NetMD Upload Petition to Sony: Collected Entries

It would be much simpler and easier (and not to mention perfectly legal), to be able to copy this music to the PC via the Net MD interface on my MZ-N1.

These could then be put on cd much easier.

Please do this!

Please make this more accessible.

Thanks,

Steve

St. Paul, MN

Then we get home... and I'm forced to pretend that this digital recorder is little more than a small Philips cassette machine. I'm forced to dub analog to analog for PC editing (as if anyone does audio anywhere else). Ok, sure, I could run S/PDIF or Sony consumer optical with a home unit. I can run S/PDIF or AES/EBU with my DAT, too. I don't care to invest in more MD gear to use what I already bought. It's still a reasonable recorder, but only until something better comes along. If affordable MP3 or DataPlay units with field recording AND digital upload capability existed today, I probably wouldn't have considered a NetMD.

Then there's the ripper's side. Sony's claim is that they're opposed to piracy, and that's as it should be. As a person only concerned with fair use, I don't have a problem with the copying limits imposed. In fact, the system seems to only give a bit of annoyance to anyone who would mass produce digital copies. It really doesn't prevent permanent "trading" of music on MD.

So basically, I see a nicely streamlined system for the casual pirate, with digital recording via optical or fast digital recording via USB. Field recording, on the other hand, is not well served. And I'm recording music, generally at SP mode, so analog upload to the PC isn't a major issue in realtime. But the system with LP4, small size, long battery life, and fast computer uploads would be just perfect for dictation, interviews, other forms of speech recording. Only, without that upload, we have a 5-hour play-in. Ouch!

Please consider valueable features for the totally legit use of the MD units.

Binh
Producer of the Youth forum on KREH

You new portable MZ-N1 is great, and I consider getting advantage of my studies in Japan to buy one. However, the impossibility to tranfer data from MD to PC is in my humble opinion a major drawback. I would personnaly use my MD recorder as a mean to record and edit live performance of my jazz band, but acutally I'm afraid of the possible limitations of the product.
I respect your company and your products a lot, please don't deceive us by a choice that is purely strategic, and not in any way technical.
Best regards,
Gerard Yin, French student in Japan

Please, for me and all the others that love the Minidisc format, don�t hold back in your advancement, let the world see what the Mighty Minidisc can do.

Minidisc without upload is like a laptop computer with no network interface. Imagine if every document you created could only be put on the Internet by sending a FAX that was OCR-ed at the receving end! How popular an item do you suppose that would that be?

Sincerely,

In the 1990s, a Finnish student made commercial operating systems irrelevant when he gave people source code.

It is 2002. Sony has a choice to make. You can take your insanely great hardware, and let people use it to record their own performances, and write their own software for it, and use it in myriad ways you'll never anticipate.

Or, you can cripple it, and watch it join Betamax in the ranks of good technology that never quite caught on. And, another vendor -- or a dozen others -- will rush in to fill the void with products that aren't deliberately made to not work based on the unsupported assumption that the user is a thief.

The current policy has not and will not stop or even inconvenience one pirate bent on stealing commercial recordings. The only ones hurt will be musicians who want to record their own performances, scientists who want to make quality recordings in the field, and ordinary users who have found more enlightened software choices than Microsoft Windows.

Please reconsider.

Thanks

Furthermore I have a laptop and a PC. Synchronising between the would be an asset. It would be a shame if this was only possible with a hacked program. Copy protection is good and rightfull, but only in ways that do not hinder our creativity!

Back in '93 I was amazed by Sony's MD introduction. Sony proved to be far ahead of its competitors.
Now I am changing my attitude. It is very un-Sony that it takes so much time and effort to distribute one's private recording by CD or internet. Deciding not to enable NetMD upload comes down to deciding to harm Sony's reputation.

Thanks.

All I want to do is record MY OWN SOUNDBITES for video editing, and conveniently 'upload' them to my PC instead of having to record them back REALTIME WITHOUT INDEXING..I don't think I'm asking too much and I dont believe i'm breeching any copyright laws unless of course I decide to sue myself.

I am new to the digital audio scene, but I have spent a LOT of time researching. My search led me to the MiniDisc format, and I was really excitited about it until I heard about the upload limitation.

I'll have to be blunt.

Fix it, or I'm buying an MP3 recorder.

Thank you.

Vous avez �t� assez g�niaux pour cr�er le mini-disc, petit cd ultra compact et ultra r�sistant car prot�g� par une bo�te en plastique.
Vous avez s� faire �voluer les lecteurs et enregistreurs avec brio, pour arriver � des lecteurs qui font maintenant � peine l'�paisseur de 2 MDs superpos�s.
Mais vous ne vous �tes pas arr�t�s l�, vous avez s� habilement prendre le virage de la musique au format MP3, gr�ce au fameux et tr�s contrevers� NETMD.
C'est d'ailleurs sur cette invention que je souhaite m'�tendre: pourquoi le brider ????
Vous avez s� cr�er quelque chose d'absolument GEANTISSIME, alors pourquoi vous auto-censurer.
L'argument de limiter la copie num�rique sauvage ne me semble pas recevable pour la bonne et simple raison que de toutes les fa�ons tot ou tard la protection sera cass�e, alors quel est l'int�r�t de s'obstiner � vouloir en faire...

De toutes les mani�res l'upload ne sera que b�n�fique pour vous, car vous pourrez enfin pr�tendre avoir un produit concurrentiel des lecteurs MP3s.

Donc c'est vous qui voyez...

I returned my NetMD recorder because I couldn't believe how foolish Sony was to only let you transfer locked, copy-protected material which you will have purchased from them, or one of their compliant media affiliates.

Sony is taking control of more media-related companies. I guess they think they're going to have a monopoly on music distribution. It's not enough to buy the minidisc product from Sony. They want to keep charging you money to use it -- They're selling these MD "recorders" as little cash machines that ultimately kick money back to Sony.

I have a five year old minidisc recorder that transfers audio to the computer (in an analog connection) just as well as the NetMD, so I'm not giving them another cent of my money! I would encourage everyone boycott their products too, then maybe they'll wake up...

thanks,

David

I would like to use more efficiently my MD with my
PC.

Please do something.

Best regards,
Alain Fontanin.

Thank You,
Mike Sims
mikesims10670@(remouve_disz)yahoo.com

Thanks to Sony for any concideration of our request.

I regularly use an old MD recorder to record research meetings and interviews. I then re-record these to mp3 to have them transcribed.

I would INSTANTLY buy a new Sony Net MD if it allowed me to quickly transfer and convert my recordings to the PC/MP3. This would save me a considerable amount of time and the hassles of the analogue recording process.

Many community and commercial radio stations now use MiniDisc as the format of choice for field recording, and particularly use affordable MD portables as professional DAT, PCMCIA, MiniDisc and cassette recorders are prohibitively priced.

In my city (Toronto, Canada) many stations use Sony MD portables such as the BZ-3 and the popular though discontinued MZ-R50 portable.

The ability to transfer lengthy (74-148 minute) recordings to computer hard drive for editing as data files via the NetMD connection, as opposed to currently transfering in realtime over line level audio inputs would be a considerable improvement to the useability of minidisc for radio journalism.

Please consider this requirement for future additions to the Sony MiniDisc portable product line.

Neal Mathers
Toronto, Canada