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You take your pro gun-nuttery and shove it. Or possibly talk to the surviving members of Panthera about it. For every nutcase you can shoot before he creates a worse problem, there are 10 nutsjobs who open fire with no warning. And seriously, do you think the assailant had brought a knife if he could have brought a gun? Idiot.

Earlier generations did temporary kicks and dents, such as during WWII.

White privilege detected

Hypocrite privilege detected.
*Every* race, religion, ethnicity, etc etc has, at some point in history, moved to some area and forced out and/or killed the people there at the time or committed other atrocities and/or crimes against humanity.

Ah, if only you could stay on topic, instead of moving the goalposts. Right now I'm talking about your "temporary kicks and dents" bullshit, especially "during WWII". If you were a Japanese-American Citizen who was thrown into a concentration camp and lost your property to some racist fuck who jumped on it and took it over while you were unrightfully incarcerated because of your ethnic heritage, then you probably don't see it as a "kick" or a "dent". You probably see it as a whole lot worse than that. Or, you know, if you were a black person (also a citizen) who lost relatives to the Tuskegee Experiments. Or frankly, if you were any person of color who is still suffering from a well-entrenched systematic system of oppression which continues to affect them to this day, and which well predates WWII. Even the gun control movement began to attempt to disarm blacks. The idea that shitting on the constitution is a new phenomenon is one that can only ever be held from a position of white privilege, coupled with deep ignorance.

There's an app for that.
To be fair, it's not that there are no shells in the future.
It's closer to three shells being not nearly enough for an ass of the future. Poopstagram is the next big thing... you'll see.

As for the movie... depends who you ask.
I have no idea why would anyone ask Stallone, being that his character explicitly doesn't know how to use them, but people did ask. The answer was... what could have been expected.

Bullock showed a bit more of intuitive understanding and imagination.

But if you ask the guy who wrote it... it's all just bullshit.

Concur 100%!

The OP is confusing the middleman with the content creators -- I guess they _completely_ missed the memo in back 2000 when Courtney Love called the RIAA is nothing more then a bunch of thieves

Today I want to talk about piracy and music. What is piracy? Piracy is the act of stealing an artist's work without any intention of paying for it.

I'm not talking about Napster-type software.

I'm talking about major label recording contracts.

She also made a letter to Recording Artists

Dear Fellow Recording Artists,

I'm writing to ask you to join the chorus of recording artists who want us all to get a fair deal from the record companies. R.E.M., the Dixie Chicks, U2, Alanis Morrissette, Bush, Prince and Q-Tip have called me with their support and we need your participation as well.

There are 3 basic facts to all recording artists should know:

1. No one has ever represented the rights and interests of recording artists AS A GROUP in negotiations with record companies.

2. Recording artists don't have access to quality health care and pension plans like the ones made available to actors and athletes through their unions.

3. Recording artists are paid royalties that represent a tiny fraction of the money their work earns.

Apparently, the OP also missed the memo in 2001 when Courtney Love, Don Henly, LeAnn Rimes Testified on Artist's Rights

The RIAA is so out-of-touch with artists that they didn't realize Trent Reznor intentionally 'leaked' his Year Zero album in 2007.

The old medium is dying because the new medium has driven the cost of content creation down to almost zero. And zero fucks were given.

The consumer's "problem" is that they are drowning in mediocrity -- a first world problem -- along with MORE choices. /sarcasm Such a "problem."

The only ones complaining are those still trying to figure out how to monetize it because the internet is cutting out the price-gouging of the middleman.

--
Greed destroys every "industry."

Not a very FORTH friendly question. I'm an old C programmer and while I could make an educated guess, I don't think I would be able to confidently answer the question after a long flight.

Which was the whole point. In the USA there used to poll tax laws and literacy tests to vote. Those laws were coincidentally almost all in Jim Crow states, and they were coincidentally only dragged out when a dark-skinned person wanted to vote. One person would ask black applicants, as part of their "test" to give the exact amount of jellybeans in a jar. The entire point was to make them nearly impossible to pass, and them apply them at will to prevent voting from people who they didn't want to vote, but couldn't legally prohibit from it for the actual reason they wanted.

If you look at these reports, they aren't coming from random people at random times. They are coming from people who would have been covered by Trump's recent executive order, that got blocked by the courts for likely illegally singling out a particular religion. This little legal end-run they appear to be pulling is right out of the White Supremacy handbook.

Steam has a pretty fantastic return policy. If a game looks good try it. If you pass the 2 hours, you probably like it enough to keep it anyway.

Provided:

• The game isn't the gaming equivalent of a short film, which can be completed in less than two hours. (Source: "14 Steam games that prove Valve's refund policy is broken" by Ric Cowley) Eventually developers of such games will wise up to this and offer them only through channels other than Steam to avoid the risk of players completing it and then seeking a refund.
• The game doesn't open with two hours of something completely different from representative gameplay. In "Could Steam's refund policy have a weird effect on game design?", Tyler Wilde relays the concern of independent game developer Andrew Pellerano of that game design will change to encourage a 2-hour binge before the game becomes no longer refundable. It's suggested that games might even adopt player-hostile patterns currently prevalent in free-to-play mobile gaming, with games giving rapid progress in the first two hours but making the rest of the game an unreasonable grind-fest that can be skipped by buying in-game energy with real money. Or it could open with two hours of cut scenes, for instance, and its publisher may have put that fact under review embargo.
• The game doesn't open with 2 hours of trying and failing to get the game to work on your PC, particularly if it needs a driver update or if a necessary activation or matchmaking server is overloaded. If you want, I can dig up anecdotal reports of this causing problems for other users of the Steam service.

How much of a problem do these cases pose in practice?

And youtube gameplay videos come out very fast

I've read that some video game publishers take these videos down on copyright grounds just as fast, claiming that a playthrough violates the publisher's exclusive right to perform its audiovisual work publicly, particularly for rhythm games and for retail games sold by a retailer that broke street date. (Or is this practice limited to console-centric developers?) And I'm aware of some gaming platforms that include only an HDMI output with HDCP always on, which deters those who aren't willing to point a camera at a monitor from making gameplay videos. The technology to do this exists in Windows, under the name Protected Media Path, but I'll grant that I haven't see it in wide use because of legacy VGA and non-HDCP DVI monitors.

Reagan? Bush? Puh-lease! ALL Republicans are Hitler.

Don't forget that McCain was Hitler:
http://www.mtv.com/news/159343...

Romney is Hitler:
http://www.wicasta.com/mitt-ro...

Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler!

take down every video by the artists in the suit from YT. Just leave a video with a statement explaining that artists didn't want them anymore. Watch those same artists whine about the removal and fan revolt in 3,2,1...

http://www.mtv.com/news/971500...

We'd be happy to pay those people. But the current system doesn't allow us.

But this isn't news to you...

Not always true, here's an example of a lawsuit caused by sampling a song in India for an R&B and rap song.

http://www.mtv.com/news/145767...

Actually, just looked it up. It was a song file, not a video file:

http://www.mtv.com/news/1471321/madonna-to-pirates-what-the-f-do-you-think-youre-doing/

All you gotta do is change your fashion items really old school, to make yourself and your dog look like these guys:

http://geek-news.mtv.com//wp-c...

You can start by shopping around here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/MEDIEV...

(see original listing.)

Who said chivalry was dead? It's coming back big time, and you better get your mirror finish polishing skills tuned.

To me, that means to have God in everything you do. For example, "I'm trying to holla at these dizzles fo' shizzle, chuuch"

Amusingly, in that same segment (I remember watching this on television many years ago), Marylin Manson is asked what he thinks is meant by "chuuch". The above link lists his response as "I don't know. That might mean ass.", but the actual segment was much funnier in video form. Apparrently he was only shown the word in writing, so he pronounces it "chooch" (it's actually pronounced more like "church" with the 'r' removed) with a very quizzical look on his face. "Uh, chooch? I don't know. That might mean ass." Priceless.

Jimmy: Do you like fishsticks?
Cartman: Yeah.
Jimmy: Do you like putting fish sticks in your mouth?
Cartman: Yeah.
Jimmy: What are you, a gay fish?
(South Park)

huhuhuh.. manners suck..
http://www.mtv.com/videos/misc...

I take it you're not familiar with the work of Archbishop Don Magic Juan. Chuuch.

"Chuuch" is an exclamation or interjection largely synonymous with "okay". It is used to express assent, agreement, or acceptance.

Unique to a particular branch of African American Vernacular English, it is most commonly heard in the pimp community.

Let's turn to popular culture for more:
Snoop Dogg's thoughts on "Chuuch".
Urbandictionary on "Chuuch".

MTV Interview

Obama was opposed to Prop 8 because he felt a ban on gay marriage should not be enshrined in a constitution. He also said that marriage was between a man and a woman and was opposed to gay marriage.

You can see the full remark in the link above. The article is dated November 1, 2008.

Mustache and a girly face?

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1715521/justin-bieber-believe-movie-stache-clip.jhtml

Could work. It'd make most people look away in disgust...

http://www.mtv.com/videos/misc/138896/liar-liar.jhtml

Because one time, Metallica did that. As a result, they lost a lot of fans. Now, you might say that Metallica never deserved fans in the first place, but ever since then, no band has wanted to risk it (whether they deserve their fans or not). So they let the RIAA take care of the problem, and say whatever makes their fans happy.

You also see Lars' hypocrisy if you watch his interview for Metal Evolution where he talks about the old days where most music magazines had ads for tape trading, and he says he owes much of thrash metal's early popularity from those days since everyone was trading for free with no expectation of receiving anything in return.

So apparently trading tapes to make yourself popular is great, but when the modern equivalent comes along and allows an all new generation of bands to come up it's bad...

Because one time, Metallica did that. As a result, they lost a lot of fans. Now, you might say that Metallica never deserved fans in the first place, but ever since then, no band has wanted to risk it (whether they deserve their fans or not). So they let the RIAA take care of the problem, and say whatever makes their fans happy.

http://geek-news.mtv.com//wp-content/uploads/geek/2012/11/picard-facepalm2.jpg

It's who they have flying these things. You would think they could do better.

What I'm going to do about it, though, is hack that damn console and pirate each and every game. I'm done paying before I can evaluate the quality.

No need to hack things to try before you commit to purchase. There's rental services like Gamefly. Additionally, there is some controversy over whether or not game demos hurt game sales. In my experience: They do. My own anecdotal experience: Same product in different distribution markets, the one without a demo = more sales; I tried again with a different product and switched the markets where the game demo was available... Less sales again in the one with the trial version, so it's probably not just the market; This even holds true for software other than games.

The problem is that we're done with demos. Demos are obsolete. It's hard to make a demo that leaves you unsatisfied enough to buy the game, but not unsatisfied enough to think the game is crap. So, the answer is simple: Refunds. On the mobile software markets like Android If you buy a game and don't like it you can just return it. This is better because it retains more impulse buy sales, takes less time to develop (no need to make a demo version), and is just as risk free as "try before you buy". I guess folks that don't have the money won't be able to play it, but they're not going to buy it anyway, see also your "hack the planet" idea as an alternative for these folks...

The problem is that Console makers don't want to embrace the concept full refunds if you don't like the game. Even on the upcoming OUYA console (if it ever ships) they mandate that all games must at least have a demo (or be free to play) -- The full game can not be purchased from the store, it must be unlocked by in app purchases. Unfortunately their whole market revolves around free to play, so it's basically a hack to make a regular game actually have a demo version and a full version. I haven't heard whether they'll allow full refunds or not, but since they mandate game have a "free" version I don't think you'll be getting the option to refund a purchase if the game doesn't live up to the expectations set by the demo.

Not even Steam allows refunds; Apple's App Store and Canonical's Software Center do have refunds, but you have to contact them and the refunds aren't guaranteed. I wish everyone just used the model Google Play does: Full refund if requested within $INTERVAL minutes. Currently Google has that set to 15, but I wish it were at least 30, or 45 -- IMO, that's the best option.

I feel your pain, and wish there was something us game devs could do. I buy Indie games and do so directly from the game devs' websites. Most indie devs I've dealt with will refund your purchase without question if it's possible for them to do so. Even had one pay me back via Paypal transfer rather than charge back (they were incapable). They typically have demos or alphas and are much cheaper than store-bought AAA games. Full disclosure, I'm an independent software and game developer.

You have a great idea for making TV shows and movies about Asimov's Foundation series? Sorry, you can't, his widow won't let you.

While I agree on principle, sometimes it's a good thing.

First, I whole heartedly agree is a horrible candidate to do the Foundation series justice. But the only reason Emmerich can do Foundation and some indie group can't is because of copyright. The people with big bucks can do pretty much whatever they want whereas indies can't afford to even think about getting rights to do so. I'm sure there are studios sitting on books/stories they've purchase just so other studios can't do them (with no plans to ever produce movies out of them).

That's the reality we live in right now with our mega corps. Not sure what to do with that singer you have in your rosters, but afraid she'll become a superstar elsewhere? Just make sure to have her tied down with a contract and run her in circles. Don't have time, interest or appropriate talent to produce a film? Buy the rights so someone else can't make it into the next blockbuster that over shadows your next formulaic super-action-rom-com-3D.

Copyright wasn't created to be used that way, just as patents weren't made to prevent innovation, but that's how they are being used by our "do anything to make bigger profits" corporations.

You have a great idea for making TV shows and movies about Asimov's Foundation series? Sorry, you can't, his widow won't let you.

While I agree on principle, sometimes it's a good thing.

Not exactly teeth but http://geek-news.mtv.com/2012/09/14/bald-eagle-3d-printed-beak/

http://www.mtv.com/videos/beavis-and-butt-head-season-9-ep-5-supersize-me-bathroom-break/1674558/playlist.jhtml

I'm surprised this hasn't come to the big screen yet. I recall reading about a movie a few years back, but whatever happened to it?

What happened is Sam Raimi got bored and left.

How can you all calmly discuss a new version of Linux when one of the towering figures of modern music has just passed away?

Show a little respect, you pig-ignorant philistines.

Goodnight, sweet prince/and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest,

Now everyone, right now, go listen to "Holiday" or "Spicks and Specks" or "Massachusetts". Leave everything post-'74 alone. The album "Bee Gees First" is a classic of the drawing-room psychedelic era, and holds up very well to "Sgt Peppers" or any of the Nuggets. I love idiosyncratic voices and Robin Gibbs had one of the most.

How about starting with appreciating your customer?

Currently it looks like this and it is getting worse. At some point, it is simply being greedy. Most triple-A movies already pay off during first weeks of release. E.g. ( The Avengers ). At that point, even $3 per copy makes you money.

The UN does NOT represent YOU

I feel so much better with the US govt representing me!

Just watch: the minute the WSJ stops running editorials like this, the UN will take over! ;-)

;) Doing my bit to help: here are some posters to go with it

Actually, Moore agrees with you. The film was different from the graphic novel:

I've read the screenplay, so I know exactly what they're doing with it, and I'm not going to be going to see it. When I wrote "V," politics were taking a serious turn for the worse over here. We'd had [Conservative Party Prime Minister] Margaret Thatcher in for two or three years, we'd had anti-Thatcher riots, we'd got the National Front and the right wing making serious advances. "V for Vendetta" was specifically about things like fascism and anarchy.

Those words, "fascism" and "anarchy," occur nowhere in the film. It's been turned into a Bush-era parable by people too timid to set a political satire in their own country. In my original story there had been a limited nuclear war, which had isolated Britain, caused a lot of chaos and a collapse of government, and a fascist totalitarian dictatorship had sprung up. Now, in the film, you've got a sinister group of right-wing figures â" not fascists, but you know that they're bad guys â" and what they have done is manufactured a bio-terror weapon in secret, so that they can fake a massive terrorist incident to get everybody on their side, so that they can pursue their right-wing agenda. It's a thwarted and frustrated and perhaps largely impotent American liberal fantasy of someone with American liberal values [standing up] against a state run by neo-conservatives â" which is not what "V for Vendetta" was about. It was about fascism, it was about anarchy, it was about [England]. The intent of the film is nothing like the intent of the book as I wrote it. And if the Wachowski brothers had felt moved to protest the way things were going in America, then wouldn't it have been more direct to do what I'd done and set a risky political narrative sometime in the near future that was obviously talking about the things going on today?

(Emphasis mine)

http://www.mtv.com/shared/movies/interviews/m/moore_alan_060315/

http://www.mtv.com/videos/beavis-and-butt-head-season-9-ep-3-drones/1674141/playlist.jhtml

"how to safely assimilate the technology into national airspace.". THAT is the tricky part!

          Pilots (this is not just commercial airlines, but even a two-set Cessna...) must hold and keep current a license. The pilot must know actual operating characteristics of the types of planes they'll fly (for instance how susceptible it is to downdrafts and updrafts.) They must know when they can fly with visual flight rules, and when they must maintain radio contact. They must run through a full checklist on the plane before every takeoff. They must follow flight rules -- certain flight heights, when approaching an airport they must follow the approach pattern (so they don't cut off or ram other planes coming in), and so on. They must maintain awareness of their surroundings.

            Drones? I just have the feeling they will be flown by yahoos that may be able to keep the plane level, but won't keep up on maintenance, won't follow flight rules, won't maintain proper radio contact, and I'm not sure these drones even have the ability to allow complete awareness of surroundings (if it doesn't provide 360 degree camera coverage.) Honestly, if anyone flys these, they should have to follow EVERY single rule a Cessna would have to follow, including having a licensed pilot flying it, who will be fully responsible for any mishaps the plane gets into. These are not as big of planes, but will still kill someone if it crashes and hits someone on the ground, or hits the prop on a small plane.

http://www.mtv.com/videos/beavis-and-butt-head-season-9-ep-3-drones/1674141/playlist.jhtml#series=2211&seriesId=37392&channelId=1

I count eight at least. http://www.mtv.com/shows/jersey_shore/season_4/cast.jhtml

First off, most people who use the term have never even heard that routine.
I first heard a person use the term boxen 15 years ago. Is this routine older then that?

Sorry to shit on your parade, but this routine is 20 years old..

Being an Xbox Live player (hate to say this cause its MS we are talking about) but you can enjoy gaming without the posibility for account Hijacking.

That's actually not true. XBL support has a notoriously bad track record when it comes to social engineering and giving away your account details to attackers. There were quite a few articles about it a few years back (here's one from a quick search). I think it's actually more of a threat since a valid credit card is required for XBL Gold accounts.

Peter Jackson and his battles with New Line for his full share of the profits is one of the few instances that I can recall where someone fought the big studios "accounting" system and won. Although the terms of the settlement weren't disclosed it was nice to see a creator get their fair share of the profits.

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Peter_Jackson_banned_from_working_with_New_Line
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1576672/peter-jackson-new-line-reach-hobbit-deal.jhtml

I'm not sure what that has to do with Lex Luthor defending mankind from an alien invader.

Anyway, this isn't always something I've always thought about. It's also the topic of Superman: The Black Ring

"It's the story of Lex Luthor as he's trying to put together a vast new source of power for himself. Lex Luthor is an interesting character because he's about an inch from being a superhero. He thinks he's continually saving the world from a terrifying super-powered alien. And in this story we put him up against a bunch of villains that are worse than he is!"

source: http://geek-news.mtv.com/2011/03/25/paul-cornell-talks-about-superman-the-black-ring-vol-1/

source: http://www.wired.com/underwire/2011/03/lex-luthor-superman-black-ring/

As an example, I think it is fairly safe to assume that Herman Melville, author of Moby Dick is deceased.

Like a vampire?
Or if he had some supernatural abilities like flying or bending bullets which may have allowed him to have a supernatural life span?
Who knows, maybe there IS some truth in that story that "his" obituary actually said Henry Melville.
Maybe he is still alive, wandering the world, moving silently down through the centuries, living many secret lives, struggling to reach the time of the Gathering - when the few of his kind that will remain shall battle to the last.

Yeah they do, shows you that in the video at 1:03 when they mentioned that he had been labeled a cheater. It shows a close up of a Xbox Live Gamertag. It shows right under the Gamertag score.

As a male, I really like how the summary starts with "He or she has cheated". It doesn't paint infidelity as a typical male thing. I'm sick of the rosy picture in which this society paints our women. The most conservative statistics say that close to 50% of females admit to sexual infidelity. And yes, women are horny and have fun but not with their partner although in a different way from men, and yes, women frequently strike out at their partners, and not simply in self-defense; in 24% of violent American marriages, the woman is the only abuser. I vividly remember the Teen mom lashing out episode of the MTV show Teen Mom, where she throws a few jabs and a right hook in her boyfriend's face.

They're humans, just like men.

After watching King of Kong I'm extremely happy to hear Wiebe is back on top. Something about Billy Mitchell has never sat right with me.

Perhaps how the 'documentary' demonized him? Is he egotistical and full of himself? Probably. But it seems the documentary was either not entirely truthful or misrepresented time lines. I met Walter Day at the Mall of America in college and will say that in the few minutes I chatted with him he was the kindest and most honest person I have met. If Walter Day doesn't think Billy Mitchell is pure evil than neither do I. If Billy had tried to do anything truly sinister I think Day would have short circuited it and I'm not clear on whether or not the mailed in tape that beat Wiebe in the documentary was actually accepted.

I'd be careful to accept something as truth when it could have made for gripping cinema. Mitchell is such a villain in the documentary that it's almost too good to be true when juxtaposing him to Wiebe.

I would caution your "doesn't sit right with me" assessment from a film and point out it's probably as reliable as anything meant to entertain someone can be. Yeah there's probably some truth to it. But Mitchell is no more purely evil than Wiebe is purely good. Selective footage can make it seem that way though. Before you jump all over Mitchell I would suggest you read the this and meet him first. You've selected one single source that is a highly entertaining movie and it has a very high chance of being unfairly biased to represent an epic battle between good and evil. They may be foils of each other in several ways but I would imagine some of it is manufactured to put you on Wiebe's side. Mitchell's devoted a lot of his life to video games and has held other records. The documentary really doesn't seem to investigate the positives of Mitchell as much as it does Wiebe.

Just something to consider when judging others.

They are talking about making the last episode much scarier, which I think is the right thing to do. I remember the first Half-life literally giving me chill bumps, and making me jump with the head crabs and other assorted critters. The last interview that Gabe gave on it (that I am aware of) was a few months ago: http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2010/03/26/valve-wants-their-next-half-life-to-scare-you/

I don't mind that as long as they balance it with the humor that's also been the trademark of the HL series. I wouldn't say the first HL was scary--more that it created moments of suspense, where the game could startle you effectively. That's not necessarily horror--that could be said of any successful suspense, action, mystery, or horror work.

In parts of HL2, I think they got dangerously close to getting so self-absorbed in horror that it become a cliched survival-horror FPS. Thankfully, they always pulled out of it enough that didn't happen.

The best of the HL series blends sci-fi, action, and horror with a distanced humor that prevents it from becoming tedious and stifling. I worry that they'll kill what makes it successful by trying to make it "more" of anything. If I wanted more horror I would pick from any number of other games--Doom, FEAR, L4D, Crysis, etc. etc. etc.

What about Half Life? Is this franchise dead or something?

I doubt it, they are supposedly working on the last Episode, but I'm not shocked that it is taking so long. Remember, whatever happens in the last episode, it sets the stage for the next game. You don't want to kill off people who would be handy later on. The franchise is still very popular, very profitable, and the highest ranking games on Metacritic's website. The rumors of the franchise's death have been greatly exaggerated.

They are talking about making the last episode much scarier, which I think is the right thing to do. I remember the first Half-life literally giving me chill bumps, and making me jump with the head crabs and other assorted critters. The last interview that Gabe gave on it (that I am aware of) was a few months ago: http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2010/03/26/valve-wants-their-next-half-life-to-scare-you/

You can explain a good chunk of this as the result of Akamai's world-wide content caching/load balancing solution. The default Akamai plan doesn't get you SSL support, but the thousands and thousands of web servers they have (which host a good 10% of the Internet's web traffic, last I heard) will all reply on the SSL port, and will present a certificate for an Akamai domain name, whether you connect to ocw.mit.edu or www.whitehouse.gov or www.mtv.com or whatever it may be.

In general, this can also be explained by servers that happen to listen on port 443 but aren't intended to do SSL.

Politicians never use copyrighted material without permission!

Parody but don't *use* the original work. When Weird Al makes a song parody (ignore for the moment that he gets permission and probably shares in royalties) he and his team don't just take the original music and sing over it. It's RE-RECORDED. That's the key. You can get away with the similarities and same song composition but you have to at least lift a finger and do the work yourself. You wanna be lazy, then the consequences are paying someone else, either for use of the work or as damages in a lawsuit later.

Weird Al actually parodies the song itself, so he could talk over it karaoke-style if he wanted to. He's probably re-recording it because it gives his parody a more professional polish and gives him some musical creative freedom. He really doesn't have to do that in order to be parodying the song. I also heard in an interview with him on NPR that, even then, he still seeks permission from every artist he parodies just to avoid any potential legal conflicts (citation needed).

As I understand it, however, even if you re-record someone's music, it's still subject to copyright. The first case that comes to mind is the Coldplay vs. Joe Satriani lawsuit, where Joe alleged that Coldplay stole some of the melody from one of his songs. In this case, even though Coldplay clearly physically played the music, it was still potentially subject to copyright.