What Sony is doing is nothing like copyright notices in books, and everyone knows it; with all due respect, if you have to be purposely obtuse to make a point, the point probably isn't worth much.

Image, for a moment, Sony-style copyright for Ed's books:

*****
You: Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my closet?!?
Guard: I'm just here to make sure no funny business goes on with the Ed Bott book you bought yesterday.
You: But I didn't invite you in! You broke in!
Guard: Meh.
You: And you installed a lock on my bookshelf!
Guard: Yep. Sure did.
You: You can't do that!
Guard: Why? I mean, you weren't planning to read this book in public, were you? 'Cause that would be illegal, and I can't imagine why somone who wasn't planning to read the book out loud would object...
You: No, no, I wasn't going to...hey, are you reading my diary and shuffling through my bills?
Guard: Don't worry, I won't tell anyone.
You: Get out!
Guard: Fine fine. (pulls entire bookshelf over)
*****

If Sony included copyright notices, with clickthroughs and such, no one would mind. But that's not at all what they've done, and I suspect if you're being honest without trying to score cheap points, you'd acknowledge that. This is nothing at all like the copyright notices in books; they're installing damaging and intrusive software on the personal property of honest users without their consent. Hopefully it's illegal, but given the lack of respect for fair use rights these days, who knows?

Charlie, I *CAN NOT* beleive you are that stupid.

What Sony has done, has put everyone at risk. This isn't about theft. It's about ACCOUNTABILITY.

When I buy a book, there is nothing physically stopping me from copying it with a photocopier.

On the flip side, there is nothing opening my mail, and leaving a key to my house outside either.

Sony has built 'DRM' (and I use the term loosely. It wouldn't have even worked on my pc, 'cause I turn off autorun) that lowers the security of the machine. Now, a worm-script-kiddie can just start calling his toys $sys$myworm.exe . Boom! Undetectable by normal means. That's insanity.

DRM is Fine. Crippling my PC is not.

I suspect that the lords of Microsoft don't appreciate Sony screwing with security either. Hey, better yet, I've got a Sony disc for you. Pop it in your work PC.

feh.

Very interesting points and a novel approach to the discussion. However, the point of the purchase of the book is to be able to read the text contained within...the point of the CD purchase was to be able to play back the songs recorded on it. Were Ed to install a trained, hungry, light-sensitive mouse in every book that he publishes which, upon exposure to a very bright light scurried out of its home in the cover and were to bite my finger, I'd have a (BIG) problem with Ed.

1) The mouse in question could be prone to make a mistake and bite me when I attempted to read the book in direct sunlight. Perhaps if the mouse was well-trained, this would not happen. DRM software needs to be REALLY smart to discern the difference between fair-use and theft.

2) The mouse would attract fleas, infesting my home with unwanted and irritating bugs. Perhaps if a very sophisticated and well-groomed breed of mouse was used, then I wouldn't have to worry about unwanted bugs hiding with the mouse. Per Mark R., the DRM approach employed by F4I and Sony was poorly written and prone to invite harm to my PC and my data -- it attracts fleas. Ed should have done better due dilligence in selecting the breed of mouse to be used.

3) Apparently the mouse has decided that it likes my house. Now, even though I gave away Ed's book and any backup copies I made, the mouse is still living in my house. (She gave birth to another baby mouse that now lives in the book and is causing the gift-ee the same headaches its mother has been causing me...) I no longer have the book, but the darned fleas are still infesting my house. Now I'm seriously thinking of making Ed come over here and remove the darned thing, as well as making him and his publisher reimburse me for the fumigation. If I no longer want to play the CD, I'd better be able to uninstall the DRM mechanism without having to call an expert.

4) I had no idea the mouse involved until the fleas showed up and I brought in an expert. There was that copyright notice you mentioned, and the book was printed on paper that was resistant to being photocopied, but nothing about some random, unsophisticated(?!), flea-attracting mouse. Ed's getting a call from my lawyer, and if I can ever catch that mouse, I'm going to set it loose in his car and flash my high-beams in his direction until it bites him.

Finally, a more realistic point. Sony's right to protect its digital assets ends as soon as it begins to expose mine to harm, assuming I am not using mine to commit a crime or harm Sony in any way.

Charlie,

You are dead wrong on this issue. While I agree that Sony has a right to protect it's copyright, the technique they have chosen is highly inappropriate. The analogy of the bookstore with a locked door is irrelevant in this discussion. What Sony has done is more akin to rewiring your house (in a dangerous and sloppy manner) to keep you from using a photocopier.

I think we are all a little suprised at your position

I recently attended a dinner with a lot of computer nerds. Amazingly, one of the attendees loudly (and quite proudly) proclaimed that he has been comitting multiple felonies. Of course, he didn't word it that way, but his proud declaration that he was downloading movies off of the Internet that haven't been released yet and making them available via fileshare was the same thing.

Scary how much we tolerate this behavior, yet we wouldn't dare break into the book store to steal Ed's book.

stop it with all these analogies! The bottom line is a greedy company got caught F--ing its customers and is paying the price in bad publicity. Every company that forces DRM down their paying customers throats better get it right or they'll pay the price too.
With that said, I'm pretty pissed that i can't copy last nights MCE recorded shows to my laptop for my flight tomorrow. If DRM is transparent and allows for "fair use" than i don't have a problem with it.

Hey Charlie

Where is the fair use in all of this? Microsoft is backing HD-DVD because of it's manage copy, but sony don't want you to copy period. How can you back them.

I'll take the bait and guess what position you are taking. I think you said it's about theft. So you're in favor of people being able to make a living at what they do. Excellent position. I'm with you.

You're in favor of a creative person being able to protect their creation so it can't be abusively shared. In the analog world there are mechanisms that help do that. We've learned about those through our upbringing in society. Theft is wrong, but some people will steal anyway. So we choose to have locks on doors, solid walls, laws, police etc. Those are all highly visible (except for the laws, maybe).

In the digital world we want those mechanisms too. The problem is that the digital world is not visible. I can't tell that I have a DCOM process launcher running on my Windows PC.

I can't tell that Sony has installed (or is going to install) a protection mechanism with serious technological implications. It's the invisibility that causes the problem. I had no choice about it being installed. I just wanted to listen to some songs. Had I been properly informed, I could have made a different choice about my purchase. If I didn't like the way the protection mechanism was implemented, I could have weighed my desire to listen to the music against my concerns about the technology.

The problem is one of information imbalance. Most people are in the situation that they need to trust the providers of technology to have good intentions because they can't understand any of the implications and/or don't even know there are implications. They can't make an informed judgment because they don't know enough about technology. I think that's a big problem.

If you're in favor of choice on both sides, you need to be in favor of full disclosure as well.