Sony BMG Music Entertainment, the world’s second largest music group, has become embroiled in a very public debacle after it put copyright protection software on its compact discs. The discovery that the software could expose the CD users’ personal computers to hacker attacks has highlighted the controversial use of digital rights management (DRM) technology as well as hitting the operations of the joint venture between Japan’s Sony group and Bertelsmann, the German media giant.
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But some, including the powerful Consumer Electronics Association in the US, fear the concept of fair use enshrined in the Sony Betamax case 25 years ago could be curtailed.
“In the rush to crack down on pirates, we risk eliminating a critical consumer right – the right to use copyrighted material, without the permission of the copyright owner,” Gary Shapiro, the CEA president and chief executive, said in testimony before a congressional committee investigating the issue earlier this month (the CEA’s members include Sony).