Richard, Sony, and Porn

["Dr. Neal Krawetz" <hf () hackerfactor com>]

Hey Richard,

Congrats on being Slashdotted.  They even quoted you. :-)

http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/05/11/20/084233.shtml?tid=141&tid=187&tid=158
<QUOTE>
Music Industry Backlash Against Sony Rootkit
Posted by Zonk on Sunday November 20, @07:23AM
from the tired-of-this-story dept.
Music Businesses Privacy

Foobar of Borg writes "The Associated Press describes how backlash from
Sony's Rootkit CDs is causing problems for the music industry. The problem
is two-fold: (1) the inherent technological problem of trying to prevent
anyone from copying anything and (2) letting lawyers make technical
decisions when (from the article) 'Lawyers don't have any better
understanding of technology than a cow does algebra.'" More from the
article: "'I think they've set back audio CD protection by years,' said
Richard M. Smith, an Internet privacy and security consultant. 'Nobody will
want to pull a Sony now.' Phil Leigh, analyst for Inside Digital Media,
said the debacle shows just how reluctant the labels are to change their
business model to reflect the distribution powers -- good and bad -- of the
Internet. He believes that rather than adopting technological methods to
try to stop unauthorized copying of music, record companies need to do more
to remove the incentive for piracy."
</QUOTE>

Full article:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051119/ap_on_hi_te/music_copy_protection


Not mentioned in this article, I am unofficially told that the Sony
backlash is also having an impact on next-gen CD technology (Sony is
one of the companies backing Blu-Ray and the Blu-Ray DRM).

Then again, the porn industry doesn't like Blu-Ray so I doubt the
standard would ever make it.
Q: Why did VHS kill Betamax?
A: VHS was supported by the porn industry.
   This happened because Sony (same company) refused to license betamax
   to the porn industry.
   Porn has a lot of money and influence.

Q: Why do the porn people hate Blu-Ray?
A: Blu-Ray is a high-definition standard and the actors are not exactly
   "pretty" in hi-def.  Wrinkles, acne, scars, and stretched tatoos are
   not exactly selling points.
   Some porn studios are investigating software that will digitally
   enhance the looks of actors in real time (as opposed to editing each
   frame manually).
   (Yes, I'm being serious here.)


Hey...
If we really want people to run secure operating systems, we should
have the porn industry support something like SeLinux.
(Can anyone draw Tux in a bikini washing a car?)

                                        -Neal
--
Neal Krawetz, Ph.D.
Hacker Factor Solutions
http://www.hackerfactor.com/

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