Well, what I fear is the RIAA somehow harnessing the patriot act, claiming that P2P is a terrorist act...
When will they realize that the biggest damn terrorists are the fat cat CEOs who ruin people's lives! I mean, seriously, who's more dangerous: the raisethefist.com guy, or a CEO who is going to sue hundreds of hapless college students and destroy their lives? Think about it.
So, it is for this reason that the patriot act, though stupid, should go after the RIAA.
Well, if they lose this case they can just sell their souls to gator and xupiter, and then they'll be making plenty of cash, hopefully... Or not hopefully, I like my computer's stability...
What I don't get is why the RIAA wants to harm internet radio... Don't they realize that if a person listens to internet radio, they're probably a little bit less likely to use p2p? Of course they're still making listening to music without the RIAA, but trying to wage a war on two fronts; that of P2P and net radio, seems like a slightly dangerous strategy.
Maybe they should just lay off a bit and instead of trying to hurt the competition, try to make their own service... A RIAA endorsed internet radio station...
Of course, knowing them they'd make it cost ridiculous amounts of money for crap you could get for free, so maybe boycotting them is sort of a good idea.
I was thinking about how the RIAA could save their public image, and they really can't... The fluffy the RIAA bunny wouldn't work well, giving out free test answers for college exams on their website might be dangerous, and the whole 'Hilary Rosen shows her compassionate side' wouldn't work, as it would be comparable to dressing Jabba the Hutt up as santa. Methinks they're just going to keep on screwing themselves over by trying to make all this money until they eventually are bought out by Bill Gates or something to that end.
What sort of social impact can we expect when/if life expectancies are measured in centuries?
Okay, either three things, imoho.
People that live forever, and therefore overcrowding, and the younger generation deciding to kill themselves. Rampant violence for a few generations, then if everyone survives, peace as the only people alive are wisened ancients... Or ancient warlords. Who knows. Anyways, that's the negative aspect.
An overcrowded world where people literally can't die of natural causes, and have to in essence commit suicide, which becomes a fad. High levels or either religion or organized athiesm. Think of the original star trek episode with the overcrowded planet.
Pointy ears and beautiful blond hair.
Pointy ears, and beautiful black hair. And fangs.
People using medicines and genetic therapy to live forever, but going mad.
People using machines to retain their mind, and therefore becoming either a bunch of drones if they run windows(borg) or Mentats (if they run macintosh), or if they go and run linux, expect the matrix in fewer than three years.
Still, the fact remains that if immortality technology comes out, it will be kept a luxury only known to the rich and the leaders so they can maintain their power. I'd wager the best bet of your average person reaching immortality is uploading his mind onto something like the future internet. (Hums theme song to Serial Experiment Lain)
Damn, how many sci fi series did I just cover?
The sad thing though is with all this immortality genetic therapy blah blah, there could be some bizarre side effects, so the immortal ones could be immortal, yes, but wreched invalids that are hooked up to machines all day to keep their organs alive, and taking all sorts of drugs so they won't lose their minds.
Wow, this is just a jackpot of excuses for when your mom checks the history of your computer and finds everything you don't want her to see...
"Mom, it was a virus... No, it was the RIAA... No, it was a big corporation... No, it was Gabe and Tycho... No, it was Dad... From the grave... No, it was Steve Jobs and Bill Gates fused together using alien android technology to make StevGate, the ultimate computer genius... Yeah. That's it..."
First off: How many puppies did they have to drain of their lifeforce to come up with this technology?
Second of all: How much does it cost retail, and where can I buy it?
But hey, if anything it is a clever sales ploy, profiteering off the vague threat of the RIAA... Kinda reminds me of the whole Duct tape thing now that I think of it...
We've all seen enough Godzilla, twilight zone, Marvel comics, or old school GI Joe to know what happens when you mix microbes and radioactivity bad things happen, so it might not be such a good idea.
But there are a lot of people out there who think having radioactive symbols on their case mods is a cool idea, why not give them a reason to have that radioactive symbol: RADIOACTIVE CPUS! They fry everything, including living flesh, but they're definitely the hottest thing on the market! No cooling fan will cool this down!
And I know enough spider man geeks that I know I could make good money off of selling them radioactive material and spiders...
Or of course the US could try to sell it to some of these third world countries so they'll have some WMDs for the next war!
Hey, I know some poor college students who don't have heating in their rooms, they could use this! I'm sure they don't mind, if they ddon't die from the radiation, there's always the cafeteria food...
And I'm sure you could make some mean cell phones using some sort of radioactive waste battery type thing... I mean, people are already paranoid about the radiation, why not validate those fears?
Down with the Beugeosie (including the RIAA)! Long live the Proletariot(Not really the P2P users, because they are also sorta beugeosie usually, but that's not the point)! Viva la revolucion!
Still, back to reality. The RIAA's whole industry thrives off being the middle man. In fact there are a lot of industries that thrive off doing that here... But anyone will agree, buying direct with no middle man is the way to go. I mean, what would you rather have, some hand butchered fresh grilled beef on a homemade bun (With some unknown intestinal disease, but that's aside the point) or some fast food and get the packaged processed fake food so you can get fat and be malnourished? I'd go with the freshly butchered stuff. Plus, it tastes better when it twitches going down your throat.
But that's still going on a tangent. The RIAA has been in essence destroyed by a simpler middle man. You know, when Radio first got big, the RIAA was against that too. Such things will pass, I'm sure. (I mean, the RIAA will probably pass away soon.)
Bah, I use my tech saavyness (?) to pick up chicks in a different way...
Motherboard pimping. Tie a motherboard (It has to be big and thick... Size matters.)around your neck as part of a costume for a halloween party. Be well versed in motherboard innuendo.
Get the same internet that you would normally get for a lot cheaper with now the same functions that normal internet users take for granted! Pretend you know what you're doing! Pretend you're hip on the wired (And be called a 12 year old AOLer)! AOL can help(you lose all self confidence as people laugh at your slow bandwidth and primitive net skills, you n00b)!
Yep. Pretty much AOL makes things that are available to normal internet users available in a stupified form for stupified users. Or old people. At a higher price and a lesser quality too.
What next? A P2P service that allows you to exchange.midis? A MMORPG that's 2d and the only characters are different colors of the little AOL guy? Instead of having normal movie trailers, having the.mp3 trace of the trailers? I pity da foo who is stuck with AOL... And yet sometimes it's the only provider... And that makes me sad.
I mean, if AOL isn't bordering on a (wired) human rights abuse in itself, I don't know what is.
Wait... RIAA... Lawsuits... But no P2P? What the heck?!?!
Is it just me, or is anyone else really suprised to see an article mentioned on/. bashing the RIAA with absolutly NO reference to P2P?
I smell endtimes. That, or the RIAA now has two reasons for people to dislike them, probably enough for people to start using associated words as curses.
"Oh 'Rosen,' I have a Virus! 'RIAA' this 'lawsuit against piracy' software!"
Not as catchy as "'Gates' this 'Microsoft' piece of 'Windows'!"
But this all goes to show, in the end, the only thing on the RIAA's agenda is to abolish all real music. Listen to some of the modern artists (and pay the price for the cd) under the RIAA, and you'll know what I mean.
I hope they find 'America's army' on their computers. Now that would be a pleasant bash to the military... The concerned parents would sound something like this...
So it's been proven, the military is out to turn our children into psycho killers!
Hey, it's just as plausable as violent videogames making people violent, or D&D causing satanism... Or vegitarianism causing nazi-like inclinations.
The RIAA claims that P2P is to blame for their declining sales, yet they are in an industry that relies on discretionary spending in the middle of an economic slump. Of course, rather than blame the economy for declining sales, they blame P2P.
I'd have a bit more respect for the RIAA's claims that their sales are doing horribly because of P2P if they compared their decline of sales with other similar indusries that aren't affected by piracy.
But yeah, the economy is crap. Sure, P2P could be hurting the RIAA, but in the end, a company doesn't blame the guy who steals printer paper and other office supplies from the office for the stock going down, just look at the competition and put it into perspective.
Thing is most of the people who I know pirate stuff either A: never bought CDs anyways, or B: download the music, and if it's any good, buy the cd. The thing with music these days is most people listen to music while staring at a computer monitor. CDs are clunky and messy, whereas.mp3s are invisible.
And itunes is only for macs.
So, what do you do? To get some of those nice.mp3s you decide to risk getting sued by a corporation that pretty much is the abnoxious middle man between you and the artist... The artists who don't see a cent of royalties per CD, just contract money.
I think the days of the RIAA are numbered, really. They're putting up a good fight, but in the end I hope and believe that people, espeically artists, will realize that it is a lot easier just to cut out the middle man and work directly with the fans. It'd be better that way.
But then again, if the RIAA fell, what demon could rise up in it's place? I mean, literally... If it fell, they could somehow end up summoning an ancient lovecraftian demon or something as a last resort.
Several new freaky ghost ships have appeared in the atlantic (approx 10% more), intent on capturing the 'maiden' Hilary Rosen and making her walk the plank.
I have a friend who was planning on recording himself singing pirate songs, then sending it into the RIAA to see what would happen.
Last I heard, they were considering him for a label.
You know, have the ISP provide you with a file sharing service that networks with all the other ISP's file sharing service for an extra 10 bucks a month (if cable/DSL) and free if you use 56k (because the chances of you successfully downloading anything are... Well, not as good as with the higher bandwidth.)
Then this money would go to the RIAA or whatnot. Maybe if they pursued some sort of campaign like this, they might make more money, because a lot of the people who are supposively 'hurting' the RIAA by using P2P instead of buying CDs weren't planning on buying CDs anyways. And then there are those who pirate an album, then buy it so they can listen to it in their portable cd player (instead of just buying a.mp3 player with the money they'd save on not buying CDs...)
After he abolishes spam, he hopes to strike a deal with Santa Claus and make Christmas come twice a year. And also strike a deal with Willy Wonka co. (and Steven Hawkins) to recreate the chocolate factory in real glorious detail from the film. Then bring peace to the middle east. And defeat Voldemort and his death eaters in the RIAA. And colonize Mars.
Yeah, I say this is just a ploy trying to make it seem like he's cleaning up his act. Or something.
Cell phone DOOM would be like DDR for shoot em up fans... Just think of it, all these gamers who normally play sitting on their butts, running around and having asthema attacks... Ohh, that'd be cool. And Japan's weight problem would be solved... Wait, they don't have one...
Or, gamers could just discover paintball...
But then again, what's the difference between this and laser tag... Aside from dorky guns and stupid helmets...
What next, they get onto wiccans for practicing 'the craft?'
That would get interesting.
I'm wondering, what next... "Oh, I'm sorry Wizards of the Coast, but we've trademarked the word orc... Oh, and while you're at it, Elves is right out too. We reanimated J.R.R. Tolkein, and he gave us the rights. Now the only type of D&D you can play is politically correct D&D!"
Sue those idiots who send all those annoying chain letters and forwards!
"Oh, it was so sad... I thought everybody liked survays, jokes, chain letters that grant your every wish, and microsoft money makers! The next morning I woke up to find Microsoft stealing my bed!"
Slashdot Mirror
When will they realize that the biggest damn terrorists are the fat cat CEOs who ruin people's lives! I mean, seriously, who's more dangerous: the raisethefist.com guy, or a CEO who is going to sue hundreds of hapless college students and destroy their lives? Think about it.
So, it is for this reason that the patriot act, though stupid, should go after the RIAA.
If so, then I'm convinced that AOL is out to stamp out non AOLer blogs. Jerkfaces.
What I don't get is why the RIAA wants to harm internet radio... Don't they realize that if a person listens to internet radio, they're probably a little bit less likely to use p2p? Of course they're still making listening to music without the RIAA, but trying to wage a war on two fronts; that of P2P and net radio, seems like a slightly dangerous strategy.
Maybe they should just lay off a bit and instead of trying to hurt the competition, try to make their own service... A RIAA endorsed internet radio station...
Of course, knowing them they'd make it cost ridiculous amounts of money for crap you could get for free, so maybe boycotting them is sort of a good idea.
I was thinking about how the RIAA could save their public image, and they really can't... The fluffy the RIAA bunny wouldn't work well, giving out free test answers for college exams on their website might be dangerous, and the whole 'Hilary Rosen shows her compassionate side' wouldn't work, as it would be comparable to dressing Jabba the Hutt up as santa. Methinks they're just going to keep on screwing themselves over by trying to make all this money until they eventually are bought out by Bill Gates or something to that end.
Okay, either three things, imoho.
People that live forever, and therefore overcrowding, and the younger generation deciding to kill themselves. Rampant violence for a few generations, then if everyone survives, peace as the only people alive are wisened ancients... Or ancient warlords. Who knows. Anyways, that's the negative aspect.
An overcrowded world where people literally can't die of natural causes, and have to in essence commit suicide, which becomes a fad. High levels or either religion or organized athiesm. Think of the original star trek episode with the overcrowded planet.
Pointy ears and beautiful blond hair.
Pointy ears, and beautiful black hair. And fangs.
People using medicines and genetic therapy to live forever, but going mad.
People using machines to retain their mind, and therefore becoming either a bunch of drones if they run windows(borg) or Mentats (if they run macintosh), or if they go and run linux, expect the matrix in fewer than three years.
Still, the fact remains that if immortality technology comes out, it will be kept a luxury only known to the rich and the leaders so they can maintain their power. I'd wager the best bet of your average person reaching immortality is uploading his mind onto something like the future internet. (Hums theme song to Serial Experiment Lain)
Damn, how many sci fi series did I just cover?
The sad thing though is with all this immortality genetic therapy blah blah, there could be some bizarre side effects, so the immortal ones could be immortal, yes, but wreched invalids that are hooked up to machines all day to keep their organs alive, and taking all sorts of drugs so they won't lose their minds.
"Mom, it was a virus... No, it was the RIAA... No, it was a big corporation... No, it was Gabe and Tycho... No, it was Dad... From the grave... No, it was Steve Jobs and Bill Gates fused together using alien android technology to make StevGate, the ultimate computer genius... Yeah. That's it..."
Oh wait... This isn't a joke...
Oh my god... I'm sorry...
Second of all: How much does it cost retail, and where can I buy it?
But hey, if anything it is a clever sales ploy, profiteering off the vague threat of the RIAA... Kinda reminds me of the whole Duct tape thing now that I think of it...
But there are a lot of people out there who think having radioactive symbols on their case mods is a cool idea, why not give them a reason to have that radioactive symbol: RADIOACTIVE CPUS! They fry everything, including living flesh, but they're definitely the hottest thing on the market! No cooling fan will cool this down!
And I know enough spider man geeks that I know I could make good money off of selling them radioactive material and spiders...
Or of course the US could try to sell it to some of these third world countries so they'll have some WMDs for the next war!
Hey, I know some poor college students who don't have heating in their rooms, they could use this! I'm sure they don't mind, if they ddon't die from the radiation, there's always the cafeteria food...
And I'm sure you could make some mean cell phones using some sort of radioactive waste battery type thing... I mean, people are already paranoid about the radiation, why not validate those fears?
when there's plenty of landfill space? Japan doesn't have all the free space we do, which is why they tend to be a bit better at these sort of things.
Down with the Beugeosie (including the RIAA)! Long live the Proletariot(Not really the P2P users, because they are also sorta beugeosie usually, but that's not the point)! Viva la revolucion!
Still, back to reality. The RIAA's whole industry thrives off being the middle man. In fact there are a lot of industries that thrive off doing that here... But anyone will agree, buying direct with no middle man is the way to go. I mean, what would you rather have, some hand butchered fresh grilled beef on a homemade bun (With some unknown intestinal disease, but that's aside the point) or some fast food and get the packaged processed fake food so you can get fat and be malnourished? I'd go with the freshly butchered stuff. Plus, it tastes better when it twitches going down your throat.
But that's still going on a tangent. The RIAA has been in essence destroyed by a simpler middle man. You know, when Radio first got big, the RIAA was against that too. Such things will pass, I'm sure. (I mean, the RIAA will probably pass away soon.)
That just proves it. AOL uses mind control!
Motherboard pimping. Tie a motherboard (It has to be big and thick... Size matters.)around your neck as part of a costume for a halloween party. Be well versed in motherboard innuendo.
I had a girlfriend within a week.
Yep. Pretty much AOL makes things that are available to normal internet users available in a stupified form for stupified users. Or old people. At a higher price and a lesser quality too.
What next? A P2P service that allows you to exchange .midis? A MMORPG that's 2d and the only characters are different colors of the little AOL guy? Instead of having normal movie trailers, having the .mp3 trace of the trailers? I pity da foo who is stuck with AOL... And yet sometimes it's the only provider... And that makes me sad.
I mean, if AOL isn't bordering on a (wired) human rights abuse in itself, I don't know what is.
Wait... RIAA... Lawsuits... But no P2P? What the heck?!?!
Is it just me, or is anyone else really suprised to see an article mentioned on /. bashing the RIAA with absolutly NO reference to P2P?
I smell endtimes. That, or the RIAA now has two reasons for people to dislike them, probably enough for people to start using associated words as curses.
"Oh 'Rosen,' I have a Virus! 'RIAA' this 'lawsuit against piracy' software!"
Not as catchy as "'Gates' this 'Microsoft' piece of 'Windows'!"
But this all goes to show, in the end, the only thing on the RIAA's agenda is to abolish all real music. Listen to some of the modern artists (and pay the price for the cd) under the RIAA, and you'll know what I mean.
So it's been proven, the military is out to turn our children into psycho killers!
Hey, it's just as plausable as violent videogames making people violent, or D&D causing satanism... Or vegitarianism causing nazi-like inclinations.
I'd have a bit more respect for the RIAA's claims that their sales are doing horribly because of P2P if they compared their decline of sales with other similar indusries that aren't affected by piracy.
But yeah, the economy is crap. Sure, P2P could be hurting the RIAA, but in the end, a company doesn't blame the guy who steals printer paper and other office supplies from the office for the stock going down, just look at the competition and put it into perspective.
Thing is most of the people who I know pirate stuff either A: never bought CDs anyways, or B: download the music, and if it's any good, buy the cd. The thing with music these days is most people listen to music while staring at a computer monitor. CDs are clunky and messy, whereas .mp3s are invisible.
And itunes is only for macs.
So, what do you do? To get some of those nice .mp3s you decide to risk getting sued by a corporation that pretty much is the abnoxious middle man between you and the artist... The artists who don't see a cent of royalties per CD, just contract money.
I think the days of the RIAA are numbered, really. They're putting up a good fight, but in the end I hope and believe that people, espeically artists, will realize that it is a lot easier just to cut out the middle man and work directly with the fans. It'd be better that way.
But then again, if the RIAA fell, what demon could rise up in it's place? I mean, literally... If it fell, they could somehow end up summoning an ancient lovecraftian demon or something as a last resort.
Wait, I forgot. Hilary Rosen. Right...
I have a friend who was planning on recording himself singing pirate songs, then sending it into the RIAA to see what would happen.
Last I heard, they were considering him for a label.
Then this money would go to the RIAA or whatnot. Maybe if they pursued some sort of campaign like this, they might make more money, because a lot of the people who are supposively 'hurting' the RIAA by using P2P instead of buying CDs weren't planning on buying CDs anyways. And then there are those who pirate an album, then buy it so they can listen to it in their portable cd player (instead of just buying a .mp3 player with the money they'd save on not buying CDs...)
It's about time Pirates started acting like them.
Sad thing is, it's cheaper than Ragnarok, a final fantasyesque game that is top view and kinda pixelish.
Yeah, I say this is just a ploy trying to make it seem like he's cleaning up his act. Or something.
Or, gamers could just discover paintball...
But then again, what's the difference between this and laser tag... Aside from dorky guns and stupid helmets...
And they found the true meaning of evil.
That would get interesting.
I'm wondering, what next... "Oh, I'm sorry Wizards of the Coast, but we've trademarked the word orc... Oh, and while you're at it, Elves is right out too. We reanimated J.R.R. Tolkein, and he gave us the rights. Now the only type of D&D you can play is politically correct D&D!"
"Oh, it was so sad... I thought everybody liked survays, jokes, chain letters that grant your every wish, and microsoft money makers! The next morning I woke up to find Microsoft stealing my bed!"