Invasion of the Computer Snatchers: The Sony Rootkit Incident

What this episode covers

Sony's latest Digital Rights Management (DRM)-endeavour earned a charge of "fraud, false advertising, trespass and the violation of state and federal statutes prohibiting malware, and unauthorized computer tampering". The technology installs, unnoticed by the user, a piece of software that prevents consumers from unauthorised copying, is able to monitor and report user behaviour back to the firm and, accidentally, holds the door wide open for Trojans. Under other circumstances one would be tempted to describe such a strategy a hostile "spy at-tack". In case of Sony BMG, this seems to be part of a business model to sell digital music to consumers. The talk will have a closer look at the charges of the EFF and a Californian lawyer against Sony BMG's latest DRM strategy. The Sony BMG case adds a number of interesting new dimensions to the 'DRM and Consumer' debate. The talk will explain why the case is so important, also against the background of similar recent case law in Europe, and why it points into an entirely new direction of talking about DRM. About the Speaker: Natali Helberger is Associate Professor at the Institute for Information Law, University of Amsterdam. Dr. Helberger is managing legal partner to the INDICARE project. INDICARE (Informed Dialogue about Consumer Acceptability of Rights Management Solutions in Europe) is a project co-funded by the European Commission. The objective of INDICARE is to address issues regarding consumer acceptability of digital rights management solutions; identify obstacles and suggest solutions. At the moment, she is a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley.