Well, given that I'm pretty sure we had the first word on all this in the UK press, I guess we should have the last word too. SonyBMG essentially ended its long running rootkit debacle last week when the Quebec Superior Court in Canada approved a class action settlement relating to the major's use of the controversial copy-protection software.
It is now almost a year since IT writer Mark Russinovich first raised concerns regarding the so called rootkit software that was being employed by SonyBMG to 'copy-protect' CDs in North America. Although the major quickly offered a settlement to consumers affected by the software once its use became controversial, by that time a number of class action lawsuits had been filed in the US and Canadian courts. As each of those cases has since come to court, a variation on that original settlement has been generally accepted.
The cases took longer to come to court in Canada than the US. The settlement was approved in the Ontario court last month, but only reached the Quebec Superior Court last week.
Of course, I say that is the whole thing ended. Actually a related lawsuit in Italy remains, while the Texas State Attorney General recently said he may consider an additional action following an investigation that found that some affected users are still at risk. So there may be more rootkit fun-ness still to come.