An update from Pitchfork on a lawsuit against Sony for this:

Here’s the crux of the suit, straight from the legal papers: “As a result of Sony’s failure to disclose the true nature of the digital rights management (‘DRM’) system it uses on its CDs, thousands of computer users have unknowingly infected their computers, and the computers of others, with this surreptitious rootkit. This rootkit has been responsible for conflicts within computer systems, crashes of systems, and other damage.”

The suit, which accuses Sony of “fraud, false advertising, trespass, and violation of state and federal statues prohibiting malware, and unauthorized computer tampering,” …

Steve -

Can you define some of these acronyms (DRM, EFF)? You need to teach me a little more on those.

I’m shocked to see such classic reissues as these loaded with such heavy-handed protection:

Horace Silver Quintet, Silver’s Blue (Epic Legacy)
Gerry Mulligan, Jeru (Columbia Legacy)
Dexter Gordon, Manhattan Symphonie (Columbia Legacy)

Sorry. I tend to assume that linked content obviates the need for explaining your acronyms…

DRM stands for Digital Rights Management. This is the most general and, in my opinion, best of the descriptions returned by Google’s definition search: “A variety of systems that enable the copyright owner of a piece of intellectual property (such as music, video, or text) to specify what someone else can do with it.”

EFF is the Electronic Frontier Frontation, self described as “the first line of defense, protecting our civil liberties in the networked world.”

The Shifted Librarian has posted about this controversy and the Ann Arbor District Library’s response.