What on earth has happened to Sony? Given its historic successes with products like the Walkman, you might have expected Sony to have created the iPod. And given Sony’s former dominance of the consumer TV market with its Trinitron technology you might think that Sony would be a leading manufacturer of flat-screen TVs. But it isn’t. In fact, Sony has become such a technological has-been that if it weren’t for its Playstation division (which is increasingly under attack by Nintendo and Microsoft), Sony arguably would be an afterthought in the world of consumer electronics.
So, I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Sony has, once again, managed to exhibit an incredible level of arrogance and insensitivity. At the same time as Apple CEO Steve Jobs and record companies like EMI are talking about completely removing copy-protection from online music purchases, Sony has managed to swim upstream against common sense. It’s bad enough that Sony managed to garner widespread scorn and embarrassment via its 2005 release of music CDs which contained copy protection software that installed a hackable root kit on user’s PCs (translation: Sony CDs secretly installed software on customers’ PCs which made them vulnerable to hackers. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Sony_BMG_CD_copy_protection_scandal). Would Sony learn from the resulting public humiliation? Apparently not. As confirmed via my personal call to the Sony Customer Service hotline, the company is now shipping DVDs with copy-protection that makes them unviewable on a certain DVD players. Interestingly, because this only impacts a small number of DVD players (mostly higher-end devices from manufacturers such as Harmon Kardon), the story hasn’t gained much traction in the popular press, although a few bloggers are writing about the situation (see, for example: http://sonystrikesagain.wordpress.com/ ).
So, as we speak, Sony is selling DVDs and Rogers Video is renting DVDs that won’t play on certain DVD players. And here’s the catch – Sony won’t give me a refund on the unplayable DVD’s I’ve purchased. And Rogers won’t give me a refund on DVD’s that I’ve rented but am unable to watch due to this new copy protection scheme. Tough luck.
People tell me that Casino Royale is a good movie. I’ll have to take their word on that.
So, I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Sony has, once again, managed to exhibit an incredible level of arrogance and insensitivity. At the same time as Apple CEO Steve Jobs and record companies like EMI are talking about completely removing copy-protection from online music purchases, Sony has managed to swim upstream against common sense. It’s bad enough that Sony managed to garner widespread scorn and embarrassment via its 2005 release of music CDs which contained copy protection software that installed a hackable root kit on user’s PCs (translation: Sony CDs secretly installed software on customers’ PCs which made them vulnerable to hackers. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Sony_BMG_CD_copy_protection_scandal). Would Sony learn from the resulting public humiliation? Apparently not. As confirmed via my personal call to the Sony Customer Service hotline, the company is now shipping DVDs with copy-protection that makes them unviewable on a certain DVD players. Interestingly, because this only impacts a small number of DVD players (mostly higher-end devices from manufacturers such as Harmon Kardon), the story hasn’t gained much traction in the popular press, although a few bloggers are writing about the situation (see, for example: http://sonystrikesagain.wordpress.com/ ).
So, as we speak, Sony is selling DVDs and Rogers Video is renting DVDs that won’t play on certain DVD players. And here’s the catch – Sony won’t give me a refund on the unplayable DVD’s I’ve purchased. And Rogers won’t give me a refund on DVD’s that I’ve rented but am unable to watch due to this new copy protection scheme. Tough luck.
People tell me that Casino Royale is a good movie. I’ll have to take their word on that.
