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Head Of ATF To Direct RIAA Anti-Piracy
plasmastate writes "Via Fox News: Bradley A. Buckles, the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, is moving over to the RIAA to hunt down music pirates. And visions of David Koresh danced in their heads..."
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And our scene unfolds with Bradley A. Buckles, with a stormtrooper hitsquad of RIAA goons...
... and the war on freedom rages on.
Buckles (over blowhorn): "YOU MUSIC WHORING PIRATES, SEND THE MP3s AND OGGs OUT FIRST OR WE'LL BURN YOUR COMMUNIST MUSIC SHARING COMPOUNDS TO THE GROUND, WOMEN AND CHILDREN BE DAMNED!!!!"
Think about this... you have to nab the head of a religious cult who is known to leave his compound on occasion. Remember that this megalomaniac (like many others) has preached that the government will try to bring your beloved, heavily armed, community to an apocolyptic end. So you make the decision to attack on the Sabbath, at the heavily armed compound when you know there are children there sending several of your agents to their death because you thought it was going to be a cakewalk.
Exactly the kind of incompetance that you can now expect from the RIAA. Not that they were competant before.
GO LINUX!
Seems somewhat appropriate.
Why not, after they handled Waco so well?
.. look at the bright side, while his jackboots are busy stomping out piracy, the world will again be safe for boozers, smokers and gun collectors.
Trolling is a art,
Comment removed based on user account deletion
ACK!
If this doesnt scare the piss out of you.. i dont know what will.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Buckles' retirement is effective Jan. 3. No replacement was immediately named.
I heard they have Himmler on ice. I think he'd feel right at home.
> And visions of David Koresh danced in their heads..."
Oh, fuck off. David Koresh is the sole person responsible for what happened to him and the gullible fucks who died under his watch.
And quite frankly, people who illegally copy other people's copyright material also get whatever happens to them.
Oh man, this is quite a bad turn of events! ... for gun owners.
Now gun owners get the bad publicity and rep of the RIAA via remote association.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Yes, the official Ronald Raygun cap. It compresses your brain so that after prolonged usage you become a human vegatable.
...is this something to worry about? Or should I be sadly shaking my head at the RIAA's ever-more-pathetic attempts to crack down on a technology they don't understand?
If there has ever been one government department that I haven't cared for (excl. IRS), it would be the ATF. I think that the ATF is probably one of the more corrupt government agencies that we have, and it absolutely frightens me that the director of the ATF is now headed on over to the RIAA.
I guess only the future will tell of what is going to happen with the RIAA, and their relentless battle against pirates.
YOU'RE WINNER !
Another lame blog
I for one have always equated the RIAA with alcohol, tobacco, and guns.
Esoteric reference.
Brad 'Knuckles' Buckles, lead a crack team of anti-piracy investigators, in a dawn swoop of the Maternal and Infant Care Clinic at the University of Washington Medical Center, after no pirated material was found the mothers were allowed to leave with a warning for poor lactation, after agreeing never to allow their children to use a computer..
Boss Stealing Software?
Bust your boss! Report illegal software use online today.
www.bsa.org/usa
Coincidence? I think not
Will we laugh at ourselves 50 years from now as we Americans do when we had the communist witch trials? Is it possible we shouldn't say that it is downloaders that is killing CD sales as it might be people have finished replacing their collections, artists are getting in general worse and more shrink-wrapped, and finally true piracy done by organized crime(ie Mafia style business)?
As long as they bring the alcohol and tobacco, I got the firearms.
Now instead of getting a threatening letter in the mail, 14 years downloading music gets to be roasted alive as ATF agents try to put the computer into sleep mode but it bursts in to flames instead.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
Instead of notice letters given to the wrong people, you now could get a SWAT team knocking down the door of the wrong house. That will go down well with the public!
Breaking News! Scientists working for the Motion Picture Association of America have managed to ressurect Adolf Hitler, and they've placed him in charge of finding movie pirates. Movie pirates will be headed "to the gas chambers" said one MPAA source, while another claimed they would simply be put into forced labor camps.
Based on the government's wildly successful War on Drugs, I expect that with a former ATF head in charge of the War on Piracy, by this time next year, we'll all be back to signing our paychecks over to the RIAA just like the good old days.
Alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and now the RIAA.
This guy is a fucking scumbucket.
What's next, head of the CIA?
Um, you misspelled 'theft' at the end there...
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
Is going to add "Bullies" to the list.
Sheesh, if they had added "Babes" instead, I'd have been there in an instant.
Put down the mouse and put your hands on the monitor. Do it now!
Let's add another reason to the list of why I'm glad that US laws have no effect in Canada...
These guys are going to make Bill Gates look good. At least he tries to play the good cop and convince you he is selling a service. The RIAA is just a bully.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
I'm not a troll, but the main advertisement on this story page is a picture of G.W. and the tag line 'top gun' and then something about buying a G.W. action figure. I'll raise you your 'fair and balanced' and throw in a 'but the children!.'
Anyhoo, everyone else will make (bad) comments about lame RIAA/GUNS jokes, just wanted to throw in something a little different.
These are the same sets of people (Bush's Staff) that are incapable of finding real life people on the ground (Sadaam, OBL, Al Qaeda Terrorists, etc). Now they are going to search through the internet looking for people all over that are simply downloading music.
Oh yeah, I have a lot of faith in this group.
It's funny that you compare the RIAA with Government departments. I think the RIAA has been a fully qualified Governmental insititution for a long time now. Think about it: they can lobby laws into existance, they have political and juridical influence, and above all they have had growing enforcement powers.
But of course, being an association of sane, properly-american capitalist corporations, it ain't restricted the same way as official Government depts. *Cough* What do you call a government-endorsed monopoly already ?
Maybe we deserve this world ?
So is this guy one of those paid consultants who work in govt and defect to private industry? I know a better analogy would be for him to work for the drug cartel or Budweiser, but it still seems wrong for him to use his crime-fighting training to persecute the downloaders. Does he not have anything better to do? Like say finding those pesky terrorists instead of scary downloaders?
Considering that the RIAA is not a law enforcement agency or even a government entity, wouldn't they be doing a little bit better finding someone with some experience in civil suits. What can a former ATF director offer to this private organization?
What, next, will they get the nazi's after us? the SS? I got an idea, how about concentration camps for file users!
Next, we'll all get to wear gold stars...
Who is this Anonymous Coward character, how does he post so much, and why is he always such a whore?
ATF - Wonderful - weren't the first shots fired at the Koresh compound fired by an ATF agent shooting himself in the thigh?
Judging by the reports that I have read, we can expect the following healines soon.
ATF RAIDS HOME
(ATF press release) In an effort to stamp out musical piracy, which leads to terrorism - the ATF today raided the home of Amanda Johnson (age 12) and her brother brad (age 9). Both pirates were taken down. One of the pirates was shot in the raid when he attacked the ATF agents with a fluid projectile weapon. The ATF agent is expected to make a full recovery, while the pirate is listed in stable but critical condition.
"We're just trying to protect our American way of life", said Butch Howitzer. "These pirates are destroying the ability of the RIAA to run a good monopoly, besides, if this piracy thing gets out of hand we might actually have to pay artists. Ticketmaster and the record label executives can't afford this. Lets be honest, the money these pirates steal prevents a record executive from getting the thereapy they need every day."
AngryPeopleRule
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
Do you think Randy Weaver had Kazaa installed?s up Add/Remove Programs......very slowly...*
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*gulp*
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*Pull
no, the riaa is just enforcing their contracts.
They aren't stealing from the artists -- the
artists all entered their agreements willingly.
why do you think the RIAA are so evil?
why do you think they want to steal your money?
why do you think they don't really care about the
future of the music distribution business?
why do you think they would rather arrest a 12
year old girl than consider alternative distribution?
Are people stealing when they listen to the radio?
If they extend ATF protection to music, then they should extend protection to email inboxes and software piracy. Now, while money is wasted kicking down college dorm doors, inboxes are flooded, software is stolen, all without the slightest bit of federal worry...
SOBs.
Wait a sec... Is there a way to perhaps require music to be attached to email? Like, you allow people to download your music off your website with the proviso they attach it to any emails they send, (doesn't have to be much, a midi file doing "dah dee de dum") and that the license to use the music is revoked if you send spam, so if you send spam with the music file attached, bam, license revoked, and you officially have no license for the music on your hd....
Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Goldicocks. She went for a walk in the forest. Pretty soon, she came upon a house. She knocked and, when no one answered, she walked right in.
At the table in the kitchen, there were three bowls of grits. Goldicocks was horny. She tasted the grits from the first bowl.
"These grits are too hot!" she exclaimed.
So, she tasted the grits from the second bowl.
"These grits are too cold," she said
So, she tasted the last bowl of grits.
"Ahhh, these grits are just right," she said happily and she poured them down her pants.
a director... a big ass manager. he cant actually do anything, next please.
I bet the majority of the population, not just slashdot, would be upset by this news, and the new "War on Piracy(TM)" in general. So the question is, if most people think downloading music is OK, why isn't it legal? I'll tell you why: we don't live in a democracy anymore - we live in a corporatocracy.
Either that or people are too entranced by their televisions to give a damn.
It turns out that Bradley A. Buckles wasn't their first choice, but Hannibal Lectur wasn't available.
Kind thoughts do not change the world
We all know how good the ATF <waco> is <waco> at <waco> doing <waco> things <waco> .
Woopdeedoo. Another goon jumps ship from their "respective" positions onto the SS RIAA (You can decide for yourself is that is to signify a boat or "Schutzstaffel"). The end result?
No significance whatsoever.
The reality is Jesus Christ himself could be reborn, float above the skyscrapers of NYC and proclaim to the world "Oh, my children, those who doth pirate thine audio workings of thy peers shall suffer eternal damnation" and people would STILL download music.
The solution? Stop being so goddamn complacent and try something new, because obviously the old isn't working too well.
sweetheart, why is there a fucking M1 Abrams on the front lawn?
PC moderators can suck my White pierced, tattooed dick. If you think pride == hate, s/dick/Aryan meat mallet/g.
We really need to quash the precedent being set here...It seems that each and every day there is another movement to make copyright violation (a long-beat-to-death civil matter) a criminal offense. Granted, the move of Buckles from ATF to RIAA has little to do with actual congressional matters, but you'd better bet that he'll have Senator Orrin Hatch's (of nuke-your-PC fame) backing. Donate to the EFF, support the ACLU, do whatever.
The last thing we need is another one of these. Soon enough, the INS will be deporting pirates...I can't wait!
-Scott
Buckles, according to the article, was appointed as head of the ATF in 1999, long after the Waco incident, under President Clinton.
The sort of problems that people are joking about us facing because of Buckles should be attributed to his predecessors, not him.
Course, he did receive from Ashcroft, he can't be too clean.
Why should I argue rationally with someone being irrational? I'll just mock them instead.
Your BOYFRIEND out for the evening, FAGGOT?
n/t
Woo hoo.
YOU LOVE ASSSEX!
Woo hoo! Now it'll be just as easy to get free music as it is to get weed.
ATF lead: This must be the place. They've got all kinds of crazy stuff going on in there.
ATF agent: [talks into a communicator] Code 7. We believe we have found the compound. Request immediate backup. [the ATF lead looks at the house again]
Barbrady: [immediate indeed, appears in the lead's sights] Okay, so just what is going on here, people?
ATF lead: Get down! [pulls him into position along with the others]
Barbrady: What?
ATF lead: It's just like we told you, officer! There's a religious cult in there that plans to commit mass suicide when the meteor shower starts. [resumes viewing, but is interrupted]
Barbrady: Are you sure?
ATF lead: Of course we're sure! [points out the initials on his cap] We're the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms! It's our job to know what these fanatics do!
Barbrady: So what does the ATF do when religious fanatics are gonna commit mass suicide?
ATF lead: Oh, don't worry! We won't let that happen! Even if it means we have to kill each and every one of them.
~UltraSkuzzi
This comment is liscensed by SCO.
...filesharers ARE terrorists. The war on terrorism will not be short, nor will it be easy.
I always thought it was strange to have a federal agency dedicated to alcohol, tobacco, and firearms. Other than being a part of any good camping trip, what do these three items have in common?
Is it just a coincidence that the son of Senator Orrin Hatch, a rabid supporter of the RIAA, is part of the SCO legal team that is attacking the open software movement. The ATF, the RIAA, SCO, members of congress - it's all very interesting.
I told you THIS was coming a long time ago!
As unpalatable the actions of the RIAA seem to be (suing low-income families etc), is this not what technologically-savvy people (read: slashdot posters) have asked for? The RIAA seems to be going after file sharers...and at this point, I don't think that the whole "I did not know it was illegal" argument flies anymore thanks to the large publicity.
While the RIAA is making pirates into veritable Robin Hoods who look pitiful when the lawsuit comes in the mail, one is hard pressed to critisize them for protecting their copyrights.
Now, driving while chewing tabacco, sipping on a pint jack, listening to pirated Billy Ray Cyprus and shooting at the occasional road sign will all be covered under the same agency.
So, are they planning to maintain their "shoot on sight" rules a la Ruby Ridge?
Nothing to see here; Move along.
1: You clearly didn't read the article. 2: You obviously do not run an E-Mail server. 3: You're pretty fucking stupid anyway. gg
Dance... party... takes... away... Waco!
Sadly the level of incompetence will move from the legal arena to something a bit more personal. The gentleman will be expected to provide a more forceful and possibly more provocative level of activity.
I wouldn't be greatly surprised if he's the beginning of a push toward an "active" defense. The battle may be moving onto hard drives that are far to personal to some here.
*chuckle* Should be rather entertaining...
Ward
. Silence! Be thankful thy species is unpalatable! .
...its a great way for artists that does not have a major record company in the back to pay for tv ads etc. I for one am buying a lot more records since i started downloading files on soulseek, mostly because Im able to discover a lot more good artists. instead of futile resistance the market must adopt to new technology. the days of record company behemoths are numbered. interesting article on non-piracy reasons for declining sales
That's just what the RIAA needs... booze and guns...
Where exactly did it say they were going to take our rights away? And which rights? The right to trade copyrighted material?
Come on. So a new suit is going to run the axis of evil that is the RIAA, remind me how that makes PHB's turn away from open source products?
And to think - without the Elian Gonzalez incident you'd have to believe that Al Gore would have gotten a few thousand more Cuban votes in Florida...
*) democracy - music downloads ok'd by populace ?
_) corporateAmerica - some downloads
_) corporateAmerica - no downloads at all
_) WTF does the populace have to do with democracy
Please remove your eye patch and hook, and place your hands on your head...
The ATF was not involved with the Elian fiasco, since it didn't involve alcohol, tobacco, or firearms.
Except for the MP5 submachine gun pointed at little Elian by a federal officer in that famous picture.
Perhaps off topic, but of interest none the less.
I suspect we should be more concerned with who the fellows replacement will be. Although the RIAA might like to conduct personal raids they don't yet have the legal right to do so.
The ATF on the other hand not only does but has a nice long history of being a bit heavy handed.
Regardless of which side of the various debates you weigh in on most reasonable people will admit that those we entrust with enforcing the laws SHOULD be held to a higher standard of conduct and a higher level of public oversight.
O.K. Calling the attendants to turn up my thorazine drip now...
Ward
. Silence! Be thankful thy species is unpalatable! .
YHBT. HAND
C|N>K
It seems that each and every day there is another movement to make copyright violation (a long-beat-to-death civil matter) a criminal offense.
I see you're upholding the long Slashdot tradition of presuming to lecture about something you don't understand yourself.
Google first! Or just watch the first 20 seconds of any DVD...
In both the US and EU, copyright infringement is criminal!
I guess the RIAA will be storming kazaa headquarters and burning it down soon...
my finger slipped...
No, I don't pirate music, I simply use free software. Yet, I know that's the real target. They will be fine and dandy with the Next Generation M$ lock in even if a few people do figure out how to share with it. Free software, however, is like a printing press in the 15th century - dangerous to own. Hell, printing presses can still get you killed but free software is much more frightening to the world's petty tyrants.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
RIAA has no power(other than dishing out laughable lawsuits against lil kids), and now he wont either.He can dang-long-my-dang-long-ling-long for all I care...
Head of Automatic Transmission Fluid to what?!??!? Did I miss something?
That's just what the RIAA needs... booze and guns...
What are you some kinda liberal?
What better way to fight piracy than to get liquored up and shoot people at random?
Not to mention forcing people to listen to the same Nancy Sinatra over and over and over and over again. But then doing this with Britney Spears would be even more effective. This is the technique that BAFT brings to the RIAA, and the horror that awaits music pirates. Especially the ones that don eye patches and go Arrrrr!
Nobody died when Nixon lied.
I'm meeting you half way you stupid hippies!
welcome our new alcoholic, chain smoking, gun toting overlords.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Seriously, how are they going to spin the media attention when someone actually gets shot for a filesharing offence (and no they were not armed)? Its gotta happen some time or another, and on that day, that tiny bit of respect for the USA that i have somewhere (its very very tiny at the moment sorry) will just vanish totally and i will just give up and hope the rest of the world steps in. We are about to reach a stage in society where we see kids on "The Worlds Wildest Police Videos" getting beaten to the floor by cops for using kazaa and George Bush talking about how evil and un-american the "Al Gore" filesharing internet is and how China must be invaded to stop piracy and save the economy. Every day we get one step closer to wacky futuristic sci-fi films where big brother makes you vanish if you say the wrong thing, and its a pitty because we got so far in the last century going in the totally opposite more free direction.
Have you praised your great leader George II today? sorry, didnt mean to make America sound like a medieval British inbred monarchy.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
And in other news, CmdrTaco has been detained under the PATRIOT act for terrorist acts against a website.
NEWS: MAE-West, one of the nation's key switching facilities for Internet connectivity, was completely destroyed by 500 pounds of Energel explosive after confirmation of a rumor that one of the routers in there was being used to send MP3 files to the dreaded user@KaZaA
"I believe that we have stopped to illegal tranfer of copyrighted materials in the most effective and timely manner possible", stated Bradley A. Buckles, head of the Anti-Piracy Unit of the Recording Industry Association of America and former director of the ATF.
"It is truly unfortunate that half of the US now has to go on without internet access just because of the actions of a few unscrupulous file traders" Buckles continues, "File swapping really does hurt everyone."
MAE-West was one of two major network traffic exchange points in the United States. The other, MAE-East, is in Vienna, Virginia.
When asked about MAE-East, Buckles said, "We'll blow that up too, if it turns out that kazaaliteuser@KaZaA is using that for illegal file sharing."
The RIAA now is pleased to announce in partnership with AT&T and PG&E the formal unveiling of "MediaNet". MediaNet is a network that connects your electrical system with the sewer system to form a massive computer network that can be billed per election transferred. Additionally, packet headers are decoded to determine to origin of traffic and impose any and all necessary foreign and domestic tarrifs and taxes.
We will be installing new meters alongside the ones you already have and you will be billed automatically for the webpages you access. MP3 ID3 tags are automatically read and you will be charged "fair market value" for any files transferred. When copyrighted images or sound clips load, users will also be charged "fair market value" for a single use right to view and hear them.
We believe that MediaNet will be a great success and will provide millions of homes and businesses with a valuable metered internet lifeline.
MediaNet service is a mandatory addition to your current utilities. Basic use fees will start at $50/month*
* Basic use fees do not include state data tax, universal MediaNet tax, interstate data transfer surcharge, or billing meter rental fees.
If the RIAA went away and music was sold by smaller laels, or by the musicians themselves (we have the technology), would music theft decrease?
The prices would probably come down, but I'm sure the new music distributers wold have to fight the same battle, and might join together in some sort of industry association. Thus under whatever name, there would be an RIAA.
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
Look at what your government has come to and fear.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Cause we've got to take care of those P2P users: RIAA_PSA.
but they'll be replaced by virtual singers
(read that slashdot article from last week or so.)
He was not director of the BATF for the Clinton ordered, Janet Reno authorized raid on the peaceful people at Mt. Caramel. The director at the time was Steven Higgins.
I wasn't there, and I generally despise monday morning quarterbacking... but Waco should never have happened. (I say that with tactical-team experience, along with a military background).
Retrospectively, of course, it looks like a real goat-rope. This is one of those arrest warrants where the ATF would have been light-years ahead of the game to simply grab Koresh in town. Instead, they played right into the fears of the Branch Davidians, and instead chose to assault a heavily armed and fortified compound. I sure as hell wouldn't have been thrilled to be on that entry team, knowing what they knew about the Davidians.
One of the first things you learn in tactics is WHEN to raid a location, preferably when you have maximum tactical advantage, with minimal risk to bystanders and civilians. Of course, raid time varies depending on lots of factors (ie. raiding a meth lab while they are cooking is generally considered a bad idea... Flashbangs will ignite Diethyl-ether fumes, and you want to arrest the dealers, not barbeque them). As far as raiding a forwarned, forearmed, fortified compound in broad daylight? I can't decide whether that's mettle or madness.
It's important to remember that the Davidians were tipped off that the ATF was coming, and the ATF knew it (that alone should have scrubbed the raid, since surprise and disorientation are among the primary reasons for choosing a dynamic entry) After the initial exchange, the Davidians didn't seem that interested in fighting... I find it most interesting that the Davidians didn't press their tactical advantage when the ATF/FBI tac-team members ran out of ammo from the prolonged firefight. Instead, they held their fire and allowed the federal tac-team to collect their wounded and retreat. Amidst all the discussion of the Davidians after the fact, that apparent act of mercy went almost unnoticed.
What a mess, and it all could have been avoided with adherence to simple, basic tactics.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
You would think with all of the bad press about suing children and grandparents no matter if it's true or not that the RIAA would be going the other way in terms of making things right.
Instead of hiring a good pr firm, coming up with a new, more tech-centric business model, and working all of their pricing angles for optimum profit they hire a big wig from a major govement organization relating to alcohol, tobaco, and firearms.
WTF?
I guess the RIAA is positioning itself as a late to the party ATF wanna be. To be renamed at some point to the ATFRIAA.
Seriously the RIAA has been buying laws, lawmakers, and shaping the unknowing, non-technolgy-knowing, public opinion to mirror their b.s. argument in hope of gaining more power and more allies. They are becoming a power to reckon with and will only gain more power in the years to come unless the masses are educated into what's at stake.
We're talking personal freedoms and the like. It's not about music it's about choice and being innocent until proven guilty.
Under the RIAA's system you need not consult a judge before they violate your rights and you are guilty no matter what you say or haven't done.
Only when the masses send the message with their wallets will these power mongers get the message.
I really hop we are headed in the right direction but when Britney Spears sells 600,000+ cd's a week of her new release something isn't right or someone isn't in the loop as to what's happening because of a few bits as sent through their cat5 of whatever else they use to receive and tranfer information.
I enlighten as many people as I can to what's happening and even have the anti riaa stickers on my vehicle that I bought from thinkgeek.com. I'll probably get the t-shirt there as well as the better one on jinxhackwear.com and yet another good one on tshirthell.com.
Eff is yet another organization we should support because they fight for issues directly related to technology and especially RIAA related issues.
Get involved or get F*****!!! That's the way I see it! I keep it clean when I can:D
You aren't free to do anything, until you've lost everything.
WHOOOOP WHOOOOP WHOOOP!
Warning, Darwin's law triggered! Music cheapskates ("cheapskates", since "thieves" is technically incorrect) just lost the argument on MP3 trading!
The Free desktop that Just Works
so i can have the atf after me now too? i want to copy all my music files @ http://www.soundclick.com/brianhull to all the file names on the list. i encourage everyone to do the same
Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
Horray!
Time to go download some music and smoke some pot. :-)
Life is grand.
RIAA Public Service Announcement
"Home searches begin 12/24/03"
http://overstated.net/media/RIAA_PSA.mpg
Great, download mp3's and people with guns will come down to your farm and shoot your family (including your dog) and label you a subversive whacko now. I wonder if their balance sheet on money spent on the war against piracy is ever going to show a profit. Somehow with settlements againts 15 year olds netting them a cool 2-3k I doubt it ever will.
Frankly, this is good news. Look at what happened to alcohol. They might outlaw filesharing for a while, but it the end we'll win.
Private FTP servers = the new speakeasies?
Cheers, mate!
there's no place like ~
...terribly funny in its level of idiocy if it wasn't for the fact that that same idiocy is fucking terrifying. but to tell you the truth, this kind of appoitee is almost Strangelovian in its perfect fir for such a draconian group.
The solution was not to allow the old industry of broadcast television to sue the cable TV companies out of existence under an old copyright law which was written without the participation of cable TV interests. Complete control over all uses of works is not a right that has ever or should ever be granted to owners of copyrights. Such a right would end the development of new technologies and tremendously reduce innovation in any country foolish enough to grant it. However, compensation can be given without control, and that's what's been done in the past as in the case of cable TV. The cable TV had to pay a license fee, but the old broadcasters could not restrict the cable TV companies from licensing any TV program they wanted. That's the solution that should've been applied to Napster. It grants both parties a reasonable settlement and allows people to continue to innovate.
Put down the computer and let the music go!
They're re-ordering their priorities, and we have to call then the Bureau of Recording, Tobacco, Fireams and Alcohol - or RTFA.
Don't go to a brothel if you want to buy broth
Oh, and all the frickin 9-11 paranoia didn't help much either.
Their agents (CIA) seem to be excellent, professional, and for good or bad they know their place.
There's been an internal struggle between FBI and CIA, unfortuately the FBI has been winning (usually choosing to fight over stuff the CIA can't talk about so it loss by default). Why the FBI wants (and got) their international speil is a bit of a mystery (other then enlighten the world with contemporary american moral). Liberal propaganda for the most part and there's been few dems who haven't attacked the CIA in some way or another.
FBI brings a cycle of violence to the stage seemingly intentional because of their psychological background. They creates something that is their counter and equal that they can't control. Ego's reign amoung agents and their easily manipulated by playing with their payed PR.
If you tell the people a lie, no mater how outragious, loud enough and often enough the people will belive it and accept it unquestioningly as the truth.
copyright infringment is not theft, is not similar to actual theft, and has nothing to do with theft.
Taxes. The lifeblood of the U.S. Government. Or any government, for that matter.
....to everyone now. Surely we must do something, find someone to be a counterweight to the corporate takeover of govt and media. We need someone with a serious grudge against the Establishment, someone who LIKES to fight the Powers That Be...NOT someone who likes to "go along to get along"
eat shiat and bark at the moon
with a splintery broomstick handle. Asshole.
There are plenty of us who work and live in "the real world" as you put it. How can you say that someone who copies a thing is stealing it from you? No matter how much you want to will it to be theft the simple fact is that it isn't theft. There is no natural right to "intellectual property". Just because you choose to make your living based upon a flawed way of thinking is not my or anybody else's problem.
Again, you can go fuck yourself sideways.
I remember those bumper stickers...now I can see in the near future bumper stickers that say:
Is your music RIAA approved?
Scary stuff, kids.
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
What is the ATF's responsibilities? Alchohol, Tobbaco and Firearms are all legal.
This will look good on Mr. Bradley A. Buckles' curriculum vitae .. Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, Boy bands .. all things that are not really good for you!
...is second only to William Shatner's, but neither are available in iTunes Music Store. Think about it...
http://www.energel.pentel.pl/
I love money, I love business, and I love free enterprise - which is why I hate copyrights. Copyrights are not about money and business, they are about controll.
In fact it is an insult to suggest otherwise. It would be like saying that I don't believe in free enterprise and business because I don't want to own slaves on the plantation. What a crock!!!
Besides I seem to renember that when IBM couldn't hold intellectual property rights over the PC interface, then a economic explosion happened in the PC industry.
And when the internet went commercial, and no business could own the TCP/IP protocool, another economic explosion happened.
Now you see growth rates across the board with linux of 20% plus, and some of the most successfull IPO's in history. What the Hell - I still get grief about being anti free market!
Sheesh!
Kind of says it all doesn't it?
Take a few minutes and think about how Billy Corgan or Jimmy Chamberlain or The Muffs or, uh, E would like the world to be.
Then take a few hours and spend them making the world more like that.
Then if you feel like it, write your hero a letter and tell them what you did. That part is optional.
Simple to say, hard to do.
Bradley A. Buckles arrives at the RIAA just in time to tackle the problem of finding P2P users located within the 21124 square miles (82^2*Pi) surrounding every WiFi point in America. (New WiFi distance record.)
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Is it possible we shouldn't say that it is downloaders that is killing CD sales?
Actualy for me it's the pig in a poke bit. If I buy this CD, will not work due to a DRM issue. Do I have to agree to a draconian EULA and incur the wrath of the DMCA for buying and using it? Know how many CD's I put back down on the shelf because I could not find the Compact Disk logo to assure me it was ok to buy, rip, mix & burn? My car, living room DVD, and portable play MP3 CD's. Incompatible stuff is not purchased. Opened stuff is not returnable. Translation; Non-Returnable Expensive Pig in a poke which I don't buy.
Most legal downloads are also incompatible with rip, mix, burn to MP3 CD's. Attempting to do so is usualy in violation of the DMCA and hence are useless.
I mostly use my collection (LP's, Compact Cassettes, and CD's, all ripped for preservation.
I love CDEX!
The truth shall set you free!
I think I speak for all of us when I say:
OH FUCK.
.....and that was when I stopped watching South Park.
Morons.
If you're supposed to pay for something and you take it without paying for it you stole. And stealing makes you a theif.
The only reason it matters if it's physical property or not is in court.
The question for pirates isn't whether or not you're a theif. It's a question of what you stole that determines sentencing. Since for piracy you didn't steal physical property the grounds for forming a sum to cover damages is a lot less firm. Who knows how many copies you made of whatever you stole. If you steal physical property, you owe the price of the property you stole times the number you stole which is an easily determinable amount.
Look up "steal" in Webster and you don't find a differentiation between stealing nonphysical and physical objects. It's simply the illegal aquiring of goods.
The only place you find a differentiation between the two is in a law book. Oh yes, and in posts of people who just like to cut and paste the same thing over and over hoping to get moderated highly.
"Can you explain why you should be paid over and over again - for up to 50 years after your death - for once piece of work ?"
So are you going to require that all investments made by people be yanked and disolved upon their death?
Currently author's have a CHOICE to allow their copyrights to go that far. There's nothing stopping you from only putting works in the public domain or demanding that they be put in the public domain upon your death.
If a content creator wishes their family to be able to benefit from their creation that people still enjoy, that should also be a CHOICE they can make.
Or maybe you should just talk to your parents and other relatives about forgetting about giving you any kind of inheritence.
After all, you didn't earn it.
Inheriting trust funds, bank accounts, interest, IP, businesses, it's all the same. It's giving people things they had no inherent right to. Copyright Law gives people the ability to allow their children to benefit from their labor after their passing for non concrete things.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
Uh, oh. Very bad news. This asshole has government contacts. One thing I can say is that this new "War" will bankrupt the RIAA or the country.
MP3'S DON'T KILL PEOPLE, PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE.
Maybe someone can get Charlton Heston to hold up a laptop and say, "Out of my cold, dead hands."
If I break rocks for a month, why shouldn't I have the exclusive right to break rocks? Hmmm, it doesn't sound quite as convincing that way.
It doesn't make sense that way either. You did, however, manage to obscure the very point you failed to make! Bravo!
128K MP3s as uploaded to P2P networks are substantially identical to the 128K MP3s which provide the content you hear on analog FM radio. In fact, using a tuner card, you can even record them back to 128K MP3s and store them on your hard drive, just as you can record them to analog cassette tape and trade them to your friends.
The difference between listening via download or FM radio?
There is no proof that 128K MP3s are more effective or less effective in promoting the sale of CDs whether broadcast over the radio or downloaded from the Internet. The same set of ears decides based on them whether or not to buy the CD or not. The latest Eminem album was "pre-released" unofficially over P2P a month before official release at record stores. Because of this, customers who wanted to hear it at better than 128K MP3 quality were ready to buy as soon as the CDs hit retail and it immediately hit #1.
What did Eminem lose from the "theft" of his music? Nobody associated with the RIAA or any record label has explained this to us, and I've heard no complaints from Eminem about this.
In fairness, Madonna's latest got pre-released and it tanked. However, Madonna has yet to explain why she thinks it wouldn't have gone into the dumper in the absence of pre-release via the Net.
One difference? FM radio stations are paid by RIAA labels to carry music promotional content, while via P2P, listeners host the music on servers at their own expense and transfer the music at their own bandwidth expense.
Another difference? Getting digital content via FM radio is legal. Getting the identical content via the Internet isn't.
Why?
The *AA companies bought off a shitload of politicians openly through campaign contributions to make the law that way.
Why would the *AA companies want to cut one promo distribution channel that the listeners pay for instead of them?
Effectively, only the RIAA companies have access to FM as a music promotional channel. The indie musicians and labels are priced out of the market. The indie musicians and labels can afford to distribute promotional tracks via P2P. That's why the RIAA has done its best to destroy P2P and Internet Radio in the hands of individuals and small organizations.
I don't mind protecting the legitimate rights of artists to profit from their work in the least. However, I have no interest in interfering with the ability of indie artists to promote their work via the Internet, and less than no interest in wasting taxpayer money to prop up the obsolete and dying business model of the RIAA and soon, the MPAA member companies.
What about PIRACY!!!?
128K MP3s are promotional giveaways of no intrinsic value. The product is the physical CD, and that's what people pay for.. Counterfeit CDs of anything you can find in a record stores are available in Asia, pressed at Asian CD manufacturing facilities and sold openly all over Asia and in some cases, even in the USA. If the *AA really wanted to stop PIRACY!!!, they'd be pressuring US politicians to stop the manufacture of counterfeit CDs in Asia. There are many kinds of pressure the US government could be putting on Asian governments to stop this. Why isn't this happening? Ask Hilary Rosen yourself.
If you want to call P2P and Internet Radio theft, be my guest, but please smash your FM radio over your head first.
Tech Public Policy stuff
If this person is effective, and some people are make examples of (like 12 year olds), Bush will have a PR backlash that can't be hosed down - along with those no good oldies who smuggle in Canadian pharmaceuticals. Start calling votes thieves, and watch the backlash.
It just doesn't make sense to inflict scarcity on infinitely reproducible goods like software, music, and books. Everyone is so busy trying to get their "compensation" that they don't see the absurdity of it all.
... this all seems to me to be a broken model. Something's got to give.
Okay, so it makes sense in our current economic system, where everyone is out for themselves. (And we've all heard the rediculous claim: `who would make X if they couldn't get paid for it!`) But it seems that these days the product itself is becoming secondary to restricting its use.
The RIAA/MPAA monopolies and lawsuits about listening to music, software companies investing in patent portfolios as weapons for litigation, copy protection schemes for software
Well... steal is such a harsh word, I prefer something different. But I'll get to that later on.
Why P2P music and more?
When I was in my upper teen and college years I had a great interest in music. I had a very wide range of music interests that covered several types of classical music, rock, jazz, country (a little), and a whole variety of music forms that didn't even have a name yet. I think now they're lumped into the New-Age acid jazz something or other...
But I would learn about this music by cruising halls in the dorms listening to what other people where playing and checking out music collections of friends of mine.
And stuff I liked I could buy at the local store for anywhere from $2 to $10 in circa 1985.
Fast forward 18 years.
I don't live in a dorm anymore so it's hard to hear other peoples stereos. But I do listen to the radio. Have you? Do you know what's on the radio? Considering it's all owned by one company, ClearChannel the selection is limited to approximately four groups: Classic Rock, Rock - which is really just Pop, Country - which is a bastardization of Rock, and Rap. Flame on if you want, but make sure you've been listening to music for >30 years first.
Now for every station that is in one of these catagories, there are a list of songs (heard of Top 40?) that are played on a regular basis. This frequency is such that by the time I get home on Tuesday I know the lyrics of all the songs that came out on Monday.
Kind of limited on my selections of music that are available through public means of acquisitiion. Meaning, in order to seek music legally, I am limited to very narrow vectors of music.
So, I go to the music stores to seek my wide range of music. Guess what I find there? The same shit that I heard on the way over and now it's running better than $20 a pop. I actually tried to just buy a CD based on a precious small sample I heard once. It lasted about 3 hours before I threw it out. CD music is too expensive to purchase on the basis of, "Maybe this will be good to listen to". Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a better way of doing it.
So, where does that leave us?
Conclusion: If you want to explore the world of music, publicly available radio stations and music stores will not provide you with anything better than cattle food. If you want to find more variety, the only place you might find it is in P2P music community. To date, there is no better medium through which to experience a variety of music and find what you really like.
For my tastes, P2P is a great place to borrow music to learn what I like. Then I can make a more targeted attempt to get the music via the internet rather than getting it through the likes of Best Buy (which won't ever happen because they have no selection).
Unfortunately, all this RIAA activity is simply causing me to try new things like:
Jackbooted thugs breaking down your door with machine guns drawn... just because your 12-year old daughter just had to have the latest britney spears tune...
Aren't these the same guys that were so successful in Waco, TX; Ruby Ridge, and don't forget their best success in history -- prohibition!!!
So, when are we actually going to get around to boycotting all radio and music sales in America?
There is no way in hell any of this will ever change until there is a concerted effort to make a point to them. Not buying music will not work.
Sure the music industry took a dump almost to the day they shut down napster. But they blamed it on illegal music sharing, not a fact of the music buyers just lost their single best means of identifying what they want to buy. Why? Because no body told them in clear terms.
If you want to get through to RIAA/MPAA then it's going to be a matter of boycott, boycott, boycott. Make it political, make it public, make it noticable, make it known.
Personally, I do not intend on purchasing a HDTV simply because that media will no longer allow me to record television shows.
I have been so overwhelmed with commercials that it's easier for me to learn how to not watch TV and not listen to the Radio than to put up with the constant babble.
I suggest we all give it a try, but do it all at once under a concerted boycotting effort.
Let's start a national push to not purchase any music or movies (tickets, CD, rentals) for the month of July, 2004.
"can be billed per election transferred"
:)
I'm sure you meant electron, but the typo's funnier anyway.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Put your collective ears where your mouth is. Cool music from a guy you've never heard of.
Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms? Together? Is this a great country or what?
I guess we can now add pirated music to that wonderful list.
Some people have a way with words, and some people, um, thingy.
Except for the MP5 submachine gun pointed at little Elian by a federal officer in that famous picture
It is clearly pointed AWAY from Elian. The perspective makes it appear, at first glance, to point in his direction.
The one thing I really have against the RIAA and how it's going about this is this.. They're going after the people that are SHARING the music? Why? Should they not be going after the people DOWNLOADING the music? ie: Setting up servers with copywritten music on them which people then download from.
Or do we now have to keep all of our CD's locked up in a TL60x6 rated safe? Is the RIAA going after libraries that have CD's which are copied by people who check them out? Why not?
Now we'll see a Waco type event for music downloaders.
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
I am just glad that all of the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms are off the streets, and this boob can concentrate on the REAL dangers to our society - pirating shitty music.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Look again: http://www.hkpro.com/elian.htm
The weapon is on safe, the agent's finger is on the trigger guard, not the safety, and the weapon is pointed off to the side.
> Because it's his work and you don't have his permission to copy it ...
The parent poster's point was that the act of copying the work is minimal - it was the creation that involved the effort. In other words, copying the work does not remove your orginal from your possession. So morally, copying the work does not in itself deprive you of anything. You still have the fruits of your labour.
On the other hand, our society values our creative people, and so a law is in place to allow a creator to sell copies of a work, to provide incentive to create original new works. This is the economic side of the argument that the parent was putting forth.
So, in summary, you DO have a false sense of entitlement. The sole fact that you created something, that is easily copiable at no cost to you, is not IN ITSELF a justification that you must be paid for it. Rather, the social agreement of copyright law allows you to charge for providing copies of your creation, and so illegally copying a work within this framework, THAT is the copyright infringement (a civil offence).
btw, it started early, before independence even--it wasn't a crime until the govt realized how much money they could make on it...the funniest story involved a bunch of scotch in pennsylvania who used their homebrew liquor as currency...they couldn't pay the govt $$ because they didn't have any! (here officer, have this gallon jug as payment)
posted via satellite
If so many people are violating the social mores....then the mores are not very strong at all. Just pointing out the missing logic....
if the 'War on Drugs' is any indication, look for 'zero tolerance,' and heavyhanded application of the RICO act...
so, could an 'alleged' pirate have their computer equipment confiscated for having a couple of illegal songs? how about their house? don't think it to be out of the realm of possibility, given that our civil liberties are a skeleton of what they were just a few short years ago, and that RICO has been wielded indiscriminately, to put it kindly...
ps. say 'hi' to the nice FBI man who is 'monitoring' this post...
OK, it's not a documentary, but its a pretty good movie with Robert Mitchum as a bootlegger in the early 50s driving hopped up cars -- A lot of NASCAR guys got their start doing this, it's not a coincidence that they're all from the hill country in the south.
"ATF has the best cost-to-collection ratio in the federal family." from:
http://www.atf.gov/about/history.htm
Aha! He is a cost effectivenes/efficiency expert in the field of legal extortion.
I thought ATF was Anti-Terrorism Force...
I think your earlier post nailed it. A high percentage of the vocal 'no rights' minority have not the experience in settling their own accounts to respect what 'earn a living' means.
Ask the next person who makes this arguement to please connect the dots between creating society with no intellectual property laws and also having a robust marketplace of creative arts. Note that 'robust marketplace' precludes using the National Endowment for the Arts as an example :)
Cheers,
-- RLJ
This should convince you who the bad guys were: they flock together for protection.
There are a couple of videos out on the Waco raid. Our Fedgoons are murderers, plain and simple.
Lew
Does this mean that they'll burn down your house and PC in order to protect kids from illegal downloading?
I remember when you could buy a single song if you wanted to on a 45. You young pups may think I am talking about a gun but this was a piece of vinyl about the side of a CD you played on something called a Turntable As a kid I would gladly pay for a single on a 45 and sometimes I would like the B side enough that I would go out and spend my hard earned money on an LP. There are many records still in my collection that would not be there if the record companies did not market to me this way. I have not purchased a CD for myself in 3 years but neither have I downloaded and burned any. I have recieved some as gift and they were NOT the Clear Channel approved artist that I am forced to hear on the local radio stations. There is just no new music out there I am willing to spend MY money on. Get a clue RIAA, your product is not being purchased because I don't find it to be worth your ridiculous prices.
Actually, if you count the whole process of demanding client information without a court order, etc... both sides are breaking the law.
Or, they were, but one side seems to be adept at having the law altered by pet politicians,etc to suit their needs. When simply having a device capable of recording around a theatre, etc is a crime, it points to a strong unbalance of power between the two factions.
The record companies are not selling a product they make (the CD), they are selling someone else's product (the music), for which the someone else doesn't recieve full value either. The record companies are simply another form/layer of distribution.
The record industry (not recording industry) has is a monopoly through the RIAA. At some point, these industry associations which coordinate activities and contracting practices should undergo anti-trust review. It is in fact illegal for the companies to price-fix or coerce artists (a term used loosely here) as a group (such as blacklisting or requiring all members to use the same contract language) if this restrains trade, which it arguably does.
Also, the whole case depends on whether the music is the property of the artist and distribution has been assigned to the label, or the label actually owns all rights to the music.
Read _Reefer Madness_ if you want to understand how distribution led economies are alive and well in the California strawberry industry.
Faith is the very antithesis of reason, injudiciousness a critical component of spiritual devotion. Jon Krakauer
First, copying is not stealing, it's copyright violation
It's not stealing right now, nor is it theft. However, with the way the current RIAA/MPAA-friendly-politician-legal-bill theme is rolling, I wouldn't be in the least surprised to see introduction of laws that classify copyright violation as theft somehow, at least in relation to music or movies.
Of course, the flipside to that is that getting nailed for a bazillion-jillion dollars on copyright violations, plus the added criminal charges being introduce, may make whether it is theft or not a moral point only... as you'd be better off stealing a CD than copying/sharing one illegitimately.
Yup... they'll use Gestapo tactics and the fear factor to make you too paranoid to P2P your music. Nevermind that we buy from and give to China BILLIONS of dollars every year and those commie bastards pirate infinitely more music and movies and software than all of the free-world combined. And they do jack squat to stop them, but we'll sick the former Director of the BATF on you if you download a song.
I use the RIAA Radar to determine who is and isn't a member of RIAA. Then, DO NOT BUY music or ANYTHING associated with RIAA. I leech my tunes here and there and P2P isn't even a concern. I get all the latest releases at and sometimes before official release without any worries whatsoever. The BATF (Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms) tortured and then executed women and children in Waco because their religion wasn't BATF approved. Now, the psycho BATF Director is going to be the RIAA's head-hunter... great. To hell with them, all. The BATF, the RIAA, all the power trippin' freaks. DO NOT BUY ANYTHING ASSOCIATED WITH RIAA.
"It is essential that justice be done
By the way, there is no justification for "dynamic entry". EVER. Anyone who engages in it is a criminal
I'm going to have to disagree with you here. By that standard, you can count me a criminal. But I'm sure you don't really mean that the way it sounds... after all, what would you do without all those friendly neighborhood criminals-in-blue, looking out for the safety and security of your community and family? I'm sure you're not planning on taking on those sociopathic armed subjects yourself...
"Knock and announce" is the usual standard for tactical team raids, but has several notable exceptions, including officer safety and destructions of evidence. Check this link for more details . Both of these exceptions have to be articulated, backed up by testimony/evidence, and justified in court. Challenging the admissability of evidence is criminal defense 101. No tac-team I know would ever half-ass a warrant and risk their neck, just so they can get humiliated and lose the evidence (and probably their conviction) when it comes out in court.
Personally, I'm not thrilled with the evidentiary exception... seems a bit cheap to sell a police officer's life for a bag of dope. On the other hand, to ensure officer safety and maximize your tactical advantage against a violent, armed, homicidal subject? All day long.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Because your employer owns it. And before you dismiss that as a flip, irrelevant comment, realize that it's the common case, and the case you invoked, of an individual owning significant code, is rare. Shouldn't we think more about the common case in determining rules?
The reality is that most creators of intellectual property must work for an employer to support themselves, and must give up the rights to that property. Except where the law prohibits it (California), employers often claim all IP of an employee, whether done at work or not. And since the default is for IP to be restricted, it leads to a lot of duplicated effort and a lot of great creations buried.
IP has a role to play, but in debating its future we should focus on the reality of how it works rather than idealized visions of a creator protecting his creation.
In point of fact, lots of people download(ed) lots of stuff they would never buy. Their "never buy" status is not dependent on the presence or absence of the download.
The straw-man arugment that each download represents a lost sale is unsupportable. There are several classes of adopters. The largest cross section of downloaders would not be "promoted" from "downloader" to "purchaser", they would de DEMOTED from "downloader" to "might own if it were cheap of free" and some more would DEMOTE all the way to "wouldn't keep this if it were forced on me at gun point." Further, there are people who download(ed) things at random, liked what they hear, and promoted themselves to "purchaser" because of the available downloads. Finally there is NO WAY to tell whether downloading availability was a positive or negative sum transaction.
The only known facts:
[Group A] (1) downloading peaked, (2) album sales peaked at the same time as downloading peaked, (3) the econmy peaked with items 1 and 2.
[Group B] (1) downloading got attacked and fell off, (2) album sales fell off at the same time as downloading, (3) the economy generally fell off at the same times as items 1 and 2.
The facts actually support EXACTLY TWO conclusions. (1) the economy has affected album sales and (2) downloading may have helped album sales, but at a minimum did no demonstrable harm to album sales.
The follow on fact that lazy thinkers who cannot correlate "economy" and "sales" tend to be the same people who can neither correlated nor reconcile "no IP style entanglements" and "the renesance".
[ASIDE: Just for the record, I write software and fiction and get paid for one and want to get paid for the other. But I also pay enough attention to the world to know that overly simple models of interraction based on deleberate ignorance will fail to reach accurate conclusions. "The money the artist would have got" is just such a conclusion.]
Consider BitOBear's three question "cultural reletivity" test...
1) "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo..." What is Juliet asking? [HINT: she isn't trying to find out if he is at the bottom of the wall...]
2) "Let them eat cake." What is Marie Antoniette suggesting? [HINT: it is not the common "birthday food"...]
3) Where did the "Confederacy" get its name? [HINT: the civil war was about slavery in the same way that not-driving-drunk is about avoiding points on your driver's license...]
These are three culturally accessible examples of how modern people (Americans spesifically?) walk around with their heads full of garbage about what is going on in life. If you bother to look up and understand the above tidbits (in anything at least as authoratative as a middle-school textbook), and look at how how that understanding is different from "what everybody knows", you will be sadly surprised at just how stupid people are about the simple events that surround them.
The current "music theft" debate is just as wrong headed and "unresearched" on all sides as, say, the average American's understanding of "manifest destiny" as an extension of "might makes right".
If you don't pay attention to the details, you have no right to cry foul when people think you are not worth listening to...
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
No, the RIAA is trying to control the terms of the debate. If everybody lets the RIAA get away with the words "theft" and "piracy", people agree that "theft" is wrong, and the discussion will naturally turn to "what should be done about the theives", i.e. the RIAA got to make its points at the expense of everybody else in the country except FM radio stations.
This war has to be won at the public opinion level, and if they try to take the moral high ground, we need the ammo to blow them off it.
If we want to make the point that the RIAA are liars, we must be clear as to exactly what it is they are lying about.
You can't assume that even slashdotters or musicians who have been following the issue know this. We need talking points for op-ed letters to the press and the media, so we have to know what we're talking about.
The real reason is they fear losing control over the distribution of media and control over artists and fans alike. P2P forces them to realize that their partnerships, contracts and lawyers aren't and never were neccessary and that no one -least of all artists - needs any of them.
Right, but Internet Radio and other streaming media make the point better. Content sampling media that at best, sounds like AM is not anything which will displace a CD sale if the listener even likes the content.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Oh and P.S. I am a born and raised citizen of the United States of America. That doesn't stop me from understanding why a Brazillain (etc) hates it when we call U.S. people like ourselves (just) "Americans". It also lets me appreciate in fullness just how lazy my average countryman is when expounding his mentally lax "wisdom" on the rest of the world (typically at gun point.)
I benefited fully from my understanding (at the time) of how deficient my public education was going to trun out to be.
So I may not have been popular during that public education, but at least I am, on the average, now not as dumb as my general population. 8-)
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
Argument by non-sequitir. The parent was talking about morals, not law.
Next.
Freeze! Step away from the Nomad!
I seem to remember back in the day, the feds booting down the doors of BBS's suspected of warez and porn (ala Rusty and Eddies)
-William Shatner can be neither created nor destroyed.
Dumbass.
dumbass.