Chief RIAA anti-piracy lawyer proves just how silly the recording industry really is.
Yesterday was day 1 of Capitol Records, et al v. Jammie Thomas, the first trial concerning illegal file-sharing to ever make its way into a courtroom, and already the RIAA is making itself out to be a true enemy of the people.
In a stunning bit of testimony, Jennifer Pariser, head of litigation for Sony BMG, actually testified that "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’," she said.
Doesn’t she know that there’s a built in tax for all forms of recordable media and media players, the whole point of which is to go towards offsetting the costs of this mild-mannered "piracy?" Is she implying that we can never make a copy of something we purchased for own personal use?
What’s also an interesting point to make here is that certainly this can’t be true for digital music, thus making physical CDs an even more worthless commodity than they already are. If the recording industry is so adamant about shoring up declining CD revenues then why does it do all it can to make people hate CDs even more? It’s bad enough to charge $20 bucks a pop, but then to be so bold as to say that burning a copy is technically piracy has got to be one of the most egregious claims I’ve ever heard.
To boot, what about the fact that portable media players require one to rip CD tracks into MP3s or other compatible formats in order to be able to listen to them. Is this "ripping" then illegal as well?
Praiser also testified that piracy has "…caused billions of dollars in harm in the past four or five years" and that it’s her "…personal belief that Sony BMG is half the size now as it was in 2000." But, as is evident from her testimony, I’d argue instead that sheer stupidity is to blame for the recording industry’s woes. No other industry could expect to survive if they were to do as the RIAA has done and go out of its way to sue its customers, charge outrageous prices, and do everything it can to limit what its customers can actually do with their purchased product.
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The dinosaur is dying a slow and agonizing death. CD’s are going the way of vinyl and cassette tapes. Artists don’t even NEED a recording contract any more. Others will follow Radiohead’s lead and offer their music directly to the public. All the record companies can do is bleed every last drop of blood out the the customers that they have remaining for now.
Some people still do buy CD’s but that’s just because it’s a bad habit. They don’t know any better or–as usually is the case with many things–they are too lazy or too old to change. But soon the people who are now young will become older and THEY certainly won’t be buying CD’s!
The record companies will follow the older CD-buying generation to the grave. Those who don’t adapt don’t survive (Darwin).
@Mountian….yes that was the court battle I was referring to.
So it really does not make any difference if Sony says ripping your own purchased music is illegal it would not stand up in a court of law.
@Mountain
Thats what I thought but the RIAA’s always had its own twisted sense of logic.
I stopped buying anything Sony/BGM after I found it impossible to rip it on to my PC and on top of it all would have to use some crappy player on the disk for playback. I just hope many others have done the same thing. They have been shooting themselves in the foot for a long time. It was also them that had some copyprotect on the CDs that would make your disk drive disappear when removed of the computer.
I just hope they lose this case and lose it bigtime
Doesn’t this fall under this act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_Home_Recording_Act ? to which if I understand correctly has been already debated in court that ripping a disc to your computer is not infringement?
I hope that this backfires on them BIG!
If people start to realize that what they are saying is that they cannot even have a backup copy of music THEY purchased themselves…the general public just might get a glimpse of how idiotic the music industry is and turn against them
But REGARDLESS of what Sony says….the LAW says you CAN have a backup copy so SCREW THEM!