Root Causes

There's been a lot of talk about how Sony fucked up royally when they included a small piece of software on some of their audio CDs that prevented copying of those disks, along with opening a door on users' computers that hackers could exploit.

On the one hand, there's already a class-action suit alleging that Sony has violated anti-spyware legislation. The funnier class-action suit, if such a thing exists, would be a suit that claims Sony violated the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.

No, really. Sony released a patch that was supposed to remove the rootkit, but isn't that software designed specifically circumvent copyright protection? I scanned the relevant section of the actual law, and don't see any kind of exemption for the manufacturer of the sound recording itself. Besides, the manufacturer isn't the only one with rights.

If there's to be any poetic justice from this whole episode, that would be it.