Welcome to Gahtan’s Technology and Internet Law Blog

According to ZDnet, the licensing terms being proposed by Microsoft for its new Vista software will only allow a single, one time, transfer from one computer to another. After that, a user will need to buy a new copy. Also, only the initial licensee will have a right to transfer their license to a third party. After that, the software license may no longer be transferred.

Walt Disney, Time Warner and three other major film makers are suing Samsung Electronics over a DVD player (DVD-HD841) that was discontinued over a year ago. Apparently the DVD’s copy protection mechanism (region encoding and HDCP bypassing) could be circumvented by hackers by entering certain codes using a remote control.

From Spotlighting News

Jeff Angus, a “knowledge management and restructuring consultant”, writing in eWeek about the Sony DRM situation, blames the lawyers. I know people like to blame lawyers for most things that go wrong, but I’d be very surprised that the law department at Sony would have made the decision to use DRM technology, selected the specific DRM used or performed any testing/due diligence prior to incorporating it into the Sony CDs. Judging by Mr. Angus’ other comments, sounds like he just hates lawyers.

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According to AP (as reported in the Globe and Mail), the State of Texas has sued Sony BMG Music under its new anti-spyware legislation saying that the XCP anti-piracy code installed by Sony music CDs leaves computers vulnerable to hackers.

Sony had already announced a recall of the discs last week, to be replaced with non-protected CDs, and has even offered to allow previous purchases to obtain MP3 versions of the music.