Letter of Anger to SONY support/Admin after product purchase

[Garret Moore]

PRODUCT TERRORISM

I just got the MZ NF810CK for my wife so she could record her rehersals and performances to burn CDs and share with far-away family and friends. I did days of research and almost (and should have) purchased a IPOD. I was up til 5:30 AM trying to get her first recorded rehersal on to the PC, then I found the one line in the manual that was seen no other place in the universe except this forum it seemed. I am PISSED that SONY has become unfriendly to creatives and honest folks. I am a published illustrator and digital/multimedia artist. My wife is a classical Oboist teacher and performer. Our need to record is genuine and justified. All the sales copy I read never stated the limitation to transfer to PC. I discovered by experiment that I could use analogue imput to my PC with playback through a stereo mini plug (male2male) and get what ammounts to a second generation. I have professional recording software to edit, but all the features for the unit are mute, due to us purchasing for a recorder and not a player.

Read my letter to SONY Support. We must stop such practices by corporation to turn off our mediums of expression. They want us to only purchase their music/media and not even be able to produce ourselves so to compete with the homoginized pasturized trash they rip off from artists in the first place with dubious contracts and sell as popular music. They not only now have competition, they now have enemies in the arts world wide.

LETTER TO SONY***************

Device does not perform as advertized. Software is vaporware and just plain BAD. I must publish this letter on user forums also.

This unit misleads in all sales copy in the inability to transfer user-original sound to PC, AND Software crashes system.

AND, Where is Sonic Stage 2.0 to be had?? The software is very bad code. Crashes many systems including my own.

My wife is a classical musician. I purchased this unit to allow her to record her rehersals burn CD for her performances etc. Because of non-artist copyright misuse we suffer? I have been plagerized professionally, but do not cary a gun because of this.

You should be ashamed at misleading true artists who are trying to record and produce themselves. I have read all the flame mail and petitions on line on this subject since 2000. You have misled many others for years it seems.

I plan on joining the fight to stop this monopolizing of our talents and limiting our creative. This is evil by definition. I guess that because some corporations have been caught in dishonest and imoral business practices that SONY should be chastized as potentially a dishonest and imoral. Should we go to government legislative and law building to prevent your free-will in product development for fear of non-exsistent bad practices? You have for us.

I demand that stable software be made available to me and that a work-around be published or firmware upgrade for the unit itself be produced. As it is we can re-record to the PC using a simple stereo mini plug (Male-Male)to mic or external imput to your soundcard. So, why dis-allow direct to PC???. We must return this unit if these problems and misleading design is not corrected, PUBLICALLY AND IMMIDIATELY. As I said, this is wrong in the extreme.

I cannot access my account since I uninstalled the Sonic Stage bad software. Just to make this thing work as advertized. It took most an afternoon to get my system to even boot past the crappy dll's and drivers so I could uninstall the apps. WTF??? It is a shame that you have cut out the heart on this product. If there is anyone at SONY corporation with a soul still intact this type of "PRODUCT TERRORISM" should be stopped immidiately!

I have supported SONY for decades and own many SONY devices including 2 cameras, sound, TV, DVD & video and many other products and software. We do not purchase music on line yet, and becase of this we may never, at least from SONY, But, because of this event I cannot trust or reccomend SONY in the future to anyone. Sony will hurt because of these practices that may be legal now, yet will not be in the future.

BTW, Corporations do NOT have more rights than human beings. In reality.

Garret M. Moore

[Christopher]

Ok, calm down tiger. I'm moving this to the User Opinions forum..

First off, I recommend you go to the NetMD forum and read how to uninstall Sonicstage. I then want you to download Sonicstage 2 and give that whirl.

And yes, I understand your frustrations, but you need to realize that they've released a newer Minidisc format called Hi-MD. This format corrects the issues that plagued the limited hardware associated with regular Minidisc.

[Garret Moore]

Thanks for the anger management. I was obviously seeing red and not seeing therefore the red ink.

I am an artist in the electronic media, and my wife is a performer and teacher of musical instruments. I have an obligation to protect our livelihood, if it does not itself infringe on others and their rights.

You must admit that the provocative design policies in the name of proprietary control and profits are a sign of the future in the electronics industry. My anger speaks to the loss of freedom's we will experience inevitably unless we make this an issue. Sheep are not good supporters of freedom. As a life long independent creative in the industry, I need tools that are affordable and reliable as the tools the major industries have. Computers have leveled the field in many areas, but the industry is not content to let things happen this way and are spiking the brew with these limitations as they can. When they see shares drop due to such controlling of design features, their policy might change. Or, possibly slow a bit.

Although the most advances, in say film, have been in independent studios, the first response of the big studios is to try to buy out the talent. As a creative, I want to believe in what and who I am working with. I could not be "bought" I believe, to be used for such dubious spirit. It is a machine! Who should you believe in? Our community of good people is who.

Sony's on every side of the fence except that of independent talent. Just short of a monopoly. They produce all the tools, studios and motus operendi. So because of their place in the market, and their desperate need for talent, and their fear of competition, ("they" and "fear" being a policy, not a person/persons), However, not a human or moral one. controlling the design features for the industry are a logical yet purely mechanistic response. The omission of a feature such as the “Copy to PC” is an obvious one where no actual mechanical limitation exists in patents or in theory. I take issue with such a philosophy (policy) of control in the publics ability to advance creatively. My point may become more relevant in the years to come unfortunately. This type of thing is happening many places in the music and other media industries right now. We are loosing freedoms everywhere in the name of fear, and profits. It has to stop now hopefully with individuals such as myself making this known. With awareness comes responsibility. Or we live as sheeple, getting sheered to support a machine whose interests are "its" life. Not ours.

Power to the creative spirit! :grin:

Garret M. Moore

PS: I have not been able to find the Sonic Stage 2.0 version. Any links would be much appreciated.

[Christopher]

I will say this - I spoke with Sony for a good bit of time today concerning Hi-MD and a few other things, and the product specialists and support was top notch. I think I've been so exposed to the facade of Sony = b.s. from disgruntled NetMD users that I forgot Sony isn't really that bad. They're actually like a hurt animal on the side of the road, at least in the North American markets.

Honestly, Garret, I think you should pick up a Hi-MD unit for the best introduction to the format. NetMD was just a waste of time [not totally, but compared to this it sure feels like it]. Regardless, welcome to the forums and I shall enjoy your further observations. You wacky San Fran'ers. :happy:

Sonicstage 2: http://forums.minidisc.org/viewtopic.php?t=4210

[Garret Moore]

Crazy Cal/S.F. guy to way too stable MD guy.

Thanks for your attention to this string-of-discontent ;-)

I downloaded the files and docs and plan to try it today on my wifes off brand laptop. When I get my VAIO back from SONY repair (who made me test the laptop at a quantum level for 11 months, reformatting, reading 2 minidumps a day, etc, only to prove it was a lemon M-board) I will hopefully be able to be portable with sound for my wifes needs. Yea, imagine average of 3 STOP errors (blue crashes) a day for that long. AAAAaaarrrrrrggg! Now you have insight to my madness. Some day a real computer will emerge from the pile. Not today. (Actually my 3 DELLS kicked arse.)

Need to take back this unit and find the new format MD units I guess. No firmware upgrades for this one? Dammed!

Thanks again. OK, I will get some medications. :wacky:

Garret M. Moore