Pardon, Is This Your File?

Teknogeek writes "The BSA says piracy is thriving. At least, according to this article. Note one interesting statistic: '...the group found that 57 percent of respondents never or seldom pay for copyrighted works they download. And 12 percent admitted to pirating software.' How much do you want to bet that 45 percent gap is freeware and/or open source?" On a similar note, an Anonymous Coward writes: "MIT Technology Review reports on the process of scanning the entire internet for digital signatures matching copyrighted work (watermarking not required), and automatically emailing threats to the offenders and their ISPs."

Comments

Re:the problem

[ArsonSmith]

when it is there it is there. You are just argueing that you no longer have the right to put your word agenst a police officers or other person. Now it's your word agenst a photo of you commiting the act.

It isn't fair now that I can't get away with breaking the law.

PS I am a big fan of much stricter enforcement of laws, but also a much bigger fan of reduceing the number of laws and makeing them much more lenient. Especially when we can have things like traffic monitors and stop light cameras.

Re:Fuck Yeah I'm a Pirate

[gartogg]

Speaking of loaded words concerning that particular war...

"The Palestinians want their own country. There's just one thing about that:
There are no Palestinians. It's a made up word.
Israel was called Palestine for two thousand years. Like "Wiccan,"
"Palestinian" sounds ancient but is really a modern invention.Before the
Israelis won the land in war, Gaza was owned by Egypt, and there were no
"Palestinians" then, and the West Bank was owned by Jordan, and there were
no "Palestinians" then. As soon as the Jews took over and started growing
oranges as big as basketballs, what do you know, say hello to the
"Palestinians," weeping for their deep bond with their lost "land" and
"nation."

So for the sake of honesty, let's not use the word "Palestinian" any more to
describe these delightful folks, who dance for joy at deaths until
someone points out they're being taped. Instead, let's call them what they
are: "Other Arabs Accomplish Anything In Life And Would Rather Wrap
Themselves In The Seductive Melodrama Of Eternal Struggle And Death." I know
that's a bit unwieldy to expect to see on CNN. How about this, then:
"Adjacent Jew-Haters."

Okay, so the Adjacent Jew-Haters want their own country. Oops, just one more
thing. No, they don't. They could've had their own country any time in the
last thirty years, especially two years ago at Camp David. But if you have
your own country, you have to have traffic lights and garbage trucks and
Chambers of Commerce, and, worse, you actually have to figure out some way
to make a living. That's no fun. No, they want what all the other Jew-Haters
in the region want: Israel.

They also want a big pile of dead Jews, of course-that's where the real fun
is-but mostly they want Israel. Why? For one thing, trying to destroy
Israel-or "The Zionist Entity" as their textbooks call it-for the last fifty
years has allowed the rulers of Arab countries to divert the attention of
their own people away from the fact that they're the blue-ribbon most
illiterate, poorest, and tribally backward on G-d's Earth, and if you've
ever been around G-d's Earth, you know that's really saying something. It
makes me roll my eyes every time one of our pundits waxes poetic about the
great history and culture of the Muslim Mideast. Unless I'm missing
something, the Arabs haven't given anything to the world since Algebra, and,
by the way, thanks a hell of a lot for that one.

Chew this around and spit it out: Five hundred million Arabs; five million
Jews. Think of all the Arab countries as a football field, and Israel as a
pack of matches sitting in the middle of it. And now these same folks swear
that if Israel gives them half of that pack of matches, everyone will be
pals. Really? Wow, what neat news. Hey, but what about the string of wars
to obliterate the tiny country and the constant din of rabid blood oaths to
drive every Jew into the sea? Oh, that? We were just kidding.

My friend Kevin Rooney made a gorgeous point the other day: Just reverse the
numbers. Imagine five hundred million Jews and five million Arabs. I was
stunned at the simple brilliance of it.

Can anyone picture the Jews strapping belts of razor blades and dynamite to
themselves? Of course not.
Or marshalling every fiber and force at their disposal for generations to
drive a tiny Arab state into the sea? Nonsense.
Or dancing for joy at the murder of innocents? Impossible.
Or spreading and believing horrible lies about the Arabs baking their bread
with the blood of children? Disgusting.

No, as you know, left to themselves in a world of peace, the worst Jews
would ever do to people is debate them to death.

Mr. Bush, G-d bless him, is walking a tightrope. I understand that with
vital operations coming up against Iraq and others, it's in our interest, as
Americans, to try to stabilize our Arab allies as much as possible, and,
after all, that can't be much harder than stabilizing a roomful of
supermodels who've just had their drugs taken away. However, in any
big-picture strategy, there's always a danger of losing moral weight. We've
already lost some. After September 11 our president told us and the world he
was going to root out all terrorists and the countries that supported them.
Beautiful.

Then the Israelis, after months and months of having the equivalent of an
Oklahoma City every week (and then every day) start to do the same thing we
did, and we tell them to show restraint. If America were being attacked with
an Oklahoma City every day, we would all very shortly be screaming for the
administration to just be done with it and kill everything south of the
Mediterranean and east of the Jordan."

-Dennis Miller