One More Sony DRM Posting

Sony has recalled all their CDs which contain ‘rogue’ digital rights management software (DRM), but do they really want to get the word out? Maybe yes, maybe no.

The software they installed has a feature which could reach out and touch the users.

As it turns out, there’s a clear solution: A self-updating messaging system already built into Sony’s XCP player. Every time a user plays a XCP-affected CD, the XCP player checks in with Sony’s server. As Russinovich explained, usually Sony’s server sends back a null response. But with small adjustments on Sony’s end — just changing the output of a single script on a Sony web server — the XCP player can automatically inform users of the software improperly installed on their hard drives, and of their resulting rights and choices.

As of now, I have seen nothing to indicate Sony has turned proactive. Maybe this is finally a chance for them to stop the terrible publicity they’ve gotten? Even people who don’t understand what Sony’s done sense something’s not right.

This is fifteen or twenty times as weird as I originally anticipated it would get. What hath Sony wrought?