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RIAA Dumps Unsold Inventory to Settle Anti-Trust Case
theodp writes "A music windfall promised to WA public schools and libraries from last year's $143M anti-trust settlement with the recording industry wasn't all it was cracked up to be. While WA got 115,241 music CDs out of the deal, folks aren't quite sure what to do with the odd collection, which includes 387 CDs containing explicit lyrics by Big Pun, 310 copies of Will Smith's Willenium and 48 copies of Spooky Scary Sounds for Halloween from Martha Stewart."
I wonder if they had duplicates of the same CD there.... like... this story!
It still might be a tax write off and a way to get rid of dead inventory, but they have an excuse. *smile*
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
They might as well have sent them 10,000 AOL CDs.
Don't forget, someone is already working on that
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Actually, at least in Michigan, the lawsuit winners don't get a dubious victory, they get jack squat. For example, many of the CDs are going to troops in Iraq, which isn't a bad thing, unless you were expecting some of the settlement.
The article only covers a small part of the CDs, but according to WNEM, the settlement CDs are also being placed in all the public non-emergency vehicles in the state (which would include the personal cars of most of the state politicians, refuse collection trucks, mosquito-sprayers, and so on), being given to state employees, and so on. Those people who were to actually benifit from the settlement get a big old goose egg.
Actually, sounds more like Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor. I would imagine it would come with penalties similar to buying Cigarettes or Beer for a 16 year old, which can be considered "Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor".
I can't find Washington State's law, but using Colorado as an example, contributing to the delinquency of a minor is a class 4 felony with 2 to 6 years in jail and a fine of $2,000 to $500,000. (Colo. Rev. Stat. 12-47-901, 12-47-903, 18-1-106, 18-6-701)
How many CDs was that again?
Except the RIAA was told by the courts that it couldn't just dump crap onto the schools.
A simple label indicating explicit lyrics (and ideally they type of lyrics) helps me as a consumer in making an informed decision. Consider a rating system to be similar to that of Nutrition Facts on food products, you just want to know what your getting.
what do you think happens to kids who listen to "explict lyrics"?
This all depends on the kid listening to the music. For most children, they can handle it very well. For other children, the lyrics can have negative impacts on them. In the latter case, the music is probably not the only issue in the kids life, but you have to start somewhere. Unfortunately in a society where everyone is looking to blame someone else for a problem, product vendors are taking precautions against legal action.
- As for an example, consider a kid who starts calling his Mom a "bitch" because he hears it on an album. I don't know about you, but if one of my kids started calling their Mother, my Wife, that, I'd be a little upset.
Basically consider what influences children and think about what you want them to take from the influence. Most people would probably prefer their kids to hang around the typical role model rather than a drug dealer (unless your trying to get them into a family business, j/k). The affects of music are one part of what influences children.Due to changes in the moderating system, Funny doesn't help Karma. But modding a funny comment as Insightful is a way of skirting the issue and rewarding those that amuse.
Nonsense. Both were considered proper spelling variations early on, and eventually "tidbit" became the accepted one.
c1640 J. Smyth Lives Berkeleys (1885) III. 25 A tyd bit, i.e. a speciall morsell reserved to eat at last.
1701 Collier M. Aurel. (1726) 13 To be always loading the table, and eating of tid-bits.
As you can see from the above OED excerpts, the "tidbit" variation predates not only the american revolution, but much of the continents colonization as well.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
No, the only thing that came out of Tipper Gore's crusade 15 years ago was a VOLUNTARY labeling system by the RIAA. And what a blow that was... put an "explicit lyrics" label on a CD and watch those sales rise!
Ascalante: Your bride is over 3,000 years old.
Kull: She told me she was 19!
RIAA would be charged criminally for trying to push explicit lyrics on children
.. really .. what do you think happens to kids who listen to "explict lyrics"? I'm seriously curious.
Are you by any chance a US citizen?
In the rest of the world we let the parents raise their children
I don't know how it works in the rest of the world, but here in the U.S. 80,000 minors were temporarily or permanently blinded after accidentally viewing nippular tissue in a televised wardrobe malfunction.
I have no direct evidence to support this, but it seems logical to me that if any children tried to listen to these CDs, their ears would fall off.
And if that's not criminal negligence on the RIAA's part, I don't know what is.
So, what prevents one parent from staying home? Money, duh. They need more money. The income of one person cannot support the family of 4 unless you have a really good job.
This is often a myth... when you sit down and do the math, you find out that the second income is eaten up (and then some) by daycare, convenience foods and restaurants, and all the less obvious expenses that pile up when you're both working. Some of that's *so* "less obvious that even sitting down and doing the math doesn't tell you the real story.
We cut our household income in half when I quit to have a baby. And our standard of living hasn't changed (to our great surprise). Difference is, I have to cook and shop and all that instead of managing an AS/400 shop. Yeah, in a lot of ways *that's* a major sacrifice - at least I can still code at home on my *own* projects, so I don't feel at all like I'm completely falling behind on my career. Not everybody can do that. On the other hand, not every second income is 50% of the income, either, so a lot of wives (and the occasional husband) can stay home and actually *improve* the household bottom line.
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
Here is a link to a story on research that indicates homeschool children are NOT socially inept.
Give life
It is. I can even pronounce it for you if you like. Using improper grammar or spelling to indicate accents or modes of speech is a common practice among writers, one that can often effectively convey meaning as well as pronunciation.
"If I write loike this, 'oo dyaspose I am emulightin'? Wot sort of spaitch dya 'ere when you ride it? Kinyou hair a nyoo accent I am cratin'?"
My linguistics and grammar prof hated this sort of thing, because it really is quite racist to think that other cultures use variant spellings of words due to the way they pronounce them. That hasn't stopped just about every writer in the twentieth century from doing so...heck, even Shakespearre used to play on mispronunciation and poor grammar.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Ah, but you see, his was ding-ding-ding-dinga-ding-ding-tish. Its the hi hat sound at the end that makes it a totally different work, and not derivative at all, he says.
I've seen the Behind the Music, too. Funny stuff.
Mod point free since 2001
Google is your friend.
1 7910,00.html l .html 5
http://www.familyeducation.com/article/0,1120,58-
http://learninfreedom.org/socialization.html
http://www.geocities.com/athens/oracle/4336/socia
http://www.faqfarm.com/Parenting/Homeschooling/52
I know of no studies that show homeschooled kids are "socially inept" or otherwise have any social problems whatsoever. On the contrary, an awful lot of information exists that says otherwise.
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
More:
Study Finds Home Schooled Children Better at Social Skills
Children Educated at Home Don't Become Social Misfits
Developmental Phases of Social Development
A Game of Socialization
Homeschooling and the Myth of Socialization
Marvin Minsky Comment on Schooling
THE MYTH OF SOCIALIZATION AND THE VALUE OF PLAY
Questioning Socialization
Sociability of Students in a Home-based Charter School
Social Development or Socialization?
Social Skills and Homeschooling: Myths and Facts
SOCIALIZATION ISSUES
That Dreaded "S" Word
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
What Microsoft does is give a hundred PCs to the school district and two copies of Office. They wait until the teachers, kids, and administrators have loaded Office on all the PCs. Then they hit the school district with a huge lawsuit threatening to demand a hundred thousand dollars for every 'pirated' installation of the software. They 'settle' for a single payment of a million dollars or so. The original PCs are all taken as a tax write-off donation.
They've done this to Philadelphia and Portland Oregon that I know of and probably many other places as well.
A truly sleazy and degenerate company.
Money.
They have it, and they know how to use it.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
We had satellite (and gave it up because we weren't watching it; Netflix is a better use of the money), still have a cell phone (we'd probably lose the landline if the DSL wasn't on it), a company-provided pager (unfortunately), but no new car. My husband drives a 17-year-old beater to work (it's ugly, but it's a 1-ton truck and gets 25 mpg, so it's eminently practical), I drive a nine-year-old minivan that's still in excellent shape. We're putting money aside so when time comes to buy another (non-new, probably another program car), we'll pay cash again.
My hobby business made enough to buy a 29" TV (I think it was... ) a couple Christmases ago. And we do have high-speed DSL, with static IPs, for the Phoenyx, so that's an extra $40ish every month we don't have to spend but do.
And we regularly support nonprofits... tithing at our church, public broadcasting (TV/radio), food banks, etc.
On the other hand, I'm not dressing my preschooler at The Gap and Old Navy, so that makes a difference. He wears mostly secondhand stuff, in fact - makes more sense when they seldom wear clothes out. Heck, *I* wear the occasional secondhand find, though since I'm not working I don't need to overdress so my wardrobe's cheaper these days even new (another one of those hidden bennies).
It's all in where you want to spend it, I guess.
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
Uh, nice listing of links. Hope you realize that most are worthless and not what people asked for.... Most are about as good for proof as slashdot posts (I said it, so it must be true...) Some reference some crappy studies (studies with inherent problems that make them less than useful for their intended purpose). Studies by think tanks are NOT scientific studies, they are opinion pieces.
n .html
This is about the only link that is worth anything:
http://learninfreedom.org/socializatio
References Shyer's work. Seems decent. But without looking at it, who knows.
Somewhere on MTV's website they have a realonevideo of the actual clip. I was only able to find an mp3 of the interview and have mirrored it here: Be kind to my webspace
Although I couldn't agree more about black racism,
I feel compelled to point out that what you are talking about is rap music and rappers, quite different from hip-hop music and MC's. Rap is exactly what you described. Hip-hop is the flip side to that coin, the kind that values intelligence, self-respect, and morals. If you're ready for the rebuttal to everything you just described, check out Jurassic 5, Kool Keith, Dialated Peoples, Prince Paul or Black Star. There's a lot out there that you apparently haven't heard - if you liked Public Enemy, don't lose heart, progressive and intelligent hip-hop exists, it's just deep deep underground.
Funny thing about sex and violence, we keep buying it.
They will never stop until somebody makes the