Archive for the 'Legal' Category

Another shoe: Sony BMG and the 39-State Settlement

Friday, December 22nd, 2006

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 […]

The “long tail” of Sony BMG lawsuits: settlements

Wednesday, December 20th, 2006

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 […]

Legal roundup: Canadian lawsuit drops; SonySuit.com blogger sues Sony

Friday, January 6th, 2006

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 […]

Legal roundup: Canadian lawsuit drops; SonySuit.com blogger sues Sony

Friday, January 6th, 2006

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 […]

And Florida

Wednesday, January 4th, 2006

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.

Did Sony BMG get off easily?

Friday, December 30th, 2005

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 […]

Settlements at hand

Thursday, December 29th, 2005

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 […]

Sony BMG gets another Texas-sized Christmas gift

Thursday, December 22nd, 2005

Yahoo! Finance: Texas Expands Lawsuit Against Sony BMG. This is the sound of another shoe dropping, from what at this point appears to be a herd of well shod lawyers. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has decided, along with suits filed in Oklahoma, the District of Columbia, and California (the latter by the EFF), that […]

Don’t celebrate the end of DRM?

Wednesday, December 14th, 2005

Interesting post on the faculty blog of the University of Chicago Law School, by professor Doug Lichtman, that argues that the end of DRM would be disastrous for the music industry and music lovers. He suggests that without DRM, the industry will have no incentive to invest in music or will develop some other draconian […]

Lawsuit roundup: Oklahoma

Friday, December 2nd, 2005

An additional lawsuit since I last wrote about the topic. In addition to the DC lawsuit announced earlier this week, a class action suit was filed in Oklahoma on Monday on behalf of Oklahoma residents who purchased a CD infected with either XCP or MediaMax or who were infected with either XCP or MediaMax.