Making backups of your own CDs is illegal according to Sony

Now this is interesting.

Quote:

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Duluth, Minnesota — Testimony today in Capitol Records, et al v. Jammie Thomas quickly and inadvertently turned to the topic of fair use when Jennifer Pariser, the head of litigation for Sony BMG, was called to the stand to testify. Pariser said that file-sharing is extremely damaging to the music industry and that record labels are particularly affected. In doing so, she advocated a view of copyright that would turn many honest people into thieves.

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Pariser noted that music labels make no money on touring, radio, or merchandise, which leaves the company particularly exposed to the negative effects of file-sharing. "It's my personal belief that Sony BMG is half the size now as it was in 2000," she said, thanks to piracy. In Pariser's view, "when people steal, when they take music without compensation, we are harmed."

Pariser has a very broad definition of "stealing." When questioned by Richard Gabriel, lead counsel for the record labels, Pariser suggested that what millions of music fans do is actually theft. The dirty deed? Ripping your own CDs or downloading songs you already own.

Gabriel asked if it was wrong for consumers to make copies of music which they have purchased, even just one copy. Pariser replied, "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.

Countless studies have shown that the majority of music on portable music players like the iPod comes from sources other than download services. For most people, that music is comprised primarily of songs "ripped" from CD collections to MP3 or some other comparable format. Indeed, most portable music players comes with software (like iTunes) which is designed to facilitate the easy ripping of CDs. According to Pariser's view, this is stealing.

We've actually heard something similar to this view before. As part of the 2006 triennial review of the effectiveness of the DMCA, a number of content-related industries filed a joint reply with the government on the effectiveness of the DMCA and the challenges that lay ahead for copyright. The argument relating to CDs espoused in the joint reply could be summarized: although nothing has prevented consumers from making backups of CDs, this cannot be construed as authorization from the music labels for them to do so. Thus, there has been no authorization of said backups, and the coincidental ability to make backups currently should not be mistaken for fair use.

Pariser's views appear to be similar, insofar as she clearly suggests that consumers have no right to make backups of the music that they have purchased in CD form or even in download form.

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This is just the beginning folks, next owning a CD burner would be illegal too.

wow!! i guess im going to jail *stealing* 1500 songs
and buring twice as many to cd's thats just ignorant
when i buy something and i choose tro down load it to
my mp3 which by the way i use a sony mp3 player i
think there rights end once they have my money.

and the sony mp3 play i ahve has a copy right thing
where it want down load anything unless it has a labbel on
it which isnt that hard to make b ut still i dont think they
have that right to say no to bruning music you own.

sonys is contradicting itself iof they say burning a cd or
downloading muaic to an mp3 player like i ahve i mean if they
think its stealig then why selll mp3's like the one i have from sony
that makes no since at all. because if thats true there giving people
the tools they need to *steal* by selling mp3's and other devices
for down loading music.

Quote:

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Duluth, Minnesota — Testimony today in Capitol Records, et al v. Jammie Thomas quickly and inadvertently turned to the topic of fair use when Jennifer Pariser, the head of litigation for Sony BMG, was called to the stand to testify. Pariser said that file-sharing is extremely damaging to the music industry and that record labels are particularly affected. In doing so, she advocated a view of copyright that would turn many honest people into thieves.

Related Stories Digital Freedom Campaign to organize students against RIAA abuse Programming note: I'll be on All Things Considered this afternoon
First RIAA trial gets under way with jury selection, opening statements
Judge bars RIAA president from testifying in Capitol Records v. Thomas
Pariser noted that music labels make no money on touring, radio, or merchandise, which leaves the company particularly exposed to the negative effects of file-sharing. "It's my personal belief that Sony BMG is half the size now as it was in 2000," she said, thanks to piracy. In Pariser's view, "when people steal, when they take music without compensation, we are harmed."

Pariser has a very broad definition of "stealing." When questioned by Richard Gabriel, lead counsel for the record labels, Pariser suggested that what millions of music fans do is actually theft. The dirty deed? Ripping your own CDs or downloading songs you already own.

Gabriel asked if it was wrong for consumers to make copies of music which they have purchased, even just one copy. Pariser replied, "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.

Countless studies have shown that the majority of music on portable music players like the iPod comes from sources other than download services. For most people, that music is comprised primarily of songs "ripped" from CD collections to MP3 or some other comparable format. Indeed, most portable music players comes with software (like iTunes) which is designed to facilitate the easy ripping of CDs. According to Pariser's view, this is stealing.

We've actually heard something similar to this view before. As part of the 2006 triennial review of the effectiveness of the DMCA, a number of content-related industries filed a joint reply with the government on the effectiveness of the DMCA and the challenges that lay ahead for copyright. The argument relating to CDs espoused in the joint reply could be summarized: although nothing has prevented consumers from making backups of CDs, this cannot be construed as authorization from the music labels for them to do so. Thus, there has been no authorization of said backups, and the coincidental ability to make backups currently should not be mistaken for fair use.

Pariser's views appear to be similar, insofar as she clearly suggests that consumers have no right to make backups of the music that they have purchased in CD form or even in download form.

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now this is just stupid, how in the hell can sony say that it is wrong to copy music that you already own?
look in the law that comes in to play with entertainment, it states that if you own a legal copy of the product, you can copy it, to make one and only one backup.
as to not damage the original copy.
so what I say is this, go ahead and make a copy, but have the original.

This doesn't come as a surprise to me. Sony has a history of trying to stop any form of CD copying.

Ummm... Lets not forget that Sony's hardware devision makes and sells MP3 playback devices, so the words Hypocrite comes to mind. Hell, I've owned a Sony MP3 CD player and my dad's car has a CD deck that I got for his birthday made by Sony that plays MP3s, and has an input for MP3 players like iPods. Both these items were in excess of a 100 dollars.

You can't going around making a profit from the proliferation of digital music while at the same time trying to send people to jail for copying their purchased music to their computers to make use of these devices.

And I'd also like to see them try and do anything about this in Canada, where copyright law allows for "Making of one copy for archival purposes".

How would they even know if you ripped your own CDs?

There's no other way to get your CDs on an MP3 player unless you rip them. So how is that stealing? You already own it, you're just transferring it to a device. Does the RIAA really expect us to buy MP3s of stuff we already own?

This is just a scare tactic. They can't send 200 million people to jail because they back up their music or download music. That would be a bigger waste of money. All music should be free. Most bands make enough from concerts and appearances to survive and continue producing music.

Besides downloading is the future. Eventually CDs will become obsolete and everything will be downloaded.