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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.""
The scary part is that this comes from a Customer Service Rep. CS Reps don't formulate their own ideas, they get them from management. This is a clear indication of the corporate doctrine being taught. It must be in full swing to have reached this level, and for this action to be already taking place. Feared...
how much grief Garth Brooks took when he protested people reselling used cds...
I think we have a new "piss off the public" " king-of-the-hill now...
In the Portland, Ore area and like card games? Check out: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/portlandgames/
Why don't we simply boycott CD's, it would take a lot of effort and restraint by people, but I think if we banded together and worked towards a common goal we could send a message to the RIAA and record companies. Belly aching about how they shouldn't do this does absolutely no good. We need to stand up in mass against the recording industry and tell them "No we will not be treated like criminals, we will only buy CD's that work in any equipment and the US courts have shown time swapping to be legal".
Lets do something about this. Something other then complaining and giving up.
I'm willing to bet that the above is not the official party line, but it certainly gets the point across doesn't it?
MS learnt recently that having a shitty attitude doesn't necessarily do you any favours, and if they can learnt then anyone can . . .
"If being a geek means being passionate about something, then I pity those who aren't geeks." - Pike65
With all the hype surrounding Microsoft and Sony wanting to place console/PC style hardware at the heart of every home's entertainment systems (taking on the role of the CD/DVD player), I wonder how long it's going to take the non-recording big boys to turn around, and start complaining that the recording industry is about to ensure that their plans are being rode roughshod over...
Also, considering that most people who buy stuff want it to work anywhere and everywhere, I wonder how long it'll take the general public to simply stop buying, as it's no longer 'safe' to do so..
Especially with some of the new laws in the EU, and the UK being put forward as also written on The Register. And if people buy even less than they did before they protected the media, who are they going to blame? Perhaps this is a case of things needing to get worse before they get better, and perhaps even be a case of the big recording industries shooting themselves in the foot and crippling themselves..
Malk
Anyone want to take bets on the one straw that will break the consumer's backs?
Personally, I think it will come when people regularly cannot play discs in their cars. Or PlayStations/Xboxen. There's a lot of 'convergence' devices out there. Furthermore, in the car example, many manufacturers are actually using CD-ROM mechanisms in dashboard players simply because they are cheaper and more error-tolerant (except of course, in the case of purposeful errors introduced by the record companies).
Ph33r my mighty analog plug, you slack-jawed marketroid fuckwits.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Here's the bottom line, like it or not. The ratio of us (computer types, you know, educated...) and them (everyone else) is about 50:1 in their favor. Why is that important? (Warning: I'm probably going to offend some with this...)
As long as an item, be it copy-protected CD, DVD, PS2 game, etc.. is sold at Wal-Mart, Target, and the like, a boycott will never succeed. If all of us stopped buying CDs tomorrow, Cletus T. Bohunk would still go out and buy his Fullscren copy of Spider-Man. He'd still by the Allman Bros. Greatest Hits (no offense to fans), and its not going to matter if it works in his computer, because he doesn't use that to play music like we do! He puts it in his $49 DVD player and listens to it through his 20 year old Magnavox TV speakers. Or he puts it in the $20 boom box he also bought from Wal-Mart. While I agree that if CDs stop playing in cars, there will be a huge outcry from the public, calling for boycotts simply won't work in such a small community as ours...
(Yes, I realize it isn't a SMALL community. But in the grand scope of US vs. the population in general, we don't measure up.)
"Goodness, how did you people live long enough to invent tools?" -Hobbes (the tiger, not the philosopher)
You do three things when a disc won't play on a standard player because of copy protection:
- Insure that the disc has the CDDA label on it, that you legitimately bought it and that it's a standard player (car stereo, home stereo, etc.) and not a computer drive. Basically give the music guys no toehold at all to call you a pirate, unless they want to claim that playing an original purchased CD on your stereo is piracy.
- Return the disc to the store as defective.
- If the store refuses to exchange it for a working disc, or refund your money if they can't find a working disc, file a complaint about the store with your local government's consumer protection office. Don't treat this as an intellectual-property issue, that's playing into the music industry's hands, treat it as a defective-merchandise issue where the warranty and related issues are much more clear-cut and much more in your favor.
When stores start getting in legal hot water for defective merchandise and failure to obey warranty laws, their legal departments will take notice and have a talk with the music industry sales reps. Even the big chains will drop labels rather than take the legal heat on a large scale."Don't they realize that they more they antagonize the music-sharing community the harder they will work to circumvent the copy protection?...It's all about principal now."
I made a comment like that once and somebody accused me of trying to rationalize theft. I got news to all of you who are thinking that: I have purchased a number of games at $50ish a piece. I've never downloaded a game from P2P. I'm not adverse to buying. The reason that the games industry isn't taking so much flack over protection is that they give you ways to preview your purchase. On PC's, you can buy demo CDs or download game demos off the web. On consoles, you can rent games at places like Blockbuster. They know how to treat their customers.
The matter is not that people don't want to pay for their products, it's a matter of making a satisfactory purchase. I cannot take a CD back if I don't like it, I can't rent a CD, and they're trying to prevent me from previewing music on places like Kazaa. Well gee. Why would I spend $18 on something I might like? Letting people read magazines didn't put publishers out of business.
The Reg article links to the (supposedly) original German email, and the english version is a "loose translation." Given the Register's usual spin, I imagine "loose" might be a very important word in that sentence. Someone who reads German could comment with more authority than I . . .
Al Qaeda has ninjas!
Hey, I appreachiate some honesty - even if it's not what I want to hear. All this "we love you, the customer is always right, is there anything else I can for you today?" B.S. gets on my nerves. Tell it to me straight.
Second of all, only the big labels with lots of money are going to copy protect their CDs. It's not like the copy protection they're implementing is FREE. It was invented by someone who no doubt patented it and is licensing it to the CD makers (which, consequently, raises the price of CDs).
Personally, I don't care if Britney Spears CDs are copy protected - nor CDs from other no-talent hacks who claim to be artists. Also, I think this protection scheme could be a great instrument in the downfall of such crappy music[sic]. Afterall, teenagers are probably the biggest pirates of this stuff, and it's not like they have money to buy the CDs if they can't copy them, so it can only result in less proliferation of this garbage. Eeeeeexcellent.
There's lots of great music to be had out there, and you can have it without giving up your Fair Use Rights.
- Richard Shindell
- Edie Carey
- Lucy Kaplansky
- Dispatch
- Rockwell Church
- Erin Mckeown
Just to name a few...or both of your neighbors...
/. (not just the ones that think this is an infringment of their rights) didn't buy music anymore, from this day forward (which will never happen), the record labels would hardly notice it.
or your both of your neighbors and all their children...
People will keep buying music regardless. Their car cd-players, and home cd-players will play them, and if they don't, their new players will play their old CD's.
Consumers are so used to getting screwed into buying "upgrades" to correct home made problems, they won't even blink.
And people won't stop paying for music in the copy protected future anymore than they don't buy macrovision protected DVD's now.
Even if everyone that read
If it is the only way music is being sold, it is the only way music is being purchased. And people won't stop purchasing entertainment.
Our faithful parent has been handed a list of desired media by their spouse. They go to one of the big media retailers, like Sam Goody (is there a listerine for the brain...I hate that place!), collect the desired titles and endure the latest R&B female vocalist performing an orgasm over the PA system (shudder) while waiting at the counter.
"Hi, are you ready to check out?"
"Yes, uhm, could you tell me if this," the customer holds up the first title for the clerk to see, "is copy protected?"
The clerk has this "uh-oh" look and nods.
"Yes," the clerk hesitantly replies trying to avoid the attention of the other clerk who is busy ringing up someone else's order.
The Customer holds up each title and each time the clerk nods, looking less happy as the customer puts them in a seperate pile, until at last there's only the pile of copy protected titles.
"Well, it was nice shopping. See ya." The customer shrugs.
The clerk watches as the customer walks away from the counter, leaving the small pile of titles, probably near $200 worth, sitting on the counter.
The worst part...if this kind of thing happens a new policy of ignorance will emerge, where the clerks will simply say they don't know or can't say. And then the store will refuse to accept any media for refund or exchange once it's been opened.
Oh, and don't forget, there's always a charge for refunding purchases made with some form of plastic, so there's going to be many people who will simply "eat it". Especially the passive cattle with plastic in this great land of diminishing returns.
Cheers.
Every new form of media has it's own Requirimento
If Fan X of Band X can't play his CD from Label A in his Car CD player, and when he contacts the company finds the response is along the lines of "Tough luck." Fan X will then join the boycott of Label A, and probably Label's B, C, and D as well, because Fan X isn't aware of what's actually going on, so stops buying CDs altogether.
Fan X is even likely to try out "that kazaa thing my kids/friends are talking about" in order to continue getting music.
For this reason, Phillips shouldn't be the only one going against BMI, but also every single label that doesn't use copy-protection on their CDs, because it's quite possible that copy-protected CDs will ruin it for the entire industry.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
Someone who worked with American, German, and Japanese managers on a project explained this to me as Hamburger Theory. The American managers subscribed to a style of surrounding all criticism with positive remarks, like a hamburger is surrounded by bread. The German comments were all meat. The Japanese were all bread.
It's worth skipping from The Register to the original German, then running the customer's letter through babelfish. You might get a better idea of why he got such a response - the letter talks about the inevitable hacking, and how BMG have lost him as a customer. Read it...he's being fairly inflammatory himself.
Cheers,
Ian
Why bother with going thru analog?
I have a couple of these at home. They supplement my turntables, mainly for when I only have a song on cd or need to use something I can only find in mp3 format. They're dirt cheap nowadays, under $100. Not great for dj-ing, but they will play ANYTHING. I had a cd I stepped on that cracked almost in half (a crack running from the center all the way to the outside edge) and it didn't even skip. I didn't realize the thing was cracked until I tried to rip a copy of it. Doh! I had copy protected it! But fortunately the cd player itself has a digital output, so I just ran it into my friend's Audigy. I had to record it at 1x speed obviously, but I got a digitally perfect recording. As more people get dvd players and other gizmo's with digital output, sound cards with digital input will explode in popularity. The most copy protection can offer the music industry is that a couple years from now people won't be able to rip at 16x, but they'll be able to copy at 1x. A lot of you out there may have an Audigy or Extigy already. Do you also have a dvd player? I'm sure your dvd player can play cds, so you already have a means of creating digitally perfect copies of protected cds.
It should be fairly simple for most people to boycott the recording industry, if you really want to, because so much good music is out right now, right in front of you, on independent music labels. These labels are barely holding their financial heads above the water, so I would certainly say that they could use your/our support much more than the big 5 ever could.
Let's start with someone you may have heard of: Slobberbone. These guys tour constantly (they were just in my town Wednesday night for the 6th or 7th time in about 2 years). Though no recording can really do their live shows justice, they manage to cram more of their immense musical talent into each subsequent album they produce. They are really an amazing rock band, and you should definitely listen to them or go see them.
How about another example? Here you go: Kirk Rundstrom: Blue China (review) - Kirk Rundstrom, lead singer/songwriter/guitarist of the bizarre bluegrass band "Split Lip Rayfield" is out on his own now, and the albums he's putting out these days are completely insanely good. Seriously. I won't do him as much justice as the review I've linked here, but I will tell you that what this guy does with rock and bluegrass is completely different than anything else that has ever been recorded. His new album manages to sound entirely different even from his own usual style, which in my opinion shows a growth sadly missing in nearly all of the RIAA's "artists".
Don't forget to visit this site as well: Bloodshot Records - Maybe you missed the whole alt-country genre when the recording industry thought it was going to be the next big thing and signed a whole bunch of bands like the Old 97's, Ryan Adams, Uncle Tupelo/Wilco/Son Volt, and so forth. This style of music (called "insurgent country" by Bloodshot) has already passed through a brief, sort of popular phase, and back into relative obscurity. There are A LOT of really talented bands on Bloodshot that never got a big break, but blow away anything the RIAA has ever managed to put onto an album. I suggest you check out some of these people, like Neko Case, Split Lip Rayfield, The Sadies, Alejandro Escovedo, The Blacks, and anyone else who sounds interesting there. Prepare to have your musical knowledge broadened.
If you're ever around my area (Lincoln, NE), we have some really good local bands as well. It would do you some good if you're from around here to check out some of the shows. Besides the local talent, nearly everyone I mentioned above has been through here quite recently. If they're in a little town like Lincoln, chances are you can see them in your town as well.
While it sounds rather bogus at face value, i also got a ranting letter many years ago from a support tech from Mouse Systems.
He went on for several pages telling me how stupid i was for asking if drivers for NT would be available in the future for one of their scanners.
A simple 2 line question, got me 3 pages of inane babble.
That said, this still sounds fake.. who would be stupid enough in this day and age to trash their public opinion like this?
Perhaps a little documentable proof? And if its given, we publish it EVERYWHERE.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Bullshit!
It's one thing if these guys seize control of all broadcast media, shut out anyone smaller than say Polygram, lock out all the rack jobbers and Wal-Marts so it's flat impossible for a competing record label to get in, ever, and brainwash the people into believing they are the gatekeepers to *feh!* quality. Fine. Go ahead and do that, oops, done it already, cheers.
However the set of all audio media is not equal to the subset of all RIAA-controlled audio media.
You know, I produce audio media myself. There's the main page where I've got songs so new I don't even have a CD for them yet- also has a number of full CDs of other types of music. There's the other page which also contains numerous full CDs, this time of much more unusual and eccentric music. These are for sale, OK?
Just because the RIAA has poisoned the well so completely that people won't even fscking buy CDs from anybody, doesn't mean that these aren't commercial, for-sale, professional quality, dithered-and-mastered-from-24-bit, Red Book Compact Discs. It is THEIR fault indies are struggling (which they are). Thanks to them, people have a vague notion that it's important to never give anybody money for 'audio media', including me.
Thanks to them, they manage to set the terms and expectations for all these things, even when they have no right or jurisdiction. I mentioned the CDs I sell through Ampcast. I mentioned they're Red Book compliant. That means they are rippable, back-upable, iTunesable etc etc. Now, I also have mp3s up on the page. I used to have a lot more- and the page got so it'd take forever to load. I axed a lot of the mp3s- those songs are still on the CDs. Does that mean I want to suppress trading of the mp3s? NO, in fact on every CD I put out through Ampcast, written ON THE CD ITSELF is the message 'Please copy this CD for your friends'. And I mean it.
If I ever earn money through CDs and music, it will be because I do such good music, and conduct my business in such an enlightened way, that people WANT to support it by buying CDs of mine, and getting the cover art and stuff along with it, and knowing they contributed to my doing more music.
Thanks to the RIAA, this enlightened attitude is so UNTHINKABLE that nobody in the world would ever for a second consider it possible, so people come to one of two conclusions: (1) I am moneygrubbing slime like the RIAA, or (2) I want to work for years and blister my fingers and labor endlessly over music solely for art's sake and would be offended if anyone offered to buy a CD from me, because obviously I'd rather they download the mp3s and burn their own.
*scream*
I have to say, I am very angry with the RIAA for bringing about this state of affairs. They make a fscking mockery of anyone who wants to try and earn the occasional buck by working really hard at producing music. Music can be an all-consuming thing- some people who can do music aren't much good at anything else. I'm a lot like that in some ways. And I understand, I can accept if there's no place for it, if I can never even after decades of practice and work earn a poverty level living from making music. But GOD DAMN IT, is it necessary to poison the well so completely that nobody can even pay for their own guitar strings through selling their music? And then, to make public announcements that 'all' audio media worldwide will now be copy protected, further putting across the meme of 'there IS nothing but us' and having people eat it right up and fight over, pay attention to, only what the RIAA produces...
Now I know what being an 'unperson' feels like. And as it happens I need to go into the studio and work tonight- there's a tune I need to get on tape and get out there, based around a lyrical hook of 'this town ain't small enough for the two of you anymore', pushing the concept of third party politics. I have a killer chimey guitar hook for it. I don't have all the lyrics but one verse is going to end with comparing the Republicans and Democrats to 'Tweedledum and Tweedledee with fat and dirty faces'. I care about this stuff, I'm going for the throat and the stress of trying to produce something that can get OUT THERE and actually be heard is grating on me in a big way. It's a very tall order. Even if you know a lot of the tricks, making a hit song is damned hard work and will leave you wiped out with the ends of your fingers shredded.
And for what? I'm an unperson. I'm a serf and don't matter. The RIAA says so. And, odds are, YOU believe them without questioning it, because you're fixated on whether to, or whether not to, freely trade the stuff THEY make.
I'm a stubborn unperson- I'm going to go ahead anyway even though nothing happens and nobody notices and the RIAA will probably make uncopycontrolled media illegal next, forcing me to be not only an unperson but a criminal, and still for basically nothing.
A lot of life feels like that these days- maybe partly because I _do_ have that 'musician' gene. So rather than just despair about being made the unwilling serfs of psycho corporate Republicans, now I can pour heart and soul into music which I can then despair about its never being heard, due to years of determined work by guess who? Lord RIAA.
Maybe THAT would make for a good song- a song called Lord RIAA. Bearing in mind that it's not terribly singable like that, also to keep the length between three and four minutes (closer to three is better) and keep the hooks clear of overcomplications, and be sure to have the song title recognisable as the hook of the chorus.
Which is of course How You Do It, pity that by now it's completely a moot point because nobody will ever hear it regardless.
Gah. Kill me now :P
*stubbornly goes off to record anyway. hitting drums sometimes helps.*
I too buy many CDRs, almost always in packs of 50 or more. For the most part, those CDs are used for music. It's not music I paid for, it's music I created, and recorded with my bands. I own the rights to that music and the rights to distribute it. So you can take my share out of your "pulled out of some wanker's ass" stastistics too!. Secondly I also use P2P. I use it to SHARE MY MUSIC. And in this case I do mean MY music. So although the majority of P2P users out there aren't doing the same thing, the blanket statements were made only serve the ignorant and the media (the parallels are so similar I won't even go there.) Besides, I don't buy your Inflatable Teen Doll of the Week hits anyway. Nuff Said.
Yes eye no eye maid sum gram are miss steaks.
I read the Score: 4+ posts and didn't see this point of view. I'll give it a try.
Anyone else remember when copy protection of software became REALLY BIG in the 80s? And back then, they were using some pretty darn good technology for the time. After years and years of copy protection, guess what the software industry decided? Those high tech solutions just don't work. It went away, put was replaced with the low-hanging fruits of copy protection "is the product CD in the cdrom drive"?
This isn't to say that there aren't copy protections here and there today. I think this Palladium thing wants to encourage them to get back into the copy protection business. A story in itself.
But you stopped seeing intentional bad sectors, dongles, and other technological goodies placed in software because they simply weren't effective in relation to the cost. And they caused problems.
Of course, things are a bit different today. The CD industry has a nice chain of stories that won't allow you to return CDs like you could return defective software years ago. But then again, today, there is internet distribution. All it takes is a few people with compromised DACs and your "latest and greatest copy protection scheme" is just as good as the low-hanging-fruit of software protection.
So, watch as the music industry plays the copy protection arms race. But I think the Internet, for reasons of providing alternative legitimate and illegitimate distributions, and sharing of information, aside from following the copy-protection lifecycle, will punish the RIAAs members above and beyond that.