Sony: OK, OK, we don't own Bach

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/09/13/beethoven-is-another-matter.html

8 Likes

Let me just say this: God DAMN motherfucking Sony. They used to make good TV’s tho. Sony is a textbook example of the corporation as functioning sociopath.

17 Likes

How long before they do it again, or lay claim to something else, especially with this new law? 3… 2…

9 Likes

At the risk of attracting a takedown from MGM Holdings, inc.; I suspect that their assessment is “I’ll be back.”

And they are probably right that an algorithmically aided legal team can endure long beyond public capacity for outrage fatigue.

7 Likes

The part of Sony that puts out musical recordings is quite distinct from the part of Sony that makes TV sets. Sony as a company is big enough that parts of it can do incredibly sleazy and/or stupid things that other parts have nothing to do with whatsoever, and the likelihood of that sort of thing increases the bigger the company is.

(Apple, for example, employs both the people that make cool mobile phones and the people who will sue other people who make phones that are rectangular with rounded corners. Within Apple, these two groups of people probably never meet except by accident at the company’s Christmas party.)

3 Likes

On the other hand, the engineers and others who work for Sony and Apple are certainly well aware that these companies have large legal departments whose job is to be assholes to anyone who crosses them. It’s part of the deal.

Until there are financial penalties for this sort of malfeasance, they will continue, since there is no incentive for them not to.

7 Likes

You don’t honestly believe they have stopped in the meantime?

5 Likes

My “honest beliefs” at times border on the severely paranoid. At best, I “believe” they’ve paused to regroup and redirect while the attention of most people move on to the next thing to be upset about. As long as there’s money to be made, by hook or by crook, they’ll never stop…

3 Likes

They used to make good Spider-Man movies too. Those days are long past.

3 Likes

Point made. Actually I am going to blindly believe in absolutely everything you say, as long as you keep emphasizing your arguments with Front 242 videos.

6 Likes

About as long as it takes for SONY stockholders to have their demands met for fiduciary responsibility (however absurdly met). One can’t be too rich.

3 Likes

They were more likable when they were relatively benign and less…international.

Republicans should be burning their bravia tvs soon.

2 Likes

OT: But I just learned they’ll be performing live in Den Haag in November. Not exactly in my back yard, but since there’s an Intercity Berlin-Amsterdam and vice versa every 6 hours…

1 Like

Oh, Sony has been doing this type of thing for a long time. I once a had an original video taken down because Sony filed a copyright claim with Youtube. My video contained a snippet of music that Sony had also used in one of their movies (the audio was not from said movie). They did not own the copyright on this music, they had only licensed it in order to use it in the film. But their indiscriminate automated bot picked up the music and issued a takedown saying I had pirated their movie.

I was able to get my video restored, but the power imbalance and lack of consequences for corporate overreach means this behavior will continue.

7 Likes

At one point the dumbasses sued themselves.
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/sony-vs-sony/

7 Likes

So, Sony is sociopathic AND has a personality disorder?

5 Likes

Is that use of cool ironic, because otherwise you just made me a bit sad?