Sony accuses almost all owners of MP3 players of being pirates

5 October 2007

According to a recent announcement from Sony - almost all Media / MP3 players users are pirates. In fact it doesn't stop there but implies that anyone that uses iTunes or other computer software to manage their songs are also pirates. In fact this even includes buyers of Sony Walkman Video MP3 players.

Perhaps Sony should sue themselves for producing these devices able to play the pirated songs.

An executive for Sony BMG stated that the act of copying a music track from a CD to a media player is an act of theft.
"When an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song," said Jennifer Pariser, head of litigation and anti-piracy at Sony BMG.

Making a "copy" of a purchased song, she said, is just "a nice way of saying 'steals just one copy'".

See VNUnet news - RIAA wins US file sharing test case .

It's clear that Sony, rather than seeing people as valuable customers it just tags everyone as law breakers.

Perhaps this is why Sony is so keen to illegally install rootkits on everyone's computer (see: Sony caught playing with rootkits again), so that they can monitor and then prosecute every single one of their customers.

Whatever happened to fair use or purchased goods?
It's attitudes like this from Sony that deter people from buying legitimate copies. If you are going to be accused of stealing you might as well download it for free rather than pay £15 for a CD and them still call you a thief.

Whilst I don't want to condone any form of illegal copying I also don't think that these music companies should be able to tell you what devices you can or can't pay your legitimate software on.