In a Duluth Minnesota courtroom Jennifer Pariser the head of litigation from Sony BMG took the stand. She said in this case (Capitol Records v Jammie Thomas) that file sharing has damaged the record industry. It’s not only P2P sharing, it’s normal people doing something that is violating copyrights.
Pariser said that labels don’t make their mony touring or in merchandising, like bands do. Their only way to get money is to sell records. And they haven’t been doing enough of that lately. Since 2000 Sony BMG is half the size. This is do to illegal file sahring. She added “when people steal, when they take music without compensation, we are harmed.”
She also suggested that what millions of music fans do is also a copyright infraction. Essentially ripping in your own CD is considered theft by Ms. Pariser. She added, “When an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song.” Making “a copy” of a purchased song is just “a nice way of saying ’steals just one copy’”.
She also added that portable media players facilitate in this illegal ripping. Since many songs on a device (like an iPod) are ripped in by the owner of the CD they are making a copy on the computer. A “copy” is just a nice way of saying “stealing”, Pariser inferred. Many PMPs come with software to rip in CDs (like iTunes). This is all making more and more people “steal” music, in Ms. Parisers eyes.
Watch out Jennifer may be appearing in your court case when you get sued for making a copy of your own CDs.
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