PC World: The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time. The article covers 50 tech products that were so egregiously bad that they made the Hall of Shame for all time. Our favorite—Sony BMG music CDs—hit at number 5 on the list, behind AOL, the 1999 version of RealPlayer, Syncronys SoftRAM, and Windows ME. PC […]
Well, when it rains it pours: Sony BMG just agreed to a settlement that covers 39 of the other states that sued over its hijinks with XCP and MediaMax—this hot on the heels of Sony’s settlement of the California and Texas suits earlier this week. Some notes on the breakout of the payments is mentioned […]
Yahoo! News (AP): Sony BMG settles suit over CDs. The earlier news reports didn’t make clear that the suits in question were those brought by California and Texas; hat tip to BoingBoing for posting the pointer. The settlements cover both XCP and MediaMax claims.
(Previous coverage on this blog for the California suit and Texas suits.)
You […]
I’ve received an email urging me to comment on the recent claims by import company Lik-Sang that Sony has put them out of business. On the face of it, Sony’s actions—they got a UK court to bar Lik-Sang and other importers from selling the Japanese version of the PSP—seem anticonsumer and anticompetitive. So why aren’t […]
It has been a good two months for customers and a bad few months for Sony BMG. No small part of the latter was due to the actions of readers of this blog and other online news sources that drew attention to Sony BMG’s actions.
Now, MediaMax and XCP are off the market, and the action […]
As one set of class action suits winds down in the US, another set opens up in Canada. Boing Boing pointed last night to class action suits filed against Sony in Ontario and British Columbia, following a class action that I missed that was filed in November in Quebec.
Scanning the briefs, it looks as though […]
As one set of class action suits winds down in the US, another set opens up in Canada. Boing Boing pointed last night to class action suits filed against Sony in Ontario and British Columbia, following a class action that I missed that was filed in November in Quebec.
Scanning the briefs, it looks as though […]
Another investigation launched on the heels of Sony BMG’s settlement with the EFF and the New York class action suit: Charlie Crist, Florida’s attorney general, announces the opening of an investigation into the surreptitious installation of Sony BMG’s DRM software. The investigation number is L05-3-1157; no lawsuit … yet. Via Boing Boing.
An interesting open thread at Freedom to Tinker is developing two competing points of view: that Sony BMG got off lightly in their settlement agreement, and that the settlement is a fair and reasonably complete redress of customer grievances.
My $0.02 is that, with the exception of some of the MediaMax provisions, the settlement does […]
News on a sleepy post-Christmas day, courtesy the Washington Post’s Security Fix blog: Sony BMG has apparently agreed to settle the New York based class action lawsuit. Terms of the settlement include a permanent cessation of the use of XCP and MediaMax on Sony BMG CDs, a pledge not to collect personal information from customers […]