Roxio Buying Napster

[Mazer]

Originally posted by justed
Sony and Philips Join in the Acquisition of InterTrust

Not the cachet of Napster, but equally worrisome…

Agreed. Philips, that has been threatening to pull the Compact Disk Digital Audio label from copy protected CD's, is now threatening to integrate copy protection into future technologies. And it seems that Sony's electronics branch is being strong-armed by it's entertainment branch. I've always trusted Japanese corporations to do things completly different from American corporations (that's part of the reason that the recording industry doesn't have pervasive global influence), but now it looks like they're capitualting. When a company goes so far as to restructure it's business model, they're serious.

But maybe it's not what it seems. Maybe they're acquiring InterTrust so they can dissolve it and lock its technologies in the basement. Maybe they plan to promote free mediums without DRM, and maybe they'll stop anyone who infringes on their unused DRM patants. Those are big maybes and I don't really believe them, but it's something to think about.