed. and it loaded DRM software onto it. I couldn’t even play the original movie right out of the package (it was the proper region code and not listed as RGE either) I can’t play other movies anymore and I can’t seem to find the errant code causing the trouble yet. PLEASE SOMEBODY SUE THEM!!!

By: Eskiegirl

Eskiegirl — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 22:25:24 +0000

Hey!

As they say, “Paybacks are a bitch”. Principle? Money? I think you got it all jon. It’s your work. They took that from you, and used it to hurt people for which the code was not intended for. They are being boycotted by so many people, they might not be able to pay you. Who cares! Teach them a lesson, make it stick and make an example out of them! Not only will the courts side with you, it will teach other companies they simply cannot do this. I don’t think any attorney will turn down the case, (unless they have some sort of conflict) as it may well be a sensational one. The media would have a field day. Go for it. We all would love to see you do it.

By: MV

MV — Tue, 03 Jan 2006 07:45:32 +0000

Forget the money, forget the glory, sue them just to raise public awareness about the status quo of the DRM, copyright laws and open-source. Show the general public what is going on so they can decide if they want that kind of world.

Regards,

MV.