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Skinny Puppy Wants Compensation For Music Used in US Interrogations
First time accepted submitter time_lords_almanac writes "A Canadian band has sent an invoice to the U.S. Department of Defense after learning that its music was used without permission in 'interrogations' of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. The members of Skinny Puppy, who specialize in electronic music, were originally going to make the invoice the cover of their next album until they discovered they could bring legal action against the department. They were also none to happy to learn the purpose their music was being employed for, let alone illegally. The amount of compensation requested? $666,000, of course."
It'll drive people out of their minds and since Slashdot won't have any users it will be easy to access.
On a more serious note, I see Skinny Puppy's billing of the government to be a sign that they condone the use of their music in such a way. I know that's not true but a C&D letter would have been a much better political statement.
Still, boycott the Beta. Fight Dice.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
The government should start using Slashdot Beta instead of music to torture detainees. Just sit them down in a room with a computer that can't go to any website except Slashdot Beta. They wouldn't last 5 minutes. I know I couldn't.
The best thing about UDP jokes is I don't care if you get them or not
So are they considering interrogations a "performance" that needs to be licensed? I'm sure the guys in black vans will show up shortly to assist them.
fuckbeta
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Captcha: fuckbeta
you insensitive clod!
I'm a long-time reader but rarely log in these days. I made an exception to voice my displeasure at the beta version of Slashdot. The new layout wastes space and moves the comments to the background.
I, along with many others, come here for the comments. If the beta is the default design, I will stop coming here. I imagine many others will do the same.
Your move, Slashdot.
$666,999?
Ying-yang number of the beast.
Even Hugh Pickens' submission today was about Beta. The widespread and general crowd-hate may have been passed off by Dice as just groupthink and circlejerking, like the rage when Facebook changes up profile settings. But now that the site's most prolific/published submitter has threatened to leave, I hope that at least gives them pause.
Everything is better with chainsaws.
I've been here since 2001. It used to be a great site, and even in its latter days it remains a good one.
The changes in this new interface are destructive to the culture of this community, particularly the removal of sigs and uid#s. It is the commenting community that makes this site special. Ignoring that is a gigantic mistake.
The changes in this new interface are technically ill-concieved, requiting javascript, loading a bzillion comments but not displaying them, not supporting link markup.
The changes in the new interface are sketchy from a design standpoint. They are what, optimizing for tablets? Isn't there already a (also crappy, but at least optional) mobile site for that?
Please slashdot, don't do this.
I will be joining in the Slashcott from Feb 10-Feb 17. It will be the longest I've been off the site since I was hospitalized after an accident in 2007. Hopefully I'll be back, but maybe not. We'll see.
I would think that Celine Dion or Justin Bieber would be much more effective at breaking the will of even the most stanchly determined Jihadists.
I'm pretty sure using Slashdot Beta violates some part of the Geneva Conventions.
Ha. They don't see a userbase made of people, they see ad revenue levels.
...But the SCOTUS nixed that on Eighth Amendment grounds.
It's causing me to do more work and less trolling.
I've been here awhile, and have watched Slashdot go through a lot. Every time there's been a major change, a significant section of the user base has left and eventually been replaced. (The significance has not always been in terms of sheer numbers, but more often in longevity, character, personality and other less tangible demographics.)
I'm sure it will "survive" beta in the same way, which makes me sad. More pillars of the Slashdot community will leave, to be replaced with shills, trolls and youths who simply don't have the history to carry on anymore.
There are (at least) two things Dice fails to understand:
1.) 1,000,000 users != 1,000,000 users. Every UID is different, and when someone leaves, you can't simply "undo" that by getting another person to sign up.
2.) We don't want change. We're happy not being reddit, or 4chan, or (ugh) web 2.0, or whatever social media site or crap technology is the current buzzword this week. We're Slashdot. We come here because it's an old and familiar community. If you change too much, it's no longer familiar and we leave. Or if too many people leave, it's no longer a community and people stop coming back.
Please, I seriously recommend you keep the old UI codebase around for those of us who use classic mode. It's not going to kill your servers and we've been here long enough to deserve this little concession. Remember, each of us are a vital part of the conversations that happen here, and it is the comments that make Slashdot. Don't force us old-timers away with unnecessary change. Thank you.
Been following that band since the mid-80s and actually will see them on their tour date on feb 16th in Montreal.
Its not surprising that they would sure, if only to clear their name. Despite the harshness of the genre, Gitmo is precisely what they advocate against.
No its shit. The first 3 stores are in that idiotic banner. With no summary... so if you want to read the first 3 summaries you have to click on each story.
Then there is the decision to jam usually irrelevant stock photography in with each story. So every story about a network has a picture of a network cable or switch or something... and it takes up 30% of the summary space, making the section longer, driving the comments further down... which is the only reason anyone comes here... the comments. Nobody is lamenting the lack of shitty editorial stock photos.
And that's just the very tip of the iceberg.
The content created by us plebes is what actually sells your ads. I come to the site to read informed discussion. That is not created by: your editors, submitters, advertisers or user interface..
NO WAIT!! IT IS CREATED BY THE USER INTERFACE!! THE SLASHDOT INTERFACE AND META-MODERATION SYSTEM IS WHY I COME HERE.
Now fuck off with your godawful site redesign. I am definitely boycotting Feb 10 to 17 and likely longer. I have enjoyed being a multi view user, practically every day since I signed up.
Why the hell would I buy a computer screen to look at the blank colour white? Let alone giant images of the incorrect aspect and the rest of the lame features.
It's different because Gitmo is not a bar.
Unless there is an explicit exemption in copyright law
Nope. Easiest way out of this is to claim that torturing detainees is not a public performance, so the use does not need to be licensed. And frankly, that argument is probably correct. Especially if they are blasting it with headphones, which is one of the things I've read. Maybe if they're piping it to a bunch of headphones simultaneously Skinny Puppy could have an argument...
But how do you think this lawsuit will go down? The government will simply say it can't describe interrogation techniques in detail because NATIONAL SECURITY. Also, suing the Feds for copyright infringement is harder than suing anyone else, and even if you win you can only collect minimum statutory damages.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
Fuck beta.
It's everything you don't want in a discussion OR news delivery system and more.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
That reads like my play list.
Every time someone sues 'the government', who pays the bill? We do. That's not the governments money, that's America's money. If you want to make a statement against the government, don't do it by putting all of us into even greater debt. Also, fuck beta in it's fucking beta face.
Skinny Puppy is known for their Industrial Alternative, not "Electronic" --- they aren't a hipster Dance band.
Slashdot Beta is Trash. So was Skinny Puppy pretty much since 1992 (after Too Dark Park). But they have realized the Error of Their Ways and have returned to 1984. So now the 100,000 dollar question: Can Slashdot's caretakers realize the Error of Their Ways before it is too late?
Anyone recall Arstechnica's major design change about 4 years ago? Nope me neither. Know why? When they did it, they left the OLD design available to use. Two settings exist to this day for Colour: Dark on Light, or Light on Dark; as well as a setting for layout. I wonder if maybe, just maybe its not such a boneheaded thing to do --- to give users a choice and stop being such a bunch of pricks.
No, but I did get the warning that classic ends in 4 months yesterday when I logged in.
I had been seeing all of the comments about the beta site, and finally got curious enough to open the beta site link in a separate tab.
OMG!!!WTF!!!!!
I stayed long enough to 'take the tour' with the little numbered boxes that show up, checked out how the comments work, then I went to the feedback survey (extreme upper right corner in my browser) to make my displeasure known.
IMHO, the beta site is HORRID, and I for one, will not be back after the changeover unless 'classic'(as it is now) is a working option.
I started hanging out on /. as an AC back when they first started handing out 5 digit UID's, and have learned a metric buttload of cool, useful, and interesting stuff here. /., and really hate to lose that.
I have met a whole lot of interesting people from around the world, from many professions and walks of life here on
Slashdot was and still is a unique place that I have come to enjoy, and have found no other place similar enough to go to.
Guess I'll have more time for other interests and hobbies, but this will be quite a hole to fill....
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
6^6^6 is 10,314,424,798,490,535,546,171,949,056.
Actually, if we use RIAA math to determine losses, that looks about right.
a copyright infringement?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on