Sony Surrenders to Common Sense (for now)

We can be thankful that Sony has now backed away from its use of a maximally invasive approach to copy protection. But the mindset that fostered this approach appears to be unshakeable. Sony apprently believes that it has an absolute right to control and circumscribe the movement of music YOU purchase within YOUR various media players. Sony was able to steamroll right past the obvious desire of many CD purchasers to listen to the music they have bought and paid for on their iPods. And Sony demonstrated its willingness to go to great lengths to install software that would effectively monitor consumers' use of CDs. Consumer outcry (and an invasion of computers by hackers exploiting Sony's unsecured portal to peer into users' computers) has supended this particular approach to copy protection, but Sony is still pursuing similar strategies. Given that Apple is marching down its own increasingly proprietary path, we may soon stumble backwards into the latest "format war," where the kind of MP3 player you purchase knocks out your access to exclusive content on one or another of the pay-for-play music services. This makes the humble cassette Walkman look like a pretty sweet deal, by comparison. Remember when Sony was focused on increasing rather than decreasing the portability of our music?