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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."
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."
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.
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
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
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
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
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.