Death to DRM?

"DRM" is digital-rights management, or anti-piracy tech, on CDs, DVDs, etc., and Sony's use of it so far may not spell death to DRM but has seriously damaged whatever good name the technology had. In fact, from now on digital-media companies will probably go to great lengths not to set off a similar p.r. disaster. Washington Post security writer Brian Krebs reports that Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is suing Sony BMG for its anti-piracy practices, the first the first lawsuit filed under Texas's new spyware law" (lawyers in California and New York have filed class-action suits against Sony, he adds). On Friday Brian pointed to yet another harmful type of DRM Sony used on *another* set of CDs. Brian links to the site of the security researcher who found the problem and to a partial fix (see also Gartner Group's scotch-tape fix, reported by VNUNET.com). Here's Sony's list of 52 CDs that have the offending DRM technology on them. The good news is, Sony is offering replacement CDs (without DRM on them) for all 52, CNET reports . Writer Charlie Demerjian at UK tech news site TheInquirer.com finally got through to a Sony spokesperson. His takeaway: "Based on this brief chat, I get the feeling that Sony is trying to clean things up, but doesn't really understand the problem. Things seem to be pretty chaotic, and internal communications are not all that hot. At this point, I almost feel sorry for Sony. Almost."