Sony Sucks

More Sony bucks available!  If your computer was infected by XCP you could be eligible for 7.50 Sony bucks!

Bad Sony!  Read the full story on the Wired listening post.

If you saw one of these lame Sony movies Hollow Man, The Animal, The Patriot, A Knight’s Tale or Vertical Limit in American theatres between 3 August 2000 and 31 October 2001 then you’re a winner!  Sony agreed to refund US$5 to anyone who sat through one of these dogs.

Why would they do such a thing?  Because they felt guilty about unleashing garbage on the American public and decided these movies sucked so hard the consumers deserved a refund?  No, it was that Sony Pictures were turning out such horrifically lousy movies that their poor marketing team was desperate - and they crossed the line of normal promotions.  David Manning was their imaginary friend who wrote glowing reviews for sucky Sony films released by Columbia pictures which were panned by the real critics.  Yes, that’s right, Sony executives fabricated a critic and wrote positive reviews about their own crappy movies which everyone else hated!

When they were busted by NewsWeek’s John Horn what did Sony do?  Admit their guilt, accept responsibility for the errant actions of a misguided employee and take their licks, oh no, not Sony, they fought it on “Free Speech”!  Yes, they tried to defend their fraudulent, criminal behaviour by claiming it was free speech.  Unsurprising Los Angeles Justice Reuben Ortega didn’t see things the Sony way - due to having a basic understanding of right and wrong which is apparently lacking in Sony execs - and eventually Sony was cornered into the out of court settlement whereby YOU could be entitled to 5 Sony bucks!

So just how bad were these movies?  Here are the MetaCritic and RottenTomato ratings:

Hollow Man	24%	27%
The Animal	43%	29%
The Patriot	63%	61%
A Knight’s Tale	54%	59%
Vertical Limit	48%	47%

“The Animal” was reportedly so bad that Sony paid cinemas to show the film’s trailers.

So how exactly do you go about collecting your 5 Sony bucks?  The official court notice says this:

“The Court has preliminarily approved the proposed settlement of this class action. To be paid, you must submit the authorized Claim Form downloaded from Gilardi & Co., LLC’s website located at http://www.gilardi.com/rezec signed under penalty of perjury under the laws of the State of California and of the United States stating that, between August 3, 2000 and October 31, 2001, you purchased one or more tickets to a United States theatrical exhibition for yourself, an adult companion, and up to two minor children to attend the same exhibition.”

Mark Russinovich blew the whistle on Sony in his blog:

“The entire experience was frustrating and irritating. Not only had Sony put software on my system that uses techniques commonly used by malware to mask its presence, the software is poorly written and provides no means for uninstall. Worse, most users that stumble across the cloaked files with a RKR scan will cripple their computer if they attempt the obvious step of deleting the cloaked files.”

Sony, Rootkits and Digital Rights Management Gone Too Far

Sony has told the press that they’ve made a decloaking patch and uninstaller available to customers, however this still leaves the following problems:

• There is no way for customers to find the patch from Sony BMG’s main web page
• The patch decloaks in an unsafe manner that can crash Windows, despite my warning to the First 4 Internet developers
• Access to the uninstaller is gated by two forms and an ActiveX control
• The uninstaller is locked to a single computer, preventing deployment in a corporation

Sony: You don’t reeeeaaaally want to uninstall, do you?