After my daughter received a pre-suit letter from the RIAA, which I consider Sony to be the biggest member of, I decided to never buy another Sony CD. Then I realized that Sony is infesting our house. Ever since college, when the conventional wisdom was to always buy either Pioneer or Sony, depending on whether you like blue or green, I have loved Sony electronics. I have Sony TV’s, DVD players, VCR’s, camera’s, telephones, audio equipment, and even once owned a Vaio computer. I calculated that I have spend about $40,000 on Sony electronics in my lifetime, and was planning on shelling out about another $18,000 for a large plasma screen home theater with all the associated equipment. Well it ain’t going to be Sony equipment now, and I will never again buy another Sony product. I figure this is the way to really show my displeasure with them, their law firm, and the very questionalble reliability of the data that they collect to instigate their lawsuits. And once they threaten you, you quickly realize that it will cost much more to fight them than to just give them the money they ask for. I figure I can cost them MUCh more over time simply by boycotting all products produced by this electronics and media conglomerate.
Actually, you may buy a Sony manufcatured product without knowing it- many large manufacturers of this type make stuff and sell them to other companies, who in turn slap their own brand name on it.
Well, I’m not going to research it, but I figure if I stay with name brands such as Toshiba, Hitachi, Pioneer, etc., I’m not likely to get a Sony product.
Send a letter telling them this. Boycotts only work if companies know they’re being boycotted. I know that Sony supplies the batteries for pretty much every laptop on the market, and I’m sure they have their hand in plenty of other consumer electronics, but even if you can’t avoid giving them a few dollars, you can definitely decrease their revenue by buying something that’s made with a few of their components or even outright rebranded.
I have already written them an email. Perhaps an honest to goodness letter would be better. Like I said, I have always gone out of my way, and sometimes paid more for Sony because I believed they made an excellent product. But so do lots of companies. It is fairly ironic they struck the daughter of one of their most loyal consumers.
For those of us unfamiliar with this, could you explain why you’re angry at the RIAA?
I googled RIAA and got this about pre-lawsuits.
You’re angry because recording companies are enforcing their right not to have their music stolen?
It’s like boycotting Walmart for having your daughter arrested for stealing milk and clothing.
Psst. Look over here
How else do you expect Sony to recoup from their astronomical losses caused by the PS3?
How else do you expect Sony to recoup from the astronomical losses by maintaining an outdated business model?
And the lawsuits incurred by installing spyware on people’s PCs which left them vulnerable to identity thieves and other hackers?
That’s the reason I don’t buy Sony anymore. No hardware, no software, no online services, nothing. Fuck 'em.
I don’t have the cite, but I’m sure someone will shortly. Sony was the company that fought to allow the technology that in turn allowed dubbing cassettes. Ironic, huh?
Actually, that is exactly why. In the digital age the music industry truly needs to come up with a new business model. People are just doing what they always did, however, the scope has become enormous due to the ubiquity of computers and the internet. When I was in high school someone would have a new record I liked, but didn’t love and I would tape it to a reel to reel machine (yikes, yes I am that old). People buy music they really like and borrow stuff they only want to listen to once or twice. Copyright infringement, yes, but if 100 people download some songs by some new artist, at least some of them will buy it. None of them would before. Sure, there are people who download entire new releases of popular bands to truly steal them. My daughter was not one of them. And the RIAA has sued dead people, and 12 year olds, and in general caused a lot of trouble for a lot of people. And when you buy a Sony album the EULA contains such things as having you agree to remove the songs from you computer if you go bankrupt, die, or lose the original.
And by the way, intellectual property laws are very different from real property laws.
There was also Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., the suit that permitted home users to use their Sony Betamaxes to record television for later viewing.
Deeply ironic. It would be awesome to see Sony hoisted by its own petard, so to speak.
Robin
Damnit, that’s what it was. Thanks, Robin. And congrats on your title, just noticed it.
Thanks!
Robin
Thanks, Rick. It would have helped if the OP linked to that thread although it hasn’t added any more clarity to read it. It just added more questions.
The OP of that thread in its entirety:
In this OP, the OP author seems a lot more upset at the University for complying with the legal process of a lawsuit. So will the OP’s daughter be boycotting the university in the coming year?
Please notice these words in this OP: “She broke the law, she was caught”
It was interesting to me that he spent the rest of the thread trying to show that he/his daughter should be able to get off on technicalities.
Will the OP/OP’s daughter be boycotting all movies and recordings done by Sony funded projects or recording studios? I’m guessing that Sony would have appreciated that they did so before this happened since the OP doesn’t have respect for the business model.
And one more question to the OP who said several times that his daughter should not have gotten the note right before finals. When would it be a good time to get a notice like that? At the beginning of the semester when she would be distracted by that all semester long? In the middle of the semester where the same thing could happen? After finals when no one is on the campus to ask anything? In the middle of summer when everyone is relaxing? I’m guessing there is no good time to tell someone that they got caught stealing and therefore owe $3000.
It would be a lot more convincing for you to stand on this principle if you were standing on it before your daughter got caught stealing from the company that’s enforcing it.
To extend ParentalAdvisory’s analogy, that’s like boycotting Walmart after your child got caught stealing from the company and claiming that you’re doing so because you’re taking the high moral ground on the principle that Walmart treats its employees badly and uses sweatshops for its merchandise. Your stand is a lot more persuasive if you weren’t in Walmart to begin with if you didn’t believe in their policies.
Stealing those items deprives other people of the opportunity to use them. Downloading a song does not interfere with anyone else being able to enjoy the song.
When come back bring apt analogy, please.
One of the problems with Sony (and I think this is brought up on Slashdot from time to time) is that Sony is both a hardware and a software (for lack of a better term) company. So Sony’s hardware divisions come up with some great stuff–videotape, MiniDisc, DAT, the Walkman, new displays, all kinds of stuff–and then everything is crippled by proprietary formats like ATRAC or through DRM or even legislation. All of that is due at least partially to the software half of Sony, whether it’s movies or music or software. MiniDisc could have filled a niche, and still could even now with the USB connection, but Sony has made it so difficult to use and tries to DRM everything and makes uploading through the USB connection difficult to impossible to the point where it’s not worth it.
If only the hardware could be spun off into a different company, I bet the resulting hardware would be a lot better.