| Home > Community thoughts > Time to put the hurt on SonyBMG: A call to punish abusive technologies and a wake-up call for Microsoft |
| Time to put the hurt on SonyBMG: A call to punish abusive technologies and a wake-up call for Microsoft | | Date Created: 12 Nov, 2005, 12:35 AM |
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No doubt if you've come here via Google or any of a number of sites linking to my blog entry about SonyBMG's DRM fiasco, you will be pretty much up to speed about what's been happening.
The story of SonyBMG's ineptitude, both technologically and public relations-wise, will go down sooner or later as another Harvard Business School case study, along the lines of PeopleExpress and other ill-fated businesses.
Not that I'm saying SonyBMG can expect to close up shop - far from it. It is cloaked (there's that word again) behind any number of music distribution labels.
These include:
Arista Records
BMG Classics
BMG Heritage
BMG International Companies
Columbia Records
Epic Records
J Records
Jive Records
LaFace Records
Legacy Recordings
Provident Music Group
RCA Records
RCA Victor Group
RLG - Nashville
Sony Classical
Sony Music International
Sony Music Nashville
Sony Wonder
Sony Urban Music
So So Def Records
Now not all of these labels have been equipped with SonyBMG's DRM it would seem - at least I hope not, for the sake of the artists aligned with them. They will suffer along with their fanbase due to the stupidity and mishandling at the pointy end of the food chain within Sony. |
It seems to me all those who fulfill a similar role to SonyBMG need a very strong lesson delivered by public sentiment which does a Howard Beal:
"We're as mad as hell, and we're not gonna take this anymore!"
Who might fulfill a similar role?
Other recording labels, DVD makers, and heck, most of "Hollywood" if one could use a generic term for the creative artist industries.
But let's not leave out our old friends at Microsoft whose years of inadequately attending to inherent security issues is one root cause (!) of this mess.
But what to do?
It seems to me there is sufficient ground swell of opinion, from consumers through angry journalists through disbelieving IT professionals - oh, I haven't seen the PR industry weigh in yet offering gratuitous advice to SonyBMG although ZDNet's David Coursey has invoked a decades-old Rotary International guide to ethical behaviour, which SonyBMG miserably fails, even if Coursey doesn't quite say it as boldly - to call for a NO SONY DAY to be held soon.
This is all Sony products not just their CDs. A message needs to be delivered at corporate level, such that Sony and Microsoft sit up and pay attention.
Microsoft should have been first out of the block bringing its users' attention to how its Windows OS could be deeply affected by SonyBMG's antics. And it should have immediately delivered a patch - it's not as if the patch delivery method has to be invented from scratch, nor do its users have to be trained to download patches as if it's something novel.
No, a recalcitrant SonyBMG needs to be hit hard, not just from a day's lack of sales, but by its sister enterprises under the Sony umbrella feeling appalled and embarassed by its action, such that they suffer too.
You know who should lead such a boycott? SonyBMG's artists themselves whose good work, subjectively speaking is being tarnished in some half-assed attempt to protect their creative rights. Hey, guess what? This is not how you do it: disrespect your client base.
If artists wish to resurrect that respect, or at least stop any further slide, they should lead the charge for change at SonyBMG - which should start from the top down.
Yep, it will hurt them in the short term, and perhaps some will leave the ship and locate another more ethical representative, but they will restore their integrity with their fans.
Can anyone really blame fans for putting up with the vagaries of illegal downloading (and yet buying more CDs) when the legal sources so disrespect and abuse them?
Let's call for a no-purchasing day affecting all of Sony and its elements and send a very clear message to those who would follow SonyBMG's "lead" and tell them a new way of relating to customers is at hand.
It's time to lay on some hurt where it matters most.
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