Sony BMG Settles Over CD DRM

aurispector writes "Sony BMG Music Entertainment will pay $1.5 million and kick in thousands more in customer refunds to settle lawsuits brought by California and Texas over music CDs that installed a hidden anti-piracy program on consumers' computers. The settlements, announced Tuesday, cover lawsuits over CDs loaded with one of two types of copy-protection software — known as MediaMax or XCP. Although it's great to see this as a victory for consumers, I can't help but wonder about the next wave of DRM schemes."

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Re:That's it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sony, with $15.7 billion quarterly revenue?

1) Don't confuse revenue with profits. Its entirely possible to lose money with $15 billion in revenue. Recall the Dot Com mantra "We lose $1 on every item we sell, but make it up with volume!" 2) Don't confues the conglomeration of companies and divisions that is Sony with the Record group. If the Music group is not profitable, the will be sold or dismantled to folks who think they can make money on the product 3) Fines like this come right out of profits and cash, they hurt a lot, especially in an industry that is struggling to turn a profit (because of bad business decisions, piracy, or government mind control rays, whatever),

Re:What about criminal charges?

[Anonymous Coward]

Completely off topic, but I'm from Texas. We haven't had the chair in many, many years. We now shoot people up with pioson and what them twitch to death for several hours. Totally more humane.

Re:They still have these DRM CDs for sale in Mexic

[xeno314]

You realize that this isn't the same DRM/Rootkit that is in controversy (XCP) here, right? (That's specifically noted in the Wikipedia article you cite.)

Oops 13 other states.

[headkase]

My bad.

Re:Next Step

[putaro]

The "limited liability" applies to *shareholders*, not to corporations as a whole or to corporate officers. Limited liability simply means that shareholders are only liable for the amount that they invested in the company, nothing more. It doesn't place corporations above the law or limit the amount of damages that can be levied against them. What it means is that if a company is bankrupted by a liability you can't then move on to the shareholders and say "Hey, you owned a piece of this company that owes me money and therefore you own me more money". This is in contrast to a structure like a sole proprietorship where you, as the owner/operator of the company are also liable for all of its debts with no limit to that liability.