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EMI Customer Relations Tells It Like It Is

Posted by michael on from the bring-in-da-noize dept.

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.""

5 of 1,046 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Bullshit by afidel · · Score: 5, Informative

    I read German pretty well (6 years of classes and two long trips to Germany) and this letter is written in a very informal way, so if this IS a legit response this guy is probably acting as an individual and not responding with official company line. But the Reg's translation actually does a pretty good job of getting the point across. The informal style is considered to be rude if you are not talking to a friend, and this author uses it liberaly. He also uses a fairly dismissive tone when discussing the origional letters concerns. My guess is this is a pissed of answerdroid who just gave his company some really bad press (article is on slashdot, the register, and fark, not pretty if you want to cultivate the digeratti) and will be out of a job tomorrow.

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  2. Verizon was proud to say it to me last night. by shren · · Score: 5, Informative

    I was discussing a billing error with them last night. They said to me, flat out, "It doesn't matter who's right, we're a big company and there is nothing you can do to touch us. We say you owe us the money. Pay up." It's not just BMI. Corporations know they can roll right over any single one person and they are happy, happy to do it.

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  3. Re:Bullshit by GreyPoopon · · Score: 5, Informative
    I just ran the letter by one of my German colleagues, and the response I got back was: "I can't believe that this was sent to a consumer! If I'd receive a letter like this, I would consider it more than just insulting." She also asked me if I was just joking.

    I think that pretty much gets the point across. Them's fightin' words. :-)

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    GreyPoopon
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  4. Re:Bullshit by kris · · Score: 5, Informative

    I am german, I read the original Heise post and it is offensive and completely unacceptable. Even if this was the original party line inside EMI, it should never have been sent to a customer this way. Not in german, not in english, not in any other language.

    Kristian

  5. Re:But I don't get why... by scphantm · · Score: 5, Informative

    As i understand it, all copy protection that can be read on a standard cd player is weak to begin with. cdroms can read multiple indexes, cd players can only read the first one. but cdroms read the indexes starting from the last and working its way to the first. so most copy protections corrupt the second index so the cdrom will fail. a simple firmware upgrade to the cdrom can fix that and make it read the first index first and move down the list. Interesting article here

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