I was wondering how long it would be until this topic showed up.

Well, now you know.  A couple of more data-points and you'll be able to predict my every move and even my most intimate and personal thoughts.

In fact... I will never give money to Sony for their defective stuff. I bought second hand PS2 :p "Never pay more than 20 bucks for a sony device"

I haven't heard about this yet. What's this about?

I have no idea what this is about either, but I only buy Nintendo consoles anyway.

Forgot to mention if anyone else found it ironic that with this incident, starforce, etc.. it almost seems to be safer to download pirated versions with the evasive DRM cracked than to purchase and use the legit version. Though this is why companies are pushing for this in the first place. Basically two subborn kids pushing each other on the playground.

Also I think sony should be criminally charged even though it will probably never happen.

I think that is very true.   Music, Movie and TV people are so panicked (and they are legitimate reason to be) that they are going to create such a bad situation that we will seek other ways to get content that we would have been happy to pay for.

Yeah, and it is too bad that most of those alternate pathways are illegal. I am happy to pay for online tunes (not just iTunes, but magnatune, mp3ria, bleep.com which all offer DRM-free MP3 format tracks). I will be happy to pay for videos through iTunes when they are not so freaking tiny. I am willing to tolerate DRM that doesn't stick me in the butt, which FreePlay has yet to do.

But until companies provide the service that the internet community is providing for free, we don't even have an option to pay for what we want. That's messed up!

I sold my PS2 two years ago and didn't bought anything bearing a Sony logo since then. One day, I woke up and decided to dump that piece of junk after one of too many GTA sessions. I am not going to get caught twice, bye bye forever Sony.

I only have a PS1 bought for £10 second hand...and only to play the old Duke games that I have for the Playstation.

Even then, the PS gets hardly used.  All I can think of now, is how many machines in the local area I'll be going around to fix.  Thanks alot Sony! >:|

Regards,

Yickle.

The real world is booby-trapped, only virtual life is safe. Freedom lies within the virtual bunker that is the internet, remember how it came to exist in case of nuclear war. (something like that) We are protecting ourselves from our physical existences. Oh btw sony makes good hardware, that doesn't mean they produce good software.

Dunno how effective boycotting Sony Computer Entertainment for Sony BMG Music Entertainment's wrongdoings would be. They're pretty much independent companies and reportedly not too friendly with eachother anyway.

Thank you for that.  Think of them as distant cousins that only meet occasionally for family reunions that the parents guilt-trip them into, and in the awkward silence they realize why they don't keep in touch.

I want to be strong but Shadow of the Collosus looks like the business. :)

I haven't bought a music CD in years (not because I pirate, but because I don't listen to music much these days), so that whole rootkit issue doesn't bug me. It sure was wrong of them to do it, but I'm not that riled up I'd go around boycotting Sony products. Though, I suppose that since the PSP (and PSP games, movies, and accessories) is the only Sony product I'll ever buy  (personal preference lies with other manufacturers), I reckon I'm kinda boycotting already.

Kinda, but not really.

I'm retarded so I have no idea what you people are talking about.

For the ones that haven't read anything:

http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/

Here is where all the incident begun.

Greetings from Argentina

Cherno

Answer 1: Me
Answer 2: Me
Answer 3: Me[0]
Reflection 1: You're a self-admitted supporter of Blizzard - - through pumping money into them via WoW - - which brought their unholy lawyers/DMCA-crap down on the bnetd project, so you really shouldn't sound so indignant about people not boycotting Sony. Mirror mirror upon the wall....

[0] In fact, I don't buy any music CDs which are "copy-protected". I wish I could do the same with games, but that would leave me ONLY non-highseas piracy. At least with music, there's still a choice. Games, much harder. (I do however make it a point to make sure I can run the game cracked/imaged, if it's cd-checked)

Please understand, my desire to boycott Sony isn't because they have DRM.  Anyone is welcome to put DRM on their content and the market will decide.  I buy all my music from iTunes.

The issue with Sony is that they over stepped their bounds by secretly installing software the broke other applications that you legally bought and own, plus they provided no way to remove it, and their DRM opened up your machine to other attackers.

That is my issue, it's not them trying to protect their IP or using DRM.  

They are welcome to do both, but not at the expense of my property and privacy, and without warning.

At some point, we the consumers have to put a stop to the extreme control companies our gaining on our lives.  It is clear that the our government (despite the Declaration of Independence beginning with "We the People") isn't going to do anything.

The one and only thing these companies listen to is money and that money comes from us and we need to wake up and use it to fight them back.

I hate DRM and i buy most of my music from DRM free eMusic.

Well, I was already not going to buy a PS2, PS3 or PSP, but if I can now not buy them and make a protest statement at the same time then all the better.

Long time reader, first time 'caller' <G>

DRM, in its current form, is very much a problem.  I never thought it was a good idea to treat your customers like criminals, but apparently the focus groups told the content magnates something else.  I'm not going to spout some crap about content 'yearning to be free' because I believe that the creative people should be paid for what they do, but that does not mean that the music/movie/tv/game industry should be able to shake us down like mafia enforcers, nor should they be able to spy on us with impugnity.   The unfortunate reality is we should be boycotting any company that uses or encourages draconian copyright protection (like suing grandfathers whose grand kids use his computer to download MP3s...)

Of course, the only people likely to benefit from any class action suit against Sony for this eggregious behavior are the lawyers.

OK, Microsoft do this all the time -- their software is full of holes that crap out a vast array of other software, and are full of security holes. Yet billions of people still buy their stuff.

In fact, people line up for their software over-night.

This is the first time, that I am aware of, that Sony has done anything like this.

Everyone must really love Sony to get this upset.

The key difference between Sony and Microsoft, in this instance, is the wide difference between buggy code and malicious intent.  I'm not going to defend MS or buggy code - Bill Gates has more than enough money to do both - but Sony with malice aforethought arrogantly decided they could do ANYTHING they wanted to protect 'their' content, including violate the privacy of someone who simply wanted to pay some money for some content.  Not only was it done with malicious forethought, it was done very poorly, leaving the unknowing consumer with even more security holes than those MS has been trying to close.

And btw, I believe MS might be the most attacked company in the world, rightly or wrongly.  In fact it is unlikely anyone in Redmond can fart without MS being accused of destroying the enviroment.  Sorry, not a MS apologist, just not sure how they fit into this current argument.

Answer 1: neither upset not pissed off. I'm quite amused by the whole thing. I guess it's a no then.

Answer 2: I'll probably be looking twice next time I buy a music CD, and I'll probably avoide Sony's stuff, but mostly to be on the safe side, not real boycott (but the results are the same, so it's yes)

Answer 3: Tricky question. I don't plan to buy a psp, but regarding the ps3, it'll probably be a question on what does the games provide. There is a bunch of game developper who deserve to have their game bought (think ICO team), but are technically part of the Sony empire. I don't mind paying for good entertainement, even to Sony. So no, no boycott for me.

Buying a console and/or a console game is basically to sucking Satan's cock.

(sorry, my likelihoodulator calculated that only 0.003 of you will get that reference, so my apologies to the 99.997 of you who don't. it's true, though)

no it's not. Video gaming is the best pastime for your soul.

I am disgusted by this Sony affair. Because they are a corporation they feel like they can do whatever they want. And they can!

If some nameless kid would cause a damage like that, he would be jailed and the keys tossed away and we would have a worldwide media coverage on kid hackers & blah blah blah. But Sony being Sony... no real media coverage at all.

Not to mention anti virus and anty spyware companies. We pay for their fucking products to protect our PCs. WE pay, understand? They knew about Sony's crapware threat and they did nothing. This is appalling.

I also don't understand how they think they can improve sales by crippling their customers' PCs. THIS is amusing. These genius enterainment giants punish their honest paying customers. Pirates, being pirates, are not affected by any form of DRM at all.

I was almost forgetting... I will NEVER EVER buy ANY Sony product again.

(Holds hand up, and supports with other arm because it starts to get tired) Me me! I am!

I even got mentioned on the boycott sony blog, which was the first time my site has ever been linked...i think... which gave me a nice fuzzy feeling inside.

It's takes moments like major controversies surrounding evil conglomerates to bring people together.

I'm not a console gamer to begin with, so my response your rhetorical would be even less meaningful.

What's interesting to me is the possible reaction Sony 'fans' will have if the company decides to go ahead with this: http://www.gamespot.com/news/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=23921409

Question 4: How many people using PC to listen to audio CD's?

It's me, the answer to all 3 questions is "me!"

but there are other reasons as well ;)

To paraphrase Woody Allen, I will protest by giving up grapes for an afternoon.

Well, Ron, while you're on it.
Motorola. They are the only ones to use cell phones with tri-pronged-of-unequal-length chargers. These are not durable, and are oftentimes precarious, even when they still work. They can do whatever they want just because they're Motorola?

We should eat their firstborn children. That always works.

hmm...my charger prong looks like a mini audio connection.  Relatively durable. The transfer access port is usb too.  Must be talking about a different model.

I'm not surprised by any of this. But I am afraid that this particular issue is just going to be forgotten in the coming months. I am sure it did hurt Sony, but nothing will change. At worst, they might write a public letter of apologies, which, of course would be total bullshit. But the diversion will work, and people will start arguing about whether the apology was sincere or not. I tellz ya, if you were to paint a puppy's face on a giant missile headed straight for a crowd, people would start to panic, and then collectively go 'oh...look at the cute puppy'.

I will forever hold ill will and a skeptical eye against sony for this.  The fact that they made it so secrative and hid it so well is the part that really bugs me.  If there's a root kit on the damn audio cd, let it be known to all!  Sure, doing that would probably have hurt sales more than this did, but hopefully that's not true.  

For me personally, they will have to do something particularly spectacular before I stop holding a personal grudge against them.  Not that it affects me anyway.

However, any company can do whatever they want, almost with their product and the consumer just has to take it or leave it.  The worst part is when the company creates a product or a brand that everyone needs or thinks they need because then people have no choice but to take it.

That's one of the reason why I've been running Linux increasingly lately.  Open source software is one of the few things that you can change first hand if whatever faction behind it does something you don't like.  The other things probably being..well, anything else "open" or public down or with a creative commons license.  Closed isn't so bad on some things, but on others it leaves you vulnerable as a consumer.  I'm fairly certain linux was not affect by this rootkit crap.

Even the Mac OSX, as awesome as it is, is controlled by Apple, which exacts it's will upon it's customers in unholy ways.  All the sales are controlled by them, all the(expensive) repairs are controlled by them.  That whole Intel switch thing was totally a business decission.  They didn't really do that for their customers because a lot of the customers with ppc machines will be left out in the cold by developers who don't want to make dual executables.  I used to want a macintosh, because they're nice.  It's nice for everything to work and the elegance and aesthetics are pleasing, but at the price, I would prefer more insurance that I'm not going to be left out in the cold.

Hence, x86+linux.  Also, windows xp has been crashing lately, but I need it for games and 3dsmax work and stuff, so I'm definately keeping it around.

Which brings me back to Sony.  If the ps3 has some good Linux supported coupled with good games, I will totally buy one.

I also prefer my hardware open and easy to customise(being a computer tech), but the ps3 could potentially be very, very pleasing.  Cell processors, fast nvidia+opengl graphics, potentially fast desktop computer+ potential, actual game support on a linux box.  I won't drop PC gaming even then, no doubt, but with the cost of video cards to run the latest games going up all the time, it's nice not to ever have to upgrade.  I'm sure sony will find some way to screw that up too though.  They always try to screw up a good thing.  I mean, look at the psp, it can do so much more and they're constantly trying to keep people from doing more with their own machine.

I guess I'm saying, i'll boycott the bad products, but if it's nice enough and I have the money, I won't be able to resist.  As far as I can remember, i've never really bought a sony product anyway.  My sony cd player was a present, so was my sony computer monitor, and my sony tv, and I think my car cd player might be sony too...none of those things I bought.  I've been a pc gamer since the snes days so I didn't get in on the playstation generation.  Maybe I'm boycotting already and didn't even know it.  

This is one damn fine sony monitor though, I must say; 19" CRT flat screen with usb hub built in.  Sure it weighs a whopping 56 lbs(lanning was always fun.  it totally crushed my hand once. it bled) and takes up half my desk but oh, it's so worth it.


Thus concludes my nightly rant.

Oh, you didn't want those questions answered in an essay format?  (ok, memo maybe.  block formatting...sort of)

Yes, I did spell secretive wrong.  There are other mistakes as well, but that is the nature of my nightly rants.  Public down = public domain also.

No Sony product has appealed to me since my casette tape walk man, and I personally don't like any artists I can think of on their label, so I guess it's a moot point.

  Not to change the subject, but your comments brought this to my mind Ron.  I personally don't like the way Apple software (especially iTunes on the PC) is designed, but I recently lost one of my favorite CDs.  Since I love the band and want to support them, I chose to buy the album on iTunes... even though I had already purchased the physical CD...and instead of downloading the tunes illegitimately.  (Although, I guess it would've been legitimate since I already paid for the CD.)  

I didn't know much of anything about iTunes, but was very, very sore when I discovered the DRM- limitations on the devices I could put the music on, only being able to burn a CD of it through iTunes, and WORSE, only being able to listen to the music through the iTunes player.  I found this to be very invasive altogether, and as you said, I was making an effort to legitimately buy a product the second time, even though Kazaa-ing it would've been easier, and the whole experience left a bad taste in my mouth.  I will never buy DRM content this way again.

I like sony, they distract me from the pointlessness of my life

I simply have never been tempted buy any Sony product.  All the albums they publish probably suck.  The only PS2 game I ever gave a damn about: Katamari Damachi, and thats not enough to want a system.  Sony walkmen: I'm at my computer, or in my car, or busy.

ok all you nintendo fan boys.

Don't you think that nintendo doing stuff like deliberately breaking compatibility betwen GBA and DS to protect DS from pirated games is similar?

They just treated you as disrespectfuly as any other company that don't let you use your computer to play music (i reckon not as bad as sony instaling backdoors in you system)

about PS2 only being desired for katamari, i seccond that.

Haaaaang on a minute - "breaking compatibility"? What the Hell is that? Oh, do you mean that you can't link your GBA to your DS? Well, that makes sense seeing as they're different console families (The DS, as it happens, it not the next GameBoy - that's going to be something else entirely). Or do you mean that you can't play "classic" GameBoy games on your DS? Again, understandable considering it's a different console family. You can't play PSone games on your PSP - care to argue that point?

I fail to see what relevance that has to pirate games, anyway.

Posted by Filippo on Nov 17, 2005 five past two pm

I agree with you entirely, when you're sailing the seven seas and raiding ships and murdering people, you don't have time for digital content. Plus the internet coverage is spotty at best.

Oh, and for the people who are seriously going to pretend to boycott all of Sony's products, what makes them think that their Music and Record Label division has anything whatsoever to do with their Computer Entertainment division?

When you have a company as large as Sony, like Microsoft for example (more on that in a minute), people have a hard time dealing with the concept that the company is just an umbrella for all the little divisions that operate within it.

Take Microsoft as a semi-relevant analogy, they produce an operating system that is notoriously poor in terms of security and stability (yes I do know that is improving now) yet all the zealotous geeks drop their moral outrage and purchase an X-Box without a second thought. It's kind of the same thing...

Do you think that Sony, being afraid of what people do with their legally purchased music on their PCs, won't remember that "hey, don't we also produce those Vaio PC thingies?". Or have you ever owned a Sony Network Walkman and tried to transfer an MP3 on it? Sony have a 360° corporate attidude in this direction.

Yes, Yes, No.

Sony BMG are largely the reason I stopped buying music CDs altogether a few years ago.

I'm not boycotting SCEE unless they show signs of behaving similarly, although I can appreciate why some would.

I think that if I enforced my principles in any serious way, I'd never buy any games consoles or a lot of other electronic gizmos. But as I'm weak, and want to play at least some of the games on those platforms, I have to make a mental compromise.

Hmmmm.....

Sony (or rather someone who works for them) have probably made a rather career ending mistake no doubt.....

Still it's alarming  that a so called trusted company would put spyware in it's music software, i guess they don't trust their customers....(lol)

I think it's important to boycot sony over the CD's but not anything else....
They have to learn that if they sell dodgy & unethical products....
people won't buy them or trust them again.....

I think that i am now, wary of anything PC related or music related to do with sony but i would still probably buy a playstation 3.

Bobski

I think that a 360° boycott of Sony products does make sense.

Certainly for all those products which have competitor alternatives (i.e. all the hardware).

The Playstation 3 is somehow different because of the games exclusives. But after all it's the same for music: you don't have alternative suppliers of the same albums (there's digital download but the money obviously still goes to Sony).

I think it's time to go for the hard line.

And regarding the PS3: rumours about planned PS3 DRM are scary. I hope they are exagerated. In any case a strong public reaction now might make Sony rethink their PS3 DRM policy. It might but probably won't.

The only way I can play games is through piracy, I live in Brazil and here all (I mean ALL) playstations have modchips and most of people buy pirate software. One original game is half the minimum salary.
Officially, Sony (and almost all games companys) don't sell video-games in Brazil. My country is one with most people in internet (60% of the people in orkut are Brazilians), why does all games company ignore this potential market? And why they have that many piracy protection if someone who buy a pirate wouldn't buy the original at all?
If the games/music prices were fair nobody would pirate, here or in US or any other country.
My english sucks i know...

I don't buy any DRM-protected material, period. Never done it, never will.

For music, I find interesting songs from internet radio stations/podcasts/webjay.org and then, if they're really good AND don't require DRM, buy them as a CD for artwork and "livingroom exposure". At Christmas, I made sure I wasn't giving any DRM-infected present, and duly returned any received DRM-infected one (personally, of course, and taking care of explaining to surprised relatives why I was doing it).
And I don't own any gaming-dedicated wasted piece of sylicon, people in the third world would probably run two factories on half the processing power of a PS2.

Isn't that just a technology-based version of the healf-hearted argument parents use to convince their children to eat food they don't like? "There are kids starving in Africa!"

I'm sure your computer could go to better use in a third-world country Factory somewhere...

Hoffman, it used to be like that in Italy as well. And the hardware market was booming. "If the games/music prices were fair nobody would pirate": if the games/music/movie prices were fair, executive people wouldn't make so much money. And everybody know the point of a company is to "create value"... for their bosses.

I bought a DS the other day.  Does that help?

yes
yes
no

1) Me
2) Me
3) Me, we had one of our Sony DVD players go down for the second time and replaced with a Region-Unlocked Phillips* last week.   We didn't even think of replacing it with a Sony because of this rootkit thing.  My wife also replaced her aging Sony Clie with a Nokia smartphone due to Sony's growing questionable business practices.   Sony is not well-liked in our household right now and Sony will have to do something pretty spectacular in order to get us to buy any of their products in future.  

*We got an unlockeable model in protest of MPAAs RIAA styled personal lawsuits.  I also boycott the RIAA by only buying music used and ripping it myself.  No iTMS even though I'm an Apple fan.  That way the RIAA never sees a cent from me.

But neither do the artists.

Ron, d'you seriously think the artist make money on CD sales?

They make money going on tour, selling their tunes for advertising and movies, and going on TV. They see squat from CDs until they are U2, and even then, better to self-produce and make simple distribution agreement with the labels, because you don't need their PR power anymore. People should stop thinking about "music labels" as music producers, they are just big PR operations extremely skilled at mindwashing the public, like certain "political parties".

It is true that mosts artists rarely see royalties from their CD sales, however you're intent to steal their music will not help them get past the recoupment point.

For many bands, touring is also a loss.

The people who make money selling tunes for advertising, movies, and TV are the songwriters (which are not always the band members).

But with the money made with the CDs they sold, the previous owners will buy new CDs and the artists will see their cents!
But oops.. so will RIAA... duh!

I don't buy music anyway, and I was only going to get a PSP/PS3 secondhand if I got one at all, so there's nothing left for me to boycott. Sorry.

Yeah, sony is crap. Of the 3 2000 era consoles, sony is most likely to break. Ways to break a PS2:
1. Break the Pathetic Disc Drive.
I've heard people stepped on it, and broke it by accident.
My nephew broke the whole face off of it.
2. Store PS2 where it is likely to fall off, and snap in half. Look at the bloody Extension deck, that would break very nicely.
3. Chip the cable ends, until they nolonger fit properly. My nephew can hardly fit his in his PS2.

In theory the xbox should last the least amount of time because it's made out of computer hardware parts that commonly fail, but theory and practice are not always the same.

When I was a kid, Sony used to be really good. Then at some point they decided that since they were on top of the world, they could make crap and people would still pay for it, like CD players that break after a year, faulty dvd players, bad controllers, crappy desktop computers, cameras with screens that stop working for no reason, CDs that hack your computer, silly propietary formats that don't go anywhere, professional video decks that don't play correctly, and awesome screens but with two annoying "Trinitron" lines. Do I need to say more?

All those examples are actually things that have happened to me or to my close friends/family with Sony products. Maybe I was just a kid, and I didn't realize how unreliable Sony really is.

Oh, and I forgot to mention the invention dvd+r with phillips. Why confuse the whole world with two recordable DVD formats?!

Greg? Greg, is that you?

And I'll fight the power by continuing to complain about the shoddy state of the gaming industry while renting the hell out of new titles. Hot air and loud blog entries are much less tiring than actually doing anything progressive to help the state of the union.

...so what wonders do you think blu-ray will have hidden in it?

Haven't bought any Sony product for years.... you can actually boycot a company, I just hope more people would have the guts.

I don't buy any Sony cd's from now on. I don't what that crap in my drive...

The XCP copy protection isn't used exclusively by Sony BMG. Other label's CDs may use it too. And of course not all copy protected CDs use this XCP method.

And Playstation, Sony Ericcson, Sony Consumer Electronics really do not have any association with the Music Division, other than name and the same parent global conglomeration.

Boycotting anything to do with Playstation will not have any effect on the operation of Sony BMG music.

Anyway, luckily in Australasia where I live, they don't copy preotect CDs so there's not too much fuss here in New Zealand - except for those who used amazon or parallel imported their CDs from the US.

That's not to say the whole episode is fucking stupid on Sony BMGs part, but if anyone's got to go for a skate it'll be the idiots at first4internet who developed the bloody thing and sold it to the record labels.

I haven't bought any Sony products in years. I think the last item I bought with the brand was a used Playstation 2 about 3 years ago. And I sold that away.

This has nothing to do with the Rootkit situation. It has to do with the simple fact that Sony makes very shoddy products. I don't know if their engineers are bad or if they intentionally use bad parts, but I've never seen a consumer grade Sony product that has lasted 5 years. Additionally, I don't listen to Sony music - mainly because I'm a little less mainstream in my musical tastes.

In summary, I can't boycott Sony even if I wanted to.

However, I have boycotted Blizzard for their DMCA BnetD stuff. When I heard about this I used my $50 to donate to the EFF and haven't a game from them since.

Andwer 1: I'm upset, but considering I haven't purchased any CD in the recent years, I wasn't affected.

Answer 2: Why should I but any CDs if I can get the music I want from on-line music stores cheaper and more conveniently?

Answer 3: I'll be boycotting Sony products.  All of them.  But not to send them any kind of message.  After the rootkit fiasco, I simply don't trust them not to pull such a stunt again in the future, with other of their products.

Answer 1: I use Linux to play music and rip them to ogg (in order to transfer them to my iRiver), so the rootkit has no effect on my PC ;) Windows is only for games.
Answer 2: I hardly ever buy CD's anymore... and prefer listening to my existing music collection. I'm very specific about the music I listen to...
Answer 3: Not applicable to me, I have a Gamecube and Nintendo DS, and do not own Sony hardware at home (except perhaps a 15y old CD player).

i don't care too, i buy only sega consoles anyway...

erm.

:- (((

seems like the good ol' days are over long time ago.

what about Microsoft..........? they aren't what we could call "angels".....so..from Argentina i prefer to support japanese capitals than US capitals.....

Sony sucks!

Eat bread & explode!!

The latest news on this is that the EFF is launching a class-action lawsuit againt Sony. http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2005_11.php#004192

No Sony music for me (do they have any good artists?). PS3 - meh. Just more fancy graphics and the same old games. Waiting for the Revolution. But I still would like a PSP, although I think I might as well go with a DS now.

Microsoft sucks!

Eat pinguin stakes and i wish your mom farts at a parent meeting at school

There's a fascinating documentary out there called "The Corporation" http://www.thecorporation.com/ which kind of touches this subject and the real problem at its core. Go ahead and check it out. I assure you that you will become interested (and then worried) just as I did.

We aren't all hypocrits. I love sony hardware, I have a sony laptop, a sony TV and a CD player and hifi tuner made by them.
But this rootkit thing really got me mad.
In the next month I need to buy someone a new TV as a gift. I think it is VERY unlikely that I'll purchase a sony one, on principle.
I'm sure I'm not the only one, and that sony's hardware sales this Christmas will not be as high as they otherwise would. It might only knock a few hundred thousand dollars off their sales, who knows?
But its still not exactly a reason for sony marketing execs to celebrate.

I've stopped buying music CDs a long time ago because I don't really see a point in paying for what the media is throwing at you freely from so many corners that it's hard to escape it. Music plays in radio, in supermarkets, in commercials, in movies ... your whole life is surrounded by music, because those guys from marketing deperatments have discovered that it's an ideal vessel to carry the emotions to you they want you to have so you buy their products (and there are moments I'd rather pay someone to stop the music they are throwing at me)

50 years ago it was all different. If you wanted to hear music, you either needed to go to a live performance, content yourself with a crappy AM-radio transmission or: buy a record. So there was a reason why people spent money for it. But today? Digital quality broadcast transmits digitally manufactured music to hi-fi playback equipment, making it sound better than attending a live performance (with all the teenie fans screaming around you).

Today, music is being mass-produced and the selection is so large, that I wouldn't even know where to start listening to and music plays from every corner of our everyday life. So why still pay money for it?

Simple answer: because we don't want to be able to listen to the music anymore, but because we want to "own" what the marketing people tell us is cool to own.

Think about it.

THE CORPORATIONS, demon children of capitalism.


there shall be hard work, there shall be good will, there shall be need for higher cause in every individual

#1: I'm not upset but more scared that it took so long to find out what a rootkit ist.

#2: I don't buy CDs labeled "copyprotected" etc... and I return every disc that I find out as "enhanced".

#3: complete unrelated to the first two questions.

Me. I won't be buying any more Sony products.

I have no reason to buy sony products anymore, there are always alternatives.

I listen to mostly independent artists and buy their merchandise directly from them, and I can easily live without tvs, stereo and computer products manufactured by sony.

The PSP has always been priced too high to be worthwhile in my opinion, as are its games.

And even if the ps3 is spectacular, I'll be able to live with an Xbox 360 and Nintendo Revolution, the Revolution's download play of old games and the new controlloer won me over. Even though I already play all of those old games via emulators, it'd be nice to have nes through gcn all in one little box.

Sony-BMG nailed me with their XCP crap on the "Acceptance - Phantoms" CD, the bastiches!  Yes, my wife and I both agree that we will be boycotting Sony products in the future.  It's a shame because I have always loved their electronics.  Alas, there are other great brands out there.

why do you buy cds, buy them burned!!!!!!!!!!!!!  bwahahahqhaahahahhahahaha back-uphahhaha p2p hahah

from the.... ehehehe, dumb american people, ehehehe

The REAL problem is Intelectual Property.

This nice speech by Jorge Cortell talks about this:

http://www.cortell.net/2005/12/04/oslo-nuug-slides-and-video-online/

i'm ripping off enough psp games to make the scores pretty much even.

SONY BURN!

intellectual property my ass, rip and fry them on a pan filled with oil together with eggs and bacon, intellect, hmm, who needs intellect, common sense is death, people get dumber and dumber, bush is the president of the usa, nice, intellectual property, interesting, but i would rather copy and wouldn't sell for money or other goods, this is a way to respect intellectual property, at least it was, it is even sader than seeing people in a simbiosis with a sofa domesticus with a large calculator, i meant computer in front of them