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Sony BMG Says Ripping CDs is Stealing
LKM writes "Sony seems to think we should not be allowed to rip CDs we own to our iPods. In fact, doing so is stealing, and we should all re-buy songs, preferably one copy for each device. Says Jennifer Pariser, the head of litigation for Sony BMG: 'When an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song. Making a copy of a purchased song is just a nice way of saying 'steals just one copy'.'
I guess somebody should tell Sony about all the devices Sony produces that allow this stealing to occur!"
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
"We market CDs to allow the customer to sample the music. Every additional time the customer listens to the CD translates to lost sales for us. We will make sure that legislation exists to charge the customer to prevent people from stealing and unfairly gaining from our copyrights."
Yours sincerely,
RIAA.
but installing rootkits is okay
According to the new rules of the corporate culture, we are stealing every time we expect some product or services for our money. We're stealing when we expect to use an iPhone the way we want to use it. We're stealing when we assume "unlimited" bandwidth means "unlimited" bandwidth. We're stealing when we borrow a book from the library or from friend. We're stealing when we pay for health insurance and then actually use it. We're stealing when we expect the government to do something useful with our tax money like provide health care to children instead of providing security services to oil companies in Iraq.
We're supposed to shut up and pay.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I think the RIAA would be perfectly consistent and argue that people were stealing in the 80's when they made mix tapes. Keep in mind that in those days that few people were on the internet. CD-R didn't exist. The only way consumers could copy music was to do so via low quality cassette tapes. The RIAA wasn't happy about home taping from day one and fought a losing battle against it, but since practical concerns (time involved in duplication, generational quality loss, and cost of media) made it impractical for people to engage in large scale duplication of music at home, they just turned a blind eye to the idea that a few people would share music with their friends via cassette tapes. However, choosing not to prosecute some guy for making one or two tapes for friends doesn't mean that they ever agreed that the practice was legal. It just would cost more to prosecute than it was worth.
Ahh.. so that's why they always invent their own formats for cassettes, memory sticks, interconnectors, etc... Or wait, no, I'm confused now.
c++;
"Citation, please?" is a lazy rhetorical technique which in online discussion forums like Slashdot has come to imply much more about the person asking the question than about anything else. It roughly translates from moronese to English as:
- I'm a moron,
- I disagree with you, but
- I'm too ill-informed to argue my side of the debate, and
- I'm too lazy to look up the resources which are freely available which would help me construct an argument, so
- I'm going to take the low road, and snidely suggest that you defend your argument, whereafter
- I'll assume that you are wrong and I am right because you didn't respond by falling all over yourself by quoting chapter and verse to me,
- but because I have this lingering sense that I might not know what the hell I'm talking about, I'll just post this retort as "Anonymous".
How about, instead of logged in Slashdot participants falling all over themselves to defend every other statement they make from Anonymous "show me a link" asshats, the asshats start reading a little more and learning about the world around them? Don't agree with what someone said? Look it up! You're using Slashdot, so you are already USING THE INTERNET. There are dictionaries and encyclopedias and actual laws, on the internet, mere seconds away from where you are now.Google (fucktard)
Wikipedia (fucktard)
Urban Dictionary (fucktard) (particularly useful when somebody calls you a name you haven't heard before)
Encyclopedia Dramatica (fucktard)
United States code (aka "the law" for U.S. residents)
If you care enough to post, then please devote the five or ten minutes that it might take to research the topic and post your own link refuting the statement that you don't agree with. I'll help you get started, here: U.S. Copyright Law. You don't need a degree in law to read and understand well written laws. If you can't read and understand a law, that's a pretty big hint that it might be broken in some way. Finding relevant sections of the code can be challenging, but Google can be quite helpful with that.
Look it up!
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
If the fear of goatse stops me from clicking on links, the terrorists have won.