I will now charge for one, specific, PC fix
Ok, it has come to light that one settlement with Sony/BMG would allow for the users to get some compensation. A whole $7.50 in music downloads, and one extra album download. I don't have time right now (flying out rather soon) to go into details of how crappy a settlement this is, but it does allow for the cost of fixing the computer. As in, if I were to clean your system of this rootkit, and charged for it, Sony would be liable in small claims court.
Beauty of small claims court is that you need a company rep present, not a lawyer. This means that if they can't send a company rep to each of the lawsuits, there's going to be a LOT of default wins for the consumer. So, if the going rate from dell to reformat, and backup a system (note: not in that order) is $300, I could charge you $300 for reinstalling XP on your machine. I'm inclined to use the prices the big companies use to rape the consumer, because a big company's gonna pay for this one too. Note, you don't have to pay a dime, I could just go say "Services rendered", and get my check.
A lot of people have suggested I start charging for my work, so fine. From now on, if I have to fix a problem with Sony/BMG related material, I'm charging. I will charge whatever the cost of a local PC shop would be, including data recovery/backup, and will document everything.
Anyways, here's a link. I'll clean this up on Monday when I'm home.
