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Kids Game Takes Aim At Music Pirates
Thanks to the San Jose Mercury News for reprinting a report about an educational videogame company who've decided to theme their next title around music piracy. According to the piece, the developers, MGI, who are not being funded by the RIAA or any other music industry groups, "...had set out to create a game about the yo-ho-ho kind of pirates. But when [MGI] started researching the topic of piracy, they were overwhelmed with information about music copyrights." An official press release on the MGI site reveals: "Loosely based on the Treasure Island story, this new PC game will... caricature music piracy, embodied especially in the figure of Captain Bootleg." The nefarious Captain Bootleg has run off with the 'Music Treasure', and "...a young boy named Ma, top agent of the Funny Bureau of Investigations ('FBI'), who... carries a laptop, must find the Island and recover the Music Treasure."
Ma opens the 'Music Treasure' and only finds Indipendant Artists?
Hrrm... I usually just sign my name.
to barrack for the bad guy in a video game.
How when music is "pirated" that the "music treasure" is copied, there will be two copies of treasure! The first treasure owner can still play the music all they want!
Explain that "copying treasure" is Very Bad.
You can see how this is Very Bad, can't you?
Your inbred human tuition should make you recoil in revulsion from even thinking about giving away anything with a (c).
It is so Evil that I'm sure most of the world's major religions have strict prohibitions against it.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Remember "Don't Copy That Floppy"?
A better game proposal: "NapLeech".
Your character runs around town, smashing into music stores and stealing CD's (a "Grand Theft Music"). If there is any Brittany Spears playing near by, health goes down. but Beatles music improves your health.
Monsters resembling Hilary Rosen and Orren Hatch bedevil you every step. The stolen CD's have to be trucked to a warehouse.
When you are through playing the game, you go look in the MyMusic folder and find it full of the music from the CDs you stole in the game.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
i'd like a bootleg copy of it!
</joke>
-- ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space!
This all reminds me of some Sony NetMD commercial on a CD: "and remember, kids, music taken from your own CDs sounds much better than pirate music!"
They didn't go as far as to suggest chasing bootleggers, but the essence of the propaganda was there.
I guess this kind of game would be truly shocking if they taught children to "give" pirates to the police. Hopefully this is not the next step in the *AA's evil plans.
First the rights to music are stolen from its creators. This music is locked away from all of the world in a small island. The player must download musical clues from any remote section of the world they can, learning about the area's unique musical tradition and heritage. Eventually the player finds his way to Los An... Secret Pirate Island. The game ends when the evil thief is thrown in jail, and the music heritage of the world is set free for all.
That sounds about right.
The ______ Agenda
I installed the game...and...well...i dont seem to have _any_ of my mp3s on my computer anymore, what happened? :)
Don't copy that floppy!
Yeah, that's right. This game is probably doomed, too.
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
Alright kids, now get on emule and go download this game!
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
BULLSHIT
So, they're going to associate music piracy with actual "yo-ho-ho-and-a-bottle-of-rum" piracy in this post-Pirates of the Caribbean era, and they expect kids not to think that it's even cooler than they already do? Sounds a bit counter-intuitive to me...
DecafJedi
my weblog: apropos of something
"Bush is by far the worst president ever appointed by the Supreme Court. --maddox.xmission.com "
No, he's one of the best we have ever elected. The Supreme Court did not "appoint" him: the voters did, through the usual electoral college process. The Supreme Court merely made sure that the actual results of the voting stood.
If the Supreme Court, by failing to overturn the election, appointed Bush, then they also appointed Clinton, FDR, Harding and Grant. With all of these other Presidents, the Supreme Court also failed to overthrow the actual election results.
yo ho
Or hinder? Look that cool pirate dude copys music ilegaly, I should do it too!
This is the scariest news I've heard in a long time...brainwashing kids from an early age into loving the good ole RIAA.
The only way to fight music stealing pirates? Music stealing ninjas (who flip out hardcore).
My friend Mark said that he saw a ninja totally uppercut some kid just for deleting a Snoop mp3.
And when some dude unplugged a ninja's ethernet cable and he flipped out and killed the whole town.
... download the Movie now!! (not.)
Shiver me timbers, this is getting scary.
Some the people who work for the company(it's very small) have definitely worked on projects that are under the RIAA, but that doesn't mean much in itself.
But, where do they get the music for their games? The only one I was able to figure out was that the rendition of Vivaldi's Four Seasons they use was recorded by the Hamburg Chamber Orchestra under the Madacy record label. I'm not sure if that's RIAA.
aka Jack Valenti.
Does this also mean that the RIAA is not funding "educational" gaming companies? What about private funding? Or investing in the parent company who was "motivated" by the RIAA?
However, just as widespread monetary counterfeit would lead to economic problems if it could not be halted in some way, widespread copying of music has caused a devaluation of the legal copies of the music. If music copying reaches a certain critical mass, it could greatly reduce the number of bands producing new music as they would be unable to support themselves, thus leading to a kind of music recessation. It'll be some time before we discover one way or the other whether such problems will occur as a result of music copying.
Now I'm not trying to support the RIAA, and I realize that the big music companies rip off artists with the way they do business. However, I think everyone here knows that that isn't really a great reason in favour of copying the artists' music:P. It's a wise idea to consider the long-term consequences of our actions; forgetting to do so is how we get ourselves into messes like global warming.
Alphanos
Heh yeah I'd say that sig reels in about one unsuspecting jackass a week. Here was last week's contestant.
If you fuckos had half a brain you'd realize that a) I'm right and you're wrong and b) not a single phenomena in the known universe could possibly make me care what you have to say. Cheers!
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Under my buckin' hat!" - Dick, Third Rock From the Sun
Definition of 'buccaneer' by www.m-w.com:
1 : any of the freebooters preying on Spanish ships and settlements especially in the West Indies in the 17th century; broadly : PIRATE
2 : an unscrupulous adventurer especially in politics or business
*emphasis mine
That the gaming industry was suffering from a lack of originality? That idea's brilliant. We can get forty hours of CG in there, prerendered, and some really big names for the voices of the characters.
Let's see this compete with Doom III...that Romero bloke doesn't stand a chance...
The above is a joke (in more ways than one)
Oddly Draconis
Too cynical to live, too stubborn to die.
In the E! True Hollywood Story about the production of this game, it revealed how the writers anguished over this humorous alteration of the FBI acronym. Originally it was "Federal Bureau of Irreverence", but they felt that went over the kids head's. Then came "Federal Barnyard of Investigations", and that WAS what they were going with, until a maverick old-school writer came up with "Funny Bureau of Investigations". I can the only imagine the plethora of comic gems he could have graced us with if not for the cocaine overdose.
the kid is called 'Ma' for god sake!
IAALS.
When will the sassy Music Robin Hood come out on my PS2? Where a kid can liberate music from the evil filtering and profiteering mechanisms of the dark lord's of the Industry, thereby returning joy of listening and experimentation with sound back to the poor townsfolk who have been tortured for years until they, too, believe that linkin park is worth listening to. Hey who knows, maybe if the music industry lost this fight, we might start paying attention to local music again and...wait for it...support the artists directly that we listen to. Only pay for what you appreciate.
6843 mp3's in your share folder
...
you download a song
you share a file
6844 mp3's in your share folder
6844 mp3's in your share folder
My cats ate my karma. They also wrote this comment.
The $$ side of things has to be understood as does the culture of industrial music (no, not fun ole Front 242 either) that exists from LA. When you appreciate music, or anything for that matter, I would hope that that appreciation manifests in support of those that brought you that experience. When you buy a CD the only way that you give is with your hard earned $$. Fine. That money, however, doesn't go to those that make those luvly sounds that (ostensibly) prompted you to buy that disc...the cash begins it's long and withering path back to LA executives, ad agencies, and the multi-headed hydras of corperations (those that really told you what you would listen to giving you say 3 new rap, 5 new girl pop, 1 punka, 2 country, 2 boyband choices this week...and you get to feel sooooo special likeing choice #X crap flavor of the month). A sane system promotes giving thanks, $$, attention to artists as they produce the music live and sell their music locally. Guess what? the sound engineers and recording studios still get $$$ from the bands...the live board techs still get $$$ from the proliferation of new diverse live shows...the record industry people get to have fun new jobs (presumably in the motion picture industy where it actually does take millions to produce their product) and the amount of nation-wide acts plummets while the number of local acts being appreciated in the towns where they live increases. So hurrah to the theifs of sound! As long as they give back to the bands that actually make the noise. This system (post napster, kazaaaaaaa, etc) actually works in towns like Austin, TX, Madison, WI, NYC, Pittsburgh, PA, Portland, OR etc... where there is a healthy appreciation for live music and LOCAL music. Remember the music industry has taken away our choices as consumers and restricted production for new acts...they are no friends of sound. LISTEN LOCAL, DRINK LOCAL, EAT LOCAL and travel often
Good Idea. I think I'll find the magic Island of Kazaa Lite and recover the Music Treasure right now!
"yo-ho-ho-and-a-bottle-of-rum"
Today, it's "yo-ho-ho-and-a-bottle-of-Bawls," savvy?
No TiVo and no caffeine make me something something...
It will teach kids that whoever conceived the idea for this game had an idiotic idea and/or is an idiot. Honestly, do they think that because they played a game where they cracked down on music "piracy" that it's going to influence them not to use Kazaa, or WinMX for sharing mp3s? I personally doubt it. Just like when they play Doom it's going to teach them to take their Dad's shotgun and kill mister former sergeant down the road (an army veteran) because of their Doom experience.
I love NetHack.
Sounds about as uninspired as the crappy music the RIAA has been pushing on us for years.
--- "Yeah, I'm a bit stressed out. I have a research paper due tomorrow and it has to be +5, Insightful."
You can already get this game on Kazaa.
What about a counter-strike like version of it (note that I do not say counter-strike mod, because counter-strike is really a mod). Instead of Counter-Terrorists vs Terrorists, it is RIAA vs Normal People?
Save Sam and Max!
Sounds like fun, I can't wait to download it off eMule and give it a try!
....I want the last 9 and a half minutes of my life back.
Because remember, nothing sells to kids like condescending to them! Just ask Poochy...
...that appears to have worked. People know about the game and the company now, even though it sounds like a dreadful idea to me.
I think one of the scariest aspects of this game is that the creators' "...goal is to persuade the Recording Industry Association of America to distribute the game free to schools and students across the country."
This game sounds rather half-baked and unimaginative. I don't know too many kids that would sit through this game more than once. The use of the letters FBI is very misleading as the real FBI doesn't bring suits against file-sharers. And as one poster already pointed out, file copying and outright stealing and pillaging are two very different things. It doesn't look like the RIAA would be interested in such a silly (and rather misguided) game.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
You could also make the assumption that the RIAA was the evil captian bootleg, hoarding the music to themselves, and the young kid, using his laptop, is getting that music from them... =D
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni