On 11 Nov 2005 at 12:47, Robert Patterson wrote: > Christopher Smith wrote: > > > I would sue if > > something like this was installed on my computer by a so-called > > reputable company. > > As much as I agree with the sentiment, I suspect anyone who is > infected with this thing clicked thru a license agreement that allowed > Sony to install their software.
But the EULA was deceptive and did not fully explain what the software was doing and what its risks were. To me, almost every EULA I've ever seen is so misleading as to be practically a lie, but this one was an actual LIE in that it omitted crucially important information about what you were agreeing to. I think there's a good chance that many EULAs could be challenged in court, and this one is one of most egregious. Contracts can be structurally OK and still be invalidated if the two parties don't have appropriate standing to negotiate the terms. Many contracts include terms that wouldn't actually hold up in court if one of the parties challenged them, and most EULAs, in my opinion (and in the opinion of many legal experts) are borderline in terms of their contents. The Sony EULA for this software is not even borderline. It's factually deceptive. > Yesterday's msnbc.com mentioned a lawsuit filed against Sony due to > malware that is now in the wild that exploits the software Sony > installed. This seems like a more promising case. No matter what, > though, I suspect Sony has not the heard the end of it in court. All avenues should be pursued against Sony on this one. Corporations need to be taught that they can't take actions like this without great cost. > And of course, if found liable, Sony will turn around and sue their CP > vendor. It's lovely, I think. The whole lot of 'em deserves their > stinking mess. That would be an interesting lawsuit. My bet is that the Sony officials responsible for the implementation of this lame copy protection software were fully aware of what the software did and duly authorized the outside contractor to implement it the way they did. The only way Sony could win such a suit was if some rogue executive within Sony had pursued this against the orders of her superiors and against corporate policy. Sony would have to reveal an awful lot of internal corporate policy and correspondence to win this lawsuit. You can bet that the contract between Sony and the software writers is very explicit on exactly what the software would do, so I don't really think there's much possibility that Sony could win such a case, and that the information that would have to come out to even try would be far too damaging for them to risk such a suit. But, even if none of the lawsuits against Sony succeed, Sony has already lost revenue, because a large number of people who were wholly unaffected by this rootkit will refuse to ever buy Sony products of any kind, for fear of some other nefarious activity on Sony's part. I just don't understand how these media companies can be run by such incredibly stupid people. How can they make any money at all with such idiots at the helm? -- David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
