More copyright insanity: Sony BMG claims ripping CDs is "stealing"

Slashdot is reporting that the head lawyer for Sony BMG is claiming that we should not be allowed to copy the tracks from CDs that we buy to our personal MP3 players. Jennifer Pariser says that we should be buying multiple copies of a CD: one for each device that we intend to play it on.

Ars Technica has more on the story, which came from testimony in a court case involving music companies.

As someone on the Slashdot thread has already noted: Sony thinks that it's wrong for us to use CDs on more than one device that we own, but Sony also doesn't have a problem with installing malicious software on our computers without our knowing about it.

By the way, my wife and I each own an MP3 player. Would this mean that we should be compelled to purchase three CDs: one for each player and one for regular use in our home's stereo system?

I doubt it will ever happen anytime soon, but there needs to be a codified right where it's made explicitly clear that consumers are entitled to make a reasonable amount of copies of music or software that they have purchased, so long as it is for personal use. I don't want to see piracy take place here... but it has to be said that when Sony comes out and claims that we should have to buy a CD just so that we can put that on our MP3 players, then something has gone terribly screwy.

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So I called Sony Music about Jablonsky's TRANSFORMERS score ...

The online petition to show support for an album of the Transformers score by Steve Jablonsky is now up to 1,821 signatures. It will probably be over two thousand by this time tomorrow.

So I thought it was a good a time as any to call Sony Music, since everything is indicating that they are the ones who would be releasing this thing. And my intention was only to ask about when approximately we could be seeing this in stores. My e-mail box has been flooded with inquiries in the past several days from people about this: there was the feeling that I owed them some kind of substantive update with info straight from the source.

Well, I called up Sony BMG Music at (212)833-8000. A woman's recorded voice gave me a list of options to choose from. I hit "4", to speak to an operator at Sony BMG Music.

That put me through to a fella who asked me "how may I direct your call". I told him that I was calling to ask about the status of the Transformers score CD. He told me in a rather tired voice that there is no plan to release it at this time and that "I believe that I've spoken to you before about this." Now this was the very first time in my life that I've called Sony Music, and so far as I know it's only the second call I've ever made to any recording label (the first was several years ago when I was working to set up an interview with a musical artist). I told this guy that it couldn't have been me that he had spoken to, that this was my first time calling Sony Music. I don't know who it was but I can't help but have the sense that they have been contacted quite a bit about this.

Like I said, I only called to try and get an estimated release date. I wasn't expected to hear, again, that there are "no plans at this time" to release the orchestral score from the Transformers movie.

In the past week we've heard from a number of sources that an album is coming and "soon", and then we've heard from the music studio itself that an album is not coming anytime soon. So which is right?

If I hear anything else about this, I'll let y'all know.

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