Sony and Robots...shows how crazy the "anti-hacking" regime has become

[Jim Choate]

This is very old news...

On Wed, 7 Nov 2001, Tim May wrote:

> Saw this interesting application of the new hardware 
> copyright/anti-tampering/anti-reverse-engineering regime in place"
> 
> http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011107/tc/sony_robot_hack_1.html
> 
> excerpt:
> 
> "Wednesday November 7 2:20 PM ET
> 
> Pet Robot Owners Mad at Sony
> 
> By YURI KAGEYAMA, AP Business Writer
> 
> TOKYO (AP) - Many owners of the world's most sophisticated robot pet, 
> the cuddly Aibo, are growling at Sony Corp (news - web sites). over its 
> demand that a Web site stop distributing free software that teaches the 
> machine new tricks.
> 
> ``It was a very stiff legal position Sony took without regard to how it 
> will affect the Aibo community,'' said Richard Walkus, a publishing 
> house employee from Madison, N.J., who owns two Aibo robots but is now 
> putting any new Aibo orders on hold. ``Sony is to some degree 
> undermining its own success.''
> 
> In a letter last month, Sony told the owner of the AiboHack site that he 
> was violating its copyright and altering its product without a license. 
> It demanded a long list of Aibo software - including code that taught 
> the machine disco steps and new words - be pulled off the site.
> 
> --end excerpt--
> 
> This shows how crazy the laws have gotten. These robots are essentially 
> computers, and the "hacks" are just new computer programs.
> 
> Imagine:
> 
> "Dell has announced they are are suing anyone who makes available 
> software for their machines that Dell did not authorize."
> 
> "Ford plans to protect its intellectual property by blocking 
> after-market sales of trailer hitches, bed liners, light bulbs, and even 
> motor oil not sold by authorized Ford dealers. "By examining our 
> products and determining how to make things like trailer hitches, these 
> pirates are in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright," said Ford 
> spokesman Jason Natter."
> 
> If robots cannot be reprogrammed, then neither can all sorts of other 
> electronic gear that people routinely reprogram, improve, take apart, 
> etc. Adding a programmable search function to a shortwave radio, for 
> example, would fall under the same nonsensical terms as the Sony case.
> 
> ObCypherpunks: I despise the DMCA, but my faith is not in having such 
> laws overturned. In fact, the explosion of new laws is likely 
> unstoppable. However, using technology to thwart traceability (*) is a 
> means of monkeywrenching such laws.
> 
> (* I wonder if anonymous remailers will someday be classed as 
> "circumvention devices"? We debated this years ago, wondering whether 
> the laws against unauthorized (!) possession of lock-picking tools and 
> "burglar tools" could be used to de facto illegalize remailers.)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --Tim May
> "He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a 
> monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also 
> into you." -- Nietzsche
>