Techdirt: You Don’t Own What You’ve Bought: Sony Removes 100s Of Movies Bought Through PS Store. “While in the age of antiquity, which existed entire tens of years ago, you used to be able to own things, these days you merely license them under Ts and Cs that are either largely ignored and clicked through or that are indecipherable, written in the otherwise lost language known as ‘Lawyer-ese’. The end result is a public that buys things, thinks they retain ownership over them, only to find out that the provider of the things alters them, limits their use, or simply erases them from being.”
Tag Archives: Sony
Push Square: Sony Removing Some Purchased Films, Movies from Users’ Accounts
Push Square: Sony Removing Some Purchased Films, Movies from Users’ Accounts. “Sony stopped flogging films and television shows through the PS Store a little while back, but it promised to honour existing purchases. However, as of 31st August in Germany and Austria, it will begin the process of removing content from French film production and distribution company Studio Canal, meaning even if you paid for them you’ll no longer be able to access them.”
CNET: PlayStation Is Apparently Getting Serious About Its Retro Library
CNET: PlayStation Is Apparently Getting Serious About Its Retro Library. “As PlayStation prepares to make hundreds of classic games playable on PS5 via its upgraded PlayStation Plus this summer, it’s seemingly taking steps to conserve its retro library. The Sony-owned video game giant formed a new preservation team, as revealed by a new hire’s LinkedIn and Twitter posts.”
CNET: Sony AI defeats human racers in Gran Turismo PlayStation game
CNET: Sony AI defeats human racers in Gran Turismo PlayStation game. “Over the last two years, Sony AI trained a computer system to play Polyphony Digital’s Gran Turismo Sport, a popular and realistic car racing game, and beat some of the world’s best human competitors, Sony said on Wednesday.”
BetaNews: Sony’s latest free app lets you use your digital camera as a webcam
BetaNews: Sony’s latest free app lets you use your digital camera as a webcam. “Sony has released a new app which makes it possible to use your regular digital camera as a webcam. The app is called Image Edge Webcam and it is only available for Windows 10 — it’s not clear if Sony intends to release a macOS or Linux version as well.”
Boing Boing: Sony’s copyright bots remove a band’s own release of its new video
Boing Boing: Sony’s copyright bots remove a band’s own release of its new video. “The Sheffield-based experimental music act 65daysofstatic has a new album coming out in September, called ‘Replicr, 2019.’ Today, the band began its launch publicity by releasing a video from the album, only to have the video blocked on multiple services by copyright bots working on behalf of Sony, which distributed the band’s label, Superball.”
Ars Technica: Sorry, Sony Music, you don’t own the rights to Bach’s music on Facebook
Ars Technica: Sorry, Sony Music, you don’t own the rights to Bach’s music on Facebook. “Sony Music Entertainment has been forced to abandon its claim that it owned 47 seconds of video of musician James Rhodes using his own piano to play music written by Johann Sebastian Bach.”
New-to-me: Database of Video Game Consoles
New to me: a database of video game console variations. Not everything, though, just the top video game companies. “This website is the aim to database all the console variations in the world of the 5 most impactful companies: Nintendo, Atari, Sega, Sony and Microsoft. We have all the console and controller variations ever made.”
Britney Spears Death Hoaxed Blamed on Hacked Twitter Account
You can blame the Britney Spears death hoax on a hacked Twitter account. “Some Twitter accounts related to Sony Music were apparently accessed by hacker group OurMine this morning. The handles for Sony Music Global and Bob Dylan tweeted that Britney Spears was dead shortly after 8AM ET. ‘britney spears is dead by accident! we will tell you more soon,’ the @SonyMusicGlobal account read before the tweets were deleted. A rep for Spears confirmed to CNN that the singer was, in fact, still alive.”
Krebs on Security: Researchers Find Fresh Fodder for IoT Attack Cannons
I think the biggest problem of 2017, tech-wise, will be that the Internet of Things is a huge security mess. “New research published this week could provide plenty of fresh fodder for Mirai, a malware strain that enslaves poorly-secured Internet of Things (IoT) devices for use in powerful online attacks. Researchers in Austria have unearthed a pair of backdoor accounts in more than 80 different IP camera models made by Sony Corp. Separately, Israeli security experts have discovered trivially exploitable weaknesses in nearly a half-million white-labeled IP camera models that are not currently sought out by Mirai.”