The real reason, the one that isn't BS, is that Sony has the right to control distribution in the region. If they want to require distributors to be licensed with them, that's within their legal right. Lik-Sang obviously wasn't, and not only that, Lik-Sang was in the grey market -- importation of those foreign goods into that region without license. Selling Sony's stuff from another country there wasn't exactly legal. That's why they got sued.
Of course, if you've seen the gamesindustry.biz article, Lik-Sang didn't even show up to court, paid no legal fees and hasn't paid the judgement -- they just closed up shop. It probably IS sour grapes as Sony said, as they did the same thing when Nintendo sued them a few years ago. They tucked tail and ran so they wouldn't be subject to punishment, and then came back later when nobody noticed.
But you still have that choice. You aren't forced. I find it interesting that some people claim they're forced to buy something when people (some of them the same) are calling for the boycott of that same product.
No, actually, you're missing the point. You're not forced into anything, you're only forced to evaluate the different options and choose one. If you buy the PS3 over an Xbox, despite the fact that it has a Blu-ray player, it obviously has greater value to you, and by making that choice, you were hardly forced. Arguing this is like aruging I wanted to buy a PS2 for the DVD Player, but I had to buy game support with it, which I didn't want. A comparable product that met my needs was a DVD player which I also could have chosen. You could easily choose the Xbox 360, which is a comparable unit without builtin movie playback capability. If you decide only to buy a PS3 regardless of what it has, you're not forced at all, that was your choice.
Or, like a good consumer, you can opt not to buy the PS3, because it's obviously not what you want. "Forced" wasn't taken to an illogical extreme. Buy something you do want. Consumers have a choice. Saying you're being forced to buy anything is illogical in and of itself, unless that is you don't live in a democracy.
You're not being *forced* to pay for anything. If you don't like the price, don't buy it.
Sony isn't forcing you guys to do anything, nor are they indebted to produce a product that the forum jockeying techno-geeks want. If you don't like their product, seriously, go buy a product that you DO like. It's not like Sony is walking down the street and ripping $600 out of your wallet.
Yeah, seriously. I wish that over here in the US we wouldn't get so uppity about what's going on internally in another country. It's not like it's really our business or anything. Not all cultures should be the same as ours, and I'd hope that they aren't. Diversity is important.
If you're going to go that far about it, it's easy enough to say that 95% of purchased consumer audio hardware out there probably won't even reproduce some of that sound in the way that you state. I don't know about MP3, but I'd be surprised if a *good* compression scheme really does that much damage to the music, and even if it does, there's always lossless.
I have no desire to debate most of your points, as my opinions regarding such have already been stated by others in this thread, but I take particular issue to the following:
Do we all agree that it is fair use to rip an audio cd that we own into mp3 format? But hey, that is loss of information!
That's just wholly incorrect. Unless you compress the song all to hell, you aren't losing *content*, meaning the listener isn't losing the ability to perceive the message as intended by the author. It's completely different than editing out content.
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The real reason, the one that isn't BS, is that Sony has the right to control distribution in the region. If they want to require distributors to be licensed with them, that's within their legal right. Lik-Sang obviously wasn't, and not only that, Lik-Sang was in the grey market -- importation of those foreign goods into that region without license. Selling Sony's stuff from another country there wasn't exactly legal. That's why they got sued. Of course, if you've seen the gamesindustry.biz article, Lik-Sang didn't even show up to court, paid no legal fees and hasn't paid the judgement -- they just closed up shop. It probably IS sour grapes as Sony said, as they did the same thing when Nintendo sued them a few years ago. They tucked tail and ran so they wouldn't be subject to punishment, and then came back later when nobody noticed.
But you still have that choice. You aren't forced. I find it interesting that some people claim they're forced to buy something when people (some of them the same) are calling for the boycott of that same product.
No, actually, you're missing the point. You're not forced into anything, you're only forced to evaluate the different options and choose one. If you buy the PS3 over an Xbox, despite the fact that it has a Blu-ray player, it obviously has greater value to you, and by making that choice, you were hardly forced. Arguing this is like aruging I wanted to buy a PS2 for the DVD Player, but I had to buy game support with it, which I didn't want. A comparable product that met my needs was a DVD player which I also could have chosen. You could easily choose the Xbox 360, which is a comparable unit without builtin movie playback capability. If you decide only to buy a PS3 regardless of what it has, you're not forced at all, that was your choice.
Nice troll. Just because I might disagree with the various anti-Sony zealotism in no way makes me a fanboy. FYI, I'm not buying a PS3 anytime soon.
Or, like a good consumer, you can opt not to buy the PS3, because it's obviously not what you want. "Forced" wasn't taken to an illogical extreme. Buy something you do want. Consumers have a choice. Saying you're being forced to buy anything is illogical in and of itself, unless that is you don't live in a democracy.
You're not being *forced* to pay for anything. If you don't like the price, don't buy it. Sony isn't forcing you guys to do anything, nor are they indebted to produce a product that the forum jockeying techno-geeks want. If you don't like their product, seriously, go buy a product that you DO like. It's not like Sony is walking down the street and ripping $600 out of your wallet.
Yeah, seriously. I wish that over here in the US we wouldn't get so uppity about what's going on internally in another country. It's not like it's really our business or anything. Not all cultures should be the same as ours, and I'd hope that they aren't. Diversity is important.
If you're going to go that far about it, it's easy enough to say that 95% of purchased consumer audio hardware out there probably won't even reproduce some of that sound in the way that you state. I don't know about MP3, but I'd be surprised if a *good* compression scheme really does that much damage to the music, and even if it does, there's always lossless.
I have no desire to debate most of your points, as my opinions regarding such have already been stated by others in this thread, but I take particular issue to the following:
Do we all agree that it is fair use to rip an audio cd that we own into mp3 format? But hey, that is loss of information!
That's just wholly incorrect. Unless you compress the song all to hell, you aren't losing *content*, meaning the listener isn't losing the ability to perceive the message as intended by the author. It's completely different than editing out content.
Clearly you should also sue your English teacher for failing to ingrain in your mind the correct spelling of "ridiculous."