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DOWN AND OUT… WITH NO MUSIC
Sony/BMG’s debacle over the “rootkit” copy protection on their music CDs has gotten a lot of hilarious press in the last few days. If you haven’t been following the story, the digital rights management software contained on Sony music CDs burrows deep into your operating system where it does Many Bad Things, including act as Trojan horse for a lot of malware and bad viruses. As documented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, however, Sony/BMG has added insult to injury by concocting a draconian end-user license agreement that treats a CD-buyer like some sort of pauper out of a Dickens’ novel. To wit, if you declare bankruptcy — which, it must be said, is a much more difficult thing to do under the Bush administration’s new bankruptcy laws — you have to delete all the music from your computer. Oh, and forget about using music in a home movie or even creating a cool slideshow in iPhoto with some songs and pictures of your daughter or niece — “no derivative works” says the agreement. Check out the EFF article through the link above.
