Sony: You're "stealing" even if you burn a copy of a CD you purchased

bobman1235

shawn474 wrote: »

cfrizz,
I agree wholeheartedly with the power of the consumer. But, let's not lose sight of the fact that the people being sued actually broke the law. You can't fault Sony for actually enforcing their rights as a company no matter who it's against. Anyone who downloads files knows they are breaking the law and are subject to prosecution. You roll the dice when you do it that you aren't going to be caught. Should we really boycott Sony for doing this or should we lay fault with the single mother who knowingly and illegally downloaded 1,700 songs? I read an article that said that the artists make 1 dollar from every cd that they sell. The rest goes to the marketing, publication, materials, etc. Should those artists be deprived of working that hard to make a 1 dollar profit only to have someone steal the songs for free?

Shawn

There are two separate issues; the initial issue was over the Sony person saying that making a personal copy of a disc is stealing, which most reasonable people (and the law) disagree with.

The second issue was the story of the single mother being sued; that had nothing to do with Sony (or little to do - seven companies were involved), and she was technically at fault, even if the punishment is a little outrageous for the crime.

shawn474

As far as the making copies of cd's that you actually bought, that is a joke!!! How are they going to tell us what to do with our propertythat we paid for? I will say that I think it's a sperate issue if you are selling those copies. There are people all over e-bay who were selling burned copies of discs for drastically reduced prices. Those guys should get it, too.

Shawn

Danny Tse

shawn474 wrote: »

cfrizz,
I agree wholeheartedly with the power of the consumer. But, let's not lose sight of the fact that the people being sued actually broke the law. You can't fault Sony for actually enforcing their rights as a company no matter who it's against. Anyone who downloads files knows they are breaking the law and are subject to prosecution. You roll the dice when you do it that you aren't going to be caught. Should we really boycott Sony for doing this or should we lay fault with the single mother who knowingly and illegally downloaded 1,700 songs? I read an article that said that the artists make 1 dollar from every cd that they sell. The rest goes to the marketing, publication, materials, etc. Should those artists be deprived of working that hard to make a 1 dollar profit only to have someone steal the songs for free?

Shawn

Totally agree with you, Shawn. My sister had a three year artist contract with Taiwan Decca Records....and she'd make only US$10,000 in royalties after sales of 200,000 units. $1.00 per CD sounds like an excellent deal.

heiney9

Lasareath wrote: »

I wonder if sony would consider us selling our old CD's for less than the purchase price a crime.

To them we are only leasing the song for X amount of $ for our lifetime.

They may even consider it illegal for us to give to CD away to somebody. In their eyes this is us stealing $9.99 out of their future revenue.

EFF Sony!!!

There was legislation at one time no too long ago (within a year or so) that was trying to make used cd shops illegal.

H9

dkg999

Maybe Sony should sue Al Gore for inventing the internet Funny how all this wasn't a problem until they thought it was impacting corporate earnings. Even with LP's, you had the ability to back-up your copy on cassette or reel-to-reel tape. Except for the ability to share digital files via the internet, none of the other issues really changed. I wonder how much of the decline of the music industries revenues are really related to file sharing? It seems to be a real easy target to blame things on, with the socially acceptable "it hurts the artist the most" marketing message.

Face

F-Sony. I wouldn't buy a thing from them again.

shawn474

Face,
While you may be among the majority here in the forum that would never buy Sony again, I would guess that you are in the vast minority of the rest of the consumer market. Like it or not, Sony makes decent, affordable products whether or not you agree with their business practices. Don't take one sentence that one person in the company makes to be the end all, be all of Sony's views.

Shawn

jakelm

Thow shall not steal.....................................

















































...........on thursdays.

rskarvan

Sony can argue whatever they want regardless of how rediculous.
Its when the judges start agreeing with Sony that it becomes a problem.

jakelm

rskarvan wrote: »

Sony can argue whatever they want regardless of how rediculous.
Its when the judges start agreeing with Sony that it becomes a problem.

AGREED!!!

Its when the rules get bent for the big guys to hurt the little guys alittle more, thats when the problem starts.

We, as middle class , everyday folks, need to wake up!

Laws are being placed without our consent, without our vote. Laws are being changed or "tweaked" to hurt us, to tie our hands and to serve the "big buisness". Freedom is slowly being takin away, until next thing you know....

We cant smoke anywhere (weather you do or not),

cant consume an alchaholic beverage or eat certain foods (because someone says its bad for us),

cant go where we like on vacation (because of what we drive or our culture or way of life, might not agree with others),

cant drive what we want,

cant "say" anything negative about anything,

cant voice opinions (because it might make someone feel offended or just rub the wrong way)

cant hire certain people or in fact, fire certain people,

have to learn 2 or 3 different languages (even though we are all in the same country),

have to give to the illeagals before we can give to the poor,

be totally dependent on foriegn electronics, oil, and maybe even FOOD!!

all out of jobs because some one who cant speak a lick of english can do it cheaper, because he doesnt have to pay taxes and gets payed cash because he doesnt have a SS#.

all of this....and much more....because we didnt stand up and say
"Hey I bought this, Its mine to do with,,,,,,,,,so shut the hell up and LEAVE ME ALONE "

FREEEDDDOOOOMMMMMMMMM!!!!

shawn474

jakelm,
You just took this to a whole new level turning a discussion about a lawsuit into a political diatribe on what you perceive as what's wrong with America. How does it happen that every time someone brings up an issue it always comes back to this? I'm not trying to start a fight or make waves, just trying to see how this relates to the topic.

Shawn

jakelm

shawn474 wrote: »

jakelm,
You just took this to a whole new level turning a discussion about a lawsuit into a political diatribe on what you perceive as what's wrong with America. How does it happen that every time someone brings up an issue it always comes back to this? I'm not trying to start a fight or make waves, just trying to see how this relates to the topic.

Shawn

Yes and????....

This lawsuit is political.....

its all politics.....

this lawsuit is relevent to everything going on in politics today.....

it was brought to a political court...


Sony...Enron....Microsoft..Exxon...or Governement..is there no similarities?

jakelm

shawn474 wrote: »

jakelm,
You just took this to a whole new level turning a discussion about a lawsuit into a political diatribe on what you perceive as what's wrong with America. How does it happen that every time someone brings up an issue it always comes back to this? I'm not trying to start a fight or make waves, just trying to see how this relates to the topic.

Shawn

This issue isnt "whats wrong with my speaker?"

This issue is part of everything going on today.

shawn474

She broke the law and is being prosecuted for it. What's political about that? Are there similarities to this case and the others that you mentioned? Yes; some vague and some not so vague. But, the most prominent being that people who break the law (especially in high profile companies who have the means to pursue) get prosecuted!

While I don't find a huge difference (morally or lawfully) between a 14 year old kid downloading 5 songs and not being pursued by the record company and a mom (who knows the difference between right and wrong and understands the law) who downloads 1,700 songs, I certainly understand why one is being prosecuted and one isn't. There's nothing political in my mind about it. Sony is protecting it's multi-million dollar investment in a band and trying to get what it rightfully deserves under the auspices of the law (whether we agree or not). If either paid for their songs, they would have no worry. There's no such thing as a free lunch and it is criminal to steal.

Radiohead is the band of the future the way that I see it. More bands that have the means to do that will and will reap the benefits of not answering to a big label company.

Shawn

polktiger

shawn474 wrote: »

I can almost guarantee that their stockholders haven't seen a slip and their profit isn't suffering all that much. If you want to fault them, fault them for being smart business making a lot of money.
Shawn

As far as Sony's stock - it has been a dud over the last five years in Oct 2002 the stock was trading at about $48 today it is trading at $50. Hardly a great five year run for the shareholders.

Aside from that Sony suffers from major shifts in taste. I don't think I have purchased more that 10 cds since I was in college, and half of those are christmas music. I just don't get into new artists like I did 10 to 15 years ago. By contrast, my nephew does not buy any CDs either he just downloads music to his ipod from Apple. With filesharing, the market is telling Sony that there is a market for music, it is just that the market is no longer willing to pay $17 plus sales tax for a CD with 2 good songs when those 2 songs can be purchased for $.99 each. The recording industry has resisted, kicking and screaming downloadable music. They could have capitalized on this early on and be making money with a system that has negligible distribution costs.

But, that is not really a problem for me since I am working though my old library of CDs.

jakelm

shawn474 wrote: »

She broke the law and is being prosecuted for it. What's political about that?

While I don't find a huge difference between a 14 year old kid downloading 5 songs and not being pursued by the record company and a mom (who knows the difference between right and wrong and understands the law) who downloads 1,700 songs, I certainly understand why one is being prosecuted and one isn't. There's nothing political in my mind about it. Sony is protecting it's multi-million dollar investment in a band and trying to get what it rightfully deserves under the auspices of the law (whether we agree or not).

Radiohead is the band of the future the way that I see it. More bands that have the means to do that will and will reap the benefits of not answering to a big label company.

Shawn

The issue of this thread was a quote by Sony. "your stealing if you burn a copy of a CD you bought"

This is untrue.

I have the right to back up all my files and songs I purchased. I do not have the right to distribute.

That "quote", that was made by Sony, was followed by people in politics supporting Sony. People who bobble there heads like a bobble head on a car's dashboard. Same as Enron, alot of big companies and even our Government, saying what every they want, because they can.

In buisness today, managers and owners make the call and assistants (who live off of the laborers hard work) bobble there heads to what ever the "upper " management says. While the laborers say "wait a minute, hold on, this isnt right".

Of corse she was wrong for illeagaly downloading music, no one is arguing that.

But I do take offence. at what Sony said

shawn474

polktiger, while not a great run, it hasn't dropped any either. No profit, but no loss.

jakelm, as far as the backing up of cd's, I agree with that part of your argument. It's a ludicrous statement that was made. But, as in all that we read, it could have been taken out of context and even if it wasn't may not reflect what Sony as an entity truly believes. Time will tell.

I completely agree that the recording industry could have been more proactive in file sharing and found a happy medium with which to apeease the executives and the consumer. At the end of the day, the suits that make those decisions could give two craps about the consumer in any company that we bring up. Bottom line is money. If they didn't foresee anything better than they have and could project a probable loss, no way will they do it. I can only assume that they hope for lawsuits like these to detour file sharing and for people to start buying their music again. Come down to 7 or 8 bucks a disc is the easy suggestion. Well then the band who makes the album is saying, "Hell no. Whereas I got 1 dollar for my cd sales before, i am now getting 50 cents." The fault lies in some lack of compromise between all parties involved - record companies, bands and consumer. Record companies should try to be more receptive to the consumer and not price gouge whereby they may see less profit per disc but more volume as a result. The band should also say that the volume of cd's that they sell might rise and their profit margin may not dip that much, also noticed by the consumer which would be more receptive to concerts, merchandise purchase, etc. And the consumer should not expect to get something for free that these companies and bands spend a lot of time, hard work and money producing. No?

Shawn

jakelm

Shawn, you and I are on the same page.

But how can there be a compromise with consumers, when we are told "this is the law, this is how it is, now be quiet little child".

They will never compromise the almighty dollar.

It wil take a hell of alot more bands to do what Radiohead did, to make even the slightest dent in th emusic industry.

polktiger

shawn474 - in a market where the S&P 500 is up 75% over that same time horizon, Sony's stock has been a loser. While you would not sell at a loss, the opportunity cost is substantial.

There is certainly blame to go around and when you are talking about bands and music companies the least important person is generally the consumer. The whole process has been mismanaged, and since I am not an industry insider I do not know who is most at fault. But I am sure there is plenty of blame to go around. While I have no proof, I suspect part of the problem is also in the distribution agreements in place between the record labels and the retailers that the retailers may have been pushing since many of them would be squeezed out if more music was available for download.

But back to the original issue in this thread, as others have said...being able to record for personal use music you purchased is old, settled law. I am honestly a little surprised Sony (or any other record lable) wants to dig up that lost fight again.

What are all the so-called marking costs? I used to buy music becuase I heard a song on the radio or MTV. In my opinion that is all the advertising you need. I thought pay for play was illegal, so if that is not the marketing, what is?

shawn474

polktiger, well said. I will not argue that the backing up of personal, purchased albums is not nearly illegal and should never be revisited again by the courts.

I think at the end of the day that we are all in semi-agreement that there is a lot of blame to go around. I am no industry insider either and don't pretend to know all of the ins and outs of the business. I have read multiple articles over the past decade or so stating that bands make a dollar or less per album sold and the reason has always been attributed to the cost of production, marketing, touring etc. I won't pretend to know, but I find that it is plausible for this to be the case. It could be that the biggest reason the band isn't making any more money than that is because the big wig record execs are making 18 million dollars in annual salary (arbitrary number, but you get my drift) - which alone makes it reason enough to boycott the purchase of albums, but not have the right to steal them either.


Also, one of things said earlier was that it is interesting that Sony goes after those least able to defend themselves. I would argue that it is just as interesting that those least able to defend themselves set themselves up for potential lawsuits by breaking the law. Neither here nor there, but something that may have gotten lost in the bigger picture.

Shawn

jakelm

I know this is not a funny subject, but I rememeber reading somewhere, your chances of getting caught is like 1:20 million. Better chances in winning the lottery. Mothers, Fathers, Police officials, Goverment officials, every race culture religion and country, downloading music.


Not saying its right or should be leagal (I beleive it is a vague form of stealing, but still stealing), but this so called "crack down on illeagal downloads", is pretty funny.

jakelm

Hell I know more than a handfull of Polkies on here , who would try it at least once, if they could download in lossless format...lol

shawn474

We actually had a co-worker of mine sued for 75 downloads. She settled for a ridiculously low financial agreement (compared to what it could have been) and we now get an a-mail once a week from the IT dept. reminding us how illegal it is to file share. It is crazy who seems to get caught.

Shawn

jakelm

How can they tell what was downloaded?

I mean ..its easy to copy a cd in crappy MP3 format, then you have a folder full of mp3's. How do they know what was downloaded and what wasnt?

Its not illeagal to run kazaa, nor is it illeagal to have 1700 songs in a shared folder. So who is to say what was downloaded and what wasnt?

I can see them busting you for a song or songs you were currently in the process of downloading.

And they cant just say.."oh i see you have 1700 songs in a folder, we are going to charge you for evey one of them". What if that folder is made up of a playlist for dj's with 1700 different songs from different cd's?

I have many friends who are dj's, with thousands of song in folders, and you cant tell what came from the cd and what was downloaded. They are all on the same format and are all tagged the same way.

krabby5

polktiger wrote: »

As far as Sony's stock - it has been a dud over the last five years in Oct 2002 the stock was trading at about $48 today it is trading at $50. Hardly a great five year run for the shareholders.

Aside from that Sony suffers from major shifts in taste. I don't think I have purchased more that 10 cds since I was in college, and half of those are christmas music. I just don't get into new artists like I did 10 to 15 years ago. By contrast, my nephew does not buy any CDs either he just downloads music to his ipod from Apple. With filesharing, the market is telling Sony that there is a market for music, it is just that the market is no longer willing to pay $17 plus sales tax for a CD with 2 good songs when those 2 songs can be purchased for $.99 each. The recording industry has resisted, kicking and screaming downloadable music. They could have capitalized on this early on and be making money with a system that has negligible distribution costs.

But, that is not really a problem for me since I am working though my old library of CDs.

Even new music I buy is from "older" groups..:D

but I don't pay anywhere near $17+tax for a cd

krabby5

jakelm wrote: »

I know this is not a funny subject, but I rememeber reading somewhere, your chances of getting caught is like 1:20 million. Better chances in winning the lottery. Mothers, Fathers, Police officials, Goverment officials, every race culture religion and country, downloading music.


Not saying its right or should be leagal (I beleive it is a vague form of stealing, but still stealing), but this so called "crack down on illeagal downloads", is pretty funny.

just think....that lady won the negative lottery!!:D

krabby5

shawn474 wrote: »

We actually had a co-worker of mine sued for 75 downloads. She settled for a ridiculously low financial agreement (compared to what it could have been) and we now get an a-mail once a week from the IT dept. reminding us how illegal it is to file share. It is crazy who seems to get caught.

Shawn

wow..where do you work? We get yelled at for internet usage, period..

you guys download music at work:eek:

krabby5

jakelm wrote: »

How can they tell what was downloaded?

I mean ..its easy to copy a cd in crappy MP3 format, then you have a folder full of mp3's. How do they know what was downloaded and what wasnt?

Its not illeagal to run kazaa, nor is it illeagal to have 1700 songs in a shared folder. So who is to say what was downloaded and what wasnt?

I can see them busting you for a song or songs you were currently in the process of downloading.

And they cant just say.."oh i see you have 1700 songs in a folder, we are going to charge you for evey one of them". What if that folder is made up of a playlist for dj's with 1700 different songs from different cd's?

I have many friends who are dj's, with thousands of song in folders, and you cant tell what came from the cd and what was downloaded. They are all on the same format and are all tagged the same way.

when you have Kazza on you can determine your "shared" folders, if any..if she didn't know that...too bad for her.

and I thought she was just convicted of sharing 24 songs?

brijenjas

madmax wrote: »

With all aspects of recording becoming easier, cheaper and of higher quality I expect most artists to start releasing their own stuff off of their own websites, leaving the recording industry in a pickle. I look forward to it.
madmax

+1
I really like this idea, it actually would let the artist(s) make the profits, instead of the record companies.

MGPK

The artists who make music should find a way to distribute for free, their music on the internet in a lossy format to create exposure and build interest for their art without fear of punishment from the industry against the downloaders. If whoever finds that music worth keeping then they can buy that music in a lossless format from the artist. The key is exposure, if their talent is strong enough, the artists can make their money via concerts and the merchandise sold at concerts and artists usually make more from touring and merchandise than actual album sales. If this was done it would take away the middleman aka the producers and record execs. Music is music, it is not product.