Reading the latest in the Sony story, which is nicely summarised here. (Intended to do it myself, but what's the value added when you find a professional post like that?)
Oooohh. World of hurt. 100,000 USD per infringment. If the public prosecutor in Texas prevails, which is admittedly unlikely on this kind of scale.
However, it does muddy the water considerably on what the line of interaction is between the DCMA, which basically says no interfering with the computer copyright protection please, and the various Spyware acts that make it difficult to install this kind of software platform on the PC, e.g. one that requires the active use of the PC in the copy preventation mechanism, rather than a passive interference, like the scrambled contents tables that have been used up until now. Basically, it is legal to install this in the PC or not, and if you do install it, is it legal to uninstall it? Well, until someone has been wallpapered wtih lawsuits, that was never going to be resolved.
And according to Gartner, the secret weapon against all of this is... duct tape.
It's all getting kind of surreal for me. Is it just me who thinks that the whole thing is the best excuse ever just to go and buy a DVD instead?
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