Two weeks ago I proclaimed a winner in the microcontroller dev board arena with “Why the Arduino Won, and Why It’s Here to Stay.” There’s still lots of great debate going on, and conversations that still haven’t ended. Is my prediction right? We’ll see what happens in the upcoming months and years.
This week I’m going to switch gears a little and declare an enemy for all makers, hackers, and innovators — it’s in a very different space: the consumer electronics industry. And who is this slayer of progress? Sony.
If you’re over the age of 25 you likely have a long history with Sony. They were the company we all had something from. If you only had $20, Sony had the best $20 headphones. If you have $500, again, Sony usually had the best. From their world-changing Walkman to a Sony Trinitron monitor, Sony has been part of our lives in one way or another for decades.
In this article, we’ll explore Sony’s long history of going after legitimate innovation, hobbyists, and competition. Sony, we’ve been keeping score. We’re tired of you picking on people who want to program their robot dogs to dance. We’re tired of you suing people who want to run their own software on something they bought. Sony has made so many mistakes with technology choices (Memory Stick, Magic Gate, UMD!), perhaps they’ll end themselves soon enough, but we’d like to think there’s at least someone there would wants to avoid Sony spending its last days sending DMCAs to anyone who tweets “46DCEAD317FE45D80923EB97E4956410D4CDB2C2″.
I couldn’t find one location that documented Sony’s all-out war on makers, hackers, and innovators, so I started my own (and it isn’t pretty). The talented artists, designers, and engineers who work at Sony deserve better, and their customers deserve better. Don’t worry, I’m not just going to spank Sony. I’m going to give Sony some ideas to right this ship and also let them know it’s time to reconsider suing George “geohot” Hotz, the Playstation 3 hacker Sony is dragging to court for unlocking his PS3 to run his own software on it.
There are likely a few other examples, but I’ve boiled it down to a top 7 list — these are in mostly chronological order. We’ll explore each one and why it’s been bad for makers as well as Sony.
- Sony DMCA delayed disclosure of Sony BMG rootkit vulnerability
- Sony threatens Aibo hobbyists for creating software that enables Sony’s Aibo robot dog to dance
- Sony sues Connectix and Bleem to block software that allows gamers to play their PlayStation games on PCs
- Sony attacks PlayStation “Mod Chips” and enforces a system of “region coding”
- Sony sued Gamemasters, distributor of the Game Enhancer peripheral device, which allowed owners of a U.S. PlayStation console to play games purchased in Japan and other countries
- Sony removes OtherOS option, removes Linux support
- Sony is suing makers, hackers, and tinkers for jailbreaking of the PS3 to play homebrew games
Sony DMCA delayed disclosure of Sony BMG rootkit vulnerability
The problem seems to have started when Sony became a content company. They bought music and movie companies, and stopped caring about what they were good at: making awesome, tiny electronics that people love.
J. Alex Halderman, a graduate student at Princeton University, discovered the existence of several security vulnerabilities in the CD copy-protection software on dozens of Sony-BMG titles. He delayed publishing his discovery for several weeks while consulting with lawyers in order to avoid DMCA pitfalls. This left millions of music fans at risk longer than necessary. The security flaws inherent in Sony-BMG’s “rootkit” copy-protection software were subsequently publicized by another researcher who was apparently unaware of the legal risks created by the DMCA. Security researchers had sought a DMCA exemption in 2003 in order to facilitate research on dangerous DRM systems like the Sony-BMG rootkit, but their request was denied by the U.S. Copyright Office.
Source: EFF. This was classic — people who actually bought a CD back in 2005 were treated to “Extended Copy Protection (XCP) and MediaMax CD-3 software” on their music CDs. This was malware, and if you used it your computer was hosed. Sony later recalled the CDs, was class-action sued, and even homeland security and the DOJ got involved. But that’s not all…
Additionally, further investigation revealed that Sony had created its copyright protection software, in part, using LAME code written by Jon Lech Johansen, violating the GNU Lesser General Public License.
Source: Wikipedia. To recap: Sony delays disclosing the vulnerability and then it turns out they also violated the GPL. Harmful to researchers, harmful to people who do OSS and harmful to Sony’s customers. It was estimated that over 500,000 computers/networks were infected with this Sony malware. At least Sony didn’t kick puppies. Oh wait, that’s the next one…
Sony threatens Aibo hobbyist for creating software that enables Sony’s Aibo robot dog to dance
Another classic Sony war-on-makers. Here’s one from 2005, again…
…the Aibo robotic pet has gained popularity not only in people’s homes but also in the eyes of DMCA-case watchers. Perhaps Sony’s engineers couldn’t keep up with owners’ demands that their robotic dogs do more than bark, sit, and fetch pink-colored objects. In walked the hacker known only as AiboPet, who cracked the encrypted Aibo code and created programs that taught the dogs to dance and speak, and enabled owners to view the world through their pets eyes. “If it had not been for AiboPet’s information, his invaluable knowledge and his generosity in sharing it with the Aibo community, I would not have purchased an Aibo,” one Aibo owner said. Sony sued AiboPet for violating the DMCA. Aibo-lovers boycotted Sony. Sony conceded to its customers, apologized to AiboPet by rescinding the lawsuit, and the AiboPet-hacked code is back, available for downloading.
Source: GrepLaw. The EFF also has a good overview of this incident:
Sony has also invoked the DMCA against a hobbyist who developed custom “dance moves” for his Aibo robotic “pet” dog. Developing these new routines for the Sony Aibo required reverse engineering the encryption surrounding the software that manipulates the robot. The hobbyist revealed neither the decrypted Sony software nor the code he used to defeat the encryption, but he freely distributed his new custom programs. Sony claimed that the act of circumventing the encryption surrounding the software in the Aibo violated the DMCA and demanded that the hobbyist remove his programs from his website. Responding to public outcry, Sony ultimately permitted the hobbyist to repost some of his programs (on the understanding that Sony retained the right to commercially exploit the hobbyist’s work). The incident illustrated Sony’s willingness to invoke the DMCA in situations with no relationship to “piracy.”
That was about six years ago, and what has happened since? Sony discontinued the Aibo. No one is using their platform, millions of dollars are wasted, and the IP is locked up, unused. Talented roboticists steered clear of Sony, and customers eventually moved on too. One of the best robots in the world to get kids interested in robotics is completely ruined by the company that created it. Pictured above, me with my Aibo running my custom Aibo programs — telepresence through a robot dog!
Sony sues Connectix and Bleem to block software that allows gamers to play their PlayStation games on PCs
Let’s say you want to start a company that emulates old consoles to play old videos — sounds like a cool company — or maybe you just have a ton of old games and want to play them on your PC. In Sony’s world, this isn’t permitted and (you guessed it) you get sued. In the maker world, it’s completely normal to build your own arcade enclosure or retro-looking system and use a PC to power. We jam PCs into old Ataris, or whatever else we can get our hands on. But when a company made it possible to play old PlayStation games, they got shut down.
Sony has used DMCA to sue competitors who created emulation software that permits gamers to play PlayStation console games on PCs. In 1999, Sony sued Connectix, the maker of the Virtual Game Station, a PlayStation emulator for Macintosh computers. Sony also sued Bleem, the leading vendor of PlayStation emulator software for Windows PCs.
Neither Connectix nor Bleem were able to bear the high costs of litigation against Sony and pulled their products off the market. No similar emulation products have been introduced, effectively forcing gamers to use Sony console hardware if they want to play the PlayStation games they have purchased.
We don’t think Sony would win this one then or now, and in July 2010 the DMCA added some new exemptions. Not exactly a get-out-of-Sony-suit-free card, but at least it’s being considered…
(4) Video games accessible on personal computers and protected by technological protection measures that control access to lawfully obtained works, when circumvention is accomplished solely for the purpose of good faith testing for, investigating, or correcting security flaws or vulnerabilities, if:
(i) The information derived from the security testing is used primarily to promote the security of the owner or operator of a computer, computer system, or computer network; and ?(ii) The information derived from the security testing is used or maintained in a manner that does not facilitate copyright infringement or a violation of applicable law.(5) Computer programs protected by dongles that prevent access due to malfunction or damage and which are obsolete. A dongle shall be considered obsolete if it is no longer manufactured or if a replacement or repair is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace;
The problem is that Sony is good at making lawsuits and not much else lately. Connectix and Bleem couldn’t fight them so Sony never learned their lesson.
Sony attacks PlayStation “mod chips” and enforces a system of “region coding”
The next two are pretty similar. Again, overviews from the EFF:
Sony has sued a number of manufacturers and distributors of “mod chips” for alleged circumvention under the DMCA. In doing so, Sony has been able to enforce a system of “region coding” that raises significant anti-competitive issues.
“Mod chips” are after-market accessories that modify Sony PlayStation game consoles to permit games legitimately purchased in one part of the world to be played on a games console from another geographical region. Sony complains that mod chips can also be used to play pirated copies of games. As noted above, it is hard to see why an independent vendor of a product with legitimate uses should have to solve Sony’s piracy problems before entering the market.
Sony sued Gamemasters, distributor of the Game Enhancer peripheral device, which allowed owners of a U.S. PlayStation console to play games purchased in Japan and other countries. Although there was no infringement of Sony’s copyright, the court granted an injunction under the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions, effectively leaving gamers at the mercy of Sony’s region coding system.
Sony removes OtherOS option, and removes Linux support
Sony’s public blog has become a collection of unhappy customers. When Sony removed a feature they once used to market their console, they received 7,440 comments. It’s the most commented post of every Sony’s blog post that I could find (combined!).
Sony once used “OtherOS” as a marketing bullet point, and thousands of customers specifically bought PS3s for the OtherOS option. So many customers were upset, they filed a class-action suit that is still pending. Here’s an overview from Engadget:
Sony forced PS3 owners into a tough decision with the mandatory 3.21 firmware update: either lose online play or forgo Linux support. On Tuesday, Anthony Ventura chose door number three — and filed a lawsuit in California, asking the judge for class-action status. The complaint quotes Sony executives on numerous occasions saying how vital and important the “Install Other OS” feature was to the game console (it’s a computer, remember?) and claims breach of contract, false advertising, and several other causes of action against the entertainment giant. Sure, a lawsuit was bound to happen, given the number of angry PS3 owners out there, but here’s the thing: there’s no telling whether the court will grant a class-action certification here, and even if the case gets that far it’s pretty unlikely to force Sony to turn the feature back on — instead, customers will probably receive a token amount in damages while the lawyers get their full fees. For example, a rare, successful class-action suit against Palm — filed in 2004 — got Treo 600 owners only $27.50 in store credit, five years later. Meanwhile, we hear European PS3 owners just have to ask for their money back — which, we promise you, is the fastest way to put an end to your Linux-based PS3 nightmares.
Full Complaint (PDF). Part of being a maker, hacker, and innovator usually means you’re fond of installing Linux on something — it goes hand-in-hand with tinkering.
Here’s the install page on Sony’s site, which is now pretty much useless. Why did they remove this feature in a shipping product (with a forced update)? The old “security” excuse.
…the “Install Other OS” feature that was available on the PS3 systems prior to the current slimmer models, launched in September 2009. This feature enabled users to install an operating system, but due to security concerns, Sony Computer Entertainment will remove the functionality through the 3.21 system software update.
One of the worst things a company can do is upset people whose hobby is installing Linux on things. Sony’s removal of this feature brought dozens of teams around the world together, and we were all re-introduced to “GeoHot” (George Hotz). GeoHot was best known for jailbreaking the iPhone, allowing owners to use different carriers as well as put their own software on their own devices. Jailbreaking of phones is perfectly legal in the U.S. now, and we’re guessing it will eventually be fine for other devices too. GeoHot got to work:
In the end of 2009, Hotz announced his efforts to hack the Sony PlayStation 3, a console widely regarded as being the only fully locked and secure system of the seventh generation era. Hotz opened a blog to document his progress, and five weeks later, on January 22, 2010, he announced that he had successfully hacked the machine by enabling himself read and write access to the machine’s system memory and having hypervisor level access to the machine’s processor. Hotz also detailed the many things his work could allow, such as homebrew and PlayStation 2 emulation (a feature removed by Sony in newer revisions of the console to tackle production costs).
On January 26, 2010, Hotz released the exploit to the public. It requires the OtherOS function of the machine, and consists of a Linux kernel module and gaining control of the machine’s hypervisor via bus glitching. Hotz wrote that “Sony may have difficulty patching the exploit.” On March 28, 2010, Sony has responded by announcing to release a PlayStation 3 firmware update that removes the OtherOS feature, a feature that was already absent on the newer slim revisions of the machine. Hotz had then announced plans of a custom firmware, similar to the custom firmware for the PlayStation Portable, to enable Linux and OtherOS support, while still retaining the features of newer firmwares.
Source: Wikipedia. What did Sony eventually do? Lawsuit, and that brings us up to the present, final example.
Sony is suing makers, hackers, and tinkers for jailbreaking of the PS3 to play homebrew games
GeoHot made it possible to run your own software on your own device. Since then, Sony and GeoHot have been busy. Mostly Sony suing GeoHot.
- On January 12, 2011, Sony sued Hotz and others on 8 claims, including violation of the DMCA, computer fraud, and copyright infringement. In response, Carnegie Mellon University professor David S. Touretzky mirrored Hotz’s writings and issued a statement supporting that Hotz’s publication is within his right to free speech.
- On January 27, 2011, Sony’s request for a temporary restraining order (TRO) is granted by the US District Court for the Northern District of California. This forbids him from distributing the jailbreak, helping or encouraging others to jailbreak, and distributing information they’ve learned during the creation of the jailbreak. It also orders him to turn over computers and storage media used in the creation of the jailbreak to Sony’s lawyers. Professor Touretzky’s mirror was voluntarily censored following issue of the TRO, but Hotz’s writings and software have been mirrored elsewhere.
- On February 12, 2011, Hotz posted a rap video on his official YouTube page explaining his Sony lawsuit.
- On February 19, 2011, Hotz started a blog about the Sony lawsuit.
And here we are, almost a decade-long journey of Sony punishing their customers, fans, and innovators. George Hotz (GeoHot) isn’t just a random kid, he’s our future. He should be celebrated and considered a role model for anyone interested in science and technology.
Sony should take a page from Microsoft’s playbook and develop a PlayStation SDK for innovators with Hotz. Microsoft saw all the amazing projects and hacks with the Xbox Kinect, and they embraced it. Here’s a Microsoft employee celebrating jailbreaking and encouraging Hotz to hack their product! Brandon Watson is Director for Windows Phone 7.
Sony should not be suing GeoHot, they should be making a job offer. GeoHot isn’t going away, he has a bright future ahead — just look at what he’s done already, and he’s only 21!
He was a finalist at the 2005 ISEF competition in Portland OR with his project “The Mapping Robot”. Recognition included interviews on the Today Show and Larry King. Hotz was a finalist at the 2005 ISEF competition, with his project “The Googler”. Continuing with robots, Hotz competed in his school’s highly successful Titanium Knights battlebots team. George also worked on his project, “Neuropilot,” in which he was able to read EEG signals off his head with hardware from the OpenEEG project.
Hotz competed in the 2007 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, a science competition for high school students, where his project, entitled “I want a Holodeck”, received awards and prizes in several categories. Hotz has received considerable attention in mainstream media, including interviews on the Today Show, Fox, CNN, NBC, CBS, G4, ABC CNBC, and articles in several magazines, newspapers, and websites, including Forbes, and BBC. The Forbes article said Hotz hopes to go into Neuroscience: “hacking the brain,” he called it. In March 2008, PC World magazine listed George as one of the top 10 Overachievers under 21.
He entered the Rochester Institute of Technology in 2007, quickly after gaining notoriety for hacking the iPhone, but withdrew from the school after 1 quarter. In December 2007, Hotz travelled to Sweden to attend the Stockholm International Youth Science Seminar and talk about his 3D imaging invention (called Project Holodeck) that netted him a $20,000 Intel scholarship earlier that year.
Source: Wikipedia. Hotz has a long battle ahead in court. He’s received donations, and he’s “lawyering up” as they say in the biz. We think Sony is going to lose this one. While we’d love Sony to drop this and work with Hotz (as they eventually did with the Aibo community), we’re selfishly hoping Sony sticks to being Sony, goes to court, and loses. The biggest irony of all is that Sony was once fought for fair use and non-commercial use for their customers.
In the 1970s, Sony developed Betamax, a video tape recording format (VHS would later overtake Betamax). Universal Studios and the Walt Disney Company were among the film industry members who were wary of this development, but were also aware that the U.S. Congress was in the final stages of a major revision of U.S. copyright law, and would likely be hesitant to undertake any new protections for the film industry. The companies therefore opted to sue Sony and its distributors in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in 1976, alleging that because Sony was manufacturing a device that could potentially be used for copyright infringement, they were thus liable for any infringement that was committed by its purchasers. The complaint additionally included an unfair competition claim under the Lanham Act, but this was dismissed early in the course of the lawsuit.
Two years later, the District Court ruled for Sony, on the basis that noncommercial home use recording was considered fair use, that access to free public information is a First Amendment public interest served by this use.
This is the Sony before they got into the content business, when they were an underdog that made hardware. Sony was a champion of public interest, fair use, and the First Amendment. It’s time for Sony to get back to its roots.
What else? Sony is also missing out on innovation, specifically from their users. From a recent NYTimes article…
Mr. von Hippel, who has been researching innovation for 30 years, estimates that when it comes to scientific instruments 77 percent of the innovations come from users. Fields like medicine can be particularly fertile for creative tinkering. A classic example of user innovation is the heart-lung machine. In the late 1930s Dr. John Heysham Gibbon approached manufacturers about building one, but they did not know how to do it or whether there was a market for it. So Dr. Gibbon spent years developing one himself before this essential device was manufactured commercially.
Imagine going back in time and convincing Sony to work with, not against, their users. Where would they be now? Sony had decades of innovation and created an industry. What happens next is up to Sony but it’s also up to us. The Aibo community was able to get Sony to reconsider their actions, perhaps the maker world can as well. Here is the press contact page for all of Sony. Please consider sending a polite email asking them to drop the lawsuit against GeoHot and the community of makers, hackers, and innovators. I’ll also be sending a physical copy of this article to the CEO of Sony.
This collection of Sony’s missteps is also a handy reminder before your next purchase — where will I spend my next $20 when I need a decent set of headphones? Or a flat screen TV, or something else? Will anyone even bother to hack their stuff anymore, Apple already won the “Walkman” from them – where will Sony innovate, and when? The worst thing you can be in consumer electronics is irrelevant, and that’s where Sony is heading.
Besides — if none of this works — it’s back to tweeting “46DCEAD317FE45D80923EB97E4956410D4CDB2C2″. Just like Sony did…
Update: It appears Sony (Germany) has raided the home of a PS3 hacker today 2/24/2011.
Greatest post ever!
All the other companies do the same thing, its the US legal system and DMCA thats really at fault here.
Take out Sony and another dozen or so will fill their places. Nintendo managed to outlaw emulation, Sega sent the guns ablazing too.
If i clone a playstation and sell it, is it ok ? What about if i clone a teensy++ and sell that?
I agree with Charlie somewhat. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the fault lies in the US legal system but rather that there are laws that govern the use of these products and Sony has a right to have those laws enforced should they feel it infringes on their rights. If you don’t like their policies, then you have the right to not purchase sony’s products. You also have to the right to speak to your representatives and challenge laws or create new ones that will change the current system. I don’t think it’s appropriate say that Sony is declaring war against makers. If it feels their rights are being violated, it has a right to defend itself in court.
Yes, it’s been proven that makers are great for innovation and maybe Sony should embrace the movement, but again its their choice and until legislation is established that protects makers legally we are bound by our agreement when we purchase things. Hack at your own risk.
But we should ask another question though, is Sony upset that devices were hacked or are they upset that the information on how to hack the box was shared with others?
Thanks for the write up, it’s a great discussion topic.
@Miguel While you make some good points your statement abut the US legal system is false in a way. Yes it may be the law that allows the actions but these companies spend millions of dollars on lobbyist to get these laws in place. I doubt a large number of politicians are really all that tech savvy so these ideas must be coming from an outside influence. As far as contacting your represenative, who do you think has more access me with my extremely small disposable income or Sony with the millions they donate to campaigns and the millions they spend on lobbyist to ensure favorable laws? You are correct though about voting with your dollar. I propose we boycot them outright.
It’s not that long ago that I used to poke around the insides of old radios, locks, toys, turn-tables, vacuum-cleaners, and other “consumer appliances” and tinkered with them however I pleased, without fear that I was breaking the law or laying my parents open to some sort of legal action from the manufacturers or developers — and if anyone had suggested it ought to be otherwise it would have been just too strange an idea to even be a funny joke.
In fact I could even get books from the public library about “improving” old hardware or modifying old hardware to serve new purposes, or building new “cool stuff” from the parts. Well-known magazines (also at the library) included regular columns and features along these lines, too. I spent more than one rainy day browsing my Dad’s Popular Mechanics home encyclopedia of do-it-yourself projects.
So what’s changed? Why should we accept that programmable devices have now become some sort of “special case” if they’re sold as consumer appliances? (Or consumer appliances because they contain programmable components?) On what grounds?
Why are such notions somehow more rational or more acceptable when practised by manufacturers and coders on the production line? And why would anyone (home tinkerer or public servant or politician) who has ever found it useful to tinker with anything, swallow such a line?
Now, we’ve reached the point where people are getting sued for merely helping people to use the product as it was designed to be used — and as it was prominently marketed to be used.
Does anyone know how we got from “there” to “here”?
I disagree with you on one point: “we are bound by our agreement when we purchase things.”
Purchasing a physical object means it is now your property, and you have the right to do whatever you want with that property. Making a purchase doesn’t mean I’ve signed away my property rights. Even if there were some sort of implied contract, If I buy a PS3, the financial transaction would be with a store, not directly with Sony, therefore the contract would be with the retailer.
I think if that was the way the courts saw it, we wouldn’t be having this blog/discussion.. ?? Internationally speaking..
BUT… what does the EULA, that we all agree to, state?
“… The purchaser shall not use the product for any use not sanctioned by the manufacturer…”
Does this sort of wording border on an unconscionable contract? ®
I don’t sign the EULA at point of sale…
you asked – If i clone a playstation and sell it, is it ok ? What about if i clone a teensy++ and sell that?
no, there are copyright and trademark laws for both of those products. that’s not the point of the article, sony has a long history of abusing the DMCA and shutting down legitimate innovation. what harm was there in programming your own robot dog to dance?
please delete…
Thanks for a good an thorough summary. Makes for a good QED on why to avoid Sony.
By the way, don’t send the magic number in the Sony contact form, it won’t go through ;(
I haven’t bought any games since Other OS was removed. I’m not risking an update of the firmware. This also means no Home, but no big lose there.
Gamy developers, use your force to have Other OS reinstated or I won’t be purchasing any of your new titles.
This is ironic in a couple of ways:
- Sony makes ample use of open source code in their products: http://products.sel.sony.com/opensource/
as I learned when my flatscreen came with a copy of the GPL
- Sony also makes the excellent constructionist game Little Big Planet for the PS3, which allows kids to do visual programming, create and share worlds and objects.
Both of these show that Sony has a foot in maker culture even as they work against it in other areas. Well, big companies often have multiple personalities.
yah, parts of the company gets it for sure – we’d love to see more of that!
Not only parts of the company. With regards of the PS3 it is one of the only companies that DOESNT enforce regio coding in their games. I have bought games in Japan that even had the dutch (my language) localisation on the disc.
And what to say about hardware signing with the PS3 that doesn’t exists for peripherals. You can even build your own arcadestick (http://www.lizardlick.com/Toodles-Cthulhu-for-PCPS3_p_543.html) or use a cheap usb stick instead of over expensive memory cards. I even use playstation hardware on my pc to tinker with unbelievable ease… .
The reason why I find this lacking in the article and why I mention it is because you give Micosoft a pad on the back but fail to mention that at first they weren’t that friendly to kinect hacking. It wasn’t until the thing got hacked they suddenly became “hobbyist friendly”. You are aware that when adafruit did a contest for open source drivers Microsoft friking “condemned” the action ? Adafruit as a reaction doubled the bounty. And if they where truly “hacker” friendly they would design as much of safeguards (which in the end got broken) to prevent tinkering to begin with. It is just a PR decision not because as a company it is in their DNA.
I found your article about the arduino refreshing but this article seems to be the typical “Sony is pure evil” mantra with no room for just 2 colors: black & white.
I used to work for a large Japanese company like Sony and it was interesting to find out that many of the different divisions in the company operated independently from one another and even had different philosophies on how to do business so this doesn’t surprise me.
Sony basically has not progressed into the 21st Century where technically competent users may be as good at hardware and software as their own engineers and “average” (literally) Sony product users (or prospective users) are as well aware of great products in the marketplace and those that are not.
Just like the Muslim Autocrat/Totalitarian governments are finding out their unemployed college graduates can read & listen to what is going on in Europe & the US, Sony is different. It apparently doesn’t realize its potential customers can search the Internet and read blogs and discover that Sony doesn’t play fair and has a “lock down” attitude.
I myself bought my last Sony product after the TV I bought had its remote fail within 14-18 months and not only would Sony not replace it, they NO LONGER SOLD that remote anymore!
Sony has a “king of the mountain” autocrat view of itself that is causing its own destruction.
Not very good service from Sony there, but it would be worth your while trying to get hold of a sony tv remote from the next gen of tv’s, their IR codes tend to be fairly consistent for several generations of TV – if you cannot easily source one of these, buy one of the cheapest one-for-all remotes with a built in code database, it will almost certainly work…
emerging technologies like samsung poses a great threat to sony
http://www.technologyinafrica.cz.cc/
Tons of information, witch is probably why Apple’s War on the same people was not mentioned. At least sony will take your cash.
this one was about sony, perhaps the next will be about apple
Don’t do two in a row
What about copyright law and the reprap community?
what about copyright law in general?
the reason we’re in this absurd, legally restrictive, intellectual property mess in the first place is because we have a hopelessly outdated and well-abused patent and copyright system.
If you take all the money that lawyers/corporate attorneys take ~across the board~ out of the equation, everything becomes chrystal clear. Most of the trouble world-wide comes from having to pay them.
“If it were not for lawyers, we wouldn’t need them.”
–A. K. Giffin. “Lawyer’s Paradox.” In Paul Dickson, comp., The New Official Rules, p.126, 1989
Since NONE of the Sony execs did a bid in federal prison for hacking in the wake of the Sony-BMG
rootkit fiasco as they should have, I have waged a one-man boycott of all Sony products. When I talk
to people about them I always take care to ask them if they were found guilty of hacking — rootkitting a computer — do they think they would get off with a stern lecture as Sony did? Invariably, people say that they most likely would go to jail.
So I ask them why they should reward criminal behaviors. It is fun to see their brains overheat on that question.
Sony can take ALL of the crap they make and eat it for all I care. They are a criminal enterprise, guilty of hacking and just generally not very nice. Unless and until those at Sony who were involved with, directed, approved, supported the rootkitting of people’s computers go to jail, we should all tell Sony to stuff their products, all of their products, where the sun does not shine.
The other instances of Sony-being-Sony (== incredibly stupid and boorish toward their customers) are just additional reasons to boycott their sorry crap. There are plenty of other companies out there who don’t treat their customers as criminals and doormats that we should do business with instead of one who gets away with criminal behavior like hacking your computer.
yeah and never even mind that,they are still doing a similar thing today with the ps3,i mean they have spyware on the ps3 that “phones home”to sony and reports everything on your system and connected usb device,and software,movies pictures,they can see everything on your system,and you dont even have to be connected to the psn for it to report back to sony,i dont know if its in the eula for psnor not ,cause i dont use psn,but since i nevr agreed to suscha breach of privacy and im not sure which fw this started in,hence it may have been something they added to my system after i purchased it without my knowledge ,so what i want to know is how the phuck can the call what geohot and other ps3 scene devs are doing “hacking”and sue him under the computer fraud act,when he is only moddifying code on his own purchased amchine and for his own use and purposes ,that is not hackin,and certainly not covered uder the computer fraud act,but what they are doing most certainly is,adding and or sometimes removing code to/from someone elses machine ,and since most people dont know about this ps3 spyware,without their knowledge,across a network,for thier own purposes of taking and using data on a private machine you own,spying on you and examining all your data and everything you do,how is that not considered hacking someone elses machine,and across a network no less,that should be considered hacking more than what geohot has done and should definitly fall under the computer fraud act as well,not what geohot is doing ,”hacking”his own paid for machine,and not across any network,not connecting to another machine not owned by him ,like sony is doing,not spying on people,or adding and or removing code to another persons privately owned machine across a network,they are total hipocrites ,like they wanted to make betamax ,a so called circumvention device,like they make cd-r,like the mc lars song says,they want it both ways,sorry sony you cant have your cake and eat it too,stop ,trying to gang up on us with the riaa and mpaa ,stop lobbying and trying to buy unfair laws like dmca,super dmca and coica,yeah sony im sure you are loosing sooo much money from piracy or this sort of piracy which i call and you yourself called during the betamax trial,”fair use”,oh whats that,do you hear that sound,oh nevermind it me ,playing the worlds smallest violin for tommy matolla and clive davis and all other multi millionare or billionare record industry and media company execs
Thanks for highlighting this case in such an intellectually honest manner.
I’m a regular MAKE reader, and definitely read your first column on the Arduino. I don’t know what the future of your editorials hold, but I must admit I was very impressed with this piece. Keep up the good work, it’s a credit to the Maker community!
Your sometimes fan sometimes critic,
George
what about lik-sang?
they were sued for selling the PSP early right? if so, i didn’t include that, it wasn’t directly related to the war on makers.
another fail by sony was their key2audio drm. Not only was it bypassed with a whiteboard marker colouring the protection track (inner ring)… but it also crashed some apple mac’s, making them unbootable. The only way to fix this was a dis-assembly of the mac and drive.
Only things I’ll say here:
- I agree that Sony is mega-heavy-handed about all this, but as the article highlights the long history of Sony hating it’s customers I’m not shocked.
- I agree 100000% that we should be able to do whatever we want with devices that we buy, but as a consumer that reaps the benefits of modding the sh*t out of everything my opinion is slightly biased.
- That tweet by a Microsoft rep about giving homey a phone is super swell and all, but keep in mind that Microsoft jealously guards their Xbox 360 software and tries to squash every 360 mod, too: dashboard updates and Live bans abound.
microsoft is doing a good job lately, they saw all the cool kinect hacks and they’re releasing a SDK, i think they’re really trying – but in the past they did go after many people for hacking the xbox, etc (bunnie the chumby inventor hacked the xbox!)
i thought it was the company that microsoft bought the tech from that was releasing the sdk?
Might want to add Sony’s backing of a police raid on a PS3 hacker’s house:
http://games.slashdot.org/story/11/02/24/0638257/Police-Raid-PS3-Hackers-House-Hacker-Releases-PS3-Hypervisor-Bible
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Here’s one more. Sony backed a police raid on a PS3 hacker’s house:
http://games.slashdot.org/story/11/02/24/0638257/Police-Raid-PS3-Hackers-House-Hacker-Releases-PS3-Hypervisor-Bible
I think you’ve convinced me, in a well written and well-documented article, to avoid future Sony purchases. I’ll check the mail tomorrow for the legal documents from Sony telling me I’m being sued for using their name in a negative manner.
However bleem used copyrighted images inside their emulator and it was deemed fair use. So where’s the line ? The teensy++ isn’t much more than a reference circuit on a breakout board. So what is you’re saying differently in that its a choice between which copyrights and patents are enforced or not, or whats the line on who can use what ?
I’m not entirely sure how you abuse the DMCA anyway, its written in such a way as to allow this sort of thing to go on, Sony are within the law. Which again goes to my point of that its the law thats at fault. The spirit of the law is even to do this, lots of corporations and lobbyist groups getting this sort of law in.
A lot of emulators use the BIOS from the original system and they defeat the copy protection built in so you can play games on different hardware
Also Sony lost the court case, the developers pulled bleem and they all work at Sony now, they’re probably doing better financially now than they were, Sony pays well for assembler programmer types.
Nintendo however didn’t lose the battle against emulators, yes the legal costs may have made the decision for
Copyrights and patents particularly have to be enforced or you lose them. Again this is a function of the law, not the company. If you don’t do it, someone else usually will and then they’ll use them against you.
hi charlie, i think the people who cloned the teensy used paul’s name and images.
as far as sony and the dmca goes, yes – they can abuse, i think they have – the law is broken and so is sony, they actually do not need to go after robot dog owners, it’s their choice.
>>If i clone a playstation and sell it, is it ok ?
If you don’t infringe on all the hundreds of patents on the parts of the hardware and all the IP in the software and you can reverse engineer it without breaking the laws in your country .. go for it I highly doubt you could do it but there’s no harm in trying is there?
>> What about if i clone a teensy++ and
I think you know very well that that argument doesn’t hold water but you have gone through with it because you think people here aren’t maybe aware that you are talking crap. I think you know that cloning a PCB and some basic software is nothing like cloning a complete, incredibly complex system and that such a comparison is “comparing oranges with nuclear power stations”. I think know very well that if you cloned the micro used on that board that Atmels IP lawyers would be all over you… ARM and MIPS have done this.
>>i think the people who cloned the teensy used paul’s name and images.
He should defend his rights then. If he doesn’t have the money do to so he should seek legal aid. The law works for the little man too.
>>sony, they actually do not need to go after robot dog owners, it’s their choice.
The law means that companies have to defend against all potential infringements or none at all.
It’s unfortunate that Sony decided to go after robo dog hackers but unfortunately that is how it works. If you want open hardware that you can mod either buy stuff that is advertised as such or build it yourself. Don’t cry like a baby when a massive company with enough spare cash to sue you into the ground defends their rights.. or you know, you could keep what you have done quiet enough so that it doesn’t show up on ‘s radar and thus they don’t have to defend their rights.
You don’t have to defend copyright. You have to defend trademark otherwise it can end up here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_and_genericized_trademarks
But copyright you can be as selective as you want, or choose to wait until everyone and their mother has done it, then sue the entire world, just like patents.
“If you want open hardware that you can mod either buy stuff that is advertised as such…”
The PS3 WAS advertised as being open to a certain degree by having Other OS support. And then Sony took it away after customers bought the device. I suppose if Other OS was only removed from new PS3s your argument might stand. This was not the case. Users were advertised a device that had both Other OS and full gaming support. They paid for it. And then Sony made them chose one or the other.
Also, even if Sony did only remove Other OS from new consoles marketed after they stopped advertising Other OS it would still be bad treatment of their previous customers as their OS would likely cease to be supported much sooner than they originally had reason to suspect.
Sony has long been a mess of a company due to internal culture clashes. Starting a year before and the Rootkit fiasco Sony Music was releasing CDs that wouldn’t play on Sony Electronics CD players.
Sony engineers are among the best in the world and produce amazing hardware at realistic prices.
Sony software on the other hand is among the worst in the world. Buggy, invasive, and sometimes openly hostile to the user. A lot of this is due to being a Japanese company at heart, and the management by committee style that those companies have.
I always like to compare Sony to Apple, which also has a team of smart engineers outpacing most other companies. They also ram new formats down our throats. (See today’s Thunderbolt announcement among others) and throw their weight around trying to control what everyone does with their hardware. And yet Apple is generally loved and Sony is generally hated.
The only real differences are:
1) Apple is much more vertically integrated. Hardware, software, and online services all interoperate smoothly. (Mostly) And all the devices work with each other. Sony on the other hand makes CDs and DVDs so copy protected that they won’t even work on their own players. Again, Sony’s sprawling mess of management makes sure that its hands don’t know what the other is doing.
2) Single vision. Apple has Steve Jobs’s vision driving everything and everyone else at the company has to bow to it. Sony is a Japanese company so even when a talented engineer makes something great a committee erodes it to nothing.
3) It’s not nearly as sue happy. Yes, Apple gets cranky when internal information is leaked, and they don’t like it when you jailbreak, etc. But they live with it because they don’t want to be ‘that guy’. They do appreciate their customers. Sony on the other hand, (ironically especially their entertainment arms) treats the customer like the enemy.
I’m constantly surprised that someone hasn’t bought and gutted Sony. There is a lot of good in there, but it’s destroyed by its internal mismanagement and fear.
Sounds to me like you’re almost apologizing for them. The fact that some of their people might be (are) good does not excuse the company in general from being a pain in the public butt.
Get the heck out of there and go take your expertise to some company that will use it in a better way.
I’ve got a lot of Sony products around the house – from 8mm cameras to TVs, stereos, and such – but no more, ever! They can die and I’ll salt the earth behind them as they’ve crossed the line far too many times. Nothing can excuse them anymore.
It’s not that Apple minds being “that guy” — they just don’t want to be known as “that guy”. Being “that guy” isn’t cool, and their marketing image is based on cool (supported by “just works”) . So they push it as far as they can, and when the world starts to notice, they back off a little, and find more subtle ways to “guide” their customers choices and control their options, while pouring forth sophisticated propaganda about user freedom.
Admittedly, it’s unusual for a mega-corp like Apple to maintain such an image for such a long time, but they’ve managed to (mostly) follow that fine line — helped no doubt by the counter-balances offered by companies like Microsoft and Sony. The other important thing is that their products generally do actually work pretty well, are pretty easy to use and fairly robust, to the point that their resale value is the envy of other manufacturers. I’m not a fan, but many people care less about freedom than about glitz, “cool” and ease of use, and Apple is meeting that demand, without offending their customers through ham-handed control.
I wonder how long they can keep it up>
Whenever I purchased Sony stuff, I noticed a pattern: The purchase was fantasitc initially… then the barbs came out. Barbs you could never learn about before purchasing by looking at the packaging or reading reviews. When your discman headphones wore out, a proprietary plug meant you had to buy sony earphones – which were $140! When you created your own media on Sony products, then tried to share your work…it would ensure only a degraded version of your work could be extracted. And so on. For many years.
I realised that I could never win that game – Sony could _always_ sneak barbs and cripples into their products just deep enough that I would not find them until after I’d owned the product for a while. And they always _would_ do this.
So I had to stop buying from Sony in self-defense!
And, my life is actually better for it.
I’ve come to realise that Sony is not a consumer electronics manufacturer. Sony is media/content company that has an electronics manufacturing arm. Sony electronics are designed to act in the interests of Sony media first, and only a distant second priority is to perform the job for which the consumers purchased the device, purchased in the mistaken belief that money changing hands mean ownership changed hands too.
Sony devices are sexy, but they always stab you in the back. Don’t try to win, you can’t. Just stop buying their wares. You won’t regret it. You’ll be better off.
“Sony devices are sexy, but they always stab you in the back. Don’t try to win, you can’t. Just stop buying their wares. You won’t regret it. You’ll be better off.”
Just like Apple.
Sony always seem to have some great hardware design, then their stupid internal politics wreck what could have been a truly spectacular product.
Just like Apple? I’m running three OSes on my MacBook Pro and I hack drivers in OSX for interesting devices. How is it just like Apple?
He’s referring to the iPod, iPhone and iPad, all of which have crappy DMCA-enforced proprietary locks.
Not DMCA-enforced, FYI. It’s even mentioned in TFA.
Apple filed paperwork saying that they wanted to use the DMCA to enforce their iPhone jail.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/159532/apple_files_opposition_to_dmca_exemption_for_jailbreaking.html
So as soon as the current temporary exception runs out, the lock will be DMCA-enforced.
well i give you the best example .,the ipod,the iphone,the ipad,and apple tv,what do these devices have in common?you ask?well if it isnt immediately obvious (as it should be but consumers really arent all that smart these days) then i guess ill have to tell you,THEY ALL HAVE NO SD CARD SLOTS,i mean WTF,the iphone which everyone thinks is the greatest most technologically advanced thing ever ,doesnt even have a feature present on any 99 cent cell phone (w/contract) or any $10 per pay cell phone?,FFS it a feature ALL cell phones have had for YEARS now if not a decade,not to mention mp3 players,i had the worlds first mp3 player,the diamond rio,pmp 300,and guess what?it had a memory card slot,imagine that,sure it was a smart media slot but SM was one of the 2major portable storage technologies at the time,that and CF,how many generations of the ipod have there been?how many hw revisions?,4 generatoions of iphone,2 apple tv’s,and going on 2 ipads,and no ability to upgrade the memory or transfer something via sd,like if i want to take a pic with my digital camera and pop the memory card in my phone to email it ,i cant,not without a computer,not to mention that the earlier iphones had a ccd or cmos sensor ,but you could only take still pics,WTF at the time every cell phone was capable of taking video for YEARS,even cheap ones,but the software wouldnt allow it on the iphone,now they have the iphone 4 ,mind you its called the 4g(because its the fourth itteration of the device,i know)but how ironic is that,a phone reffered to as 4g that cant use 4g,when most other smart phones in the same class,(or i guess i should say a close class) can,its so ridiculous to have to buy a whole new ipod,ipad,iphone,or touch ,just to get more memory,it sucks,and not to mention crapple charges you double the price or more for memory than it would cost if you got it on sd,its a double slap in the face,i guess steve jobs thinks he can take his money with him when he dies of pancreatic cancer next week,so now i guess the company will really be over run by corporate dooosh bag types and there will be no hope of an sd slot on ipad 2,unless he comes to his senses and feels like being philanthropic enough to put a stipulation in his will saying it has to have 1,or unless 1 of u makers can figure out a way to solder in a micro sd socket to these devices,it would be the best ,most sought after hw hack ever
well i give you the best example .,the ipod,the iphone,the ipad,and apple tv,what do these devices have in common?you ask?well if it isnt immediately obvious (as it should be but consumers really arent all that smart these days) then i guess ill have to tell you,THEY ALL HAVE NO SD CARD SLOTS,i mean WTF,the iphone which everyone thinks is the greatest most technologically advanced thing ever ,doesnt even have a feature present on any 99 cent cell phone (w/contract) or any $10 per pay cell phone?,FFS it a feature ALL cell phones have had for YEARS now if not a decade,not to mention mp3 players,i had the worlds first mp3 player,the diamond rio,pmp 300,and guess what?it had a memory card slot,imagine that,sure it was a smart media slot but SM was one of the 2major portable storage technologies at the time,that and CF,how many generations of the ipod have there been?how many hw revisions?,4 generatoions of iphone,2 apple tv’s,and going on 2 ipads,and no ability to upgrade the memory or transfer something via sd,like if i want to take a pic with my digital camera and pop the memory card in my phone to email it ,i cant,not without a computer,not to mention that the earlier iphones had a ccd or cmos sensor ,but you could only take still pics,WTF at the time every cell phone was capable of taking video for YEARS,even cheap ones,but the software wouldnt allow it on the iphone,now they have the iphone 4 ,mind you its called the 4g(because its the fourth itteration of the device,i know)but how ironic is that,a phone reffered to as 4g that cant use 4g,when most other smart phones in the same class,(or i guess i should say a close class) can,its so ridiculous to have to buy a whole new ipod,ipad,iphone,or touch ,just to get more memory,it sucks,and not to mention crapple charges you double the price or more for memory than it would cost if you got it on sd,its a double slap in the face,i guess steve jobs thinks he can take his money with him when he dies of pancreatic cancer next week,so now i guess the company will really be over run by corporate dooosh bag types and there will be no hope of an sd slot on ipad 2,unless he comes to his senses and feels like being philanthropic enough to put a stipulation in his will saying it has to have 1,or unless 1 of u makers can figure out a way to solder in a micro sd socket to these devices,it would be the best ,most sought after hw hack ever
Bostonblah,
I hate to break it to you, but it is currently possible and on the market to directly connect both Secure Digital memory cards and USB devices to the iPad. It is made possible by Apple’s own Camera Connector Kit, which can theoretically work with ANY apple device using the ubiquitous iPod dock connection.
The reason why your first mp3 player had a memory card slot instead of built-in flash memory was because flash memory was then and still continues to be one of the most expensive components to add to a product, and therefore it behooves a manufacturer to leave such accessory choices to the consumer rather than to mark up the price of their player. Basically, the SD slot enables the manufacturer to sell you a nonfunctional product because you can deal with that component yourself. Apple, on the other hand, generates complete solutions, and most people appear to appreciate the convenience of the simplicity inherent in this approach, given the popularity of portable Apple products.
You complain that the iPhone is not yet 4G speed capable, but what use is a more expensive smartphone when the 4G infrastructure does not yet widely enable 4G speeds for any given 4G device? According to Verizon’s website, 4G won’t be available nationwide until the end of 2013, and only a fifth of the population currently has access to 4G data speeds. According to Sprint’s website, only 29 of 50 states have any 4G coverage; only seven cities in all of the populous state of California have any 4G coverage, and only three cities in New York State have any. And AT&T doesn’t even bother to create a 4G coverage map, since they’re still expanding their 3G coverage. Put simply, most customers would be paying for unusable and unsupported tech if they bought an iPhone capable of 4G speeds.
You complain that you must buy a new iPod, iPad, or iPhone in order to acquire more memory for such devices, but this is actually a basic logistical problem (not just limited to Apple products) that can be circumvented in a number of ways:
1) don’t buy the product whose memory capacity you will find insufficient within a year, and instead opt for the model with ample memory
2) use the compression method appropriate to maximize the use of the available memory
3) stream your media over the internet via your home computer, or through services such as Napster, rather than requiring all of it be present in the immediate storage of your portable device
4) if you are incapable of any forethought and still need to get a new iProduct, take care of the old one and it will retain a decent resale value for you to put the money towards the new
If the world positively comes to an end because you cannot add 8GB to the hardware of your portable device, I suggest you make a utility belt for all of those SD cards you feel are so essential to a quality device experience. You can name them, color them, and stack them on your desk like a Scrooge with coins. At some point, however, most of us realize that less is more, which is precisely why most people prefer Apple products over SD card utility belts.
Am not starting a flame war here but you are so blindly defending Apple that it stinks. You say “flash memory was then and still continues to be one of the most expensive components”. Now, I went to VZW site. iPhone 4, 16GB version costs $200 while 32GB version costs $300 (that’s with contract). So using your logic 16GB MicroSD or any other memory card would cost 100$ since the two devices differ only in storage space. Now, if you go to ANY site that sells stuff online, like Amazon and eBay, you’ll see that 16GB MicroSD card costs around $24.
Using logic and some really simple math you can see that Apple is charging 4x more for those 16GB of memory. Now if you have a phone with SD card reader, upgrading your memory consists of buying different memory card while with iPhone you have to buy a different device. Plus you can easily switch between cards and get access to all your files, while when you change iPhones (for more memory) you loose everything unless you sync with iTunes which requires a desktop computer.
So you can’t really say memory is expensive. Well I guess you can, it is for you since you need to change the whole device and difference between them is at least 4x the value of a single memory card.
Neither of these comments really have too much to do with the article here but the angry BostonBlah guy (I suppose) is right. You can’t have innovation when you cripple those who do it. Imagine if Apple made iOS open source. I think we would see it on dish washing machines by now and Android wouldn’t be nearly as powerful.
well yes i have seen an accessory made by apple that connects to the dock connector of your ipod at one end and that has a usb on port on the other end of it so you can plug in a digital camera to your ipod and dump the memory card contents from your digital camera on to the ipod drive ,but not be able to view the photos or videos until you get to a pc to sync with itunes,but the apple store no longer sells them ,and havent for a long time ,because i was going to get one,as far as connecting an sd card to the dock connector ,i cant remember if i saw an accessory for that,i think i did but the device was huge ,who wants to carry around another device?or an adapter plus a usb cable?why would you want some big goofy device sticking out of your ipod,ipad or iphone,?who would want that when for a few cents apple could have just included one internally?isnt the whole idea of their products that they are supposed to be sleek and sexy and aesthetically and ergonomically pleasing?and do everything in one device ,devices?what is so sleek,sexy or aesthetically pleasing about having a big goofy adapter hanging out the side of your device just to plug in an sd card ,a feature that every other cheap ass device can do internally with no adapter?it kinda defeats the purpose dont you think? you say the manufactures of devices with sd slots sell you a non functional device but thats not true either,the diamond rio i had that was the first mp3 player ever made did have a smart media memory card expansion slot ,but it also has onboard memory too,as do allot of devices that have sd card slots ,its to add MORE memory,and not only that but most all devices with sd card slots do also come with an sd card,some come with onboard memory and an sd slot and an sd card,i never said apple should sell their devices with no memory,im saying they should have the same memory options they have now for their products but just add a cheap micro sd card slot or sd card slot,it would add almost nothing to the cost of the device,there is absolutely no reason or excuse for it,they could put one one in ,its not going to complicate the device or make it nonfunctional or somehow less simple or less of a so called”complete solution” as you imply,apple doesnt do it cause they want to rip off their customers and sell them a whole new device just so they can add a little bit of memory,its ridiculous,its creating more waste,more e-waste,and they charge you twice as much for their memory as it would have cost you on sd,it just fuckin mean spirited abuse of its consumers,either that or shortsightedness ,which i dont buy,i think they know EXACTLY what they are doing,they know they have a cult following of mac whores that will buy and worship any device they make no matter what it is,how many flaws it has,or, how many bad decisions they make,but yes i do have a few ipods,and i do like my ipods ,but the company does make alot of decisions that are ass backwards as fuck,take the ipod touch for example ,i sat there for 4 hours trying to figure out why the song titles that are too long to fit on the screen were cut off and not scrolling across,after hours of trying to figure out how to make them do that ,i finally figure out that it CANT be done,so a feature that my 2nd and 3rd gen nano have ,is not included on the much newer and more expensive 400$ touch?WTF!!!the titles dont scroll ANYWHERE, not on the list of songs when you are selecting them,not even after you select the song and it is playing ,my nano does BOTH,an older and much less expensive model,there are plenty of other bad decisions that there is absolutely no excuse for that i wont get into ,im nobodys fan boy ,nor am i against apple,there are just allot things that ruing what otherwise could have been a perfect product,and there is absolutely no reason that r&d or product testers should have missed those problems and let the devices out the door with such obvious and annoying flaws ,but what do you expect from a big corporation ,those type of people have no fucking common sense what so ever ,and make decisions without any rhyme or reason
Proprietary earphone plug? What?
Sony may have gotten irritating over the years, but they’re not Apple.
I’ve owned quite a number of Walkman cassette players, Discman CD players, and even a couple “Network Walkman” (stupid name) devices over the years, and all of them use a standard 1/8″ headphone jack.
Now, if you mean that you were using a remote control on the earphones, that would be proprietary, but there really is no standard connector for remotes.
It seems like more and more corporations are trying to control how their products are used, more often than not to the detriment of the end user.
I’m personally quite tired of feeling like instead of buying a product I’m leasing it. I sometimes feel as if instead of purchasing a product I can call my own I’m instead paying the manufacturer to agree to use it according to their rules (which constantly change) until the product dies or the product is no longer officially supported. Why do I have to sign a user agreement for nearly every piece of electronic equipment I purchase? Why can’t I take apart (or hack) my purchased product to repair it or improve its functionality without fear of being sued? I bought it, don’t I own it? Or did I simply buy the right to access said corporation’s intellectual property until they deem the product beyond its useful revenue life cycle?
I think it’s great that someone at Microsoft finally realized what side their bread was buttered on and figured out they would sell a LOT more Kinects (and get free marketing) if they opened it up and embraced makers instead of trying to fight them.
Excellent article, totally passing this on
46DCEAD317FE45D80923EB97E4956410D4CDB2C2 sounds good to me – wonder if they’ll try to do this shit here in Canada.
So far we don’t have the DMCA – but the Conservatives are trying really hard. The “first sale” doctrine sure seems to be bent by Sony – good thing I’ve decided never to purchase another of their products.
Haven’t been a regular reader, but I will be now. Nice write up.
Couple of points: LAME is LGPL as stated, so Sony did not “violate the GPL” just the LGPL. This is a lot less important as LGPL allows its code into closed-source products provided an offer of source is made for the library, so it’s not much more than an administrative issue (making the offer of source). A GPL violation would require the entire component to be rewritten or licensed.
And come on, MICROSOFT make an ironic offer of a doomed phone platform to GeoHot and suddenly they’re the good guys? Some people have very short memories …
I don’t think anyone is trying to claim that Microsoft are suddenly the “good guys”, but they have been a lot more accommodating in recent years. They haven’t for example gone after those hackers that have produced their own open source drivers for the Kinect.
Read up on Microsofts actions regarding the guy who hacked their new Xbox camera gizmo. Not the good guys? Compared to Sony they are Mother freaking Theresa…
If Sony didn’t make such good products none of us would care. No one wants to avoid Sony we just want to push them around a little.
That comment about if you really wanna screw yourself take Linux away …. no kidding. I dont think it would have ever been cracked the way it was if they didnt.
Sony fail…
Good article. There is one inaccuracy in the article, though. I was an employee of Connectix from 1992 to 1999 and did some development of the PC version of Virtual Gamestation. Connectix did in fact engage in a legal battle with Sony (FWIW, I left the company while the case was still active). Initially, Sony won an injunction against Connectix which forced Connectix to pull the product off the market. Connectix appealed and won that appeal — see http://digital-law-online.info/cases/53PQ2D1705.htm for the 9th Circuit Ruling and also http://digital-law-online.info/lpdi1.0/treatise25.html#secV.C. for some of the impact of this ruling on reverse engineering and fair use. The case was eventually settled with Sony buying the rights to Virtual Gamestation from Connectix. I don’t have enough insight to know whether these terms were punitive enough to discourage further similar suits by Sony or whether the suit was an overall win in terms of business impact for Connectix. Users still lost out since they were unable to use the product — Sony simply buried the product after they purchased it.