Slashdot Mirror
EMI Customer Relations Tells It Like It Is
hype7 writes "The Register is running a story about the most outrageous email sent from a customer services rep at BMI in Germany to a customer who had difficulty playing a copy-protected CD in his CD player. One of the most stunning lines from the translation: "If you plan to continue protesting about future audio media releases with copy protection, forget it; copy protection is a reality, and within a matter of months more or less all audio media worldwide are copy protected. And this is a good thing for the music industry. In order to make this happen we will do anything within our power - whether you like it or not.""
but it was copy protected.
Slashdot, home of supporters of free software, free music, and free speech.Except for Moderators that disagree with you.
"All your Ace of Base are belong to us."
Don't they realize that they more they antagonize the music-sharing community the harder they will work to circumvent the copy protection? Even on the artists that really suck. It's all about principal now.
Give a hand, not a hand-out.
To paraphrase the NRA:
You can have my money when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.
They must be freaking geniuses if theyu can figure out a way to copy-protect vinyl.
With customer service like that, how can anybody complain? (without getting arrested, I mean).
As a techie, I am quite confident I will never have a problem getting my music for free. With kazaa and my cd-rw, I havent bought a CD in years (come get me, jackasses). Even if I did buy a copy-protected CD I am sure I could break it (if I can hear it, I can rip it, duh).
My grandmother (and any other AOL user, really) on the other hand, if she had the experience mentioned on the register, she would be pretty much out of luck. So, this policy really only hurts the non-tech-savvy.
so BMI hates my grandmother
From now on, I am going to make a point of trying to find BMI stuff to download off kazaa. Guess I better learn to like n'stync
... I have just recently implemented wallet-protection technology. It completely prevents the Record Labels from recieving any money from within my wallet. This radical step is necessary because their business practices force me to tightly control where my money goes. Only legitimate businesses should recieve money from people's wallets.
With bullet-proof copy protection now available, I should now be able to buy a CD-R in Canada without paying any tariff that goes to the record companies, right?
I mean.. that was the whole purpose of the tariff in the first place. To give back some money to the record labels that were losing money from dubbing of CDs that people would buy otherwise.
What are the odds of the tariff being eliminated? I'd say about the same odds of the GST being eliminated.
When was the last time Microsoft sent a letter to Linus, RMS, et cetera, saying that Open Source software was a blight upon society, and that they intended to do everything in their power to destroy. You don't write letters like this to your customers. Only in instances of hubris, or supreme stupidity.
Mozart, besides of being one of the worlds greatest composers, had the ability to listen to a piece of music and repoduct it word for word note to note, from only one listening. Perfect Pitch, and Photographic memory. If he was alive today, He would be thrown in jail for breaking the DMCA, Sience he instantly copies all that he hears into his brain.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Firstly, The Register is the National Enquirer of the net.
So are we to expect "Space Alien has Bill Gates' Child! Ballmer Stunned!" as the next headline?
(nil)
I dunno -- I kind of like this new "kindler, gentler" customer relations that calls it like it. This is way better than the more typical "Duh, I'm not sure what you mean?" or "Please hold while we transfer your call. Your call will be served in the order received. We value your business and thank you for calling. (click) (dial tone)" or "Thank you for your letter on BMI products! Enclose please find coupons good towards your next purchase!"
Exactly. I use them to burn movies I download too!
Maybe we DID take the blue pill. You wouldn't remember anyway.
you forgot
6. Profit!!!
If overly stringent copy protection means there's one less person in the world listening to Toto cover "House of the Rising Sun", can it really be all bad?
But maybe the sight of some 40-something, balding fat guys does something for you, I don't care.
Yes, balding fat guys do do something for me....
Creationists are a lot like zombies. Slow, but powerful and numerous. And they all want to eat our brains.
I work for a multi-national corporation, with a lot of people in Microsoft. For the longest time I would get very offended by e-mails I would get from our Microsoft colleagues.
For example, we would send around a proposal for how we thought we might do something in the future.
A Microsoft colleague would respond with a tersely worded message to the effect of "You are an asshole. If you don't do it this way, it will lead to the end of the company and we'll all be unemployed."
After a while, and after actually meeting many of these people face to face, I discovered that's just their way of saying "You are an asshole. If you don't do it this way, it will lead to the end of the company and we'll all be unemployed."
After reading the letter from the CSR, I realized that this is probably the same situation. It sounds really harsh, but it's not intended to be that way.
There are huge cultural differences between Microsoft and Linux, and it's important to try and understand those differences before over reacting.
Sincerily,
-Steve Ballmer
From EMI letter: There are 250 Million blank CDRs and tapes bought and used this year for copying music in comparison to 213 Million prerecorded audio media. This means the owners are only being paid for 46 per cent of the musical content. For a comparison: In 1998 almost 90% of all audio media was paid for. Even without a degree in economics everyone should realise that such trends will result in the music industry ceasing to exist.
[breaks out calc.exe.... tap-tap-tap...] OMG! By similar calculation, I calculate that, allowing for deaf people, there are 12 Billion ears on this planet used for listening to EMI cd's, in comparison with the only 50 million or so microphones in the world. That means 99.995833% of all the world's hearing power is used for EMI music, but EMI's 1996 sales were still only about £2.7 billion. That puts the entire music industry's annual sales for 2002 at about £3 billion. Therefor, each individual ear only pays about £0.25 annually for the more than 213 Million CD's EMI gives to them. That's £0.00000000117370 per CD. Now subtract the greedy musician's 15% royalties, and poor EMI has only pulls in £0.00000000099764.5; not even enough to afford a spot of tea to quench their thirst after a hard day's work.
Oh, and I DO have a degree in Economics, but I didn't use one bit of it to write the preceding rant.
$8.95/mo web hosting
Didn't Courtney Love do this?
Oh, wait, you said major artist. Sorry - my bad.
RagManX
Another explanation: We're all getting older! Bah humbug! Nothing but noise!
Mfg'ed bands suck as much as always, and there are certainly a lot more of them around these days. However, you will find lots of pretty good (though some would argue not terribly innovative) music being released by RIAA artists these days. If there has been a drop in quality I wouldn't characterize it as 'dramatic'.
Wah!
At some point, they won't even need to produce any new content... then they can fire all the employees/artists and just have the government forward the collected tax money directly to their shareholders's bank accounts...
Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
This guy sounds like one of the nazis in an old war movie:
"Soon, all of ze music will be under Nazi control, and you Allies will be powerless to stop us!"
Why dont they get it? If teh CD can be read AT ALL, it CAN BE COPIED!
the only way to copy protect a CD would be to make it unreadable. Or not to publish it.
For some bands, the last option would be welcome.
What is everyone getting so worked over? Remember the source. I think this letter passes for "nice" in Germany. :)
I bought a blank CD-R.
doh!
What a ridiculous notion. CD-R's aren't used to pirate music, they're used to burn downloaded DVD rips.
http://cltracker.net -- powerful craigslist multi-city search