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Funny, I remember this around the time,

Gene's son was doing some comic, and ripped images that were almost identical to Bleach and a few other manga's ( http://www.cnngo.com/tokyo/none/manga-gene-simmons-son-accused-bleach-plagiarism-750585 and http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2010-02-25/nick-simmons-incarnate-halted-over-alleged-bleach-plagiarism ) . Then his dad comes out that all these kids that steal should be sued, face prision, hang on I think there was an quote saying he hoped they get @ss rapped in prison: yep found it http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/general_music_news/gene_simmons_fires_back_at_hackers.html and another http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/10/gene-simmons-vs-anonymous-whos-the-bigger-asshole.ars . By his own mouth, his son should be in prison being @ss raped.

Personally it is the double standards everyone has that annoys me

Bit like all the hacking stuff lately, Companies are allowed to sell programs to hijack Itunes, install keyloggers, do what they like and sell it to governments, but the day a normal person does it, 10 years in prison. Hacking a website is like tagging someones building/home, if it is that much of a problem get better protection. 10 years for defacing a website? You can kill someone for less time. You think if you killed gene that the charge of website defacing would still be present? might be a nice option out that has only good points

Bored now, MERRY XMAS ALL

The persistence relies on physical objects

You are confusing the concept with the implementation. There's the abstract concept of a song. That abstract concept could be implemented as a videoclip, as a set of guitar chords, or in many other ways. But in the end it's the same concept. Different physical implementations, same abstract concept.

Damn you're dumb. According to Gibson, the foreign governments have not accused them of any crimes. SO What? Did you bother to even look at the charges under the law? It clearly states that there only be in violation and not that any accusations need to be filed. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/16/usc_sec_16_00003372----000-.html any fish or wildlife taken, possessed, transported, or sold in violation of any law or regulation of any State or in violation of any foreign law; There is no vast conspiracy, stop being a lemming and following blindly what every Tea Party blogger tells you; try thinking independently. The CEO nailed himself when he suggested buying on the "grey market" because everything in Madagascar was so corrupt. And it didn't help him when his original supplier was caught and is now facing charges in Madagascar. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903895904576542942027859286.html http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/general_music_news/gibson_guitar_tangled_in_madagascar_wood_law.html

The foreign governments don't need to complain you moron. The law in the US clear states that: ANY fish or wildlife taken, possessed, transported, or sold in VIOLATION of ANY LAW or REGULATION of any State or in VIOLATION of ANY foreign law; http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/16/usc_sec_16_00003372----000-.html Mr. Nix went to Madagascar in June 2008 and emailed back to the home office that he saw "widespread corruption and theft of valuable woods" and that the company should look into buying through "the grey market.". Those were just some of the emails seized. Also logging and cutting trees in Madagascar has been illegal since 2006. The supplier of the wood which ended up at Gibson's office in the US has been criminally charged in his native Madagascar. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903895904576542942027859286.html http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/general_music_news/gibson_guitar_tangled_in_madagascar_wood_law.html There you go

Sounds crazy but it is documented:

Gibson Guitar Corp. Responds to Federal Raid

âoeThe Federal Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. has suggested that the use of wood from India that is not finished by Indian workers is illegal, not because of U.S. law, but because it is the Justice Departmentâ(TM)s interpretation of a law in India. (If the same wood from the same tree was finished by Indian workers, the material would be legal.) This action was taken without the support and consent of the government in India.â
Gibson Guitar tangled in Madagascar wood law

Gibson has now become the first company in the world to be investigated, though not yet charged, with violating new provisions of a 100-year-old law called the Lacy Act. It says a plant can't be taken or a tree cut in another country against its own laws, and secondly, that illegal plant can't be taken into the United States.
  But was the wood found at Gibson cut or traded illegally?
  "Historically and currently, the laws of Madagascar have allowed for the exportation of ebony and rosewood in certain finished forms, fingerboards being one," said Bruce Mitchell, Gibson's attorney.
  Guitar components called fingerboards were taken in the raid. The inlay and fret lines were added in Nashville, but Gibson said even what appeared to be bare pieces were not unfinished.
  "Finished isn't an English dictionary term; it's a legal term in Madagascar. It's defined, and the law specifically defines a fingerboard blank as a finished good," said Juszkiewicz. "It's not illegal. It's not illegal under Madagascar law. You can't argue with the facts."

How is an author going to be paid for their time writing the books if we allow one person to purchase the book, and then lend it to an infinite number of people at once?

Why would someone who buys a copy be motivated to set up the expensive web infrastructure needed lend it to an infinite number of people at once?

The only motive I can see is that they have some way to make money off of it -- they either charge for the lending, or are making money off of ads. In which case, the author ought to get a cut -- I've been suggesting for years that a royalty right, modeled after songwriter's royalties, should replace copyright.

Absent that, remember that time is money. Let's say that I can either spend $2 to download a DRM-free e-book from the author, or I can spend fifteen minutes searching for and downloading a copy. For anyone whose time is worth more than $8/hour, it's cheaper to buy a copy. Adjust those numbers as you like -- $1 versus five minutes and the cutoff becomes $12/hour, and so on; the point is that at some point, it's cheaper for the reader to buy a copy than to hunt down a "free" copy.

Plus, of course, a significant fraction of people will pay for something even if it's available for free. Public radio, PBS. Radiohead made $10 million from an album available for free downloads.

Do we tell those writers, "tough shit, start waiting tables and give up the writing thing if you're not popular?"

This is already what we tell most writers and musicians. Very few make a living at it.

In the UK most full time musicians are close to or bellow the poverty line.

http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/general_music_news/most_musicians_are_on_poverty_line.html

can the same be said of full time chefs in the UK?

So they found something that works, even if only once. Maybe they can't do it again. But they proved it could be done. See here: http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/general_music_news/radiohead_make_10_million_from_in_rainbows.html

Your username links all your posts together, which means that I can try to glean information from them and build a profile. It also allows me (at least in the case of a relatively unique sounding handle, like yours) to associate this account with accounts elsewhere, such as gaming, accounts, stuff on guitars, or a livejournal. From this, it is clear you are based in/around Denver, Colorado, you did games, but more in the past, do stuff with guitars, and have legal leanings to the point that you were a law clerk for the Colorado Court of Appeals. It helps that you usually sign your posts --G, so its presence or absence is one indicator of your ownership. Also remember that we just got through seeing an article here on slashdot that just because you do not post identifying information does not mean that you can not be identified.

Seriously, you can get a decent guitar from a pawn broker from $100, then all you need to do is visit http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/ and find the tab to your favorite song and literally be ACTUALLY playing it in minutes. All you need to do is start out with the Major and Minor scales, then the rest comes naturally and you will be actually be rocking and will be able to impress the ladies.

Aces High

I was under the impression that most guitar tabs were legal because they were not in any way copies of the original work, and in fact most state: This is an interpretation of the original song by the author of this tab, and should not be taken to be accurate.
Either way, as an amateur guitar player I think this is really sad, but fortunately there are a multitude of other guitar tab sites out there to fill the void. I like Ultimate Guitar

I use http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/ - it has everything I need. The ratings system is a welcome addition, and the forums and reviews are nice.

Harmonically complex? For somebody who has never taken a music theory course, maybe. The song is just trivially switching between a minor key and the relative major key, and uses two chords in each. Yeah, if you try to write it out as though it stayed in one key, the notation gets a little ugly, but...:

Minor key: I V I
Relative Major: V I V I
Relative Minor key: V I V I
Relative Major V I
Relative Minor V I

Or, more traditionally:

VI IIIMaj VI
V I V I
IIImaj VI IIIMaj VI
V I
IIIMaj VI

Harmonically complex is Macarthur Park. "Oops" has the harmonic vocabulary of a turnip.

From http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/columns/music_theor y/writing_unusual_and_original_chord_progressions. html

First, I will show one of the simplest (and most common) way that a songs chord vocabulary is extended, is simply by adding the major chords from the keys parallel minor scale....

(Emphasis mine.)

Actually, Firefox already blocks popups, so Google's Toolbar doesn't need to block them, unless you're looking for a popup blocker blocker.

1. turn on the Firefox popup blocker
2. visit this site http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/tabs/toto_tabs.htm
3. click the first link (99 Guitar Pro Tab)

A popup will display (tested on 1.07) that goes through the Firefox blocker. It's annyoing as hell, because everytime I click on on of those links the popup shows up...