Is Sony the "fatal flaw" of Bluray?


The High Definition DVD Studio Support Petition Campaign

From the Frontline: News & Commentary on the "format war"

February 20th , 2007

Commentary - Is the fatal flaw in Bluray actually Sony? (The Re-dux Edition)

(editor's note: I can see the letters coming in now - so let me state up front that I do not hate Sony, in fact I own and love many of their products. But I have misgivings about the Bluray format for a variety of reasons and I feel that TRUST is an issue that concerns me and others, with regard to future intentions for the format. I also consider HD DVD to be a more consumer-friendly disc format. I realize that this opinion piece will be rather unpalatable reading for some, but so be it. However, if you think I have made any factual errors in this piece, please feel free to contact me at the email on this page to let me know. Now, let's continue...)

This piece is a re-do of the original commentary which went live on January 2nd, 2007. Rather than forcus on the details of the various, somewhat embarassing business activities or blunders which have concerned some Sony-watchers, we place more emphasis on the speculation that the BD-J software and the BD+ "digital rights management" system used by Bluray could actually be used to implement a modern day version of the DIVX "own to rent" model.

Well, we've been running this Studio Petition for just a few months, now, and launched our website on October 6th, 2006. Yet we've learnt so much in such a short space of time - mostly due to looking at the feedback and profile of the scores of HD DVD supporters who have registered on this petition.

From a somewhat amusing standpoint, we notice some "celebrities" in our midst, most likely as the result of some supporters who didn't want to use their real name (but still used a real email, which is what really counts). We see names like Pamela Anderson, the late President Ronald Reagan and, not to be outdone, President Bill Clinton. Even big names from Sony are showing up, such as Ken Kutaragi (yes, we're pretty sure it's not really him).

But all kidding aside, we've also noticed something that we never really expected - a very significant amount of resentment towards Sony, which we now think we are starting to understand. This commentary opinion piece I have written here was inspired by an article I read which asked whether Sony was the "fatal flaw" in Bluray. Some people ask us "Why are you anti-Sony?" or "Is your petition site another Sony-hater site". The answers to those questions are "we're not" and "it's not". I proudly own a LOT of Sony products, which I like very much, so I don't "hate" Sony - BUT I do not like Bluray, as I sincerely feel that HD DVD is more consumer-friendly.

Sure, there has been lots of talk about the poor showing of Bluray in the market, and Bluray even made the "Top Ten Technology Disappointments of 2006" list, and the PS3 made TIME magazine's "Buzz to Bust" list. But we have also noticed that there appears to be a surprisingly high level of distrust of Sony by consumers outside of this petition. This has been noticed by others, also. A recent report made headlines when it showed how much negative response there was to Sony and Bluray online. It clearly hinted at a latent undertow of distrust in the market that is contributing to the lack of succes of Bluray.

I have re-written this piece to focus much less on Sony, and more on Bluray, so I won't be going into masses of detail about various incidents which have clearly made some folks wary of Sony, but I'll simply list a few of them here, for your perusal:

Did you hear about David Manning, the "Phony Sony movie reviewer"? This case was settled just over a year ago, with a payout of $1.5 Million to filmgoers and a further $325,000 to the State of Connecticut. Yes, Sony Pictures made up a fake movie critic who was quoted in ads for their movies. Rather than apologise, Sony defended it's "right" to print the fake reviews in its ads! Or what about "less than accurate" releases or statements made by the company?
Such as "Sony mulls recall of exploding fact sheet"comparing Bluray and HD DVD playback on the PS3 and Xbox?
Or the more recent "Sony Root Kit Fiasco" - where Sony Music placed what was effectively a "virus" utility , or rootkit, on their music discs, which was designed to infect the PCs of legitimate "owners" when they tried to play their legitimately purchased music - and prevent them from copying the music to their other devices? Lawsuits popped up all over the place. More surprising perhaps, was Sony's response to the disaster they caused to so many of their customers as a result. Sony's most recent settlement regarding this case was in December 2006, for another $4.26 Million, bringing their cost so far to a total of $5.75 Million. Sony has agreed to reform their business practices in the wake of multi-state lawsuits, but from this report, it seems that the root kits are still in circulation!
Here is another interesting analysis of the Sony DRM situation.
Perhaps related to this is the simply stunning contents of Sony license agreements - did you realize the rights you gave up by buying Sony CDs, versus anyone else's? I'm not kidding - about a year ago, a critique was done by the Electronic Frontier Organization (EFF) of the EULA (end user license agreement) that Sony put in their discs. In a way, I suppose, it shows you where you really stand with them, and is perhaps another reason for the low trust levels they are experiencing. The bottom line is, in my view, you lose the right to do with your music as you wish. If Sony had their way, the ONLY formats that you could copy your music to would be formats that Sony APPROVES of, like, err, THEIR OWN, maybe?
And in only last couple weeks, Sony admitted that it had hired "fake fans" to go on the web and tout the Playstation Portable (PSP). This was even reported in Business Week. They were busted by some sceptical forum users online. Even Advertising Age called it a "fiasco".
Tactics like this are of such "dubious honesty" that the FTC is going to start investigating cases of misrepresentation to consumers. And the issue has even been addressed by the Washington Post as a result, in an article that also mentioned a similar tactic by Sony Ericsson.
And Sony have also resorted to some other ill-advised "promotional tactics" like a PSP grafitti campaign on city walls across the US but the campaign backfired dramatically in many cases. The ads were called both illegal and disrespectful by local authorities. I'd like to show you other links to all the negative discussion it generated, but mysteriously (!) most of the links in the story have been "killed off".
The EU is now also addressing tactics like some of the above, by moving to ban "dodgy" consumer reviews which are misleading as to their source.
Sony Music recently settled a radio station "payola" scandal for $10 Million. The Ethics Scoreboard website details how blatant these activities were.
Another minor uproar resulted from the portrayal of an Xbox 360 screenshot from "Project Gotham Racing 3" as a PS3 racing game on Sony's "PSP Connect" site. An analysis shows the deception with photos.

A quick read of the feedback from so, so many of the HD DVD supporters gives you another idea of why some folks have their doubts about Bluray. Sony has tried repeatedly to establish (some would say "foist") it's own proprietary formats upon electronics consumers over the years. Many times, consumers buy Sony products to find themselves "locked in" to some unpalatable format or other. I am one of these people. This certainly may have created some irritation, but people went about their lives knowing that at least they still had other choices, even if it meant buying additional equipment. Cases in point include the foisting of Memory Sticks in almost every Sony product, typically to the exclusion of more accepted formats, such as Compact Flash and SD cards. Other Sony attempts have included the UMD disc, MLP disc and, dare I mention it, Betamax. Because these were proprietary formats, they almost always were more expensive and offered lower performance. I've always hated the Memory Stick, because they were THE slowest and most expensive options on the market, but I had to keep a couple around just to live with my Sony equipment - therefore guaranteeing some extra sales to Sony, I suppose. They've improved in performance over time, but are still often twice the price of other options.

So what does this all have to do with Bluray? Well, it seems that a lot of people are wondering what Sony will do if they do win the format war and their Bluray disc format becomes the defacto standard. It appears that Sony cannot resist "locking you in", so to speak, to their other products, when you buy any other one. Another case in point is the Playstation 3, which Sony is promoting as a Bluray player. While the HD DVD player for the Xbox ships with a free infrared "Universal Remote Control" that can be used with the Xbox player, and the rest of your existing equjpment, Sony has decided that (apart from the game machine's joystick) you will only be able to control the PS3 with their own controller (which you must buy separately). And to help ensure this, it seems they have made the PS3 only controllable by "Bluetooth", for which they have just started shipping a Bluetooth controller. Given that infrared is the near-universal standard for remote controls, is it more likely that Sony has done this to ensure they get additional revenue from their buyers, or is it simply that they like the tie-in of "Bluray" and "Bluetooth"?

Based on my reading of much of the material presented here, both above, and below, my interpretation is that Sony sees your favourite Sony Music and Sony Movies as a way to lock you into Sony Hardware. And they see Sony Hardware as a way to lock you in to Sony Formats. Of course my interpretation and opinion may not be shared by everyone, but I'm pretty sure that it is shared by many all the same.

But what would REALLY happen if Bluray became the dominant format in this "war"? Why are some people worried about what would actually happen if Sony got it's format to be the dominant standard this time around. Let's speculate a bit, based on what tidbits have surfaced so far.

Perhaps at the heart of this concern are a few things that we just don't know yet about Bluray, items which seem a bit shrouded in mystery:

Both HD DVD and Bluray used a copy-protection scheme called AACS. But Bluray also has touted something called BD Plus (BD+), which has been rather vaguely outlined, although we know it is a derivative of the SPDC system. The little bits that we know about it are that each player can run a program stored on a Bluray disc, which can then examine a set of rules and it's environment to determine whether to allow the disc to play. It has also been noted that the disc can possibly be used to deactivate a player, or to not play on certain players.
But what else can it be used for? Others have tried to investigate this and have not gotten very far. Personally, I think that this is one of the biggest areas of concern for me. Based on the little information released to date about the model, it does appear to me that there is an ominous possibility...
Do you remember DIVX? It was the failed competitor to DVD, where the industry attempted to institute a "rental model" for the discs that you purchased with your good money. Like Bluray, DIVX had "an additional encryption scheme". Like DIVX, Bluray is a proprietary format. Is there anything stopping BD+ from being implemented in a way that brings the DIVX model back to life? The BD-J system used in Bluray and the BD+ scheme could well be combined to do so, in my opinion.
As discussed here, Sony's root-kit fiasco was a result of their apparent belief that it was OK to do whatever they felt with your Home PC, in order to "protect" their intellectual property . They probably will have no qualms about doing whatever they like with your Bluray player to acheive the same goal - what do you think?
Even the Department of Homeland Security has criticised Sony's overly aggressive Digital Rights Management (DRM) practices - saying that some of these DRM practices could have "profound and unexpected effects on the security of the nation's critical infrastructures".
I received communication from a visitor to the site. He mentioned a patent (number 6,816,972) which Sony had filed in 2000, registering a technology to prevent owners of "Software Discs" from selling them on or lending them to friends. When the story broke online, Sony denied that they intended to actually use the technology in relation to the PS3, but an LA Times story doubted they had registered the patent just to be nice... Our friend wonders if it might be used for Bluray movies down the road...

Imagine that one day Bluray became the standard, and you bought a Bluray movie. Imagine that the disc retailed for $10 instead of $30, but that you only had the right to watch it for 48 hours, then you had to connect your Bluray player online to buy any further viewings? Is it doable? Based on the little we've heard about BD+, the answer seems to be YES. Is it planned? Who knows... But this is what worries me about Sony's past format behaviour and their attempts to rule the next home video standard.

One news item that seems to lend credence to this theory has mostly been forgotten already. The "Paper Blu-Ray Disc". While some PR information talked of "another benefit" being the "ease of disposal" for security purposes, we really WONDER about the true intentions behind an otherwise seemingly pointless invention. We feel that the only real purpose for a disposable bluray disc is for a rental market, similar to DIVX. Says this article here, "the companies are aiming to produce lower-cost discs", which would seem to be an attractive feature for a disposal rental disc.

If my fears about BD+ are true, then I would highlight the following very relevant quote from the DIVX story linked above - if my fears are true, then you can simply replace the word "DIVX" with "Bluray" as you read it: "Hollywood studios hate home video because they don't make any money from it after the initial sell-through of a tape or disc. If Divx is successful, they will have every incentive to stop selling movies in an open format and charge the consumer for each viewing. If Divx is even moderately successful, studios may reserve their most popular titles for Divx, pay-per-view cable/satellite, or a future pay-per-view scheme, and only release less-popular titles in an open format. Consumers who buy Divx players and discs encourage the studios to follow this distribution model, even though the model is demonstrably not in the consumer's interest -- particularly for parents who allow their children to watch Disney films ad infinitum, or for those of you who watch Scream 83 times a year."

Most "standards" become "the standard" based on their price performance in the view of buyers, and their feelings about them (case in point, the iPod). The traditional model of "Competition" has many manufacturers touting various products and the consumer "voting" with their wallet for whichever products they think are best. The Bluray situation is new and unique, in that Sony, along with various other companies, appear to be forcing this next standard upon consumers without offering the consumer the chance to make their own evaluation and choice.

There is plenty of commentary from supporters of our petitions to show that they feel that Sony is trying to force the next standard on buyers by "brute force". Despite the fact that Sony has lined up agreement from many CE manufacturers and certain key studios, it seems that HD DVD has gotten the "nod", the "popular vote", the "love", if you will... and HD DVD continues to outsell Bluray handily.

Something to think about, then?

Here's a quotation from a Wikipedia article that really sums up some of my concerns with Sony and their formats: "In August, 2000, statements by Sony Pictures Entertainment US senior VP Steve Heckler foreshadowed the events of late 2005. Heckler told attendees at the Americas Conference on Information Systems 'The industry will take whatever steps it needs to protect itself and protect its revenue streams...It will not lose that revenue stream, no matter what...Sony is going to take aggressive steps to stop this. We will develop technology that transcends the individual user. We will firewall Napster at source - we will block it at your cable company, we will block it at your phone company, we will block it at your [ISP]. We will firewall it at your PC...These strategies are being aggressively pursued because there is simply too much at stake.' "

Adios, for now... we'll see where else this takes us...

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***Late Information: I received communication from a visitor to the site today. He mentioned a patent (number 6,816,972) which Sony had filed in 2000, registering a technology to prevent owners of "Software Discs" from selling them on or lending them to friends. When the story broke online, Sony denied that they intended to actually use the technology in relation to the PS3, but an LA Times story doubted they had registered the patent just to be nice... Our friend wonders if it might be used for Bluray movies down the road...

Also, in relation to my Commentary on 1st Gen Bluray players potentially being obsolete before they are brought home, he cites some information that suggests that this is already having an impact. Apparently, the new Bluray movie, "Descent", won't play on some Bluray players, including Sony's own BDSP1, due to Java incompatibilities.