4 ms·

For an entity that's waged a multi-decade billion-dollar bloody and bitter war against music piracy, Sony certainly have been instrumental in its proliferation.

tw04 7y ago
That's because the device group is a different entity than the media group. Unfortunately the media group made enough money to start dictating things to the device group which didn't single handedly ruin it, but definitely opened the door to the Korean rivals that weren't bending over backwards to stop consumers from using their devices.
- megablast 7y ago
  It did ruin the minidisc, when Sony decided you couldn't get digital data from the disc.
  - agumonkey 7y ago
    there's an alternate universe where MiniDisc replaced floppies in the early 90s and became the main storage format.
    - kalleboo 7y ago
      90mm Magneto-Optical ("MO") was a lot closer to being that future - it was the same tech as MiniDisc, but openly licensed, and actually had really good traction in Japan (on par with Zip drives in the west). 600 MB on a disc the size of a floppy, with random-access read and write. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magneto-optical_drive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magneto-optical_drive
    - bluedino 7y ago
      Sony actually relased a slightly different MiniDisc for data storage with computers. https://twitter.com/lazygamereviews/status/1030462986027065345 https://twitter.com/lazygamereviews/status/10304629860270653...
      - agumonkey 7y ago
        ohhh 1993.. I had no idea. I remember late 90s MD-data
  - jmiserez 7y ago
    IIRC one of the reasons was that the MiniDisc used lossy compression (ATRAC) to store audio onto the disc. So you couldn't actually store music digitally onto it, at least not the amount advertised. This was before MP3 was widespread, I remember people were upset that when they bought MiniDiscs they only got a lossy copy. Later revisions added higher capacity and digital storage but it was too little too late. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiniDisc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiniDisc
    - makomk 7y ago
      The thing is that newer MiniDisc players did offer the ability to load tracks digitally from a PC, but it was gratuitously locked down. Not only was there no way to transfer music in the other direction, there was no way to load tracks compressed with the highest quality level either - the only way to take full advantage of MiniDisc's audio quality was to send uncompressed audio data and let the device compress it, and it was barely faster than recording something on there in real time.
      - jacobush 7y ago
        Yep - to protect it’s precious ATRAC codec from ending up on filthy unbaptised consumer PCs. Only to see mp3 eat the world.
joering2 7y ago
Absolutely. I believe it was VIACOM who sued Sony for inventing and mass-producing VCR which obviously allowed you to tape their movies and play them back later on, which was consider piracy ;) someone else can link to the court case as I’m on mobile. Had it been lost we would be able to record ourselves anything that is aired on TV probably a decade or more later.

tw04 7y ago

That's because the device group is a different entity than the media group. Unfortunately the media group made enough money to start dictating things to the device group which didn't single handedly ruin it, but definitely opened the door to the Korean rivals that weren't bending over backwards to stop consumers from using their devices.

megablast 7y ago
It did ruin the minidisc, when Sony decided you couldn't get digital data from the disc.
- agumonkey 7y ago
  there's an alternate universe where MiniDisc replaced floppies in the early 90s and became the main storage format.
  - kalleboo 7y ago
    90mm Magneto-Optical ("MO") was a lot closer to being that future - it was the same tech as MiniDisc, but openly licensed, and actually had really good traction in Japan (on par with Zip drives in the west). 600 MB on a disc the size of a floppy, with random-access read and write. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magneto-optical_drive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magneto-optical_drive
  - bluedino 7y ago
    Sony actually relased a slightly different MiniDisc for data storage with computers. https://twitter.com/lazygamereviews/status/1030462986027065345 https://twitter.com/lazygamereviews/status/10304629860270653...
    - agumonkey 7y ago
      ohhh 1993.. I had no idea. I remember late 90s MD-data
- jmiserez 7y ago
  IIRC one of the reasons was that the MiniDisc used lossy compression (ATRAC) to store audio onto the disc. So you couldn't actually store music digitally onto it, at least not the amount advertised. This was before MP3 was widespread, I remember people were upset that when they bought MiniDiscs they only got a lossy copy. Later revisions added higher capacity and digital storage but it was too little too late. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiniDisc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiniDisc
  - makomk 7y ago
    The thing is that newer MiniDisc players did offer the ability to load tracks digitally from a PC, but it was gratuitously locked down. Not only was there no way to transfer music in the other direction, there was no way to load tracks compressed with the highest quality level either - the only way to take full advantage of MiniDisc's audio quality was to send uncompressed audio data and let the device compress it, and it was barely faster than recording something on there in real time.
    - jacobush 7y ago
      Yep - to protect it’s precious ATRAC codec from ending up on filthy unbaptised consumer PCs. Only to see mp3 eat the world.

joering2 7y ago

Absolutely. I believe it was VIACOM who sued Sony for inventing and mass-producing VCR which obviously allowed you to tape their movies and play them back later on, which was consider piracy ;) someone else can link to the court case as I’m on mobile. Had it been lost we would be able to record ourselves anything that is aired on TV probably a decade or more later.