WTF?! Sony CD's...
Okay. If you buy and play CD's on your PC, you need to read this post in fandom_lawyers and then check out this article in the Washington Post. (You may need to register to read it -- sorry!)
I buy CD's, and then I rip them on my PC and make mix CD's and put the songs I want on my iPod. I have paid for the CD -- the music company has gotten their money for it (and the band has gotten their few cents the company is willing to give them). I'm not pirating anything, I am just keeping the parts I want to hear the most, without having to change fifty different disks after one song each. I know tons of people do the same thing. We're not mass-producing copied CD's and selling them, we are playing music we paid for, in a manner that's convenient and desireable to us!
Now, even that private use of music is being attacked. It's shocking that a major company is using tactics that people get arrested for if they're caught hacking. Obviously, they think they're above the law, or think so much that they're in the right that they don't care about the law. The only way we can really make them sit up and take notice is to hurt them in the wallet. Don't buy SONY CD's! If you absolutely HAVE TO HAVE something, see if you can find it somewhere else (legally) -- Napster, iTunes, whatever, and buy it there.
I buy CD's, and then I rip them on my PC and make mix CD's and put the songs I want on my iPod. I have paid for the CD -- the music company has gotten their money for it (and the band has gotten their few cents the company is willing to give them). I'm not pirating anything, I am just keeping the parts I want to hear the most, without having to change fifty different disks after one song each. I know tons of people do the same thing. We're not mass-producing copied CD's and selling them, we are playing music we paid for, in a manner that's convenient and desireable to us!
Now, even that private use of music is being attacked. It's shocking that a major company is using tactics that people get arrested for if they're caught hacking. Obviously, they think they're above the law, or think so much that they're in the right that they don't care about the law. The only way we can really make them sit up and take notice is to hurt them in the wallet. Don't buy SONY CD's! If you absolutely HAVE TO HAVE something, see if you can find it somewhere else (legally) -- Napster, iTunes, whatever, and buy it there.