Sony’s latest screw-up

Wow. I mean, wow. Will Sony never learn? We all remember the rootkit CD fiasco, right?

They’ve released a bunch of movies recently with a new form of copy-protection which makes the discs unplayable on some DVD players — including some of Sony’s own models.

Some details here: SonyStrikesAgain.wordpress.com — where one comment notes that although the North American/region 1 Casino Royale has this problem, evidently it doesn’t afflict Australia/region 4, so it may not be a worldwide thing, just as Sony’s rootkits didn’t get onto their AU releases.

Evidently it’s a revision of the ARccos DRM system that Sony developed, then appeared to abandon last year, and is a variation on the age-old method of intentionally putting corrupt sectors on a disc.

This, ladies and gentlemen, requires a very special brand of stupidity. One can only conclude that they really do have complete contempt for customers.

But hey, nobody would be having this problem if we’d all boycotted Sony products like we said we would.

Me, I’m not gonna buy a PS3! (OK, so I wasn’t going to anyway…)