Sony Says It Should Have Been More Open... But It Said That In 2005 Too
from the actions,-not-words... dept
There's a bunch of buzz around a recent interview with Sony's CEO Howard Stringer, where he admits that Sony should have gone with an "open" music solution from early on, and if it had done so, how it could have "beaten Apple." Sure, those sorts of quotes sound great... but it's action that matters.Because... it was nearly four and a half years ago when we wrote about top Sony exec Ken Kutaragi saying almost the exact same thing. He talked about how Sony made a huge mistake focusing on proprietary formats and DRM and how the company was going to change and focus on more open and free solutions rather than limited DRM-encumbered solutions.
And what happened?
Not much. Sony kept DRM with things like ATRAC for three more years and continued to use DRM in a variety of different settings, including the very famous case of Sony subsidiary Sony BMG putting rootkit DRM on music CDs (which occurred months after Kutaragi's original point that Sony needed to move away from DRM).
So... consider us skeptical that Stringer's comments are meaningful. We've heard it before. If the company really is embracing a more open solution, it's time to show people, not just speak about it.
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Filed Under: drm, howard stringer, ken kutaragi
Companies: sony
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Idiots
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Re: Idiots
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Re: Re: Idiots
Virus Support
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Even though nearly all of the music on my MDs was copied from my personal CDs, I found I couldn't upload the songs to a computer easily. Even though MD players have a USB port, you can't upload; the only way to transfer songs is to use an analog cable connected to the earphone jack. And you have to transfer in realtime. With more than 80 MDs, most using 2-4x compression, that was just a lot of sitting around.
I even sent a letter to Sony's customer service complaining about that, and the fact that their proprietary software only worked with Windows, and requested that they release some changes to allow customers to better utilize MDs. They pretty much ignored my complaints/suggestions and told me it was a tech support issue. (A "review" of this issue can be found at GIDForums).
That was the first big strike against Sony, for me. Then I heard about the limitations and DRM attached to BlueRay. Finally, the rootkit fiasco was the last straw and I swore I would never voluntarily buy another Sony product again. I've been keeping that boycott going for more than 6 years.
I currently live in Japan and go out of my way to avoid Sony products. I don't care how great they may be; my money goes to their competitors, sometimes out of spite but often because the competitors are cheaper for the same items.
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How sad is that when you actually expect a product to be a DRM-laden mess just because it has a Sony name on it?
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Damn the torpedoes!
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Re: Damn the torpedoes!
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They burned their bridge with the rootkit
Amazon Music gets my money because they offer 256kbps non-DRM mp3's and Sony can keep the ghost busters game on the ps3, that's where it belongs.
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unlikely to change
If the hardware side has to accept that the content side can demand DRM to be applied to all their content (which seems to be the case), they automatically lose.
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Re
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They understand that interoperability issues create a bad public perception and opens the way for piracy. I'm not saying that this statement is going to prove a major step for Sony towards supporting more open standards, but there certainly is such a movement within the company, and I hope they are getting more of a say.
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"SO NIE = like this? never!" as they say in Germany
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Better than Sony
Audio: a variety of brands
Cameras: Canon, Nikon, Panasonic, Samsung
Laptops: Toshiba, ASUS, Lenovo, Dell, etc.
Game consoles: XBOX, Wii and others
Media players: Philips & a bunch of others
Speakers: a variety of brands
Why I hate Sony: DRM, Root kits, Betamax, Memory stick, ATRAC, Mini-disc, BluRay, premium $ for name, etc. Basically Sony doesn't play nice and is not interoperable with anything else. Their licensing deals make sure their media can't be used for a variety of uses. I fail to understand how Sony can charge a premium still for stuff that just isn't as good as other alternatives.
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