Friday, November 25, 2005

SONY Messed With Texas

Texas became the first US state to sue SONY for violations of state spyware prohibitions.

Here is a the actual lawsuit, filed by state Attorney General Greg Abbot in the District Court of Travis County. The petition is only 8 .pdf pages long, so you might as well read it. You may benefit from the explanation of Sony's XCP copy-protection strategy, and how each content-protected CD contains a proprietary media player and hidden DRM files that are surreptitiously installed on a consumer's computer when he or she agrees to the lengthy end users' license agreement that pops up when the CD is loaded into a computer.

Damages: In addition to attorney and court fees, the suit asks for $100,000 for each violation of the state's new "spyware" laws.

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