Copy protection gone awry

The Sony DRM debacle, apparently, is not an isolated case. In 2004, the company launched an e-book reader called Librie in Japan that also failed to take off. The reason? While Librie won plaudits for design, its high price and draconian antipiracy technology (users could only “rent” books from Sony for 60 days before the tomes deleted themselves) turned off potential buyers.

What’s funny, and ironic, about this unfortunate episode is that the XCP rootkit, delivered without source or crediting, violates the GPL, which puts Sony at risk for – hold your breath for this – copyright infringement.