Fucking cocksuckers. We all know about the DRM bullshit happening. But there was something bugging me on slightly deeper level. Something that just felt like Sony was punishing us for their error. Then I was reminded of it in a linked article from Fark.
I only wish we could get the head of Sony to try to explain this one. Or just get his head. That may be better.
I don’t think they were heavily into the “content” end of things at that time. They were mainly a hardware company. Their huge investment (since then) in content is what drives their current copy protection mania.
Sony’s a bit schitzo. Their hardware division is totally intent on making cool stuff. Their content division is intent on locking down piracy and getting every last penny.
The media division’s been in control the last ten years or so. This is why the Walkman has been sucking.
These DRM issues might just kick hardware back in control again, which would be good for all of us.
That, or the fact that the “content” division has been driving down the profits of the company of late. Still, I’ve got no intention of buying Sony products until the president of Sony felches a goat as a way of publicly apologizing for the latest DRM crap they’ve pulled.
This is spot-on. We do various ad work for different branches of Sony, and they may as well be completely separate companies. It’s not even that there’s zero communication between them; there’s open hostility. In many cases they’re more likely to cooperate with competing companies than with each other.
We had one case where we were pitching for an ad project for a video-on-demand service. One rival agency (not related to Sony) was representing Sony Internet Services in the competition, while Sony Media Services was making their own pitch on behalf of a completely separate agency. The two branches were actually competing directly against each other.
Sony opened a big can of worms with this one. It may end the stupidity of copy protection for greed.
ZDnet had a rundown on the situation recently.