The last thing that any anti-RIAA activists needed to do was distort what RIAA chief Cary Sherman had to say about the Sony rootkit debacle. And yet both Boing! Boing! and Slashdot have chosen to push completely ridiculous interpretations of a comment Sherman made in response to Sony’s actions.
Boing! Boing! claimed that Sherman said that lots of companies install rootkits. According to Boing! Boing!,
RIAA President Cary Sherman gave a recent college press-conference where he addressed Sony’s rootkit fiasco (among other things — the whole transcript is worth reading for a quick visit to the planet greed). His take? Other companies do the same thing all the time!
Slashdot one-ups that claiming,
President of RIAA Says Sony-BMG Did Nothing Wrong
But Sherman’s comments do not support either interpretation. You have to willingly distort his actual comments to arrive at either claim. Here’s what Sherman actually said,
“They have apologized for their mistake, ceased manufacture of CDs with that technology, and pulled CDs with that technology from store shelves. Seems very responsible to me. How many times that software applications created the same problem? Lots. I wonder whether they’ve taken as aggressive steps as SonyBMG has when those vulnerabilities were discovered, or did they just post a patch on the Internet?”
Sherman’s point is clear — Sony screwed up, but it was far more responsible and pro-active than even many software companies are when vulnerabilities come out. He’s absolutely right on the recall point. When was the last time a software company pulled product off the shelf to avoid exposing consumers to software vulnerabilities? I seem to remember a publisher pulling a game that contained a virus, but not much other than that. Most prefer, as Sherman notes, to simply post a patch on the Internet.
Now Sherman’s point about the responsiveness of Sony is certainly debatable. An alternate interpretation is Sony had to be browbeaten into recalling the CDs — after all one of its executives said the rootkit wasn’t a big deal because most users wouldn’t even know what a rootkit was.
But Sherman is clearly not saying he approves of Sony’s actions, and he’s also clearly not saying that many companies use rootkits.
Distorting his words and meaning to say so is really a dumb thing to do.