Sony BMG's head lawyer says ripping CDs is "stealing"
By Nilay Patel 
posted October 4th 2007 9:01AM
posted October 4th 2007 9:01AM
There's one of them RIAA lawsuits going down in Duluth this week, and Jammie Thomas, the single mother charged with sharing 26 songs on Kazaa, isn't going down without a fight. Yesterday her attorneys called Jennifer Pariser, Sony BMG's head of litigation, to testify before the jury and got her to say some incredibly incendiary things -- not least of which was her opinion that making copies of purchased music is just "a nice way of saying 'steals just one copy.'" That viewpoint, of course, implicates pretty much every single thing consumers do with music and computers, including transferring songs to iPods and Zunes. We're betting there might be a couple jurors on the panel who aren't too fond of Ms. Pariser right now. Might want to check yo'self before you wreck yo'self, counselor.Disclaimer: Although this post was written by an attorney, it is not meant as legal advice or analysis and should not be taken as such.
common engadget up this this!!!
what I gound reciently is that the jury is deliberating and just aske what the minimum was for willful violation.
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/10/is-riaa-jury-go.html
Please tell me she is not related to Eli pariser of MoveOn.org?
So hey guys, I've got an idea...
Instead of showing up at the homes and offices of music executives and demanding they listen to their customers and make a change in their policy, why don't we just get on the Internet and whine, bitch, and moan about it for a little while, and then go back to business as usual?
THAT'LL teach `em!
update please the verdic has been posted!!!
so when will they start charging $9,250 per track at the online store?
@xzavier:
depending on where you get your music, you may or may not really 'own' it, thanks to the wondering thing known as DRM.
i mean, you can only burn it to a limited number of cds, transfer it to a limited number of portable devices..
now, my real two cents in this:
i don't know about you, or sony, but i refuse to 'rent' my music, and i refuse to let anyone else tell me what i can and can't do with a file that i PAID FOR.
i also refuse to let anybody tell me that making copies of what i DO own is wrong.
so, sony, the only thing that all of your branches do well, and ALWAYS DO is alienate your customers. cheers, to what will hopefully be a short life for a company that can't appreciate the company that's giving it the thing it's so greedy over.
Engadget please contact Sony BMG to comment on the lawyers statement.
Can we have a simple yes or no on whether its stealing or not.
I hate to be the voice of dissent, but I feel Mr. Patel has put words into Ms. Praiser's mouth -- or at least implying something she likely didn't mean. It is perfectly legal, under the copyright code, to copy songs for personal use (Vinyl to MP3, MP3 to your personal ipod, MP3 to CD for your car or workout mix-cd), and no-one with any credible knowledge of copyright law has ever claimed otherwise.
Mr. Patel seems to be implying that Ms. Praiser was refering to these types of personal copies when she commented about 'steals just one song'. Under the copyright code, personal copies are fine. Distributing 'just one song' via kazaa and the like is not.
Hmm...this makes me think. So when Microsoft, Apple, and even Sony tell us how to rip songs from our CDs to their MP3 players, maybe they need to add this fine print "you must purchase the licence for each ripped song to be able to legally transfer it to this device." I guess I'll just risk not doing it and see what happens.
Next, they'll sue Microsoft and Apple for having ripping included in their media applications. And after that, Sony BMG might as well sue Sony (its parent company) itself due to programs like SoundForge that allow us to edit our music.
Careful people, don't burn a CD of your music or make a mixtape, that's against the law. You better purchase those licences or all hell will break loose. Yep, that's real smart Sony BMG. And you wonder why people resort to piracy rather than buying your DRM encumbered rootkits?
Here's another idea, produce quality music instead of the same old trash no one wants to hear anymore. I know of some music that I'd definitely be willing to pay for but yet, no one sells it and I cannot find it anywhere. But yet they keep selling the same trash and they still wonder why CD sales are down? Digital distribution with DRM and you wonder why music sales aren't too great? Wake up and smell the coffee, people hate DRM. People don't mind paying for quality music, noting emphasis on QUALITY, but they would like to be able to transfer it to as many devices as they have and burn as many CDs as they'd like.
The common argument from these companies is that a pirated song means a lost sale. That's just not true because the fact that someone illegally downloads a song does not mean they would have bought it. Many people download songs because they can but if they had to buy a lot of it, they probably wouldn't purchase it and just not listen to it at all. I believe that any publicity is good publicity, at least from an artist standpoint because the more people listen to my music, the better.
Suck it up Sony BMG and all you big record companies. You did this to yourselves. You can blame piracy as much as you want but that does not account for lost sales, realize that your material sucks and that people are sick of DRM and perhaps lower the prices of songs and people will pay for songs. $1 per song is still a bit much, sure for 1 song it's not much but if you have 100 or 1000 songs, well, that's quite a bit of money. Maybe $0.25 would be more decent and people would not complain all that much. But this is just a pipe dream. Let's be realistic, are the record companies going to be smart? Not until they're at the final straw.