Grannies and Pirated Software

dthomas731 writes, "After reading Ed Foster's blog about how the Embroidery Software Protection Coalition (ESPC) is suing grandmothers over using pirated digitized designs, I thought you might want to call your own grandmothers and tell them they are going to be needing a lawyer. And the ESPC is very serious. On the ESPC faq page they scare these grandmothers by telling them even if they didn't know the software was pirated, that 'Unfortunately, when it comes to copyright violations, ignorance is no defense.'"

Comments

hmmmm, a way to make money?

[yagu]

This almost seems a new (or not so new) trend, and a way to make money above and beyond having a product, though ostensibly "having a product" is where one should start (are you listening RIAA?). So now after seeing the apparent success of legal scare tactics by RIAA and others, the embroidery industry is piling on?

Should we be enraged? Or should we jump in too, cull the internet, everything, for any evidence of anyone, any group, etc. with even the remotest hint of infringing on something you can claim you own?

Don't worry too much about specifics (read the article, the legal threatening letter isn't specific enough to tell Granny what CD she has that infringes), and raise legal bloody hell. This could be more profitable than spam. With a modicum of respondents "paying up", one could conceivably collect rather large sums.

The internet does provide the ability to spread intellectual property instantaneously, and similarly provides amazing tools to sniff out where stuff is, intentionally or otherwise. Unfortunately, most of the "pirated" booty is "otherwise", i.e., the perpertrator has no awareness. These "perpetrators" are not the problem. They should be left alone. Enough already.

(Aside: I really would be curious to how prevalent this (these) letter(s) is (are). Are they really doing this? How many letters have they sent. The article mentions contacting your states attorney, alas, the demographic targeted here is not likely to know that, and probably not privy to /. for reference to this article. Sigh.)

Re:hmmmm, a way to make money?

[russ1337]

If I understand this correctly, the people who came up with some embroided designs are concerned their images are being coppied? OK, thanks, just clarifying it for myself.

There has to be PLENTY of people into embroidery that have the skills to design their own patterns right? Now someone just needs to introduce these people to Creative Commons. Get all the oldies (and a few young'ins) with artistic talent to draw up a few designs and start sharing. The 'Emproidery Protection Racket' will just plain be left out in the cold.

All us grandkids have to do is remind the oldies that they should only use the patterns with the "CC" label that come with them.

Re:hmmmm, a way to make money?

[jmauro]

Thanks to the US Congress the (C) symbol and registering is no longer a requirement. Copyright is automatic.

Re:hmmmm, a way to make money?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Thanks to the US Congress the (C) symbol and registering is no longer a requirement. Copyright is automatic.

The US Congress had nothing to do with it, the Berne convention did. Just so you don't have to look it up, Berne is in Switzerland. Yes, we became signatories to the convention a LONG time later, but it was hardly a US creation.

Re:hmmmm, a way to make money?

[schon]

Paying of the artists

What makes you think that any of the RIAA money goes to the artists?

It goes to pay the record labels, who don't give one red cent to the artists (after all, it's not in their contracts.)

Re:hmmmm, a way to make money?

[dr.badass]

There has to be PLENTY of people into embroidery that have the skills to design their own patterns right?

You'd be surprised. I know I was when my dad's wife started a home-based embroidery business. While there is cheap (~$200) and simple embroidery design software, the mid- to high-end of the market is more like CAD/CAM territory, with a similar level of skill needed. We're talking $15,000 software for your $150,000 machine. The designs being pirated here probably for this latter kind of work.

Re:hmmmm, a way to make money?

[cliffski]

of course. thats why maddona and elton john are penniless.
They get a bad deal, but they dont get NO deal. Pretending its ok to pirate because the artists gets NOTHING. is just silly.

Re:hmmmm, a way to make money?

[xtracto]

What makes you think that any of the RIAA money goes to the artists?

Yeah, thats completely true, what the original poster should have wrote is "paying to the copyright owners".

Unfortunately for the artists, they conceded all the rights of their creations to the recording industries when they signed those contracts, so, the recording corporations are in their right to protect THEIR intellectual property.

I wonder how long would it take until artists wake up and see how hard are music corporations screwing them...


It goes to pay the record labels, who don't give one red cent to the artists (after all, it's not in their contracts.)

You hit the nail, it is that way and it must be that way, artists SIGN AWAY their rights when they enter into a contract wiht the recording house. They just care about creating a specific number of albums to fulfill the contract.

Everything that happens after that is the music corporation problem, of course these corporations sell them the image that they will "fight" for their (artists) rights, but the truth other.

Re:hmmmm, a way to make money?

[Suidae]

Just some random thoughts on the subject:

The machines that this concerns are usually Pfaff or a competitor (thats pronounced f-ah-f). They are priced anywhere from $3000 to $9000, with a huge variation in price depending on which independent dealer you get screwed by.. er, purchase from. Dealer support is a big factor, the machines do occasionally need service and the users need training. A good dealer makes a big difference in the end-user experience. Shop around and rely on reputations of dealers within the community. Buy locally if you can, many dealers refuse to support equipment they didn't sell.

The machines are precision, high quality CNC systems, very cool. You can upgrade the software in some of the low-end models to the software for the high-end systems and end up with all the capabilities of the over-priced high end system for the fairly reasonable (considering the quality and capability of the machine) lower price. The machines are usually USB connected and allow firmware upgrades. Maybe it'll run linux (but I'll bet whatever motion control software its got on it is vastly superiour to EMC).

The computer software is expensive, dumb and crappy. The users are typically not computer-savvy, and, predictably, often were born before transistors were invented. Unfortunately these users have odd ideas about computers and the software that runs on them. They expect it to work without fiddling with it. Like their Caddy, they want to turn it on, point it where they want to go and have it go there.

The software for producing new designs (in a non-stupid or non-trivial way) is not free or cheap. People who pay for it generally want to make some money doing it. There is a significant amount of work involved in the production of a single design (artwork, CAD work, color selection, ordering of color application, time and materials spent embroidering test verions, etc), and a library of designs can represent many hundreds of man-hours. Unlike most computer software development, you cannot do this (well) without paying for some consumables and access to the embroidery machine.

These people are not compatible with a release-early-release-often software development strategy. You give them a working finished product with a one-click install, a very intuitive interface and simple video-based help system.

The majority of them do not want to produce their own designs. They'd rather spend the time at their craft not producing artwork on a computer. There are exceptions (power-users within the community), but they are few and far-between.

Remember those books that used to come with clip-art CDs? A lot of them like those books. They can sit down with the book, look through it, dog-ear pages with stuff they like, take it with them in their sewing bag, etc.

Most of these people do not use the computer to find new software. They browse extensively at quilt and craft shops, they go to craft retreats to socialize with their friends, and a few of them participate in internet forums (about.com, yahoo groups). Acquiring a userbase for new software would not be a matter of dropping it on sourceforge and waiting.

I don't mean this to sound negative, I just want to point out that the consumers of this product have needs that an ivory-tower developer would not anticipate. There is a lot of interesting potential for software, but anyone who wants the software to be widely used must be very conscious of how the users interact with computers and each other. The developer should actively join the community (or if he feels too girly working with textiles, get his mother or grandmother to do so and tag along) to see what is needed and how to make a successful package.

You can see (and often play with) the machines and software at places like Joanne's or an independent local dealer.

not quite correct.

[geekoid]

" 'Unfortunately, when it comes to copyright violations, ignorance is no defense.'""

heh, thats not quite correct.

If A company makes a book, and I buy it from them, and then latter it turns out they didn't have permission to do that, I still can not be sued.

Re:not quite correct.

[morgan_greywolf]

Now, IANAL, but from what I know, it doesn't actually matter whether or not you knew that company had permission to sell the book.

You see, copyright protects the right to copy. When you're buying a book, you're not making a copy of the book. Someone else is. And that person, company, whatever, is the one who bears the legal liability for making the copy, not you.

Re:not quite correct.

[Doc Ruby]

You didn't copy the book, so you didn't violate the copyright. The company you bought it from is guilty/liable, not you. Similarly, these grannies didn't copy the CDs they bought, so I don't see how they violated anyone's copyright.

This is a different situation than the familiar RIAA vs filesharers. The RIAA is suing the publishers of the files. And even downloaders can be argued to be "making a copy", of the data from their network connection eventually to their HD.

Re:not quite correct.

[zenthax]

I think they probably are correct in this case because it concerns embroidery. Not being a person who does embroidery on a regular basis I can only guess that this software is most likely some type of digital blueprint for embroidery designs. Basically instead of a book this seems to be more like sheet music or even music files in general. Think charges for playing music in restaurant, elevators, etc. The copyright is on the embroidery design it's self and the program hence both the person who made the illegal copy and the one who uses the data on the copy are both responsible for copyright violations. The difference between this case and books are that in this case you are reproducing something tangible where as in a book you are simply reading it.

Re:not quite correct.

[cpt kangarooski]

No, it's correct. It's your example that is in error. If you buy a book that was made and/or distributed unlawfully, you haven't broken the law. Buying an unlawfully made copy isn't infringement. Making a copy, as you necessarily must when you download, would be infringement, OTOH.

Re:not quite correct.

[Kierthos]

Yeah, but that all falls under certain common sense assumptions. If I go into a Barnes and Nobles and buy a book there, the assumption is that the book is a legal copy of the book. If it isn't, it's Barnes and Nobles' fault, not mine. If I go into a software store and buy a copy of Photoshop, the assumption is that it's a legal copy. If it isn't, it's the software stores' fault, not mine.

Now, if I buy Photoshop off of a guy on a street corner, the manual was printed at Kinko's and the CD is obviously a burned version... well, that's where the copyright holder can be upset at me.

Re:not quite correct.

[cpt kangarooski]

But there is no way that just looking at a copyrighted data file, assuming that's all that's being done here, by a person who happened to purchase a copy from a person who didn't have the rights to distribute it, could possibly be in violation of copyright law.

Yes, that's absolutely correct, except that it's completely wrong, sorry:

The first question, then, is whether those who browse any of the three infringing websites are infringing plaintiff's copyright. Central to this inquiry is whether the persons browsing are merely viewing the Handbook (which is not a copyright infringement), or whether they are making a copy of the Handbook (which is a copyright infringement). See 17 U.S.C. 106.

"Copy" is defined in the Copyright Act as: "material objects . . . in which a work is fixed by any method now known or later developed, and from which the work can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device." 17 U.S.C. 101. "A work is fixed' . . . when its . . . sufficiently permanent or stable to permit it to be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated for a period of more than transitory duration." Id.

When a person browses a website, and by so doing displays the Handbook, a copy of the Handbook is made in the computer's random access memory (RAM), to permit viewing of the material. And in making a copy, even a temporary one, the person who browsed infringes the copyright. n5 See MAI Systems Corp. v. Peak Computer, Inc., 991 F.2d 511, 518 (9th Cir. 1993) (holding that when material is transferred to a computer's RAM, copying has occurred; in the absence of ownership of the copyright or express permission by licence, such an act constitutes copyright infringement); Marobie-Fl., Inc. v. National Ass'n of Fire Equip. Distrib., 983 F. Supp. 1167, 1179 (N.D. Ill. 1997) (noting that liability for copyright infringement is with the persons who cause the display or distribution of the infringing material onto their computer); see also Nimmer on Copyright 8.08(A)(1) (stating that the infringing act of copying may occur from "loading the copyrighted material . . . into the computer's random access memory (RAM)"). Additionally, a person making a printout or re-posting a copy of the Handbook on another website would infringe plaintiff's copyright.

n5 Although this seems harsh, the Copyright Act has provided a safeguard for innocent infringers. Where the infringer "was not aware and had no reason to believe that his or her acts constituted an infringement of copyright, the court in its discretion may reduce the award of statutory damages. . . ." 17 U.S.C. 504(c)(2).

Intellectual Reserve v. Utah Lighthouse Ministry, 75 F. Supp. 2d 1290 (D. Utah 1999) (emphasis added).

Computers make copies all the time in their normal operations. It's the way they're built. Unfortunately, this means that it's trivially easy to infringe using a computer, as opposed to by other means. If dear old grandmama buys a printed copy of the pattern and merely looks at it, without actually making a copy of whatever is therein, then that's not infringing. If she looks at the pattern over the Internet, then that is infringing.

And this isn't the only, or even the most important, case along these lines. I just like it because it's very clear as to this point.

Re:not quite correct.

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

What do the courts say about that?

ther FAQ is sickening.

[geekoid]

"What if I am innocent and did not know the designs or software were counterfeit when I purchased the designs?

            It is your responsibility to investigate any designs or software that you purchased over the Internet or from online auctions. You must take steps to insure that they are legitimate original embroidery designs or software, not pirated copies."

Great, so now we need to research every product we buy to be sure the company didn't do anything illegal.

I think not.

Fake?

[Cheeziologist]

Does this story not strike anyone else as to be so ridiculous that it must be one of those things set up just to see what community reaction is like? Like a researcher at a university doing a sociology experiment. I mean..."Embroidery Software Protection Coalition"...come on!

Re:Fake?

[Elemenope]

Perhaps. Their homepage provides a phone number though. Anybody from PA who can call and check it out? (I hate long-distance charges.) As far as the story being ridiculous...I don't know. If you had asked me 20 years ago if I believed that the music industry would be hauling their customers to court for making personal copies of songs and trading songs with friends, I'd have called you crazy. And yet, here we are.

Re:Fake?

[One Louder]

Well, the domain has been registered since 1999, by the folks that run sewing.org, which has been registered since 1995, so if it's a hoax, it's a bit more elaborate than normal.

Re:Fake?

[lottameez]

Well it's just another example of the disdain that the Bush administration has for Grandmothers. Are you happy now SCO? Darl? you Listening!!??? It doesn't run on Linux, and Micro$oft will just try to steal it for Vista. Google's version is better anyways and runs on my IPod.

Let me be the first to welcome our Embroidery Coalition Overlords.

There. That should about cover all the usual /. responses...Nothing for you to see here. Move along.

Re:"/." ignorance is defensable.

[jr87]

well ignorance is a defense if they are not the copiers themselves, just the person making copies and selling/giving them are the guilty party. That's just copyright.

Turkish Law is better than U.S. law in this shit

[unity100]

Well, here is some point where turkish law is better than u.s. law.

Recently a high court whose decisions are exemplary and binding have decided that it is not the customers' responsibility to know what they were buying was pirated or not - the SELLER of pirated stuff is guilty. And it is the companies' responsibility to protect their own copyrights.

Which perfectly makes sense, as no inhabitant of this planet has to maintain a list that contains which company holds the rights to what product.

yep

[User 956]

On the ESPC faq page they scare these grandmothers by telling them even if they didn't know the software was pirated, that 'Unfortunately, when it comes to copyright violations, ignorance is no defense.

In this day and age, it's also not a barrier to using a computer.

Fake? doesn't seem so...scary is more like it!

[jargon82]

Dialing... (after hours, clearly) 1 2 3 4 rings You have reached the legal dept for the ESPC. Our office hours are Monday - thurs 9:30am through 4pm Central standard time. Please leave your name, number that you can be reached at between those hours, thank you. Why Central, if it's in PA? Monroeville is near Pittsburgh... it's a pity it's a PO box because I am there about once a month. Anyone got a better addy? :)

Re:Fake? doesn't seem so...scary is more like it!

[jargon82]

I'd further like to point out that the number is 888-921-5732. Thats a toll free number for US callers. That means, it costs them money, not you. Thats right, everytime you dial 888-921-5732 and listen to that voice message, it costs the owners of 888-921-5732 some amount of money. Again, that number is 888-921-5732. Or something.

I'm torn

[n9uxu8]

This is clearly a case of a coalition getting together to become the next RIAA. However, my mother makes her living making embroidery machine instructional videos and custom designs (http://littlebrownjugdesigns.com/ for those interested...I didn't code the page, it's not my fault). Anyway, the granny-embroidery crowd can be viscious and there is an embedded culture of one person buying a design and giving a copy to everyone they know. This isn't really a big deal, however. The big deal is when an embroidery supply store buys one copy of a training dvd or design pack and just burns a copy to sell whenever a customer expresses an interest. For a one-person-show, it's impossible to track down all the stores operating this way, so some sort of industry coalition makes sense, but it should target infringing merchants not the Grandma who just wanted to stitch Faye Valentine on her grandson's backpack.

Dave

Re:I'm torn

[RimfoMan]

Don't be too torn.. The ESPC is tring to also wipe out any small player (like your mother) They have shutdown several independent designers, who were selling original designs, by threatening them and their customers.

There was some good coverage on this about a year ago on a loca TV station, WNDU-TV in South Bend, IN.
Here is the link.. http://www.wndu.com/news/contact16/092005/contact1 6_44586.php

====
Disclaimer: My views reflect those of myself, and not my employer, my
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of anybody living or dead is coincidental. No animals were hurt in the
writing of this response -- unless you count my dog who desperately wants to
go outside NOW!

Software Costs

[jhines0042]

I've actually looked in to getting an embroidery machine. (My mother actually has one too)

Here's the rub. The machine costs $5000. The software for loading your own designs into it... another $5000 (last I checked)

Yes, these machines hook up to a computer via USB, they have their own CD drives and their own format for embroidery patterns. The patterns you can buy on CD for a pretty penny, more expensive than a music CD for sure.

So, no, I'm not surprised by this at all.

Sounds like the RIAA has been an inspiration....

[zappepcs]

From the website at http://www.infotoday.com/linkup/lud090106-goldsbor ough.shtml

""" The group, EmbroideryOrganizationInformation (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EmbroideryOrganizat ionInformation), is a Yahoo! Groups discussion group that was set up in response to piracy and copyright infringement charges made by ESPC against those who share embroidery designs obtained from embroidery software and from embroidery design companies.

Many of the participants have elected to participate in the discussion group on an anonymous basis. In response to this, ESPC obtained a subpoena to force Yahoo! to reveal the identities of these people in addition to filing defamation claims against individual members for what they wrote.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), in turn, filed a motion to block this subpoena, which it described as "brazen" and "heavy-handed." """

Re:"/." ignorance is defensable.

[morgan_greywolf]

Yep. There's a difference between "willful" copyright violation and "incidental" copyright violation. Guess which one allows you to collect more damages?

Cue massive backlash in 3...2...1...

[compro01]

someone please tell me this is merely a bad joke... if it isn't, there is gonna be some serious crap going down. seniors vote much more than average citizens. up here, IIRC, 87% of senior citizens voted, vs. 65% of the general population. i can imagine that there is a comparable phenomenon in the US.

and plus, the whole suing old people raised a PR firestorm upon the RIAA, so i can expect a similar effect on this.

provided again that this isn't a really early april fools joke...

Re:Cue massive backlash in 3...2...1...

[Anonymous Custard]

I had to look it up to tell if it was a joke...

http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/ESPC_v_Ebert/

No joke.

Pity it's hard to legally prohibit excessive greed

[TheLink]

Because this is excessive greed.

As for prohibitions against copying, one should consider the scalability.

If everyone was prohibited from using each others ideas without permission, it won't scale well if you have many billions or even trillions of people. Unless you assume that it is typical that only a very few of the billions are creative enough to have new ideas.

If I came up with a unique thought first, others should not be prohibited from thinking it, they shouldn't falsely claim they are first or the only ones because that would be lying.

I would have thought that civilized nations would have plenty of ways of keeping inventive people alive and reasonably contented even if they don't get to have monopolies over everything. And the "expanding markets and thousands of new types of jobs" would be good enough.

In fact I think it may actually be all the excessive greed that's causing it to not be good enough.

It's like the starving in Africa - not due to there not being enough food, but evil and greedy leaders. There are more overweight and obese people in the world than starving people - so there's more than enough food to go around.

Embroidery Machines

[beadfulthings]

I want to express this with all due respect to the grannies involved, as I'm certain this has come as a shock to some of them.

However (ahem). Today's sewing/embroidery machines aren't the straight-needle treadle-operated Singers of yore. They come equipped with flash drives, USB ports, CD/DVD drives, and network connections. Many are Internet-upgradeable. Even to buy in at the low end of the market, you have to come up with about $1,500 - $3,000. Upwards of $5,000 gets you a respectably flexible and powerful system. Manufacturers who formerly dealt only in industrial sewing machines (such as Juki) seem now to be involved in the home market. Manufacturers of traditionally high-end home machines (Viking comes to mind) have a glittering array of semi-professional options with price tags to match. They are also specialized, with machines available for embroidery, quilting, overcasting seams in garments--lots of features formerly available only in industry.

I guess what I'm saying is that you have to come up with a fairly substantial investment to get into this game in the first place. Maybe what we need is an open-source embroidery pattern movement (Tux would make a cute embroidery pattern), but a lot of these designs are licensed (such as Disney characters), and to me it stands to reason one would have to shell out substantial money for them.

It's also a bit of a slap in the face at the idea of the ditzy old lady bereft of any technical smarts at all. Not the case if she's just logged into Husqvarna for the latest update to her Viking SE.

Re:Fake? Yup it's a SCAM!

[zifferent]

Most definitely is fake. In fact it's a scam.

http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=20 00117763&tstart=0&mod=1156813029715

You see they get these sewing people all scared, work them up into a lather and then direct them to the "Amnesty Program" here:

http://www.embroideryprotection.org/Amnesty_Progra m.pdf

Where they procede to take $300 a piece from unwitting cross-stichers.

But maybe they're right...

[davmoo]

Even though this goes against the principles of Slashdot, I did in fact RTFA. While I don't agree that its a good idea from a PR standpoint to go after grannies, I also don't see anything in the article, or at the organization's web site, that is factually incorrect. They are merely exercising their rights under US law. Don't like it? Then don't buy their product. Don't want to get in trouble? Then besides not buying their product, don't *cough* acquire *cough* their product either.

It works the same way with the RIAA. I think the RIAA sucks. Suing teenagers is usually not a good idea from a PR standpoint. That's why I don't buy their product. I also don't *cough* acquire *cough* their product either. But regardless, most of what the RIAA says (and noticed I didn't say "all of what they say") is in fact correct under US law.

Its also quite obvious in reading most of the replies here, that none of you have ever made or marketed a product that has a very limited pool of customers. Just like most of you have never created music, artwork, or software for sale. If you did, and someone started passing your creation around and cut in to your sales, I bet a lot of you would be changing your responses (and hiring lawyers). If you want to create something and give it away for free, that's your right to do so. But its equally someone else's right to create something and offer it only in exchange for money. You only have two choices in this debate...to pay and use, or to keep your money and not use. You never have the right to steal their product because you don't like their policies or prices.

Re:But maybe they're right...

[vorpal22]

You only have two choices in this debate...to pay and use, or to keep your money and not use.

I disagree. I think that there's an entirely reasonable third choice: (1) to pay and use when the price is reasonable and the company behind the product respects us, and (2) to protest through whatever means we feel are appropriate when the price to end users is completely absurd or the company treats us like garbage.

This is great!

[grapeape]

The more copyright and patent issues encroach into the lives of the less geeky the better. Bring on the lawsuits for quilt patterns, sewing patterns and wood working designs (im going to lay claim to the spindle). The more insane the lawsuits get the more likely it is that the sheepish masses will finally wake up and see just how jacked up the current laws are.

Re:Francisco Rangel

[KwKSilver]

Interestingly, further google-work led me to this page, an arson case grief provied the site by the ATF. A Francisco Rangel was involved in some business involving computer theft ($1.5 million) and arson ($4.5 million) in the vicinity of Carrollton, Texas [Area code 202, back in 1995 and is still wanted on various Federal and State charges related to that stuff

You just...

[ModernGeek]

...slashdotted your mother.

Who's up for some for fun with skype?

[loraksus]

Call ONLY the Legal Department of the ESPC at 214. 350.1892

Would hate to be checking messages on their machine tommorow.

And yes, I'm saying go and call. These groups should realize that threatening the buyers with lawsuits and prison time will not go without retalitation. This is the equivalent of the RIAA hunting down the people who bought copies of professionally pirated, legitimate looking cds and demanding settlements or threatening to sue. While a C&D may be appropriate, legal threats are not. Harrassment of the victims is just despicable.
Fuck them and their $300 settlement.

My favorite quote ...

[pamdirac]

And as an individual, you can spread the word that sharing is stealing.

Surely even the ass clown that wrote this FAQ had to appreciate the double-speak. Good is evil. Awesome.

Nope.

[hummassa]

AFAIK, pirated copies are not sold copies. Artists get a cut of _sold_ or (publicly) _performed_ copies (after ALL the costs or producing are deducted), but they don't get absolutely _nothing_ from piracy settlements and lawsuits.

Re:I just checked

[Walt Dismal]

I asked my Pirate Granny if she ever bought any patterns on eBay, and she said, "Well, bugger me timbers, matey, I had no idear it were illegal. Harrrrr." and then she swigged some rum that the parrot had crapped in when she wasn't looking, but she didn't notice; Granny really likes her rum. Then she asked "Who be these ESPC folk, and does they cornhole each other like me crew does ta our cabinboy, although he kind of likes it, but let's not go there." I allowed as they probably did, and they were definitely a scurvy lot.

Then she went back to embroidering a skull and crossbones flag for her ship, which is a trimaster named "The RIAA Sucks Ass Too" that sails the Caribbean looking for patterns and CDs to steal, and Disney videos to copy.

Granny may be an old boozy bag, but she's all right. But the ESPC sure isn't. Leave old women alone, you bastards.

owning information

[Phantom of the Opera]

Owning information is just silly. Having a song stuck in your head would be an offense

--- phantom of the operating system