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Library.nu and Ifile.it Shut Down
Ralph Spoilsport writes "A coalition of 17 publishing companies has shut down library.nu and ifile.it, charging them with pirating ebooks. This comes less than a month after megaupload was shut down, and SOPA was stopped. If the busting of cyberlockers continues at this pace and online library sharing dismantled, this under-reported story may well be the tip of a very big iceberg — one quite beyond the P&L sheets of publishers and striking at basic human rights as outlined in the contradictions of the UN Charter. Is this a big deal — a grim coalition of corporate power? Or just mopping up some scurvy old pirates? Or somewhere in between?"
Adds new submitter roaryk, "According to the complaint, the sites offered users access to 400,000 e-books and made more than $11 million in revenue in the process. The admins, Fidel Nunez and Irina Ivanova, have been tracked down using their PayPal donation account, which was not anonymous. Despite the claims of the industry the site admins say they were barely able to cover the server costs with the revenue."
It's been a month now and literally every upload site has either closed down or shut down their affiliate programs that offered money for uploaders. Those who uploaded pirated material to gain money are devastated on forums and cannot find any good upload site anymore. This was highly successful bust against piracy, and rightly so.
I've heard of these buildings, many even publicly sponsored, where books are shared, and one does not need to pay the publisher for the privilege of reading their work. I propose these houses of corruption be banned, so they stop stealing from the coffers of the rich!
Seem like a matter of time before others join in on all the "fun". Encyclopedia Britannica sues to have Wikipedia taken down could be a future headline IMO.
Wait, so you mean I can be a legal pirate if I operate non-profit?
Uhh, I'll be right back, gotta make a few phone calls.
Unless you have permission. It's called freedom of speech. It's for expressing your opinions. It's for communicating your thoughts. It's not for sitting on your rear end and downloading some movie without paying for it. Calling downloading a "human right" is an insult to Martin Luther King, Peter Zenger, and everyone else who fought for our right to express ourselves.
Sad
Well, something is. Just not what you think.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I borrowed a newspaper today. I didn't pay for it, but I still read it.
Also, I have 3 books at home which aren't mine (borrowed, not stolen).
Basically, that's at least 30 euro of lost revenue for the industry.
Yet I don't feel guilty...
It's true - sure we no longer have to endure the GNAA posts, but there were only ever a few of those per story, and they never got modded up. Seems like a solution looking for a problem.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Actually, in many countries authors are already compensated for the lending of their books in public libraries by a public lending right. Although not in the U.S... I suspect if publishers tried to pull that here, they'd get some seriously negative PR.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
There might still be some text from Eleventh edition (1910-1911) in there; as that is in the public domain.
Actually, Wikipedia does use material from Britannica. It's just material from out-of-copyright versions of Britannica.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
It's not for sitting on your rear end and downloading some movie without paying for it. Calling downloading a "human right" is an insult to Martin Luther King, Peter Zenger, and everyone else who fought for our right to express ourselves.
Considering that library.nu was a site for book piracy, I think your comment is a bit misguided. Frankly, I suspect Martin Luther King would probably have been okay with someone downloading "Why We Can't Wait" from library.nu.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
I cant help but wonder how much money the people behind ACTA/SOPA/PIPPA/MAFIAA are spending to get these sites taken down. Its got to cost some pretty big bucks to collaborate it all across nations and political boundaries. What's the payout for them?
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
Why is it that I never hear about these places until they close?
It is still online, and we are still happy to have it. You guys, i really wish you best luck shutting it down.
Freedom doesn't die because people hate freedom. Freedom dies because people hate the work and nuisance that it brings. Freedom isn't for free.
Bradbury was right on target.
But the firemen don't need to burn paper books, they just need to wipe your kindle (of 1984, if I recall (in great irony)), close down the websites and prevent your iPad from accessing anything outside the walled garden.
How long before Publishers and the RIAA are hunting down camps of vagrants, people who recite to others "I am The Grapes of Wrath" or "I am The Beatles" ?
We are headed for some dark times. They didn't have to burn our books. Instead, they gave us electronic toys, and we burned the books for them.... And they control the electronic toys. So now we are screwed.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
The flag is so subtle that I hadn't even noticed it...
Wasn't there a big shitstorm over *one* post being deleted a few years back? I think it was due to a court order or something of the like... maybe about the HDCP keys or something? Bah.
I think the fact that posts *cannot* be deleted makes people consider what they are going to post a little more carefully. Aside from the usual spam and idiocy, I generally find the commentary here to be of a higher quality in general than places like Reddit or the comments section in other news sites. I feel that this is going to go into the shitter now.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
This is just further proof that existing IP laws are sufficient and we don't NEED draconian measures like SOPA or ACTA to stop piracy.
The laws are there. They can be enforced without censorship and stepping all over peoples' rights.
Freedom is hard, lets go shopping!
Paypal bad!
But ... we think Bitcoin is bad too!
Although Bitcoin would have saved these guys ...
Overlapping circles of people who share books.
The thing about forcing certain goods and services into the area outside the law is that if enough people want those goods and services, it becomes socially acceptable to ignore the law. This both weakens the law in general (and thus the fabric of a government of laws) while at the same time turning the law into a tool of oppression for those in power.
It happened during prohibition. It happened during the war on drugs. And now it's going to happen in this war on piracy.
Check your premises.
Making up educated numbers here but you should be able to push a metric shit ton of traffic for 11 million annually.
~40k per month for an OC3 line 155Mbps.
I'll give you a million for your storage solution.
About 1.2mil for ~2000 or so CPU's and a terabyte of active memory worth of servers.
Figure 100k a sysadmin. Would be a good idea to not have a admin to cpu ratio higher than 1:250 so that nearly a million there
You need cooling and a place to house the servers. I'll give you another million.
Oh networking, ya that is another cool million. Oh you are going with Cisco? maybe a bit more.
I feel that I am really stretching it here but I don't see how hosting costs for a pretty big operation even come close to 11 million. Now the expensive parts are support and app dev but I don't see how a hosting service would need to change or create a complex app. I keep on forgetting "administrative costs" aka a couple people skimming the cream off the top for relatively little effort aka executive management. That is most likely where the other 4 mil went. Hey CEO's have to eat too you know!
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
data belongs to the people who created it. I'm all for DRM and these kinds of busts.
--
BMO
Electronic library gets a copy of an electronic book (originally paid for by whoever bought it first) and loans it out as many times as it wants, forever.
In both situations, someone who really wants a paid-for copy for themselves can pay for it themselves; someone who really wants to just borrow one can borrow and return/delete it; someone who really just wants to steal one can steal it with great ease (I probably have an unreturned library book somewhere.)
Main difference I'm seeing is that one kills trees and burns gasoline.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
If you copy media you purchased, you're smart.
If you copy media you didn't purchase, you're cheap.
If you copy media you didn't purchase AND you make a profit off of it, you're a thief.
We do have to be careful that this doesn't turn into a slippery slope but, c'mon, making a profit off of other artists material which you don't have the rights to is just good old fashioned stealing no matter how you slice it.
Faith is a willingness to accept something w/o complete proof and to act on it. Reason allows you to correct that faith.
These were absolutely essential for my scientific work, because I'm living in a very poor country and (if at all) academic publishers only allow authors to put papers and book drafts on their web page that cannot be used for quoting.
Now I'm really, really getting angry! As if Springer books priced at $150 or even $240 plus months of complicated ordering by the university to our library weren't already painful enough.
Thanks a lot, all you IP-property assholes. Eat shit and die!!!
(And yes, I have also published books including typesetting them in their entirety in LaTeX because the publisher was too lazy/saves costs/rips off academics. And no, I haven't seen a dime for any of this work...)
It was a post containing text copyrighted by the Church of Scientology, and it happened in 2001.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
Scientologists Force Comment Off Slashdot
Yes, that was a big deal. Yes, that story was posted by CmdrTaco. It is well worth reading, if just to see how far things have deteriorated here.
There is a big difference between file sharing sites that are making money off file sharing services used primarily to share copyrighted materials and other file sharing sites like box.com, Dropbox, Skyfile.co, DropIr and SugarSync. There is a place for file sharing sites and Affilate programs seem to be the key indicator of a legitimate business site or a pirate haven. All these legitimate file sharing sites have a good system for dealing with copyright content that ends up on their sites, the pirate sites do not take it down because they are making money off it. So we don't need SOPA or PIPA they system works today, pirating sites are taken down seems like every week.
I understand why Slashdot has started implemented the ability to delete posts and I agree they should have the capability.. Two ssues I see is if they now are looked at as a moderated site. Sometimes different legal rules apply to moderated vice unmoderated site. Also just hope they don't go overboard on the deleting.
I don't think so, piracy is piracy whether movies, books or software. It's not a big deal unless they go after sites like Project Gutenberg.
After I got an E-book reader several years ago, I went to my local library, got a new library card, and surfed over to the state of Maryland's E-book site (shared by all public library systems in the state). Slim pickings. Mostly recent fiction and self-help books - there weren't even subject categories for science and technology. Very disappointing.
I sniff my socks (remove corn if possible...with an industrial scrapper)regularly so I have enough antibodies to fight viruses. It worked since i was able to fight off the new string of malaria. :)
Different AC here.
Of course it's censorship (assuming it happens; I'm not taking the GP's word on that). If someone posts a comment and you delete it for whatever reason, you're censoring them, period. Censorship doesn't require government involvement.
...and I'll say it again: Why do these centralized, single-point-of-failure websites even exist? I thought people learned from Napster back in the early 2000s that decentralized, peer-to-peer was a lot more resilient? And as p2p networks have been disrupted by the cartels and governments, people have further moved to encrypted p2p networks and the so-called "dark web."
What you're seeing here is someone losing a battle because they went up against a modern military... using a longbow. Or maybe even just a sharpened stick. It's 2012, censorship tools and techniques have evolved significantly, as have anti-censorship countermeasures. These guys were stuck in 2001.
Hopefully all the copies of the content that library.nu and ifile.it amassed haven't been seized, and they or someone else can upload all this stuff to a safer place. :)
Liberty in your lifetime
Library means Joe Random can read up, marinate in culture.
E-books mean Joe Random can peruse pure digital media.
Internet means Joe Random can communicate at a distance.
These three simple concepts, incredibly powerful on their own, can be combined. Imagine a global filesystem, a Global Digital Library, where 'lending' is essentially a cached copy of a document. Lending numbers are just statistics (xyfscachestat). Prevent Libraries evolving into Digital Age, and you condemn the whole Institution of Library. This has potential ramifications surpassing any genocide or dark age that Humankind has seen so far. PRAY TELL WHAT IS FUNNY ABOUT IT?
It's copyright infringement you insensitive clod.
I still see no evidence that posts are actually *deleted* when flagged. The FAQ seems to suggest that they are modded to -1:
How do I report abuse?
Below and to the right of each comment is a small "Anti" symbol; click on this, and (optionally) explain why you consider the comment abusive. (Slashdot discussions are and should be robust; only cry "Abuse!" for comments that are utterly without redeeming value -- spam, racist ranting, etc. For everything else, use the other moderation options.) Reported comments will be reviewed and moderated by the editors, if appropriate.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Eh? The flag button that lets you repost to various social networks? The FAQ has had the delete for a long time. And the source of the comment page shows no delete link and no check-mark to allow such. Besides, why the hell would it? The proper way to do this is to create specific pages for specific users, not to hide elements via javascript. If the ability to delete posts exists, you can't see it - or you can be sure it would already have been abused.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Interesting. The flag button is actually clickable and leads to a report functionality.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
I've had several posts censored by slashdot already. They just end up gone. My opinions were pro freedom, much of slashdot seems pro government + corporate interests these days. If you go against the grain your voice is muted.
Look at the top post in this discussion. Its so deep inside "The Man's" rectum that he's coughing it up. The hackers are gone and the corporate shills and establishment types are "IN".
And before you cry that I just want something for nothing, I work in this industry and I know where the REAL theft is going on. The big boys will take and make your idea while giving you nothing. Then they go after grannies for $10 in DVDs like its some kind of armed robbery.
This is akin to stealing money from the vault with impunity and then prosecuting the bank customers for taking pens from the counter. On top of that the pens regenerate while the money does not.
When is Scribd going to get busted? I've had enough of their warezed documents.
(1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.
(2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.
By (1), non-commercial exchange of ANY information that is artistic or scientific in nature is a human right. Lending a book to a friend is a selfless act of sharing, just like uploading files to consenting strangers via BT from your home Internet connection. By (2), authors should have legal means to enforce proper credits and to get compensated when their works are shared commercially. Note that only authors are eligible, so there is no mandate for a transferable copyright. There is no mandate for a corporate-controlled copyright, as these are Human rights. Actually, there is no mandate for any kind of copyright, for as long as there is some kind of scheme for reimbursing authors, their human rights are protected.
The only contradiction is between the current copyright law and the UDHR: non-commercial sharing is considered infringing in many jurisdictions, but the law itself infringes on our Human right 27.1. If I and some other dude agree to share files we already have, and without exchanging any money, then we are clearly "participating in the cultural life of the community", "enjoying the arts", and nothing else, and should be able to do so freely. But if one party makes money in this transaction, then the act of making money is neither "participating" nor "enjoying", and can (but does not have to) be regulated by a copyright law.
If someone posts a comment and you delete it for whatever reason, you're censoring them, period. Censorship doesn't require government involvement
In any meaningful use of the word, yes it does. Nobody is stopping you from saying what you want to say. But they may, on their own web site, decide it's a not a good fit for how they run the place. You are not censored. You are, though, subject to someone else's whims when you make free use of their stuff. The slashdot editors have absolutely no influence over your free speech - only over the content of their own web site. Just like you can and should have (if you want it) influence over your own, should you decide to set one up. At no point is your liberty threatened by having a web site owner run a web site according to their own editorial policies. Suggesting otherwise utterly trivializes real censorship - of which there are many and horrifying examples in the world.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
From what I understand this was exactly the case back in the day. Corporations tried to lobby and to make them illegal. The US basically decided that libraries were in the peoples best interest so they lost. Too bad government doesn't seem too awfully concerned about that anymore.
Yes, the media companies and publishers have draconian DRM policies, and charge far more than most people would consider reasonable for their content. They're going to have to change, or die. But just because they're stupid and evil doesn't make everything done with their stuff right.
Hosting a site that provides tools to strip that DRM off? I can see why the media companies don't like that, but tough shit for them.
Using tools to strip DRM from content you've paid for, for your own use? No problem. Sharing that content with a friend (ie: Someone you actually know!)? Grey, but I think it would actually benefit the media companies.
Running a site that provides DRM-stripped content for general download? Frankly, I don't see this as legit, but I'll accept that there are some arguments in favour of it. And I also feel that if most people are given a legal option at a reasonable value (in terms of price/DRM) they'll take that over a free, illegitimate site. (Hence the popularity of iTunes.)
But taking a DRM-stripped item that a publisher is selling for $X through legitimate channels, and selling it for $(X/10)? Screw 'em. Put them in jail, and then sue them for the gross income of their total sales.
grnbrg.
No, Mr. Media Giant, I expect you to die.
You do know how the story ends, Boris?
The geek can't put together a more or less coherent argument without drawing on the pop cultural cliches of the mega media product. But somehow expects the mega media giants themselves to disappear.
If industry had its way all used book sales would also be banned.
They might not go so far as to say "burn them", but "recycle" is a much nicer sounding word, but amounts to about the same thing.
I think you're just mistaken here. "Censorship" happens when anyone removes material that others would have had access to. Government censorship is a particularly pernicious kind of censorship, to be sure, but the phrase "government censorship" is not redundant.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Actually, that particular story concerned Digg.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AACS_encryption_key_controversy
Long story short: Somebody discovered one particular AACS key, and posted it to Digg. Digg deleted the post, out of legal reasons. Users found out about the deletion, and spammed Digg with it until Digg realized they couldn't win, and stopped deleting posts with the key.
The people who have suffered most is those who used these services for legitimate content, and there were quite considerable numbers of people who did so...
You trusted your files to a 300 lb tub of lard who changed his name to Kim Dotcom?
You never asked how a dirt-cheap legitimate hosting service finances a life style that would have left Fat Elvis flat busted?
If only they had been selling it...
Sorry,
Had to butt in, but you are wrong. Lets look at it from another perspective:
Little teenage Johnny wants to have a good life, is a good person, and likes little teenage Suzy down the street. Both Suzy and Johnny are surrounded by commercials telling them if they don't listen to this, don't watch this, don't buy this, don't like this, don't eat this, don't smell this way, etc, that they will be unsuccessful sinners who end up in hell frying while everyone else will have good productive happy lives with 2.4 kids, a house, and go to heaven....
Oh wait, sorry, wrong problem, this is all Johnny and Suzy's problem since they volunteered to be plastered with advertisements, endorsements, and every other foul marketing gimmick these same "media" companies put out there for FREE. This is ethical, moral, legal and good, but Johnny or Suzy following the impulses forced on them (with limited resources at best to meet said impulses) is BAD!! Yes, definitely Johnny and Suzy's problem 100%, no fault of anyone else that they are impressionable and trillions of dollars have been spent finding ways to implant these desires into their heads....
Now, I do not steal media (movies, cds, etc). But I am the person they hate, I will NOT buy media new, I buy it used since I don't agree with them, I also wait so that I don't have to buy duds! Do you know the easiest way to find duds? Count the number the commercials that come out or talk about the product a few days before the product comes out; the higher the number I have ALWAYS found the worse the movie/book, but what is really funny is how many "friends" will tell me how great it was! But mention that movie or book to them a year or two later and they get a stunned look on their face trying to remember it and or say how bad it was... They, the media companies, consider this Good!
So, if they (copyright interests, large media) want me to feel sorry for them, then they need to clean up their act first; and until then, I will do everything I can to consume media without giving them a penny (and looking at the number of used bookstores, used movie shops, etc starting in my neck of the woods I can guess that my attitude is similar to a lot of other people)... Of course, the media companies just want to change the definition of Pirate so that I'm one too.... how convenient for them; so again, I'm not going to feel sorry for them at ALL and if they do make buying used items illegal then I will have to consider that an attack on society and will counter it appropriately. -- I think a lot of people have already hit this point but I'm pretty mellow.
When a comment is flagged, it gets sent to the editors to review on a case-by-case basis. We then pick from two options: ignore and downmod. Nothing gets deleted, and reporting a comment that is already at -1 won't do anything either way.
Plenty of people have tried to abuse it already, but because it's not automated, they're just wasting their time. Feel free to test it out if you'd like.
they can already effectively shut sites on demand. what more do they want? ... and dont answer: your soul...
So would you consider the editorial process at a newspaper (say, the fact that a human being, with editorial authority, sits in between the web-based letter-to-the-editor form and the web-based display of letters-to-the-editor that the newspaper site's public visitors see) is censorship? Is deleting forum spam censorship?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
So would you consider the editorial process at a newspaper (say, the fact that a human being, with editorial authority, sits in between the web-based letter-to-the-editor form and the web-based display of letters-to-the-editor that the newspaper site's public visitors see) is censorship?
Suppressing such information could be considered censorship (at least by me), even if certain people agree with it. Not all censorship must be deemed "evil" or other such things.
Is deleting forum spam censorship?
I think it is, yes. The fact that you or some others may agree with that censorship doesn't mean it's not censorship.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
I love these sites like MegaUpload and whatever its next iteration will be. By illegally making copyrighted files available for direct download from a unique source, they are easy to prosecute, easy to take down, which gives copyright owners a sense of satisfaction, and because of this focuses attention away from bittorrent.
Its not the Libraries, its the publishers who are unwilling to license the libraries to distribute e-books without these limitations. As well, the Library can only distribute a book so many times before they have to buy it again.
Publishers already hate libraries for the most part because they limit their profits (all those readers reading books they didn't buy) apparently. This ignores the fact that no one is going to choose to buy all the books they get from the library instead if the library was shut down; they'd just read a lot less.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
Given the amount of advertising money spent on making people want to own certain products, it shouldn't be a surprise that some people want to own them but can't afford them (because the price is too high) and as a result seek other means to obtain them (be it buying used, borrowing it from the library, or downloading it). The media companies create the desire, then do not offer an affordable option for satisfying that desire.
Lower the price and they can make money off of volume of sales - and with digital media the cost to them is negligible.
Netflix is the direction they need to take IMHO: $8/mo and enough content to make it worthwhile. iTunes is obviously doing well too, although I no longer listen to music so I haven't spent any money there.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
Are not relevent when you make money off the site to pay for the site. There's no defense that they took in money due to the site being run. String em up.
What you're essentially saying is that "it's not censorship because it's limited to your own domain". That's wrong, because censorship doesn't require any particular broadness of scope any more than it requires that the censoring action be carried out by government agents.
It's censorship if a parent throws away his kids' Harry Potter books because he doesn't want them reading about that evil witchcraft stuff; the fact that he's perfectly within his rights as a parent to do this doesn't change that, nor does the fact that he's not going around confiscating everyone else's books.
I'm so glad they stopped those filthy, horrible pirates from spreading knowledge to the world for free. How dare they actually use this tool that we have to spread knowledge to every corner of the world for practically no cost?!?
Not only that, but I seem to have been blacklisted as a mod; probably for telling Bonch off or maybe foe'ing one of the editors. Excellent karma solid for several years, many up-modded posts, few down, yet no mod points in over 6 months. So much for moderation being what sets slashdot apart. It seems mods are getting solidly stupider, constantly modding up trolls for agreeing with them politically, and I don't doubt that more people have been blacklisted than me for saying the wrong thing. Just look at all the up-mods to idiots in this story... slashdot has really fallen.
Great Intellect...
..great analysis everyone but ANYONE HAS A MIRROR of the whole thing?Or at least a similar site?
Some organized campaign of astroturfing is taking place in this thread. You can see that when those attempting to clarify are modded down.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
Not always do they make money lowering prices. In the case of, say, automobiles or first-class airplane tickets, you actually make more money increasing the price. In fact, if you make sufficiently expensive cars, you get to make fewer cars, provided you have targeted the right consumer base. Most car manufacturers AFAIK make money with their high end products. The very cheap models are just for creating brand loyalty (i.e., your first car).
The thing with music and digital media is that the product is selected in an entirely different way. If cars were mp3, not even Saudi princes would have enough garage space to store them all. But, with current hardware and telecom technology, it's cheap to store, fast to download tons of stuff. The reason you have to make it cheap is because you are in fact nearing optimum cost (for consumers): zero.
It's gotta be sort of like shopping "green": the consumer has got to feel some sort of advantage, even if indirect, in giving away 0.99 cents - it's to support the band, for instance. Crowdfunding might change some dynamics in the middle-man game record labels play.
Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
This is the really scary part:
"A coalition of 17 publishing companies has shut down library.nu and ifile.it"
seems like today we have government laws enforced by the police and the laws of publishers where they are the prosecutor, judge and the jury...
I taught they need SOPA for that, but obviously not...
I found some people arguing that Library. nu should remain open even if it is illegal because the good that results from its operation is more than the negative effects for a small group of people.
In my opinion, Library.nu was the third most important site on the web after google and wikipedia! For a nice article on why it should continue its operation and how it can be done read this:
http://e-library-free.blogspot.com/2012/02/free-illegal-knowledge-and-how-not-to.html
And the non-geek couldn't even get a joke if it threatened to burn through his balls with a laser.